There are some people out there who are totally unaware that there's a complete sub-culture of Craft Artists who make really fun stuff. These Artists are totally dedicated to their artwork & make some extremely clever items. One such person is "Kittyzilla!". Well, her real name is Jennifer & she's also a writer of a Craft Blog called "Handmade Stuffs" where she talks about her projects. Recently she made an extremely AWESOME set of BATMAN AND ROBIN Plush Dolls, or as some people call them, "Plushes". I love these fun toys, they're great! If you're a Fan of this kinda stuff you should check out her website, just click HERE!
Here are some wonderful photos sent in by a Bat-Blog Fan named Neal who has some extremelty cool BATMAN items in his Toy Collection. Shown here are just 3 shelves of his stuff & it makes me wonder what other cool stuff he has, ha! But I really like this collection & love how it's all displayed, looks cool! ( Be sure to click on these small pics for larger, more detailed versions ).
There are some 13" Dolls, Misc Action Figures, Hot Wheels Batmobiles, & even some Vintage Toys like the 60's Vinyl Hand Puppet & Ideal Bat-Helmet Mask. Oh yeah, and the last photo should make you drool for days because it mainly features those beautiful MEGO 8" Dolls from the 1970's, plus a few more modern-day Custom Figures. ( Thank you for sharing this Neal, great stuff! ) If any other readers want to share their pics then please send us an email. That offer is always OPEN because the Bat-Blog is all about the joys of Bat-Collecting!!
Just a quick post: I'm sort of getting flooded with emails from people saying they are finding the new RETRO-ACTION DC SUPER HEROES figures by Mattel in retail stores right now so be sure to keep an eye out for them! The 1st wave of toys include Batman, Aquaman, Black Manta, & Two-Face. Anyone who grew-up with Mego Dolls are gonna totally love these!
OK Boys & Girls!! Today is the day we announce the lucky winner of the "1978 Reimagined Mego" Fantasy Catalog! But first I want to thank the MEGO MUSEUM for donating this wonderful prize because it is an extremely cool product! The color photos, custom toys, & overall design is very very excellent. Now, last night ( around midnight ) we pulled a random number out of a hat. We then checked our list of entries & the lucky winner is...Josh W. of Burlington, VT. Dude, you're our lucky winner!! Now, we will contact you again to confirm your address. Once that's done you will be getting this baby in the mail, congrats! For everybody else who entered we want to wish you luck on our next contest & sorry you didn't win this time. Hey, if I was a super-rich billionaire, like Bruce Wayne, then I would have sent everyone of these, ha!
To sort of continue the "DC Comics 75th Anniversary" event Mattel has released a special boxed set of POLLY POCKET Figures called "Dressed For Justice!". You get 3 dolls of the main Polly Pocket characters dressed-up in Supergirl, Wonder Woman, & Batgirl costume! Personally, I really like the one of Batgirl, very cute, & the packaging is pretty cool too the way the box-lid slides open to reveal the figures inside. That's a neat design concept. This toy will hit stores soon & the retail price will be around $20.00, keep an eye out. ( I know that little girls are gonna go totally crazy for these! )
Over at the MEGO MUSEUM they recently thought about the idea of "What if the Mego Toy Company had NOT gone out of business & they had created a 1978 Toy Catalog?". What would it look like & what sort of products might they have come out with? Well, here's the answer! The Mego Museum has made an extremely cool "fake catalog" of "1978" Mego Dolls & Accessories titled "1978 REIMAGINED". It's loaded with a ton of beautiful color photos showing many Custom Mego Dolls of items we all wish they would have had the chance to make. What if they extended their line of Superhero Toys? What if they made some 8" KISS Dolls? How about if they made Cartoon Characters like Scooby Doo? What about the early SUPERMAN Movies? My favorite is the idea of making dolls based on the 1966 BATMAN TV Series. They also ask the question, what if Mego had got to do Star Wars figures back in the day? The list goes on & on. This looks like a pretty cool product & a great idea. If you would like more information on this then be sure to visit their website today by clicking HERE!
