Told you she’d be back! Dusty Plastic HELLside #7 makes reference to the conclusion of Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, in which our heroine performs a decidedly unheroic finishing move on a helpless and defeated Bison…. right in front of his daughter. Not even Sonya Blade would be that cruel, and she routinely left her opponents as charred, kneeling skeletons. What’s up with heroes going all murder crazy these days? I hear even Optimus Prime is ripping off faces and whatnot.

Incidentally, for all its horribleness (or perhaps because of it… and Kreuk, of course), I kind of liked the movie. I’m not going to pay the new release price for it, but one of these days I’ll definitely grab it on DVD.

More Chun-Li comics to come!

P.S. If you missed the SFIV Chun-Li figure review, check that out… and if you saw it before and want to look at stuff in there again, let me know what you think of the change! I’ve replaced the SF2 menu bullets in the summary section with mini Crayon Critter heads.

EXCITEMENT — the first of the newly-formatted Scary-Crayon toy reviews is here! (Thanks to all… three? of you out there who actually commented on the test layout. 😛 ) But first, here’s a new Dusty Plastic HELLside comic starring our beloved Sarah Jane Smith… in a situation that wasn’t exactly intended for this particular Sarah. Making this comic made me kinda sad for television series loved and lost, but at least “The Sarah Jane Adventures” is getting a third season. Looking forward to it.

Anyway, here’s our review of NECA’s amazing Street Fighter IV Chun-Li action figure — complete with lots of special move poses and inserted sprite comparisons! Originally I was doing the article with the video game screencaps positioned next to the thumbnails (as I did in our CvS2 Mai and Chun-Li figure review), but since I found dealing with those images to be highly time consuming for a number of reasons I decided to go with this method instead and ditch the other images. I think this works a lot better anyway, but let me know what you think!

You may also have noticed that, with some recent reviews, I spent an insane amount of time trying to get the pixel widths of each row of images to match up — I didn’t do that here, and it bothers me a whole lot less than I thought it would. If you’re as obsessive as I often am about these kinds of things, I apologize for any hair-pulling it causes you. And speaking of obsessive, I really did take over 1000 photos of the toy. Some of those (a relatively small percentage, but still) were shots of Chun-Li with other figures — so, much like the appearances that followed the Grim Reaper review, expect to see Chun-Li show up in three or four upcoming Dusty Plastic HELLside comics. Hopefully at least one of them will be funny!

Finally, another plug — Infinite Hollywood has a brand new domain name and a new contest to boot! One of these days I’m gonna win the lottery, and then I’m gonna have a contest with all kinds of prizes. Prizes rule.

Aaaand that does it for this update. As Chun-Li would say, zai jian!

P.S. NECA, if you’re ever looking for employees to pose and photograph your toys, I seriously wasn’t kidding about wanting the job. 😉

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!

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!

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!

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!

Indeed — but first we’ve got a new Dusty Plastic HELLside comic for you to enjoy! Who knew Grim was well versed in beauty secrets, eh? I don’t plan on adding new backgrounds to all of these comics, by the way — only when I’m able to do so quickly and more/less easily. 😉

As noted above, today’s more substantial entry is Scary-Crayon’s — or rather, my, but “Wes’s blah” struck me as a bit lame — Five Most-Wanted Toys Unveiled at San Diego Comic-Con 2009. It’s really just me rambling on about why I want specific toys, which I understand could be quite boring! Or it could be really fascinating, depending upon your point of view and how much you care about why people want certain figures. And I’m serious about what I wrote in that article — vote for Fantomex.

Along these toyrific lines, I’ve got a guest Toy Haul entry over at Articulated Discussion — so you should check that out if I don’t completely bore you to death rambling about toys and why I like them in the SDCC feature. There’s also a similar presentation of my latest toy haul in my personal blog, but that’s more geared towards people who are fairly familiar with my obsessions but probably wouldn’t be interested in further explanation regarding the Who figures — kind of like how a girl might say, “Eee, look at my pretty new earrings!” but wouldn’t necessarily proceed to tell you about the mining and refining processes involved in their creation even if she was quite knowledgeable about them. That post does, however, have photos of Bacardi! Everyone loves Bacardi.

