I assumed Xavier was doing his Richard Lewis impression. "Is it goat? Is it cheese?"
Earth-2 Leigh | Homepage | 09.28.06 - 2:47 am | #

Are you sure Rocky II didn't come out in the year 1000? I thought that was why Leif Ericson left for North America.
De | Email | Homepage | 09.28.06 - 4:18 am | #

That Prof. X statue is absolutely for "THE PAIN!" Glorious! Someone buy that for Dave.
g23 | Homepage | 09.28.06 - 6:44 am | #

Too...many...comments...

Before my head a'splodes, I'd better bat these out:

I'll break this into 2 posts.

- I would SO TOTALLY go see the Ghost Rider movie if it was done by Rankin/Bass and starred Mr. HeatMiser!

TOTALLY!

Toss in a few song & dance numbers and
THAT would ROCK!
Good call!

- I think the only reason Mephisopholes has a cane to BEGIN with is that he's being portrayed by Peter Fonda. Who's so freakin' dessicated he SHOULD be playing the part of 'The Living Mummy'.

Just sayin'.

(Hey. Why couldn't they use the comic-name 'Mephisto'? Sure, I loves me some Faust opera and all that, but c'mon! MEPHISTO! Surely South Park can't have won the rights to having that name in a film? *Dr. Mephisto*. The mad scientist guy.)

- For that Spider-Man bust, why not go for the "hat-trick" and put a Wedding Band on his finger too.

- As for the Mt. Rushmore of geekery...
I actually LIKE it. quite a bit.
Alas, like yourself, too many books that there is NO room for actual bookends, except for those thin metal ones that go every few feet between all the books.

My comment on THIS one is... HULK villains must SUCK.
He has no evil counterpart represented.

Wolvie has Mags
Spidey has Gobby
(yes, I'm going all knicknamey cutsie on this, sorry)
Cap-py has Skull-y (ugh. Sorry)

But Hulkie has Doomsie??

WTF-y?

Why not just didtch Hulk and toss in THING-y.
(y'know... never call him Thingy.
It sounds dirty.)

Anyway, why not? Is it because he's already made of rock?
Does the F.F. get no respec'?

- Jerky.
As long as it's not made from processed hobo's or dead comic nerds found asphixiated in their basements, jerky is good.



~P~
P-TOR
SanctumSanctorumComix | 09.28.06 - 6:46 am | #

Part 2 (of 2)

- Lex luthor cap?
Every balding comic reader will want one. Genius marketing. The clientelle is built right in.

- Batman tat shirt?
If it's worn by a hot goth chick with a belly button exposed: HOT ITEM.
If it's worn by overweight sweaty male fan-boy: Uber-'gay' geek-fest.

- Buffy stuffed pig.
I've seen one's JUST LIKE it at dollar stores.
I better scoop them all up and sell them to Buffy fanatics "at a discount" for $ 20.00. HALF PRICE!

Still... at least it isn't a whittled hunk of wood (uh.. I mean authentic 'Vampire Steak' for $100). Sheesh.

- Dave should TOTALLY get a piece of the pie on the Prof X. "The PAIN" statue.
I laughed my ass off when I saw this thing.

- Apollo Creed boxing trunks?
Do they come with "authentic" scratch-n-sniff aroma?

It's almost as bad as in Japan where you can buy soiled school-girl panties from sidewalk vending machines.

- No comment on the Firefly statue.
I never saw the show or movie.

- Schoolgirl Witchblade?
How come THAT never showed up on 21 Jump Street?

So, Japanese schoolgirl statues meets western comic-buffness.
I think MANY a fan-boy will be singing "I'm turning Japanese" when this thing is released.
(Oh, you KNOW what the song's about.)

- Record breaking comic run.
I call BULLSHIT.

Bendis just had to adapt what was already there. Shuffle a few elements around and Lo! A new omlet.

Stan and Jack pulled their stuff out of the ether. They were crackin' fresh eggs!

Bagley STILL gets props because he had to actually DRAW all that stuff.
So give HIM a prize and be done with it.

OK. I'm done.
ThanX for letting me get that off my chest.
Much cheaper than therapy.


