BLOCK FIGURES your opinions and thoughts.

[Jargo]

Been collecting Palisades Buffy the vampire slayer PALZ line and love the figures to bits. But have been looking around at the various other producers of block figures and not seeing much to tempt me.
Palisads now has Buffy, Angel, X-files and the die hard trilogy licenses and apparently there's more lines to come next year, Are block figures the way forward or just a long term phase?

[2-1B]

Jargo

Long term phase ? Hard to say really . . . it was many years ago that I picked up the music figs of Alice Cooper, Iron Maiden, Rob Zombie, Ozzy, and Kiss so it's been awhile for me. And I love them to death, they are adorable. Whenever I read Toyfare they always seem to showcase some upcoming pieces, be they X-Men, Angel, or some other lines. Spider-Man seems to have been doing well enough with the movies behind it.

And it seems that there are different companies producing them as well, with Art Asylum, Palisades, the whats-have-you, so there are enough people who want in on it.

[Deoxyribonucleic]

I know kubricks have been around for a long time and I LOVE KUBRICKS - not just star wars ones...kubricks probably has the best selection of any block toys that I've seen. You can probably get a kubrick in any character you can conjure up! My girlfriend just bought a Mary Poppins kubrick. I love block figures!

I saw the pals ones you were talking about Jargo, at SDCC! I almost bought the x-files one with the sewer guy that came with the little port-o-potty just cause that was cool, but I bought Super Grover instead

I always loved my little lego mini block figs when I was a kid (still love 'em now) and I think that all these new block figure types are just workings off of the lego guys and the lego guys have been around forever.

[Ji'dai]

Mezco has their Mez-Its line of block-like figures. I've seen Alien and Hellboy Mez-Its, but that's about it. I saw pictures in one of the Toy collecting magazines with Pirates Mez-Its and ships but haven't seen anything at retail yet.

I've never bought any block figures though as I still prefer the LEGO ones.

[2-1B]

Yeah, I wasn't even thinking of Star Wars before but there seem to be some cool imports coming over from Japan (?) and I think those could do well enough in the States and/or the UK if they ever released them here and/or there.

good morning and/or good night.

[Jargo]

There's a few of the Marvel mini-mates I like the look of, radioctive hulk and silver surfer. Blade and the Punisher, Wolverine. I also like the C3 JLA stuff which uses what appears to be a direct Lego 'copy' in the brick style sets.

One of the things with block figures is the uniform scaling of the figures. which means it's so easy for makers to produce virtually any character with minimal new tooling of parts. which makes them relatively cheap. Although i have noticed a swing in market prices to the upper area. Now that retailers are cottoning onto the fact that these toys are actually quite popular. which is a bad sign of a slump ahead. once they start getting pricey interest drops off and then that has the knock on effect of retailers not ordering and eventually the lines die. whereas if they just stopped being so damn greedy and kept the original MRP or close to the line could go on indefinitely. pocket money priced toys are cool. and lets not forget most of these figures are under three inches tall.
But speaking of size. Kubricks sta wars figures don't work for me when they have a small character like Wicket be the same size as the other figures. palisades has done the annointed one in the buffy line at a rduced scale to signify that he's a child. which works brilliantly. Some variation in scale from other companies might be nice. give them more scope and most of the parts only need tooling once. Also some of the block figure lines out there are getting too sophisticated with the sculpts. more like warped down larger figures than actual block figures. Mez-its are a prime example.

Lines that look bad, well the Futurama block figures were truly awful. I hope someone picks up the license and does something good with futurama.

I also hope we start seeing larger stuff to go with the figures like backdrops that are all blocks and vehicles that come in pieces you assemble and can reasemble in variations. Though I suppose, there's enough Leo bricks out there to build block figure backdrops with. Perhaps i'll try that as a stop gap measure.

[evenflow]

I really enjoy them. I collect the Marvel minimates. When dealing with kubricks, i collect Star Wars, Marvel, finally finished my Back to the Future set. I buy randomn other ones as well. I want to buy the Die Hard Palz.

[JediTricks]

I like the Marvel Minimates and their DC universe cousins in the C3 building brick line (they're the same AA minimate bodies, just can't be sold without a building brick set) thanks to neat designs and articulation. However, that's pretty much it, and both lines have petered out lately. I don't like the look of Kubricks, I don't care for most of the other lines, and I really hate how expensive these things have gotten lately. The Marvel Minimates still sell at Target fairly well, but they don't fly off the shelves; other lines have been bombing left and right here, I think the blocko trend is pretty much in its last throes.