On January 10, 2020, production on the G.I. Joe spin-off Snake Eyes officially moved to Japan. To celebrate, the cast and crew assembled at Hie-Jinja Shrine to receive a traditional blessing ahead of the beginning of shooting in Tokyo.
Continue reading “‘Snake Eyes’ Production Heads to Japan”
A few months back, I took some time to reflect on Mattel’s final wave of Batman-related action figures. After nearly two decades in the DC Comics licensing game, Mattel finally gave way to a new licensee. McFarlane Toys (and Spin Masters) were going to be the new holders of the DC legacy though little was known about what either toy company would offer. All we knew was that the figures would debut some time in 2020. Well, it’s a new year, and all that has changed!
Continue reading “McFarlane Toys Officially Picks up the DC Multiverse Baton”
Even though The Good Place is by far one of the best shows on TV, there is not a lot of official merch available for the series. Fortunately, Funko is rectifying that situation by unveiling a series of Pop! Vinyl figures featuring everyone’s favorite Soul Squad. The show may be ending, but it can now live on forever on your display shelves for all of Jeremy Bearimy.
Take a look at each Pop! below and pre-order from Entertainment Earth now for delivery in June 2020.
Continue reading “Oh Dip! You Can Now Pre-Order ‘The Good Place’ Funko Pops”
When it was announced late last year that Mattel would be losing the master license to make DC Comics-related action figures, I wasn’t sure how to react. On the one hand, I had pretty much stopped buying Mattel’s offerings when they ended their DC Universe Classics line around 2012. On the other, I’ve been an avid collector of these figures ever since popular action figure sculptors the Four Horsemen gave us Zipline Batman in 2003. Of course, in the years since, I moved on — preferring more premium toymakers like SH Figuarts for my DC fix. But I couldn’t help coming back to Mattel one last time for an all-Batman wave to close out their 16-year run on the character.
Continue reading “Batman R.I.P.: Mattel’s Last Line of DC Multiverse Figures”
Star Wars has just revealed their new products via their global livestream with the cast and creatives of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Star Wars: The Mandalorian, and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.
Continue reading “Triple Force Friday is Coming… Are You Ready?”
I’m actually on vacation right now, but the moment news broke that Crazy Rich Asians star Henry Golding was in talks to play the lead in Paramount’s G.I. Joe solo Snake Eyes movie, I couldn’t not write about it!
Continue reading “An Asian ‘Snake Eyes’ is All I’ve Ever Wanted”
It looks like Lin-Manuel Miranda won’t be the only one making his San Diego Comic-Con debut this year!
Entertainment Earth has revealed a new In The Heights pin mates wooden collectible item in the form of Miranda’s iconic Broadway character, Usnavi.
Continue reading “‘In The Heights’ Usnavi Toy Making Debut at San Diego Comic-Con!”
“The world needs strong women. Women who will lift and build others, who will love and be loved. Women who live bravely, both tender and fierce. Women of indomitable will.” — Amy Tenney
Earlier this month, I wrote about the debut of Toy Story’s newest character, Forky, whom will be making his arrival in Toy Story 4.
However… Woody, Buzz, and the rest of the Toy Story gang aren’t just welcoming new friends like Forky in Toy Story 4 — they’re also getting reunited with an old one.
Bo Peep is back!
Continue reading “‘Toy Story 4’ and the Amazing Women Behind the Return of Bo Peep”
I like toys. Scratch that. I LOVE TOYS.
I’m 41 years old and I’m not afraid to admit it.
Continue reading “‘Toy Story 4’ Forky is the Future, or How I’m a Real Life Bonnie”
This morning, Netflix dropped a new trailer for Stranger Things, and of course the internet lost its mind.
Continue reading “New ‘Stranger Things’ Trailer and We’re Giving Away Funko Toys”
Here’s roughly 0.008% of the neat stuff I saw at Toy Fair New York 2019, which wrapped up yesterday in Manhattan. Note, some pictured items are still in prototype stage or are works-in-progress… usually indicated by a “PENDING APPROVAL” sign. Much love and appreciation to all the toymakers, their booth representatives, and the Javits Center staff who all contributed to making the convention a huge success.
Several years ago, I wrote about the Transformers movie that broke me. Revenge of the Fallen wasn’t just a bad movie, it soured me on Transformers altogether. I was resigned to let the iconic toys and cartoons of my youth stay there in the past, and accepted that Michael Bay’s overindulgent vision for Transformers — awash in testosterone and jingoism — would never sync with my memories of the property.
Then I saw Bumblebee.
Continue reading “‘Bumblebee’ is ‘Transformers’ Finally Done Right”
In anticipation of the Christmas release of Bumblebee, Paramount has dropped a new featurette focusing on the G1 designs of the Autobots and Decepticons used in the new movie.