That’s all I’ve got for now — stay tuned for more Scary-Crayon content! I’ve still got that Spectare entry to post, and I’m hoping to start reviewing those Doctor Who figures next week… but we’ll see how that goes. 😛

So, I finally settled on a name! Thanks for those of you who offered suggestions and input — I really did consider going with HELLion, but the Hell Lion confusion seemed more appropriate for a character than a comic series (unless said comic were about the king of an infernal jungle). Anyway, I like HELLside because the name more/less exemplifies my view of these comics — they’re like fringe tales from the greater Dusty Plastic HELL universe, and also like side orders to pad the sparsely distributed main courses. In keeping with the side order thing, the title graphic also includes an order of fries. Except instead of fries, there’s just fire shooting out of the carton. Yes.

Anyway, in Dusty Plastic HELLside #1, today the Grim Reaper visits Cobra Commander. Fairly simple stuff. The title is a reference to a scene in the old cartoon in which Destro happens upon Cobra Commander eating and is apparently repulsed — prompting CC to remark, “It takes a strong stomach to watch me eat, eh Destro?” And presumably, having a strong stomach would have prevented…

The fact that all of my jokes must be explained is probably why not too many people find me terribly funny. 😛 (more…)

And here’s that guest article I mentioned — a G.I. Joe valentine-themed toy photography narrative by Monte Williams of Geek Creek! It really is a touching entry, if for no other reason than the final image, and if you’ve never seen the Sigma 6 valentines before you’ll no doubt find those amusing as well. Storm Shadow’s “Candy is sweeter than revenge!” valentine is probably my favorite, but that’s not the only one that elicits a chuckle or a raised eyebrow. For instance, take Snake Eyes’s “Sword brothers forever!” declaration. Given that being sword brothers hasn’t kept Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow from battling each other violently and even to the death across their various incarnations, I’m not sure how much that brand of brotherhood is worth.

If you’re interested in reading more of Monte’s written material, he’s also got Retrobate, Lowbrow Literati, and the all-new Frog Monkey Juice Box. (How’s that for a name?!) All of these pages feature worthy reading, even if Monte is completely and totally wrong in his assertion that TMNT (2007) is better than Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990). 😉

Okay, that does it for now. See y’all next time!

P.S. Still looking for input regarding the new name for Hot Flashes, and don’t forget about the clown bubble challenge thingy! Read this post for more info about those.

That’s what’s going down in Dusty Plastic HELL: Hot Flash #114, though admittedly this fight (at least as depicted here) is strictly verbal. May the superior robotic-sounding being win!

We’ve still got those more substantial features I mentioned last time on the way (and speaking of which, your input is still requested regarding those matters!), but in the meantime here are some plugs. Over at Maroon X, Justin (formerly of Dyslexic Penguin) has posted a review of Seinfeld: A XXX Parody and thus saved us the trouble of watching it ourselves… not that I would have watched it anyway. If you read Justin’s piece, you’ll see a quote from me concerning Re-Penetrator. Now, porn does absolutely nothing for me — I find it kinda gross even when it doesn’t involve disemboweling and buckets of blood — but the premise sounded strange enough that I thought I might want to review it for the site. And then after I nearly threw up watching it once, I realized I’d have to watch it again to review it and decided against it. I’d rather eat fucking Pup Corn than watch that video again — just thinking about it has me feeling queasy.

Other plugs: Articulated Discussion, where I comment and serve as a guest reviewer from time to time. It’s on the sidebar, but I wanted to give special attention to Updatedude’s guest review of the Motion Revive Series Kamen Rider Blade figure since I think the format is kinda brilliant. I don’t think I’d ever forgo text reviews completely, but I would totally like to steal borrow that format for the occasional piece. Maybe that’s how I should do the Power Rangers roundup I keep meaning to write?

There’s lot’s more creative toy-related coolness over at Updatedude’s site, Turquoise Version, including a review of the Revenge of the Fallen Soundwave figure written entirely in haiku. Considering how much I enjoy haiku, you can imagine what I think of that feature! Heck, it even makes me want to write more features in haiku… or at least see if we can’t break 200 this year after all. Hrm.

Anyway, see y’all next time! 😀

Yes — and in today’s installment, Ryu meets the Grim Reaper. I told you he’d be back! And he’ll be back again and again and again and again.

