To Dragon-con and Trash-talking Some States!

Well, I'm not going but Jake (seen here in his Sixth Doctor Who costume) is leaving tonight to swing over to Nashville to pick up our friend Daniel to head to Atlanta. I'd love to go, but I'm not up to it financially or workload-wise. I went last year and had a relative amount of fun. The most fun you can have in 90-something degree Atlanta weather, dressed as Tom Baker, and toting twenty pounds of camera equipment and souvenirs anyway. After day one, I dropped the costume. Hopefully, Iwill be going next year (with some printed previews of our stuff to hand out!)

Now, it's come to my attention that we have now had visitors from all the U.S. except for FIVE STATES! Unfortunately, we have been missing these states for two months and I am forced to conclude there must not be an internet in these states. I am now forced to blog about these states in the hopes of showing up on more search results and attracting visitors from them. The following states are on notice!

Vermont - What have you given to the world besides Ben and Jerry's ice cream?

Rhode Island - What the Hell?!? Home of Hasbro and no visits to a site that blogs about Transformers?

Montana - It sure must be nice to not have a speed limit and be sparsely populated! All the less excuse for you not to have visited my site!!!

North Dakota - Why can't you be more like your brother South Dakota?

Mississippi - Eh, maybe I should just assume there's no one literate there. Guess you're off the hook.

After 23 Years, All Are One

At some point in my life, I've owned all the original Autobots, but never at the same time. But finally,after 23 years, that has all changed. I took some of my auction winnings (after I had paid for my car repairs and a buttload of advertising) and bought the last three Autobots I needed. (Hey, man! Don't criticise me for wasting money! I sold my most prized possession-my Doctor Who tapes.) Sure, Jazz is the G2 version and Prowl and Bluestreak are reissues, but in my heart, they're the real thing. : D

Now all I need is Rumble and Frenzy and my 1984 series will be complete.

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Time Slot Switch and Update

You may have noticed there's an extra "Radicals" page running this week. That's because we're switching Radicals to Monday and the Shepherd to Thursday. I mean I'm not sure we firmly established that to begin with, that's just the way it has worked out. But it's a lot more convenient for Jake to get a page done and delivered on Monday so I can have it ready to post Thursday. We do both have other jobs, unfortunately.

Also I wanted to let everyone know that I am now hard at work on our first printed product: The Tuttles Collection by Sam White. Now that I have the layout templates set up, it should take no time to crank the first volume out. will take weeks of back-breaking labor. Right now we're awaiting some input from the author/writer, before I completely immerse myself into the project. When this is ready, I encourage everyone to buy it. Not just so we'll make a buttload of money, but because I've really enjoyed what I've been reading. Editing these collections is my first chance to read some of his older strips. Today, I came across this Burt Cottage strip of his which cracked me up:



So make sure you visit his site at Tuttles.net and BUY HIS BOOKS! THIS I COMMAND!

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1,000 Hits!

Visit the site if you haven't already and help us reach another thousand!

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Review: Wizard of TIme by David House

About ten years ago(maybe longer), when I was first considering self-publishing, I was digging through old magazines and comics at McKay's Used Books in Knoxville, TN. I happened to come across a curious little book called the Wizard of Time. It called to me. I could tell by looking at the cover that it was a self-publishing endeavour. Some one had no doubt poured a lot of money, effort, and hopes into this one. So it was coming home with me.

I immediately devoured the book upon getting home and enjoyed it thouroughly. The comic was a bit short, but had no shortage of creativity. The story follows Simon Dobb, a talking anthropomorphic dog guy archaeologist and his clairvoyant duck ladyfriend Cathryn Mead as they stumble upon a segment of the legendary, all-powerful Time Helix. It has apparently distorted/evolved a race of natives on the planet they are exploring into a smiley-face cult who are obsessed with perfection and happiness. The issue ends with the pair captured and placed in a giant smiley-face cave which devours them as the natives tell them they'll "come back smiling-or won't come back at all." I found it pretty creepy and it was a cliffhanger very much in line with the kind the classic Doctor Who series would have had. Of course I was always a big fan of a lot of the Disney TV animation- Talespin, DuckTales, etc. Wizard of Time was very much in that vein of doing a serious adventure series with cartoon animal characters. The Wizard of Time, which had a cover date of 1986, was at least 10 years old at the time I discovered it and I figured since I had never heard of it, issue 1 was probably also the last issue (or it was so underground I could find little trace of it, even on the internet.)

For ten years, I would occasionally do searches on the internet with little or no success. Finally, a few weeks ago I found out that there had indeed been an issue 2 and 3 an promptly ordered them from Mile High Comics.