Continue reading “New ‘Bumblebee’ Featurette is Totally ’80s”
There’s only a few days left before everyone descends on to Baltimore, Maryland for the first ever WICOMICON Pop-Up!
Continue reading “Coming to WICOMICON? Let Us Know and Win Stuff!”
We are only a couple weeks away from Universal FanCon! We are also less than a month from the premiere of Solo: A Star Wars Story in May. So we figured: why not combine the two and give away some cool Solo merch at FanCon?
Continue reading “Attend #FanCon and Win ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’ Toys from Disney”
Late last week, I received a mysterious package from Disney. When I opened it, it was like Christmas all over again! Thanks to the fine folks at Disney, we received a slew of merchandise from the upcoming Black Panther film. And as promised, we’re going to be giving some of them away!
New Release Wednesday, The Nerds of Color, and The LEGO NINJAGO Movie have teamed up for a “master builder” contest! Submit a #legoninjago inspired build (by Sep 21st) and post with the hashtag, #legoninjagobuild2017 and win one of seven LEGO NINJAGO Movie prize packs! See the movie on Septrmber 22! Winners will be announced the same day on Twitter! Follow @TheNerdsofColor and @TheNRW for the results!
Continue reading “The LEGO Ninjago Movie ‘Inspired Build’ Contest”
Originally published at NBC Asian America
I am an avid toy collector, and every few years I like to take stock of the number of action figures that feature Asian American and Pacific Islander characters. When I started doing this in 2009, it was difficult coming up with enough figures to fill out a Top Five list. Fortunately, it has become much easier to populate these lists since AAPI visibility in pop culture has dramatically increased in the intervening years. In fact, I actually had a difficult time winnowing down this year’s list since there are so many AAPI action figures from which to choose! Moreover, nearly every slot on the list is populated by female characters, which hopefully puts to rest the fallacy that girls don’t buy action figures.
Bruce Lee was a cultural icon who revolutionized martial arts films. Freddie Mercury was the front man for the legendary rock group Queen and considered one of rock’s greatest all-time entertainers. Both of these artists sadly left the world too soon. But, thanks to a Japanese Twitter account, their memory lives on through a pair of action figures.
One week after retailers unleashed the power of #ForceFriday on Star Wars fans across the stars, Keith assesses the aftermath with fellow action figure and Star Wars enthusiast David Yeh (@coheteboy) of the Disney/Lucasfilm fansite Endor Express.
We also announce the winner of the Finn action figure from last week’s Force Friday giveaway.
Have you felt it? There’s been an awakening…
You’ve watched all of the unboxing videos. You camped in line outside Toys R Us, waiting for a special midnight opening. Now, #ForceFriday is finally here. Even though Star Wars: The Force Awakens is still three months away, you would be unwise to underestimate the power of Star Wars merchandising. Hell, you can’t spell swag with out SW, right?
Speaking of swag, we’re giving away some of it. Keep reading if you want to know how.
Continue reading “Celebrate #ForceFriday with a Finn Action Figure”
A few months back, an imgur post about a girl who turned her LEGO Friends juice bar Christmas present into a giant mecha went viral. And the internet cheered. Stupid gendered-girl LEGOs get turned into awesome robot, was the typical response I saw tossed around.
And while the robot was indeed awesome, I couldn’t help but feel a little uneasy about all of the ridicule that was being hurled at the original LEGO set. You see, my own daughter also received a similar playset for Christmas. Should she be ashamed that she wanted (and actually liked) to build the “boring” girly thing instead of the “awesome” robot thing?
Continue reading “Nothing’s Wrong with Pink and Purple Bricks: A Defense of LEGO Friends”
Originally posted at Childish Things
Disney’s next Disney Film Canon Princess isn’t set to arrive until 2019 Edit: 2016! [Sorry!], and she’s a princess of color — Moana, a Pacific Islander. In the meantime, they are introducing a new Latina princess to its cartoon universe. Elena of Avalor will be introduced on the already popular Disney cartoon Sofia the First, before receiving her full spin-off.
It is about time that Disney spread its diversity notches to the Latina community. While it reeks of tokenism, it is still an excellent opportunity for young Latina girls to have someone to look up to other than the aged up Dora the Explorer. I’m actually surprised Disney didn’t jump on a Latina character soon, considering Dora has been so popular for so long. I hope this princess does well and that the Disney TV Cartoon princesses can join their film counterparts in inspiring young girls of color to follow their dreams and work hard and all those other themes. It’s so frustrating that each group must wait their turn basically before they can have some representation on television in a big way like this.
