ComicCon Exclusive JUVI Sonic Released

Well, it may have (I guess) technically been a day early but...
That JUVI Metal Sonic has been released. I don't know if the surprise early release would mess anyone up or not, but I'm guessing if they have enough of him, it should be fine. (As in, there's still plenty left on the 'real' first day.) My bet? He'll still sell out before the aug. 3 deadline TRU online has set...but likely due to ebay scalpers more than anything. I'm not sure what kind of press it got, SonicGear, of course has been going on about it since it first appeared, hoping to drive everyone who wants one, to get it.

If you don't get him?
You'll have to pay a fortune. They're 15.99 ea NOW...but already Amazon has them at $45 and $90 for any unsuspecting fans who don't bother to search before they buy. You can bet once he sells out or TRU closes the sale on the 3rd, prices for any left will skyrocket. I'm guessing it may end up playing out like the Gamepro big bendies (Sonic & Shadow) only much faster. (ex, when they were in every Suncoast video for 15, everyone said 'meh' but now you can't get one for under 80 bucks)

Also, if the update seemed light on stuff...
Yes it was. This week has been pretty hectic and the delay that didn't happen (it got split instead) was due to a somewhat anti-vacation that ended with several hours in an airplane on sunday so it was already off to a 'meh' start. All the mail that came in didn't go out, but the big things were covered.

Gaya seems to have released their chess set (or are close to it, an actual photo appeared which is always a good sign) so it moved off the 'prototypes' page and over onto Germany. Hopefully fan photos will come in on this for the pieces. Their photo doesn't give the best presentation for them.

The ToyGlobe plushes (set of 8, probably) are looking to be by KellyToy but since ToyGlobe was the only website selling them, that's where the 'nickname' came from. The real big question hasn't yet been answered though, which is: "Are they mutant or what?" Some reaaaaly noodly legged ones have shown up with a tag that's nearly identical looking to the KellyToy set but since it's so new fan photos are scarce. Hopefully these things turn out better than expected (I'm looking at you, stupid shiny-tone fabric SuperSonic & Silver...) because no one needs another blasted Toynetwork on their hands making up mutations.

Where is the new page?
It got kicked again. With Germany and Bootlegs getting a new page each, it had to be pushed back again. I DO NOT see the obsession with bootlegs. Every week someone's got something and I've started rejecting clone ones like the umpteenth mouse pad or some stupid shirt that everyone's seen a billion of. If they're zany/scary/all-new item/creative/really authentic looking I have NO PROBLEM with that...however those are a bit scarce. Plus it all comes down to "What would you rather see? Nasty stupid boring 100s of fake t-shirts or really cool legit items?"

Store news:
Thanks to a hopeful new affiliation, the SonicGear store will hopefully be offering TONS of new stuff with more reliability than some of the Amazon items. If all goes well, the store and the new page will appear with the upcoming update.

Split Update- Part 1

Instead of a delay, the update for the week will be split.
Just a basic divide probably with half today and half tomorrow to fit everything in due to time constraints. There's still interesting enough stuff to go on, with ComicCon coming up and some new news on plushes.

The plush set on ToyGlobe.com (nasty Silver, gold-tone fabric Super Suspicious Sonic et. al) are actually revealed to be made by KellyToy and may come in sizes up to 6 feet EACH. Which is wild and larger even than the giant ToyNetworks that they produced for Gameworks arcades. I'm currently investigating to see if that stat is for real, as so far it was only seen on 1 tiny catalog page and seems strange/iffy.

Interesting fact of the week:
Item with the most credits to it-
Oddly enough is the hedgehog plumber parody item with no less than THREE people contributing to figure the little thing out. Plus, there's even potential for a 4th person to be in there because there's still 1 question remaining in it's description. It's pretty wild it took that many people to figure out just one tiny parody pvc.

Coolest item?
Brass Monki Shoes. Apparently that guy is some kind of professional shoe customizer with many shoes already produced. Some include Moogles, Mario and Banksy designs (with the last being a graffiti artist) some of the things are abstracts, others aren't. He has 3 current Sonic offerings, one of which is classic, and the other 2 are an all-new design (with what can be presumed as a piece of his modern Sonic fan art on it) but one is just a variant on the other. (Yellow was eliminated as a color on the shoe)

These are an interesting item because it's curious how the artist does them. The 'classic' one almost is certain to have used a computer generated graphic application because the art is TOO PERFECT to the stock art. There is 0 interperatation on it, it does not look new or hand-created in any way, while the other design clearly is. The shoes themselves are quite cool, but likey very costly. Some of the Transformers shoes are a further convincement that they are indeed somewhat computer assisted design. Still, very good fan productions like these, when successful, show companies what the fans really would like to see in these instances and are a help.

Annoyances of the week:
Early preview ebay auctions for the ComicCon MS exclusive. They don't own ANY figures yet but they're auctioning them off! Is that even legal?
Toys R Us listing the MS exclusive on the site making it look like it's ready to buy now and not the 23rd, which is the real release date. So dumb! Can't add to cart! No warning/date posted!
Toys R Us wrecking their own online listings and screwing up item photos. Mix black Knight Sonic up with the super poser? Who knows what you'll get when you order now! We don't and we don't care about you so just give us all your money heee-haw!

Ugh. Needless to say many mails have come in on all 3 bungling issues above. Toys R Us just seems more "We don't care" by the day. Remember, these are the 'bashed boxes' folks who don't seem to care about internet orders--now they don't even care about which toy you get when you buy. I can't provide any good answers for people who don't live close enough to a store to just go and pick up the figures themselves, either. In this way, I guess exclusives can be dangerous.

1 new fact:
ComicCon Metal Sonic is limited to 10 to each person who orders on the 23rd, which is pretty decent to shut up the ebay scalpers who would buy them ALL then force everyone who wanted one to pay no less than 50 dollars to get it for no reason at all. My way or the highway profiting from stuff you rip out from under others has never impressed me and though legal I find it low.

The next half of the update should include all the rest of the stuff that was mailed in for the week, which seems to be just a variety of items. The back-shot on the MS came in (officially sourced) as well, which is nice to break if only a couple of days early and will go on the JUVI page when the other half of the update goes up. The new page is also in question, it will depend on how much other things there are. If not this week, then it'll be next week.