Dusty Plastic HELLside #5!

In Dusty Plastic HELLside #5, that most famous king of monsters — the mighty GODZILLA — returns! But wait! Are there two of them?! And what’s with that song? Perhaps there is beauty in the heart of the beast.  (8/22/09)

Or maybe he loves his child/distant cousin? I’m not especially well versed on Godzilla history, so I have no idea whether the 1968 Godzilla is meant to be the same individual as the 2000 version or not. In any case, Dusty Plastic HELLside #5 as two Godzillas in a warm setup. With Beatles lyrics. Bet you never thought you’d see that.

Unless you’ve read Twisted Kaiju Theater before, anyway! And there was my random plug for this update. 🙂 Oh, speaking of plugs, did I forget to mention that I reviewed the G.I. Joe Sigma 6 Battlefield General Cobra Commander over at Articulated Discussion a week or two ago? Yes.

In other news, I’m still trying to decide how I want to go about toy reviews — here’s the latest test layout (ignore that the text doesn’t always match up with the categories; this is just to sort of show how it would look). Whereas much of Scary-Crayon’s layout has sort of a quirky cartoon horror appeal, this scheme clearly takes its cue from video games and gaming mags (the bullets in the review section are even from the Street Fighter II Turbo selection menu).

So, what do you think? I welcome your input! The sooner I settle on a scheme, the sooner I can get back to reviewing toys… which will be cool since Chun-Li should be arriving sometime this coming week. Mmmm.

Until next time!

Dusty Plastic HELLside #4!

Once again, the Commander graces our humble site with his glorious presence… and this time he’s joined by his old pal Shockwave! But these are short comics, so they’re not up to much in Dusty Plastic HELLside #4.  (8/16/09)

Aaaand here’s a quick Sunday update with Dusty Plastic HELLside #4 — starring Cobra Commander and Shockwave! I think I’m falling in love with these figures all over again… especially considering that I just found out about the extra guns on Shockwave’s cannon (not seen deployed in today’s comic, since I didn’t know about them when I took that photo).

Incidentally, I didn’t even play with Action Masters as a kid, but that’s the first thing that comes to mind when G.I. Joe figures and Transformers are the same height. Go figure. Action figure, that is! Ah ha ha ha ha that made no sense okay I’m done. 😛 Seeya next time!

As promised, here’s our review of G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra! I really didn’t think it was all that bad — and I can definitely see picking up the DVD on sale and watching it once more — though it’s not the kind of movie I could ever love or recommend wholeheartedly. I did have fun doing the comics, though! I’d originally intended for them to be read in full as two separate comics, but I decided to separate panels in order to break up the text. Feel free to skip the text and just read them on your first pass, especially if you’re worried about spoilers. This review does have some spoilers, though I don’t explicitly give away any of the so-called surprises. The surprises are stupid, by the way.

Also! Here is a paragraph that I cut from the original review because I thought it went off on too much of a tangent. But that’s pretty much what these blog entries are for, so here it is!

At any rate, there’s the argument that while Cobra’s scheme was needlessly complicated and stupid, it was arguably intentionally so within the context of the movie… but it seems like the desired result could have been achieved without even attracting the attention of the heroes (or anyone else) and certainly without sacrificing the resources and personnel that Cobra lost in the battle with the Joe forces. This is one of those movies that makes me think I was supposed to be a supervillain (or at least should be writing their plans), since I would have come up with something so much more sensible. Then again, my plan probably wouldn’t have been as easily foiled (at least outwardly) as Cobra’s, so perhaps it’s best that I’m not writing the villains’ schemes. Every film can’t end with an evil victory, after all…

Yep. Anyway, see you next time!

THE RISE OF COBRA!!! (Or not…)

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra recently debuted in theaters to not-so-stellar reviews… but what does Scary-Crayon have to say about this latest film adaptation of a beloved 1980s cartoon and Hasbro toyline? Find out here!  (8/13/09)

Dusty Plastic HELLside #3!

Any halfway decent Joe movie’s gotta have a showdown between Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes, right? In Dusty Plastic HELLside #3, we make joking reference to the pair’s portrayal in G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.  (8/11/09)

We’d seen Cobra Commander here and there before (and Timber too, I think), but it wasn’t until Monte’s guest article that the Joes actually had a dedicated feature on the site. That’ll continue this week, as I’ve got a review of the new G.I. Joe movie in the works — complete with Joe and Cobra toy comics that sum up some of my thoughts on the film. But in the meantime, here’s a new Dusty Plastic HELLside comic featuring Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes. Beware if you haven’t seen the movie, since it does contain (minor) spoilers!

Special thanks to Tresob Yr, by the way, since these comics would be limited to Duke and Cobra Commander were it not for his plastic aid.

Until next time… YO JOE!

BLACK CAT IS ON THE PROWL!!!

What comic book superhero would be complete without a naughty temptress urging him to look the other way once in a while? No hero would willingly turn a blind eye to this Black Cat figure, though. She’s a hottie.  (8/6/09)

And here’s today’s piece: a review of Black Cat from Hasbro’s 2007 Spider-Man movie classics line. I don’t usually go in for numerical scores here — while I think they can be helpful, people’s tendency to weight things differently leads me to question their ultimate worth — but I decided to try them out with Felicia here. Let me know whether you think I should keep scoring toys or not! And let me know if you think the colors on the table at the end are blinding, though if I decide to keep the scores I’ll probably end up making some unique scoring graphics or something. Maybe crayons… or Crayon Critters. Or Scary Faces, or evil clowns. Who knows…

Anyway, more stuff next time!