Here’s the latest round of Q&A with Mattel. Thanks again to Toy Guru!
1. With the upcoming DC Universe Classics 2-pack of Alexander Luthor and Ultraman, Mattel is showing that they can go pretty deep in terms of character selection. What are some of the DC team’s favorite characters that you think may never be able to make it into the line for whatever reason? Hopefully Jonah Hex isn’t on that list!
We are hoping to get to both obscure and A-list characters in time. If there is fan demand, the sky’s the limit.
Here’s the latest round of Q&A with Mattel. Thanks again to Toy Guru!
1. San Diego Comic Con is coming up soon. Have you figured out how many of the 30-inch Anti Monitors you’ll have available for the raffle? You’ve mentioned that these are being hand-made. I’m sure folks would love if you’d describe the process (what are the steps, who’s involved, etc.) – if you could include some pictures of the work in process, that’d be great!
Right now the plan is to have at least one of these figures per day to raffle at SDCC with Anti-Monitor points (available on the back of all Infinite Heroes figures). We’ll look at posting some images of the “work in progress” on MattyCollector.com in the near future!
2. The selection of the Wonder Twins and the big Super Powers influence on DC Universe Classics has many people wondering about what sources you might pull from for the retail line. For example, what’s the thinking on the possibility of more Super Friends, like Apache Chief, who weren’t comic book-based – would that kind of character selection be possible for the mass market, or is that more in line with Mattycollector.com 2-packs, or is it somewhere in-between?
JLU Super Friends Action Figure 3 Pack - Black Vulcan, Apache Chief & Samurai
A lot of the Super Powers characters have high mass appeal and we are doing an upcoming JLU pack with Apache Chief, Black Vulcan and Samurai. It is possible we will do more packs like this in different lines in the future. We do know collectors love these Super Powers characters and we do too!
3. Now that you’re getting deeper into the Masters of the Universe roster, with lots of the big-hitters released or announced, how does the team go about picking who’ll be coming up down the road? And seriously, what do I need to do to make sure Jitsu gets in the line-up? Do I need to start a Facebook group called No Jitsu, No Jacksons? 😉
We always take fan demand for specific characters into consideration as we’re planning the line. We will get to Jitsu in time, he is an important character with a big following!
4. The Stay-Puft Marshmallow man is one of the big (no pun intended) characters in Ghostbusters. Is something that big out of the question for the line, or could he be a Collect and Connect, or maybe a raffle item for next year?
We are looking at ways of doing Stay Puff extra large and in a way all fans can get him.
5. All right – here goes our latest attempt at fulfilling the ActionFigurePics.com mission to show pictures with each post – how about some more pictures of any of the upcoming SDCC exclusives?
There will be some new images in an upcoming issue of Toy Fare magazine showing off the different variants of He-Ro as well as the back of his cape!
Well, we tried!
Here’s a round-up of the other Ask Matty sessions from around the web. (Links to be added as they come up.)
Before we get to this edition of Ask Matty, here’s an update from Mattycollector’s Facebook account:
Hey toy guys and gals,
So here is the latest. As many of you know Mer Man sold out AGAIN in very little time. We have therefore increased production again on MOTU figures. However, as we need to purchase raw materials for figures sometimes 6-8 months ahead of the “on sale date” the first figure we will be able to increase production on is Tri Klops.
So Zodac, Hordak and Man-At-Arms will have similar runs to Mer Man (which is still the highest run to date) and starting with Tri Klops we will increase production again. We are committed to continuing to increase the run until we get it just right. Keep in mind, that it wook 41 days to sell as many Beast Man as we sold on the first Mer Man sale. We don’t want to get stuck with excess product, so it is a very careful balancing act between producing to demand without over producing. But we have our best folks on it and are working overtime to get it just right!
But in other news it seems that the sale went off without the major IP issues we had last time. We will continue to improve both product and the sales process every day to meet all of our fans needs. Here are a few more updates and FAQ answers:
1: We do not yet have prices or limits for the SDCC items. We will reveal these well before the show. Hang tight for now!
2: The Legion of Superheroes JLU 4 pack and Zodac will both go on sale on May 15th at 12:00 noon.
DC Universe Classics Adam Strange and Starfire 2-Pack
3: We will also have more Adam Strange/ Starfire packs on sale soon. We just got the second shipment in due to a delay. Check back this weekend for more!