I’m still calling them Hot Flashes for the time being, but I think I’ve narrowed it down to a few names that I want to pick — all of them starting with “Dusty Plastic HELL” (mostly because I don’t want to have to change the category title). So let me know which of the following you prefer:

Dusty Plastic HELLfire
Dusty Plastic HELLbox
Dusty Plastic HELLhole
Dusty Plastic HELLion
Dusty Plastic HELLsmoke

Personally, I’m leaning toward HELLhole, if only because it reminds me of donut holes and that goes in with the theme of the Hot Flashes being smaller, bite-sized versions of the longer Dusty Plastic HELL comics (and no, I haven’t forgotten about Krang’s bodily quest). HELLbox also seems appropriate in that it’s a box for a tailor’s scraps; it’s just that that term isn’t quite as widely used.

And speaking of stuff about which I’d like your input, don’t forget about the Clown comic challenge thingy (right-click the link to save the image)! I’ve got a couple of awesome submissions from Monty/Rawpower95 of RawToys, but I need more before I can start posting these. MORE! So come on people — let’s see some creativity! Or just plain weirdness. Yep.

Another comic next time… and probably another guest article. Hooray!

Hey, hey, we’ve got some new content for you today! Yes. First up, Dusty Plastic HELL: Hot Flash #112 — in which we see that two stars from Capcom’s Versus games have been counting calories. I was a fan of the initial Spider-Man Juggernaut that Hasbro released, but I’m even more partial to this redeco — something about the reddish brown and the yellow belly just works for me. That said, both Juggies seemed a tad undersized for the character, so I had to poke a bit of fun at that! And of course I’ve lamented the lack of massive thighs on SOTA’s Chun-Li since the figure came out — that was probably the main reason I didn’t buy it until much, much later. Even though NECA’s Chun looks a bit freakish, I’m looking forward to getting her… even though she’ll make poor Juggernaut look even smaller. Which of course I might have to revisit in another comic. 🙂

Speaking of the comics, I’m (once again) considering changing the name. I’d originally gone with Hot Flash because it seemed like a quick flame burst — as opposed to the full HELL comics — but the full name does seem a bit long. What do you think of Dusty Plastic Limbo or Dusty Plastic Purgatory? Names along those lines would suggest the floating nature of the comics (I regard them as sort of filler in between the more substantial pieces on the site) while avoiding any unflattering associations generated by the term “Hot Flash.” And if you’ve got any other suggestions, I’d like to hear them!

Next up, another toy review — this time of the Circus Figure on Unicycle! Of course, the figure in question is really a CLOWN, which is the primary reason for the review. We love clowns here, yes we do. If you love them too, there’s a “blank” one-shot comic to which you can add your own dialogue and/or exposition! w00t!

Finally, I’ve got a guest It Figures comic over at Poe Ghostal’s site that I encourage y’all to check out. Poe’s always got great toy news — particularly when it comes to Mattel’s MOTUC and DCUC lines — so if that interests you you should be sure to visit at other times, too. 🙂

And that’s all for now! Next time, I’ll have another comic for you — whether it’ll be a Hot Flash or feature another name remains to be seen. There’ll be a new Spectare summary review in the near future as well (though perhaps not in the very next update), so be on the lookout for that! Ja!

Yep! Today’s Hot Flash comic references Prowl’s noble sacrifice in the Season 3 finale of “Transformers Animated”… as well as Jazz’s highly unfortunate role in the first live-action Transformers film. No, I haven’t seen the sequel yet. And no, given how much I despised the first film and what I’m hearing about the second, I’m in no hurry whatsoever to do so.

‘Till all are one.

So! New Hot Flash today. Remember when I wrote in the Classic TV Toys Grim Reaper review that the guy was toy comic gold? Well, I wasn’t kidding — this is only the first of many humorous visits from our skull-headed friend. He won’t feature in the next few Hot Flashes (yes, for once I’ve actually got advanced content queued up!), but he will definitely be back. Mark my words.

Yeah… moving on. If you missed that Michael Jackson Hot Flash I cleverly hid away to avoid any flaming in the immediate wake of his death, you can check that out! It does poke fun at the guy, though, so be warned if you’re an ultra-sensitive Chris Crocker LEAVE MICHAEL ALONE HE’S A (dead) HUMAN BEING kinda person. And speaking of recent features, don’t forget to read Ragey’s Jungle Panda review! If you haven’t already!