~P~
P-TOR
SanctumSanctorumComix | 09.28.06 - 6:47 am | #

Mmmm...Ghost Rider dessert statue. (drool)
Bully | Email | Homepage | 09.28.06 - 7:06 am | #

Didn't Kyle Baker and Peter David do a couple of fill-in issues of Groo?
shortfatsteve | Email | 09.28.06 - 7:30 am | #

$40 for a replica of a stuffed pig that the prop guy probably found at Wal-Mart for $2?

I am in the wrong business...
Jer | Email | 09.28.06 - 7:51 am | #

I want a Lexcorp hat.
With a propeller on top
Dwayne "the canoe guy" | Email | Homepage | 09.28.06 - 7:51 am | #

She may not have "fit in" at school, but I certainly wouldn't have been complaining about the new girl.
Aaron | 09.28.06 - 8:03 am | #

So far you have presented the following Buffy prop items:

Blank book

Stick

Beanie Baby

...where getting all three for $350 is a good deal. WTF WTF WTF WTF Buffy fans. At least Lord of the Rings fans get to play with swords.

I like the Luthor hat. I would buy/wear that. I think everyone can agree it is tasteful and suitable for a normal adult who wants to express how he likes supervillains. If it's under $20, perfecto.

The Apollo Creed trunks would be great if they were like $15. I would wear that as a gag item, to bed, or at a 4th of July party. Can't they just sell them at Wal-Mart in a plastic bag instead of in a sealed vitrine? Lots of people like Rocky. Also, no Ivan Drago trunks? For shame.

The Serenity movie was great, and I never watched the Firefly show. It was just a good, fun Sci-fi movie.

The Marvel bookends, I don't like. DC ones always seem to be colorful and scream "I love comics". From a distance, these look like you have two termite colonies holding up your books.

Real question: who actually buys busts and statues? Are there really people out there who live in homes where a $200 Mysterio statue or a Witchblade Lolita statue is an appropriate part of the decor? And their wives/partners are OK with this? Wait, answered my own question, obviosly this is not a big issue at Casa del Neckbeardo.
Tenzil | 09.28.06 - 8:26 am | #

I too have always been more than a little puzzled by the sheer volume and number of these bust and statue thingies. Even if I might be tempted to buy some particular item (though at several hundred bucks a pop, that temptation goes away pretty quick), I wouldn't buy *many* such items, simply because it takes space to display them.

Who *is* buying all these things in sufficient quantities to keep churning out new additions to the line? Are there people buying them as "investments," sure that a mint-in-box "bald guy getting a headache" statue will be worth tens of thousands of dollars someday?
David C | Email | 09.28.06 - 9:54 am | #

Who *is* buying all these things in sufficient quantities to keep churning out new additions to the line? Are there people buying them as "investments," sure that a mint-in-box "bald guy getting a headache" statue will be worth tens of thousands of dollars someday?

To answer your question, yes, those Alex Ross JLA plates done for the Warner Bros. stores about 10 years ago are now worth megabucks. At the New York Comicon some discontinued statues were north of $1000.

Some other questions I have:

1. Who's the target market for the 'Iron Spider' statue? I can see a prosperous lifetime Spiderman fan wanting a statuette of the classic costume, or perhaps a molded recreation of a classic scene. That might be worth a couple of hundred bucks. But who wants to buy a permanent representation of a temporary character moment? Young fanboys don't have the kind of cash to blow on this kind of thing. How many rich 16 year old nerds are there out there?

2. Why would a rich pervert buy a Witchblade statue vs. a Julie Strain one? For $200 or $300, don't they want actual nudity? You could buy a terabite of pornography for that kind of money. You could hire a hooker to dress up as Witchblade for that kind of money. You could get your girlfriend/wife a professional costumer and makeup artist to make her into Witchblade for that kind of money.

3. Is there crossover between the action figure and statue markets? Seems like a huge difference between a $10 or $15 figure that easily can go on an office desk or be given as a gag gift and a $200 paperweight that is too fragile or precious to keep in a public area. But it seems to be the same customers. $10 Matter-Eater Lad figure = yes. $250 Matter-Eater Lad cold casted bust with real metal fence to eat = eff no.

