A Crayon Haiku #98 through 102!!

Yes, it’s finally happened — Scary-Crayon has crossed the 100-haiku threshold! Join Chun-Li(s), Skeletor, the rubber band ball and friends, and Spider-Man and the Human Torch as they mark this SC milestone.  (12/30/08)

What — you didn’t think I’d forgotten, did you? I’ve had these written for weeks, but I figured I’d prolong the suspense a bit. 😉

So today, on the eve of New Year’s Eve, we finally cross the 100-haiku threshold and begin our journey towards the big two-double-zero. Considering that it’s taken us nearly five years to get this far, it might be a bit ambitious to set a goal of reaching A Crayon Haiku #200 by 2010… but I’ll be pretty impressed if we can get to #240. I’m also digging the multi-haiku format, so with the exception of guest haiku I’ll probably continue with that into the new year and beyond.

On to additional notes regarding today’s haiku! The stand that I’m using to display Chun-Li performing the Spinning Bird Kick is a Whippy Superpose/Color Bear stand — Poe Ghostal highlighted them a while back on his site and they’re pretty darned cool! While you can get cheaper stands at Michael’s for simple doll display (I’m using one of those to keep Blade of Puppet Master fame on his feet), these are ideal for displaying Street Fighter figures doing SPECIAL MOVES. 😉

As far as I know they’re not sold in stores (in these parts, anyway), so unless you have a different source (in which case you should tell me!) you’ll have to resort to eBay to get them. I’m sure you can find them from multiple sellers, but this is the store from which I purchased them back in September. This particular seller even shipped me another stand (all the way from Hong Kong!) when one of the stands in my first shipment was missing the rod, so I feel good about recommending him.

The Skeletor haiku is a reference to the old Eiffel65 song — when I first heard it, I thought it was saying, “I would bleed, I would die,” during the refrain. Yes. Also, that Skeletor actually is bluer than usual, since I gave him a very messy dark blue wash. It’s difficult to tell in the light tent setup, but in person he looks not only darker, but also kinda scaly. Given that extra evil characteristic and his black costume, I’ve taken to calling him Shin Skeletor.

Then there is the rubber band ball! Inspired by my love of “Pee-wee’s Playhouse”, I started this up back in high school and then kinda forgot about it until I unearthed it again earlier this year. Since then, I’ve added to it quite a bit — enough that I’ve had to stop using the bands in regular assorted packs, which either won’t fit the ball or roll right off, in favor of the 3 1/2″ by 1/4″ postal size bands. So if you ever want to send something random and/or cheap my way for whatever reason (like the upcoming Scary-Crayon anniversary on January 25!) and aren’t up for donating to the site, rubber bands are acceptable! The packs I buy are 88 cents at Wal-Mart. 🙂

And the final haiku is a reference to the 2006 remake of The Wicker Man. The original was fantastic, but the remake was… well, the most unintentionally hilarious movie ever. Or maybe the hilarity was intentional, in which case everyone involved is a genius.

Okay, that’s all for now! More to come in the near future.

A Crayon Haiku #89 through 97?!

A Crayon Haiku ups the 5-7-5 value with a whopping nine installments packed onto a single effin’ page! The Legion of Doom is back with a new member, but Wonder Woman is also on the scene… as are many others.  (12/3/08)

With today’s update, I think it’s safe to say that we’re going to reach our goal of hitting A Crayon Haiku #100 by the end of the month. Barring some unfortunate and unforeseen accident that prevents me from updating Scary-Crayon before the new year, that is!

As you can see, our Legion of Doom has gained yet another member — this time, Toyman from the DC Direct “Justice” line. This is the greatest DC Direct figure ever. Hell, if I had to make a list of the best ten action figures I own, I’m pretty sure Toyman would be on there. He freaking rules. 39 points of articulation on a DC Direct figure?! And as seen in A Crayon Haiku #90 (I haven’t numbered them individually, but that’s what it is 😉 ), he can almost perfectly pull off the Hadoken pose. Any figure that can do that is totally badass in my book — about the only thing more impressive is a figure that can do high front kicks.

In A Crayon Haiku #91, Optimus Prime returns with a new gun! Actually, it’s an old gun — it came with one of the Transformatrix Primes we saw a couple of holiday seasons ago. It’s actually bootlegged from the Robot Masters Optimus Prime, which had a square hand to hold the gun by its proper handle, but rather than change the size of that part they just went ahead and added an extra rounded peg to the end of it. All well and good, but that’s not where Prime holds his gun! So as I was strolling past my toys the thought of dremeling that peg off and shaving down the proper handle popped into my head… and now Optimus Prime is appropriately armed. I kinda hope these Transformatrix Primes make a comeback this season; I have at least two more Prime figures that would love to have Ion Blasters as well. 🙂

In the next three haiku, fun with Wolverine continues. First, this weekend (I wrote the haiku that day, plus the syllables work out), I saw that same Wolverine with the two right forearms at Target. Not a different one with the same factory error — the same damned one I’d returned. I hate that. I see that kind of thing all the time at Wal-Mart — figures with mangled packaging and missing accessories and even packages with completely different figures shoved in the tray (I saw a neon green “The Batman” figure in “The Dark Knight” Movie Masters packaging; I kid you not) and swaddled in tape — but I’d always thought Target was better than that. I was wrong.

Still working on the metal claws thing with the Wolvie I’ve got, but I think I prefer the bobby pins to the paperclips. The latter look fantastic from certain angles, but kinda puny from others. The bobby pins, on the other hand, require all kinds of fun dremeling and stuff. Joy.

Moving on! Unlike DC Universe Wave 3, DCUC is finally starting to show up on the shelves in earnest — and a couple of weeks ago I was able to snag a Wonder Woman figure. She’s okay, but I think I like her a lot more since I’ve started hearing about all of the problems plaguing this line. I even got the opportunity to witness those problems at various Toys “R” Us stores this weekend, as the only Ares and Wonder Woman figures I saw suffered respectively from reversed arms and duplicate thigh pieces. I know, right?! For more on this urgent matter, see SAG’s rant about Mattel’s quality control on Superarticulated.com.

Speaking of stuff on other sites, Random Action Hour has moved! It appeared to be down for a while, but now it’s back. I expect that the insanely prolific updates will resume shortly. 😉

Also, a while back, I tried to clothe my comic Hellboy by ordering one of those 1/6th scale WWII trenchcoats on eBay. Obviously I misjudged the size of those dolls.

And finally, this week’s episode of “Dexter” ended with the skinner capturing our titular hero! Oh no! Anyway, if you’ve never seen Dexter, I highly recommend it. Unlike certain other shows *cough”Heroes”cough*, Dexter has remained excellent into the third season. Unfortunately, “Pushing Daisies” will never get that opportunity. 🙁

See you next time, when all signs point to the crossing of the 100-haiku milestone!