And that should just about do it for today’s entry, right? No — there’s one more important thing, which you probably haven’t noticed because it’s so subtle. Take a moment to scroll on up to the navigation header, won’t you? I’ll wait.

…

…

<elevator music plays>

…

Back? Didja see it? NO?!?!? Fine, I’ll tell you — the site navigation has been changed up a bit! See, for a while I’ve been dumping toy reviews into the Miscellaneous Articles category… and while that worked fine when we were only doing one every six months or so, the recent onslaught of them has prompted me to give them a separate category. However, because I didn’t want to mess with the right-side SC graphic(s) — and because it’s been ages since I posted an installment of Crayon Poetry Corner — I decided to merge the CPC and Writing sections. w00t.

Aaand because that changed the alignment of the text, and since I didn’t have or couldn’t find a lot of the old files I used, it also meant that I had to completely redo all of the left header graphics. I’m not even going to tell you how long it’s taken me, but suffice it to say that I’ve been staring at code and graphics and little grey and darker grey boxes that indicate transparency for so long that I’ve temporarily (temporarily?) gone quite mad. Hence the rather punchy nature of this entry! Oh ho ho ho ho.

And this is why Madballs and a Squirtdevil are swarming the Juggernaut.

P.S. If you’ve been using a RSS feed reader to keep up with the blog and have been swarmed by the gross anti-hotlinking graphic, let me know! I’ve fixed it for Google Reader and Bloglines, and at the very least you should be able to view the emoticons without having to see poor Raph partially submerged in a cow patty… but if you’re using another feed reader, let me know so I can fix things for you too. Not that I post all that many images in the blog, but still — if you’re legitimately trying to keep up with the site, you shouldn’t be subjected to that. 😛

Considering the blow(s) dealt to the pop culture world yesterday, it’s a bit ironic that I posted a Grim Reaper figure review early that morning, eh?

Anyway, I generally like to leave more time in between updates to allow y’all to catch up, but here’s a special Hot Flash to mark the passing of one Michael Jackson. The image itself is kinda fitting, but if you click it you get the snarky dialogue that prompted me to make the comic in the first place (well, I imagined Michael Jackson saying that upon entering his own personal version of Heaven)… so you might not want to if you really loved Jacko and are easily upset by people making fun of him (especially now that he’s gone). For my part, I didn’t know him and he didn’t know me — and he hadn’t put out any really great songs since the 80s, so it’s not like I’m being deprived of any awesome new music — so I’m not really saddened by his death. I’d be sadder if you died, since right now, simply by reading this, you are closer to me than Michael Jackson ever was.

Also? The guy was a child molester, or at least did some really inappropriate shit with children. How do I know this? The guy talked about sharing his bed with children on national television — no, international television — without appearing to even remotely grasp how that would be perceived. “What’s wrong with sharing your bed?” You just don’t fucking do it, that’s what’s wrong with it — if for no other reason than your own goddamned protection. And he said this long after he’d already paid off some other family accusing him of touching their little boy!

Shit, if something like that happened to me I would never be seen in the presence of children again. Nor would I calmly dismiss any accusations concerning or references to the incident as stemming from “ignorance.” No, my response would be more along the lines of, “FUCK YOU I DIDN’T TOUCH THAT MOTHERFUCKING KID AND IF YOU EVER SAY I DID AGAIN I WILL FUCKING SMASH YOUR JAW AND RIP OUT YOUR FINGERNAILS.” Michael Jackson’s attitude towards the whole thing was never that of an innocent man — it was more like that of a guilty man who didn’t understand what was wrong with what he’d done. And while that is in itself is a kind of innocence, my point stands.

So… yeah. Oh, you might notice that this comic isn’t linked on the front page — that’s mostly because I want Ragey’s awesome Jungle Panda review to occupy the top spot on the site for at least a few more days, but also because I don’t want people just popping in, seeing it, and then coming here to flame the crap out of me. They’re going to have to go a little deeper into the site for that. 😛

‘Till next time!

