Taikongzhans Dian Ying Ban Di San

I don’t really frequent Divisoria, a market district at the heart of Manila. It’s a maze of tiny, cramped alleys with thousands of vendors selling everything from cheap surplus clothes to semi-used sex toys (ok, maybe not used, but I’m sure there isn’t a woman on Earth who wants to buy a vibrator from a cart on the sidewalk). If I do go to one of the malls In the area, I try and go on a weekday, early in the morning. Weekend afternoons are awful for a guy like me (who’s anti-social tendencies border on agoraphobia), and it gets exponentially more crowded the closer we get to the holidays.

Every now and then, though, I make a Divi run to hunt down the odd knock-off Transformer that I just can’t get anywhere else. The Taikongzhans Dian Ying Ban Di San  is one of those toys.

Transformers: Prime Bumblebee

It’s sad that the programming you hear about online doesn’t always make it to Philippine network television. If it does, it’s usually several years after they series aired in the country of origin. Not only is this bad from fans of the big franchises, but it means that the chance that distributors will import merchandise based on these properties is just about nil. The G.I. Joe Resolute figures didn’t even see retail shelves and the new Thundercats figures can only be had through online stores.

Even though the newest Transformers show, Transformers: Prime, debuted more than a year ago on The Hub in the States, it still hasn’t seen local airwaves. It’s no surprise that the distributor’s orders for Wave 1 of the new toy line based on this series weren’t as large as they were for the Dark of the Moon movie line. Most stores are only getting two or three boxes of the figures, and they’re quickly selling out.

Transformers: Prime

I was initially rather skeptical about Transformers: Animated when it first was announced. Coming off the disgust I had for the first movie, I didn’t have much faith that the cartoon that Cartoon Network was fielding would be any better. For one thing, it used that same overly-exaggerated aesthetic that every show they had used so far, and it was obviously targeted towards a very young market. Happily, the series turned out really great, and I ended up liking it immensely. So much that I collected nearly all the figures from the show (or at least as many as were available locally).

When Transformers: Prime was announced, I again had my doubts that it would be worthy of the franchise I loved. This time, they’d dropped the Japanimation look and went back to the computer generated images that they’d used in Transformers: Beast Wars. While I love Pixar as much as the next guy, it’s not because they use CGI to make their cartoons. It’s because they write unbelievably good stories that are entertaining and heart-wrenching, and because they are awesome animators. Most shows that have used CGI for TV series have neither good stories, nor good animators.

Transformers: Prime has both.

BPI & Toys 'R' US Big Toy Sale

Glorietta Activity Center, November 24 to 26, 2011

Lego ▪ Nerf ▪ Transformers ▪ Bakugan ▪ Fastlane ▪ Hotwheels ▪ Matchbox ▪ Thomas & Friends ▪ Leap Frog ▪ Play Go ▪ Lisa Frank ▪ vtech ▪ Disney ▪ You & Me ▪ Barbie ▪ Bruin


Exclusive for BPI cardholders:
For a minimum single receipt of P2,000 using ANY of your BPI Card.
Choose from: 1 Fastlane Die-cast car or 2 tubs UOI Dough (5 oz. each)

Present your BPI Card (BPI Express Credit, BPI Express Teller or BPI Express Cash).
Present your original charge slip (minimum single receipt of P2,000) at the redemption area.

REAL 0% S.I.P. on a 3-month term using your BPI Express Credit

6th Christmas Toy Fair & 1st Philippne Die cast & Custom Car Show

6th Christmas Toy Fair & 1st Philippne Die cast & Custom Car Show
aka: The Christmas ToyCon

December 16-18, 2011
SM Megatrade Hall 1
www.toyconph.com

MaxiCollector's Black Friday Sale

MaxiCollector's Black Friday Sale

Nov 25,2011
One day outdoor selling at Bonifacio High Street
Open from 11am to 12 midnight

(All stores will have the same Sale on Nov 25)

Highlights:
-Hundreds of items on sale (up to 50% off)
-Sideshow Exclusives will be up for sale
-Previously Sold out items will be up for sale

Vinyl + Splash: The Ultimate Collectible & Comic Convention

 
Vinyl + Splash: The Ultimate Collectible and Comic Convention
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at
TopShelf, 5F of Fully Booked Bonifacio High Street
Gates open at 10:00 a.m.
Admission is FREE!


For more information, visit www.fullybookedonline.com

Twilight: Breaking Dawn – A Rant

So someone suggested on Plurk the other day that the reason that critical reception and audience reaction to Breaking Dawn on www.rottentomatoes.com is so disparate (28% and 92% respectively as of this writing) is that the only people who actually go to see it are people who are fans of the popular series of romance novels by Stephanie Meyer. Other people have the sense to avoid anything having to do with the franchise like they would a fat, naked plague carrier with large, exploding pustules all over his body.

I am not one of those people.

Now I could say that I watched Breaking Dawn so that I could write about my ordeal and hence, warn others away from this awful example of the deteriorating collective intelligence of the human race, or say that I was forced at knifepoint into the theater as an elaborate form of torture designed to pry the location of that $100,000,000.00 in gold I stashed away after that heist in Singapore, but the truth is that I, like so many before me, went because my girlfriend wanted to see it.

Spider-Man & Captain Britain

One of my favorite comics back in the 90’s was Excalibur. I had started comics with the dark and heavy stories in Uncanny X-Men, but Excalibur’s brand of light-hearted humor, rollicking action and curvedly-lined artwork really drew me in. I started the title right around the time when Alan Davis returned to pencil and write with issue #42, and finding myself in love with the stories, collected all the back issues that I could.

After the epic Anti-Phoenix story-arc that concluded in Excalibur #50, Davis took a break and there were a few issues with some filler material. One was #53 by Scott Lobdell and James Fry.

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