Tri-Klops may be the big item for me, but there’s a whole mess of stuff going up tomorrow, so be ready for some red screens of death.
Tri-Klops® Action Figure
Infinite Heroes Crisis 4-Pack
JLU Shazam! Family 4-Pack
Batman vs. Gorilla Grodd
Transforming Batmobile
Batman New Batsuit Figure
Batman The Joker Figure
Stealth Signal Batman Figure
Die-Cast Lightning McQueen
Big sale on Monday! MOTUC Tri-Klops, Infinite Heroes Crisis 4 pack, JLU Shazam pack, plus a few retail Batman Brave and the Bold and Dark Knight items! Check out MattyCollector.com at 12 noon eastern Aug 17th!
I’m not exactly sure which Brave and the Bold and Dark Knight products are going up tomorrow, but posted pics of all that’s currently up there. Matty will also have a 1:24 die cast Lightning McQueen, so it could get a little crazy, with both action figure and Hot Wheels collectors converging on the site.
Mattel also posted a round-up of sorts of the latest Ask Matty sessions (AFP’s latest Ask Matty Round-Up was posted yesterday). They touch on a lot of sore spots, for example, $20 Dark Knight Movie Masters, bonus figures not in Club Eternia, and Gleek. Not sure if the explanations will soothe the folks who are raging over them, but at least Mattel understands that some people are upset. And a new hurt for folks on the east coast – Mattel won’t be at New York Comic-Con next year. That’s not surprising, since it’s in October, during the prime selling season for big box retailers.
Hey toy fans,
We’ve had a lot of very similar questions in many recent Q & As, so to simplify, I thought I’d post a few quick answers here for everyone to read:
Q: Why are MOTUC and Dark Knight Movie Masters 20.00 on Mattycollector.com when a DCUC figure is less at retail?
A: The answer is simple. When we produce a small run of figures Mattel is charged more by our factories. In the case of Dark Knight Movie Masters, we offered them to online and retail stores but no on was able to commit to a large enough order to go into standard production. Seeing as how cool these figures are, we wanted to get them out to fans and the best solution was to do a smaller run and offer them on MattyCollector.com. We have to charge a bit more due to the smaller production run.
Q: Will Mattel be bringing back 6″ Superfriends?
A: While we don’t have plans for any new figures quite yet, we will be offering Hawkman and Robin on MattyCollector.com in the Winter. If these do well, we’ll look at new figures in the future.
Q: Will Target be getting more JLU figures? Why can’t I find them?
A: New figures are shipping! We are doing all we can to get all the 2009 figures out this year. Right now, the best place for the future of this line is on MattyCollector.com through the 4 packs since these packs do not need retailer support. They do however need fan support. The best way to keep JLU going is to support the Matty.com 4 packs. Shazam family goes on sale this Monday at 12 noon eastern!
Q: Why isn’t Battle Cat and the “bonus” figures included in the Club Eternia Subscription?
A: At this point, we don’t know now well a second figure as well as a larger beast figure will do yet. Once we can gage sales we can look at including these in a 2011 subscription. We also don’t know how many bonus figures and larger beasts we will be doing in 2010. Again, we can make a better call once we see how Goddess, Zodak and Battle Cat do. The only thing we know we are doing for sure in 2010 are the 12 monthly figures. This is why they are part of Club Eternia and other figures are not.
If the bonus figures and larger scale beasts do well and we can lock in how may we will do per year, then we can look at including them in 2011. Additionally, many times figures run late for one reason or another. (such as the case of Mer-Man). The bonus figures are our insurance police to make sure at least one new figure goes on sale each month.
Q: Why can’t my Club Eternia subscription be linked to other purchases I make to combine shipping?
A: Each purchase is sent seperately to our distribution center. It is not possible to link two purchases after the fact. What we hope is that if the bonus figures and large scale beasts do well in 2010, we will know how many we are doing per year and can offer them in 2011 in the subscription.
Q: Why was Gleek offered only at SDCC and why did he sell out faster?
A: We announced before the show that we would have more Wonder Twin sets at SDCC then Gleeks and like all SDCC items they would be offered first come first serve. Gleek was offered only at SDCC to reward fans who came out to the show now that most SDCC items are also offered on Mattycollector.com after the show. Keldor, Manbat, She-Ra, Grundy and others in previous years were only at SDCC with no Mattycollector.com sales. So we’ve been doing this for a while now, things really haven’t changed year to year. We always have had product only at the show. This year it was Gleek, SDCC stamp He-Ro and chase “Andy foot” Buzz. Next year we will do something similar but different. SDCC is a special convention and we will always have special product at this show.
Q: Will sold out MOTU figures be available again?
A: Yes. Starting with He-Man in Nov and Skeletor in Dec. Others may follow in 2010 based on the sale of these two. All of the reissues will have a small package change and ideally as few other changes as possible. (in the case of He-Man we wanted to fix some errors such as too much red around the eyes and the fact that the shoulders were reversed. Skeletor’s right hand will also be corrected to the tight grip). Ideally we want to make as few changes as possible.
Q: Why does Mattel offer waves of DCUC figures only to Wal-Mart? Will wave 10 be easier to find compared to wave 5?
A: Offering customized or exclusive product to major retailers is all part of an overall marketing plan to bring mainline product to these stores. This is very common with all major brands in today’s market.
Wal-Mart is VERY aware they under ordered Wave 5 and have greatly increased there orders for Wave 10.
A: Yes. We have some Batman Brave and the Bold product on sale now and will offer DCUC starting next year at the same price as retail.
Q: When will new Ghostbuster figures be out?
A: Ray in both 6″ and 12″ is coming Oct 15th. 12″ figures will follow once per quarter and 6″ about every other month. We’ll be posting the next few figures with avail dates soon.
Q: What conventions will Mattel be at in 2010?
A: We will be at Chicago Comic Con in April and SDCC in July. Chicago Con however will not have a retail booth. This is the first time we have gone to the show and we need to check it out first before looking at a retail store and or exclusives. SDCC will have a retail store again with exclusive product. And we are already hard at work to improve the buying process from this year!
We will not be at NYCC Comic Con 2010 due to conflicts with Mattel internal presentations in Oct. Oct is just not a month we can commit to going to any show. If NYCC moves back to the Spring we can look at going again.
Keep posting those questions and we’ll do our best to keep all of our fans in the loop.
