| Posted: 16 May 2008 at 5:27pm | IP Logged | 7
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First off, sorry for not posting much on here, I do drop by now and again to see what "gives" Stateside. Some really good repaints and excellent reworkings of CMFC figs.
As you may know we have a close relationship with Eaglemoss vis Alan Cowsill and now Richard Jackson....I received a great e-mail from RJ this afternoon and thought it a good idea to publish here...I know that some of the figs we discuss on the UK forum are still a while away for you but it is good to get your feedback too. Here is the message I received:
Hi Steve,
I thought I'd bash out an e-mail that you can put on the website. Hopefully
it will answer a few of the questions that have been bouncing around the
forum.
Iron Man Film Special:
It seems some people are a little disappointed that we decided to do a movie
figure and not say, an original comic Iron Man figure. The thing with the
Iron Man movie special is that as a licensee we are often presented with
ideas from Marvel to give us new ways to utilise our unique product. What
this essentially means is that Marvel asked if we wanted to try a movie
based figure rather than one from the comics. Looking to expand upon our
range and possibly introduce Movie specials alongside other regular specials
we thought we'd have a go with Iron Man.
The reason for the reduced magazine content was due to the fact that we
simply did not have as much access to the film, images, script etc... as we
would have liked. We did however have to increase the price to cover the
costs of making a film-licensed product. Personally I think the figure looks
absolutely amazing and is a highly detailed replica of the one used in the
movie, well worth having in your collection. What the process of producing
this magazine has told us is that we will think long and hard before doing
anymore movie specials and I'd welcome including the forum in some of the
decision making.
Abomination Special:
From the forums it is clear that the choice of a rubble base was highly
controversial and we certainly didn't want to upset long-time collectors.
The thought behind the Abomination was to attempt to deliver a more dynamic
figure as many collectors have asked for. The choice in having a different
base was somewhat based upon how well the Spider-Man subs gift and Black
Costume Spider-Man (when it wasn't broken) went down. Neither of these
figures are on a regular base and seem very popular. Occasionally it is good
to experiment with these things to see how we can add to our figurine
collection but I recognise that we would do well to listen to the forums
before ploughing ahead. After all, Galactus and the mega special range were
a slight change in direction when they came out. We moved away from the
pocket money/under a tenner and smaller range to a larger more collectors'
figure. Despite loving the Galactus figurine we were worried that the
additional cost would put off a lot of people. Obviously the old adages of
'not trying to fix that which is not broken' and 'you can't please everyone,
all the time' spring to mind with the Abomination but your feedback on the
figure has been much appreciated and I hope that we can keep move forward
with specials that everyone will like.
Professor Xavier:
Now here's a controversial character. So far he's jumped in and out of our
list, we've considered different poses, different wheelchairs and different
ways of presenting the character (double packs). First I want to say thank
you to everyone who's either voted in the polls or just posted a comment on
the forum, I am listening. Secondly I want to make it clear that Xavier
NEEDS to be in this collection. Now the problem I have with Xavier is that
we're finding it very hard to make the character fit in the regular series
whilst in his wheelchair. The options for the figure have been posted on the
message boards and I don't want to go into too much detail now but the real
question is: would you as collectors be willing to pay the special price for
Professor Xavier in his 'Astonishing X-Men' chair? I feel that if we have to
charge more for Xavier we should give you something extra, hence the double
pack idea. This way you would basically be getting an extra figurine for the
collection, rather than just spending more on Xavier. I know some people
will hate the idea of having a 'hanger-on' but if Xavier has to be priced at
a higher point wouldn't you prefer to get something extra, rather than just
the one figure? Oh and the options for the extra character in the double
pack were just a starting point, we could in theory throw the debate open to
any other Marvel character. No decision has been made yet and in the next
few weeks I'd really like to use the forum as an area to discuss all the
possibilities. I'm sure Grim will be a gent and stick up some more polls in
the not too distant future.
Crystal:
What can I say? I'm sorry so many people really dislike this figure. I
understand why and I think we made a mistake not going down the Kirby root
and not making the pose as dynamic as possible. Unfortunately the lead-in
time for the figures means that we cannot change her now. The positives that
will come out of this are that I'm looking at getting a blog running on our
website (Marvel approval permitting), this will be updated with every figure
update to give you more insight into the Eaglemoss process. I'm going to
make sure we do better in the future to avoid this kind of disappointment
and I'm looking at ways in which we can more directly involve the forums in
the decision making process. Design by committee is never the best way to go
(you can't please everyone and those who don't get their way feel the most
disappointed) but I think including the insightful thoughts of the 500+
collectors from this forum into the process can only be beneficial.
Hopefully my above comments are useful and answer a few of the questions
kicking around the forum.
Many Thanks,
Richard
There has been a great deal of discussion and it is only fair that you chaps have a chance to have an input too. Great that Eaglemoss, and Richard in particular, have taken the time to answer some of "our" questions regarding the above figs....
.....thoughts guys?
cheers
Steve
Edited by Steve Reaper on 16 May 2008 at 5:29pm
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