4. Who the farg is buying 'prop replicas'? I can't imagine even the world's biggest Wonder Woman fan wanting $250 plastic bracelets you can't even wear. For that kind of money, why not get a full custom-tailored costume or commission original art? Ditto Kandor and the Green Lantern that lights up. For what it costs to buy the fake plastic Kandor I can hire George Perez or Adam Hughes to do a custom drawing. For the cost of the Bracelets + Kandor + Lantern and one of those crappy Buffy props I can hire Alex Ross.

5. Why would anyone want a 'prop' that is essentially a superexpensive toy you cannot play with? I can understand wanting actual movie props used in production (Superman, Spiderman, X-Men, Star Trek, etc.) They have a 'legitimacy' factor involved. More importantly, they are usually handcrafted and unique (or produced in exceedingly small quantities), not artificially limited to 750 or 1000 copies made at a factory in Taiwan. 500 or 1000 of something is not "rare". A toy? Sure, play with toys if you like.

6. What marketing genius decided to make a "The Pain" statue? Dave Campbell will buy one. Someone will buy Patrick Stewart one. Who buys the other 498? Has anyone ever sat around upset that their Wolverine and Phoenix busts lack proper leadership?

7. It seems like older fans would have the most money. Why is nothing designed for them (meaning me)? The Lex Luthor hat is perfect. Why is it there is no logoed apparel out there (with very rare exceptions) that does not make me look like a social retard or potential child molester? Adult merchandise should pass the Jerry Seinfeld test. Would Jerry buy/wear this Superman item in public?

Maybe I'm just weird, but if I had the kind of spare cash needed to buy this crap, I would be buying original art and doing custom commission deals, not collecting dust magnets. To use my earlier example, George Perez is not immortal. Verified original works by him will undoubtedly increase in value and are easy to preserve properly. When he is gone, you can get some of his work, but never again could you get a personalized, custom representation of your favorite character. I wish to hell I had thought about this before Curt Swan died. Can you imagine the satisfaction of owning something you personally asked Curt to create for you? How much do you think that would be worth?

Hell, if money was no object I probably could hire Alex Ross to paint a fresco in my house of me kicking Superman's ass. Why not? At least it's a little creative.
Tenzil | 09.28.06 - 11:00 am | #

Why does Lex Luthor have a logo but Mike Sterling doesn't? Mike, you should have a logo. Make it a contest.
Dave Lartigue | Email | Homepage | 09.28.06 - 12:03 pm | #

I used to have that first Superman statue that DC put out with (I think) Graphitti designs a little over 10 years ago... the one that used to be on Jerry's bookshelf on Seinfeld. I won it as a door prize at some event my old LCS ran one time. I sold on eBay a few years ago for close to 500 clams. So yeah, there is a back market for that stuff. A back market full of people who have way more disposable income than I do, but a back market just the same.

And about that Witchblade statue... they never said she was actually undercover at a school, just wearing undercover schoolgirl clothing. I don't think she's investigating the local Catholic all-girls high school, but the strip joint next door.
Bill D. | Email | Homepage | 09.28.06 - 2:00 pm | #

I too have always been in awe of the collectibles that seemed to be aimed at geeks with six-figure salaries. Are there that many people like Jon Lovitz's character in THE BENCHWARMERS?

My favorite ever was the $300 replica Cobra Commander gun. Plenty of REAL FUNCTIONING HANDGUNS can be had for less than $300.

I'll buy the occasional $20 toy tricorder or something, but why buy a toy that costs as much as its real-life counterpart?
Chaz Ervin | 09.28.06 - 2:30 pm | #

Being a guy who (infrequently) buys statues and busts, I can state that I buy only Statues of my absolute favorite characters.

As far as Busts are concerned, I used to buy some peripheral favorites. (Team-mates of my primary fave's).
But not so much any more because the prices keep going up.

NONE of my statue purchases are for INVESTMENTS.
It's VERY rare for a piece to go up significantly, and find someone willing to pay full price.

I had bought (years ago when first released) the FIRST SANDMAN STATUE.
This was the VERY FIRST COMIC STATUE that Bowen made.
It wasn't even a genre back then.
Dude made a limited statue and DC sold it.