I have to say after the 10-year wait, I was a little dissappointed. The books aren't bad, just not quite up to the standard set by the first issue. While the first issue's art was more streamlined and graphical, the two new issues feature more detailed, if sometimes poorly-conceived illustration. Usually weird anatomy or poses...but superdetailed! Also, new characters start showing up, distracting you from and taking pages away from them main plot. It doesn't really help that the first story arc doesn't quite get resolved before the series abruptly cuts off. I feel like I have less closure from 3 issues than I did from just 1.

But the most disappointing thing a out the Wizard of Time is that there isn't more of it. Does anyone know anything else about the Wizard of Time and its creator David House? Any one know how to contact him? If so, please let me know.

Auction Results!

My auctions by far exceeded my expectations! I made over a thousand dollars on my Doctor Who Collection (not sure exactly how much after fees and stuff.) I was beginning to fear the same person who was working on my car was bidding on my Doctor Who collection because everytime my auctions went up, so did my repair bill. Altogether, my car cost $815 to fix, so I end up with about a $200 profit. Still, it's very sad to see my videos go as I spent many a Saturday night of my youth watching them.

Sad, lonely youth.

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Auction Time Again - Complete Doctor Who Video Collection

It breaks my hearts to do this but it's time to part with my COMPLETE collection of Doctor Who VHS Tapes. I searched all over East Tennessee and the internet to complete my collection. Drove to every Movies4Sale within 50 miles every week to finish this set. But with a comic/website to finance and my radiator esploding its time to make a sacrifice. I've broken my collection down into seven complete lots, one of each Doctor. The auction starts at 11PM EST on Friday August 10.
Doctor Who VHS Collection Hartnell Lot 25 Complete Set
Doctor Who VHS Collection Troughton Lot 11 Complete Set
Doctor Who VHS Collection Pertwee Lot 35 Complete set
Doctor Who VHS Collection Tom Baker Lot 45 Complete Set
Doctor Who VHS Collection Davison Lot 21 Complete Set
Doctor Who VHS Collection Colin Baker Lot 11 Complete
Doctor Who VHS Collection McCoy Lot 13 Complete Set
And as far as non-Doctor Who auctions go I've also got:
Transformers G1 Classics Voyager Jetfire Skyfire MIB
And I may have more going up before the listings start.

My New Toy: Revoltech Megatron

Just got back from my local Hastings where, to my surprise, I found 3 Kaiyodo Revoltech Megatron figures. Given my current automobile situation, I decided it best to pass (for the time being) on gorging myself on the fabulous new GI Joe 25th Anniversary collection and just grab this Megatron. Besides, lately I've been trying to slim down my collections and all those Joes would occupy a lot of space while I'm running a lot of auctions.

But anyway, this Megatron is cool! If you hate the Dreamwave style Transformers art, you better pass on this, though. Cause he's a dead ring for a Pat Lee drawing. Personally, I liked Dreamwave's bulked up Megatron and I love this figure. He is awesomely poseable and includes extra (grinning) head and extra hands. You can even set him up reaching toward you as though you just stole his purse. It turns out he's about the right size and finish to be a great match for my Robot Masters Convoy (Optimus Prime), which you can see him wailing on in these pictures. He is also probably one of the most accurate representations of the G1 Megatron animation model ever made as a three-dimensional toy.

I got my Megatron at Hastings for $25, and normally I'd say 25 is too much to pay for a Transformer that doesn't transform, but Megatron is pretty awesome and I don't regret paying that for him. I don't think I'd want to pay much more and certainly not shipping if I could help it, though. I just hope they get around to making a Shockwave in this series.

Awesome Launch Day!

Yesterday was a pretty great launch day! It was our first day of public advertising and we chose our favorite webcomics to be the host of our first major ad.Shortpacked! is a webcomic about collecting action figures and the zany misadventures of a cast of characters who work in a toy store. I probably don't need to elaborate as creator Dave Willis is like a freaking internet icon these days! But if you have been living under a proverbial rock then by all means go check it out. You will especially enjoy it if you are a collector, have ever worked in retail (and had you spirit crushed by corporate mentality), or enjoy making fun of these types of people.

Anyway, we had over 300 hits in one day, which makes me happy at least. So, thanks to Shortpacked! readers and to creator Dave Willis for such an awesome launch!

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My Car Esplode!!!

First off, I want to thank everyone who checked out and/or bid on my auctions. They by far exceeded my expectations which is awesome! A lot of the money is going toward helping promote the site...or at least it WAS.

This morning I went to Wal-mart to get some more packing tape to package the auctions for shipment and when I stopped a frothy rust-colored fluid spewed out from underneath the hood. Apparently my radiator had rusted through and finally burst from internal pressure. So, auction earnings GRAND TOTAL: $322. Approximate cost of a new radiator: $300.

Yay.

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