4: We have heard fans asking about order limits, but again, we looked at the numbers and the vast majority (close to 90%) of orders are for 3 or less units. Yes there will always be people who buy more to resell or to save on shipping, but unless we see a spike in large orders at the limit we are not going to alter the limits again (except for SDCC items). We set the limits based on fan feedback that 4 was not enough. We are not going to keep changing the limits every month. 10 seems to work for most fans since 90% of you are ordering less than 3 anyway. We announce product about 3 months prior to onsale date, so if you want new figures you will know just when to be online to order!
5: DCUC Wave 8 is now in stores. Be sure to head out to pick up the latest figures with Hawkgirl., Gentleman Ghost, Dr. Fate, Parademon (in two colors!) Mr. Terrific, Vigilante and Commander Steel helping to build up a bonus 10″ Giganta figure (with mini Ray Palmer!). Truly one of the best waves yet with more on the way.
6: We won’t have any more big reveals until SDCC. Some of our product (like JLU) was held up a bit do to factory issues back in December. We are doing EVERYTHING we can to work with Target to get fresh figures in stock. It is not always easy, but we are extremly committed to this! New JLU is coming!
7: We are working on the CARs, Ghostbusters and DCU brand pages and hope to have them up before the summer.
8: We are also working out the final details on the MOTU subscription program. Ideally, subscriptions will be open for a set amount of time (10- 15 days). Fans can place as many subscription orders as they want in this time. Each subscription will get you the final 6 or 5 (depending on when we can launch it) figures of 2009. We will then have a new subscription for 2010 for all 12 monthly figures. Subscriptions will not include convention or bonus figures simply because these do not have as firm on sale dates and we don’t want to lock in to figures which may move around release dates.
All figures (both monthly and bonus figures) will also be available to order in the standard way on the 15th of the month per norm.
We are trying to set up the subscription to work in two ways. 1: Figures ship (and are billed to you) each month on the 15th. 2: Figures are held and will ship and bill all at once at the end of the year. Ideally we will have both options up and running. We don’t want to open the subscription program until we know 100% it will work and their are no IP bugs. It is coming, please just give us a bit more time to make sure it will run the way we intend it before it is up for sale!
Okay, that is it for now. Please keep the feedback coming and we will continue to do everything we can to keep the Matty.com experince smooth and easy.
Yes, it was Tax Day today for those of us in the United States, but the sting of writing a check to the Internal Revenue Service may have paled in comparison for some of us to the experience of ordering Mer-Man from Mattycollector.com today. The allotment for today sold out in an hour – a new record. But take heart, Mattel knew that they needed to up the quantities, so more Mer-Men are on the way. From their Facebook:
A quick update on Mer-Man sales. Yes, the aquatic warriror of Eternia did sell out this morning, but do to increased fan demand, we increased orders on Mer-Man. The only catch is that the full new revised larger order did not make it on the same boat. So the second batch will be here in about a week and will go on sale the last week of April. I will update everyone once we lock in an exact on sale day and time!
Now onto the questions and answers for today:
1. First, a question about DC Universe Classics 7 – the classic and modern variants of Booster Gold that we’ve seen released have the same coloring on the wrist bands (blue) and gloves (gold). In modern comics, most art has those colors reversed – gold wrist bands and blue gloves. Is the action figure color selection a design choice, and what are the chances we can see a running change for the modern figure?
All of our decos are based on the DC Comics approved colors. And as you stated, comic books tend to change some color details issue by issue sometimes. We will look into new decos if we re-release Booster in the future.
2. Now onto a question about one of the San Diego Comic Con exclusives you announced on 4/1. How did you go about selecting He-Ro as the MOTU Classics exclusive? What else can you tell us about his magic staff?
We selected He-Ro because we knew he was one of the most fan demanded characters whom has never had a figure made before (at least in this case one that was never produced). Also, Toy Guru is a huge fan of He-Ro and wanted to get him out there in year 1 since, quite frankly, he wanted a He-Ro figure for his desk!
The magical staff is 5 inches in length, painted gold and contains a colored Spell Stone. The staff can close up to conceal the Spell Stone and that is how it will be packaged. There will be three different colors of Spell Stones all blind packed with green by far being the most common. These will be available in both the version sold online and at the show.
We’ll have more details about this as we get closer to the show.