It was SUPPOSED to be worth over $1,000 at last count.

I also had the Arabian Knights Sandman (fullsize), and the Sandman Bookends (full-size) as well as the First DEATH statue (again full size).

These were bought because I was a huge fan of the works.
And ALL of the statues were incredibly LOW numbers in their run.

When the time came when I felt I had to sell them I could easily sell the DEATH one for it's high value (a few hundred bucks), but all the others had no one willing to pony up the full value.

eBay is FULL of these things, and ONLY retailers (at cons) can get that impulse buyer with too much money and too little sense to fork over full-price.

I ended up selling them REALLY cheap on eBay JUST to get RID of them when space became a premium and I had to make decisions on what to keep and what to unload. Maybe I sold them for around what I bought for them. Maybe I got a slight profit. Nowhere NEAR their FULL VALUE.

Was I just unlucky? Who knows.

Limited plates might be a different thing altogether. That's not my bag.

~P~
P-TOR
SanctumSanctorumComix | 09.28.06 - 2:48 pm | #

Oh! I SHOULD add that I have a room in my house that is JUST for my hobbies. My personal Den, so to speak.

I have glass display cases that I got (FREE) from defunct shoppes and everything is under glass and neat and purty.

If I had to have them "out on display" in the house, no way would I have bought them.

My wife is understanding, but not THAT insane.



~P~
P-TOR
SanctumSanctorumComix | 09.28.06 - 2:51 pm | #

Clearly you haven't seen one of the modern day high schools of the current generations. All the girls look like that. Because we all know that everything is better in the fu-ture.

This has been the funniest End of Civilization ever. That Prof. X statue cracks me up every time I look at it.
Nathan | 09.28.06 - 6:12 pm | #

Out of all the nerdy crap you've discussed in these roundups, Mike, that Witchblade thing is, I think, the item most likely to make your first date with a girl your last date.
Chance | Email | Homepage | 09.28.06 - 6:51 pm | #

The Wichblade statue is on the EXACT SAME PAGE as a slave girl Leia statue. That's some kinda planning there.

There were so many weird fetishy statues in this Previews that I felt all dirty inside after I finished filling out my order. Seriously, Mike could've included the "Hike" football girl statue and everyone would be equally amused/horrified.
C. Elam | Homepage | 09.28.06 - 7:31 pm | #

yeah, its funny because firefly sucked.
Josh | Email | 09.28.06 - 11:22 pm | #

Shortfatsteve - I'm hoping you're kidding. But, actually, a Kyle Baker Groo would be pretty neat to see.

Dave L. - I know some graphic art guys (including one that has done logos for some Big Two comics)...maybe I can hit 'em up (with, uh, store credit, since I have no coin of the realm at the moment).

P. Tor - I have my Swamp Thing statue in the dining room display cabinet, much to the girlfriend's chagrin.

C. Elam - The "Hike" statue was this close to making it into this installment. I figured I covered this particular brand of statue enough last time around!
Mikester | Homepage | 09.29.06 - 12:56 am | #

There was at least one silent issue of Groo that was done w/o Mark's participation so technically Marvel's claim could be true. But I think the issue was towards the end of the run so I still would think Mark and Sergio topped the 103 issue mark.
Eric L | Email | 09.29.06 - 10:40 am | #

"$10 Matter-Eater Lad figure = yes. $250 Matter-Eater Lad cold casted bust with real metal fence to eat = eff no."

De gustibus non est disputandum.
Chris Galdieri | Email | Homepage | 09.29.06 - 3:42 pm | #

An apt Latin quote that also serves as a pun. Chris wins!
Chance | Email | Homepage | 09.29.06 - 5:09 pm | #

Must have those bookends!!!!

I hear the Witchblade statue does anal to save her virginity.

Too far?
Des | Email | Homepage | 09.29.06 - 9:57 pm | #

"Why would a rich pervert buy a Witchblade statue vs. a Julie Strain one? For $200 or $300, don't they want actual nudity?"

Tenzil: to quote that genius, Evan Dorki: "It's no good without the costumes".
Martin Wisse | Email | Homepage | 09.30.06 - 4:00 am | #