Our good friend Jerry, who lives in Taiwan, sent us some amazing photos the other day. He recently went to a store at some shopping mall in Taipei City called "Taiwan Figure Union". He said he saw a lot of awesome stuff, such as these 12" Batman Movie Custom Figures that some Bat-Fans got to display in the front store windows. I have to say that they are all very impressive with really great head sculpts. I mean, some of them look just like the original actors! The main focus for most of the dolls appear to be the 2005 BATMAN BEGINS movie, but in photo #2 we get to see a version from an earlier Batman movie, maybe 1992 BATMAN RETURNS-inspired. They made one of the "R'as al Ghul" character & it looks exactly like Liam Neeson, ha! They also made a more Modern Day "Comic Book JOKER" but used the body from THE DARK KNIGHT Heath Ledger figure by HOT TOYS ( in fact, I think all these customs were made using HOT TOYS bodies and it was just the heads & clothing that were customized ). The one of Police Sergeant Jim Gordon is one of my personal favorites as they did an amazing job on Gary Oldman's face. They did a few variations on Bruce Wayne's character which are pretty interesting. Overall, I would have to say that I'm very very impressed with all of these. As a side-note: I'm not really sure if they were all done by one artist or many different ones, but either way, very great work! Also, I wanna thank Jerry for taking the time to shoot these pics & sharing his love of the Batman Character with us. It's really neat seeing what goes on in Taiwan & it's so cool that there are serious Bat-Fans there too!!
Awesome! It looks like the Tonner Doll Company is going to feature an EXCLUSIVE Deluxe Figure of THE HUNTRESS for this year's 2010 Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo known as "C2E2". The Doll will be 17" tall, very limited ( only 200 made ), & will come with an autographed certificate signed by Doll Creator Robert Tonner. At the convention you'll be able to find it at booth # 425. The retail price will be about $150.00. Now, for people living near the Chicago area, this show will be April 16th-18th, 2010. For more information, click HERE!
I have some friends over on MySpace called Wicket Toys. Their real names are Jon & Andrea and their hobby is to photograph & share their cool toy collection. They mainly seem to focus on the HOT TOYS Figures but they love a ton of other collectibles too. They recently sent me these pics of their Batman Toy Collection ( click on it for a larger version ). The top one features their HOT TOYS figures from THE DARK KNIGHT Batman Movie. I really want that TWO-FACE doll & the ones of the JOKER are really great too. OK, they're ALL super-awesome! The bottom pic shows some of their Action Figures & Vehicles. If you look, you can also see a few toys from the recent TERMINATOR movies, & Hey! Is that NEO from the Matrix?! ( Kinda hard to tell but it looks like him, ha ha! ) If you would like to see more of their toy collection then just check out their MySpace page sometime. Here's a link, click HERE!
This is a really nice story. Here's some pics sent in by a Bat-Blog Reader named Johnny. When he was a little kid, back in the 1970's, a lady who was a good neighbor made him some Batman & Robin clothes for his large 12" GI Joe Dolls. They were made to sort of be like the Mego Superhero Figures we all know & love. Well, out of sentimental reasons he has kept these outfits for all these years. Later, he got some large dolls to display the mini-costumes as a way to remember her ( she recently passed away ). Now I think these clothes are just totally wonderful & she did a great job on them. OK, I know that they're not totally perfect or completely accurate but a lot of goodness & love went into making them. So for that reason they're really special. Plus, they actually are pretty cool! Thanks to Johnny for sharing his nice story & pics.
Straight from the 2010 TOY FAIR here comes this awesome set of photos showing some of the brand-new RETRO-ACTION DC SUPER HEROES Action Figure Dolls!! Anybody who grew-up in the 1970's will totally remember 8" Mego Dolls & these are designed to be just like them...AWESOME!! I played with the original ones as a little kid! These are made by Mattel & in the 1st photo you can see the whole wave. There will be Superman, Sinistro, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Aquaman, Lex Luthor, Black Mantis, Two-Face, & Batman/Bruce Wayne. For the next few pics I'm just showing the Batman-related ones because that's what the Bat-Blog is all about...Cool Batman Toys!! But I am totally loving these figures & can't wait to get them all!!