It’s time once again for new articles. w00t! That’ll do for an introduction. 😛

First up, a guest piece from Ragey of Random Action Hour (part of the Random Hoo Haas network of awesome stuff). As a fellow connoisseur of freakish bootleg toys, Ragey has graced the site with a review of a Jungle Panda action figure! Who or what is Jungle Panda, you ask? You’ll have to read the review to find out in depth… but let’s just say that he’s Kung Fu Panda’s unhinged and malnourished cousin from the jungles of Myops.

We’ve also got a review of the Mad Monsters Series 2 Grim Reaper figure from Classic TV Toys. I really, really like this toy — no, love this toy — and yet I should probably strongly dislike it for at least one major reason. Instead, Daddy Death’s got me fawning over him and almost set to dive headlong into another toy obsession not unlike the Power Rangers figure kick that I still haven’t written about. Why didn’t anyone tell me these things were so bloody much fun?!

And then there’s the 109th installment of Dusty Plastic HELL: Hot Flash. You may recall an old Crayon Haiku in which Hellboy was shown wearing an oversized coat — well, thanks to Clobberin’ Time Thing and whatever weird occurrences led to this old figure appearing recently on the toy shelves at Ross, Hellboy now has a more fitting garment! I almost feel bad for Thing, though… in addition to losing his jacket, he lost his batteries because that sound effect was getting on my bloody nerves. 🙁

The other comics have appeared elsewhere but not previously on SC, so I include them as an excuse to plug other sites and such. I mentioned that Toy Bender contest a while back — well, Beverly Crusher was the figure that I won. Hurrah! And the Optimus and Prowl comic comes from a guest review that I did of Samurai Prowl over at Articulated Discussion. It’s Transformers Week over there, so be sure to visit and check out all of the fun (or not-so-fun, in the case of Prowl) Transformers content!

And while we’re plugging other sites, you should really visit Geek Creek by Monte Williams! He apparently goes to a local canyon and takes cool photos of action figures in natural settings — very cool stuff, even if pics like that destroyed Animated Megatron cause me to wince in pain. Monte also writes about pop culture and other miscellany on Retrobate and the Lowbrow Literati column on PopMatters, so check those out too.

Aaaaaaand that’s all I’ve got for now! Expect more Hot Flash comics next time, since I was serious when I said that about Grim. Grim’s a bloody toy comic goldmine.

THREE NEW ARTICLES!!! Seriously, when was the last time that happened? (And when will it happen again?! Who bloody knows?!)

Anyway, first up we have the latest installment of Mickey Glitter’s Sarah Jane Smith Fashionista Fever! (which is also crossposted on Strange Cousin Susan, the online home of our coruscating contributor)! While Mickey’s favorite time-traveling journalist — she can only be my second favorite; if you stood still, April O’Neil totally appeared on screen in all of the levels of Turtles in Time on the SNES — may have lost whatever fashionista flavor she’d acquired in previous appearances, at least we get to read Mickey’s amusing criticisms of such items as translucent pink macks and desperation-soaked Andy Pandy overalls. Perhaps Mickey would’ve been less harsh if Sarah Jane had donned a bright yellow jumpsuit and white boots instead? 😉

Next, an honest-to-goodness Foodstuffs article: a review of MolliCoolz Incredible Ice Cream Beads. I really don’t like these things, which actually made me kinda sad after I visited the MolliCoolz website and found it to be so infectiously delightful. Okay, it was mostly the exuberant (!) MolliCoolz spokeswoman who I found to be delightful… but still. Given my tendency to leave multiple tabs open, however, she did start to get on my nerves after a while! I mean, as much as I love your accent, darlin’, I don’t need you simultaneously giving me three different MolliCoolz pitches and/or nagging me about not clicking around while I’m scouring the interwebs in an attempt to find out if elephants have ever been documented eating meat. (I haven’t found anything yet to indicate that they have, though apparently hippos will consume animal flesh in rare circumstances.)

And lastly, there’s my review of Terminator Salvation. I’m pretty sure I would have disliked the movie even if I hadn’t seen and loved “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles”, but that a television show — and a canceled one at that 👿 — managed to be so superior to this film, what with its overpaid “A-list” actors and bigtime Hollywood screenwriters and whatnot just irks me. Christian Bale needs to flip out on himself for reading this movie’s script and still agreeing to do it. Money cannot buy back dignity, Bale-san. (more…)