More Styleguides!

Today for your viewing pleasure I have a couple of style guide pages.

First up since Spider-man seems to be on everyones minds these days I have a page from the Spider-man Animated Series Style Guide. Spider-man's Animated series came along around the mid nineties on the heals of another great superhero animated series. I'll admit I was a fan of both, and the Spider-man series did seem rather well done for younger market. Characters where bright and colorful, even the villains, and the toys that were spawned for this cartoon matched the animated versions quit well. even today these are some of my favorite toys from any Spider-man show or movie.

This page is the main Logo and Character detail page. It gives commentary on logo colors as well as the main colors of our hero, Spider-man, and is one of the "upfront" materials of the guide. This style guide is similar to most, giving you the main details of the heroes first, some poses in black and white, villain colors, situational art, repeat patterns, and some alternate logos. All in all some nice artwork, very clean and ready for scanning. When this guide was produced, you would have to scan and streamline your artwork, then color and place on a given product. It was sort of rare then to get artwork CDs accompanying style guides and even then it was some of the larger licenses that did this.

Second, but not by any means second to Spider-man, is a situational artwork page from Batman: Carnival Capers Style Guide. This guide was a continuation of the Batman: The Animated Series Style Guide, and was one of many attempts by Warner Bros. to come up with stories or situations to place there animated heros in, and use villains that were featured in movies to help continue the brand. I would say that Warner Bros. along with Disney were two of the best at doing this, the idea was to keep the characters fresh and up to date.

I actually used this piece of artwork, though in it's black and white form and streamlined and then colored, to produce an amusement show poster for Play By Play. Later, a year or so after the line was finished we were cleaning out the art department and we all had a chance to grab a poster or two to take home, they were going to be trashed. These posters probably set the company back about 80 to 120 bucks each, we would produce one or two of each license, for a total of about 20 to 40 posters at about 2 foot wide by 4 foot tall. We had these things printed out on something like a high gloss dura trans and mounted on foam core, they were nice, too nice to be trashed. The one that I kept was this one and I still have it today, the design is not that great (not the artwork itself, but the design I set up), but it was my first of many show signs and it was of my favorite hero. I'll drop a pick up of it later on in another post in it's new home.

Weekend Report: Free Comics and Spidey!

Just a quick note on this past weekend. Besides helping the ever lovely Judy plant some new foliage in the backyard gardens, I did steal some time to hit a comic book shop on Free Comic Book Day and participate in making Sony Pictures richer by attending a showing of Spider-Man 3.

This would be my first Free Comic Book Day that I have attended and I have to say it wasn't what I expected. After reading all the hype and events that they have in other cities I was thinking it would be sort of a little comic book party. So I took a lunch break from the yard work and on the way to pick up some take out I stopped at my local comic haunt. There were about three people in the shop, two clerks and the usual Magic card player chatting it up with the guy behind the counter that specializes in card games. I was greeted by the second clerk and he immediately let me know it was Free Comic Book Day.

So here's what I thought going into this for the first time. I knew that the comic industry printed comics specially for this day so I wasn't going to walk away with just any comic for free, so, so much for making it away with Detective Comics #27. Like "my" shop even had that, right? I did think that maybe that they would give you a chance to pick up two or three various titles, some variety if you will. So I asked "what's the limit?" expecting to here a couple. One, one per customer. Okay so at this time I'm asking all three of my readers if, one, they attended Free Comic Book Day? and two, what is your comic book shops policy on Free Comic Book Day?

Needless to say I walked around the shop, they had rearranged a few things since I had been there last, and ended my journey back at the display of free comics. I looked over the titles and selected one that I liked the illustration style of the cover and said "I'll take that one". Now I wasn't aware that I would also get a choice of a free mini poster, so that was a bonus. Transformers or the New Fantastic Four Flick. Silver Surfer won on that one. The comic? Lets just say that later that night I decided to do my research and was checking out LOG and low and behold my comic wasn't listed as one of DC's finest that were to be given out this year. You guessed it I got a recycled Free Comic Day comic. Yep, none other than the 2006 Free Comic Book Day Justice League Unlimited comic. A side note my son went with me and so I thought if he didn't want his comic, I might have a chance for a second, but he left empty handed, saying nothing peeked his interest. Kids, you can't even give them free comics.