More News from TOY FAIR 2010: OK, you know the toy company named FUNKO? They make those awesome Wacky Wobbler Nodders. I really love those things. Well, now they have another division in their company that makes cute Character Plush Dolls ( or Plushes ). They're doing the Wizard of OZ, Alice in Wonderland, & the Justice League of America! To get things started here are Batman, The Flash, Green Lantern, & Superman. Now this totally makes me wonder since they finally ( finally! ) got the right to do DC Comics comic book characters then maybe, just maybe, they might start to make a few Funko Bobblehead Nodders. That would be so awesome!!
I'm kinda proud of the fact that the Bat-Blog is one of the #1 places that people enjoy sharing their love of Batman Toy collecting. I've been a total Toy Collector for over 20 years & I am always still amazed when I see other people's collections. I don't know, it's just a really neat experience. Here's a great example. The other day I got an e-mail from a Bat-Blog Fan named Jason. You might remember his cool Joker & Poison Ivy Tattoo Photos we posted recently. Well, he sent us some pics of his awesome JOKER TOY collection!! I gotta say that there are some very great "Prince of Crime" items shown here, Ha Ha Ha! I love how it's all displayed so nicely. Plus, it's really cool to see a bunch of Joker stuff all together. I like collections that focus on a certain aspect of Batman. A few people I know focus mainly on the Batmobile Cars, for example. I wanna thank Jason for sharing these wonderful photos. Jason, I know you sent more pics than this but because of space limitations I had to tweet then down a little. But, overall, this is a nice representation of your amazing collection. Thanks for sending them, I appreciate that a lot. Hey everybody, if you have a collection ( Toys, Comics, Props, Art, etc..) that you enjoy then please shoot us some pics this week & send them in...the main focus of the Bat-Blog is sharing the love of collecting!!
OK, since today is "Wacky Wallpaper Wednesday" and the Bat-Blog is mainly all about the love of collecting Vintage Batman Toys, I thought that today's Desktop Backgrounds would be "Retro Bat-Toy" related. The 1st one is the totally beautiful BOX ART for the 1970's MEGO BATMAN BATCAVE PLAYSET! This is one of those vinyl case toys that open-up to become an environment for dolls or figures. In this case, it's the Mego Doll 8"Action Figures...CRAZY! The next wallpaper uses the graphics found on an original package of 1966 BATMAN TV SHOW VIEW-MASTER REELS. I used to completely love these things as a little kid & would stare at them for hours, ha ha! Now, if you don't like these backgrounds then please keep in mind that we have hundreds more here at the Bat-Blog! Just click the button down below for the most current ones ( around the last 20 or so ) or be sure to check the BAT-BLOG ARCHIVES ( located at the lower left-side of this page ) for many many more!
Here's an interesting video of a Foreign TV News Story about the HOT TOYS Doll & Action Figure Company. It shows a lot of great shots of The Dark Knight Tumbler Batmobile Toy with the Batman Figure. Also included are the Joker Action Figure ( Heath Ledger, Version 2 with Rolling Eyes & Policeman Uniform ). Plus they cover some of their other movie properties very briefly. That list includes: Terminator Salvation, Watchmen, Ironman, The Godfather, & many more! But really the main part of the story seems to be Batman!
Here's a pretty cool video I came across & I can't help but think this is our old friend Martin from the UK. He was really into collecting Custom Dolls & Action Figures, especially ones that were related to the 1966 Batman TV Series. Hmmm, I need to contact him & see. Either way this video is very interesting. In it this toy collector showcases his collection of Custom Toys that were made to resemble 4 Bat-Villians who were known as THE UNITED UNDERWORLD in the BATMAN feature film of 1966. The evil group included The Riddler ( Frank Gorshin ), Catwoman ( Lee Merriwether ), The Penguin ( Burgess Meredith ), & The Joker ( Cesar Romero )! Now, before you freak-out & start asking, "where do I buy these?", ha ha. These Mego Dolls are all custom made, even the display boxes. But you have to admit they're all extremely well-done. The head sculpts of each character look almost exactly like the real-life actors. The costumes are very accurate too & the display boxes are just a total bonus! Martin, if these are yours please contact me.
