Wednesday 25 July 2018

Toy Review - Tetsujin 28 Minifigure

Tetsujin 28 is the daddy of the giant robots. Debuting as a manga in 1956 and an anime in 1963 the show featuring a giant former Japanese super-weapon left over from the war put to good use by Shotaro Kaneda, son of its' inventor, was one of the earliest robot stories of its' kind, paving the way for Mazinger Z and the whole butterfly effect that's led to all robot fiction as we know it. 

Toy Review - Transformers: Titans Return Highbrow (Wei Jiang version)

If you've tried to buy Transformers in the past few years you'll have heard of third party figures, which is when a company designs their own version of a character (usually Devastator), puts it into a small production run through some Chinese sweatshop and charges the customer the fucking Earth for it even if it doesn't really work. It's a decent way of making coin out of so many Transformers fans' legendary impatience and poor judgement of value for money. 3P manufacturers aren't seen as bootleggers as while they entirely steal the designs and trademarks of others to cash in they do at least use their own engineering. Amusingly and predictably a certain tribalism has grown around the thing and many fans ardently follow certain 3P companies. If you want to know which one just go on the internet, it seems part of any transaction is a contractual obligation to be a dull 3P evangelist.

Monday 23 July 2018

Comic Review - 2000AD: Big Dave

As part of a publicity stunt in 1993 control of 2000AD was handed over to young Turks Grant Morrison, Mark Millar and John Smith for a couple of months, leading to the so-called Summer Offensive which begat sub-Thompson drugs bore Really & Truly, gory retread Slaughterbowl and nihilistic actioner Maniac 5. The jewel though was Big Dave, detailing the adventures of the titular yob, Manchester's hardest man. A hilarious and OTT spoof of tabloid attitudes laced with boisterous, aggressive narration taking swipes at everything going, it remains a relevant and funny criticism of British laddishness.