Lesson, do your research before hand and make arrangements with your accomplice before you go into the shop to grab you a second comic, even if they don't see anything they like. Oh well at least I did get a cool mini poster and a free comic to read and pass along to some younger reader who will just thinks it's cool to get any comic. Hope everyone had a cool Free Comic Book Day and I'll give some of my readers a chance to see Spider-Man 3 before I go on about it. Oh and the pic on this post is of the Spider-Man 3 plush that the company I work for produces for the amusement market. You can check out more plush goodness here!

SOTW: Part 9

Aren't these a little short to be Stormtroopers? Here's some more of those Hasbro Galactic Heroes. These are again part of the latest wave in Star Wars goodies that are out at retail right now.

This set features Han Solo and Luke Skywalker in their Stormtrooper disguises when they snuck aboard the Deathstar to rescue Princess Leia.
Besides not being able to see well with their helmets on they blend in with the rest of the Imperial Forces aboard the soon to be doomed battle station. So not only could you use them to help fill in the ranks of a little galactic army, you can use them as intended and pretend they are stuck in a trash compactor or are running loose through the halls of the Emperor's greatest weapon.

Whatever, they are here for your enjoyment as this week's SOTW (Stormtrooper Of The Week). You know I could have stretched this one to last two weeks since it was a two pack. Would I do that to you? You bet, I'm running out of Stormtroopers, and I have to make these last through December. I'll give you a break this time, enjoy the freebie.

Flip'n Yoda

Bill, eclectorama's resident proof reader and now contributer, has donated this find to the archives of eclectorama. This is from the Burger King Star Wars promotion a few years back. I remember trying a couple times to score some really cool toys from this promotion, but after a couple times through the drive up window and not getting any of the cool swag I was trying for at the time I gave up. Plus I'm sure I did my heart well by cutting my losses and moving on from another junk food for toys binge.

Fast forward to now, and Bill finding himself at a garage sale finds this little sweet Yoda that when wound up does a flip. I have to admit, I'm a sucker for wind up toys. There is something so basic yet fun about winding these things up and watching them do their stuff, no batteries required!

Bill also picked up another one of my favorite characters from the original films, but he is going to have to wait for a future post to be revealed.

Tricorder Fun

This is a Tricorder toy from the Playmates Star Trek series that proudly takes up space in the Eclectorama Collection Archives. It is a lot smaller than the props used in the show, but what it lacks in size it makes up for in lights and sounds. I picked this up when Star Trek was all the rage, they had just released the Phaser and the Communicator so I had to get the Tricorder to complete the set, right? This is another one of those toys that takes me back to the days of the "build your own" Star Trek accessories.

When you think about all the stuff Star Trek predicted I'm amazed that the Tricorder is not as popular as say the iPod. Communicators gave us cell phones, diskettes (even though their outdated now) were featured several times on the show before they existed, what about mini skirts... oh wait they had those at the time the show was filmed, but women in the military that was a concept explored by the show, and not just nurses but in command positions. All before there time.

So where's the Tricorder? According to this article some were made, but I don't think anyone took the company too seriously and it went out of business. either that or Star Fleet bought all 10, 000 of the production run. It's too bad that someone doesn't pick up where these guys left off and really develop a device that can scan and register different atmospheric and physical events for research for your home use.

When you think about it, all a tricorder is, is every type of scanner you could imagine rolled up into a nice little package. Who wouldn't want one? " Oh yeah the Tricorder says here your fuel mixture is to rich." or "Looks like you need a new liver, well according to the Tricorder anyway." how about "Are you sure you can eat that, the Tricorder is giving me some very strange readings?" Funny thing is while they were making the real world equivalent to the Tricorder, Playmates Toys was making a fake version of the same device that I passed off as a "plumbing scanner" when my sister was telling me about her kitchen sink one time " Ah, there's your problem, it's the P trap, seems to be clogged, according to my readings you'll have to replace the whole fixture."

See there's a need.