US culture has gone through its fair share of ‘retro’ periods, but none has been quite so enduring and tenacious as our revisitation to the 1980s. I believe that this is because our attachment and willingness to return to our innocent childhoods in the 80s is directly proportional to how dissatisfied we are with the way the world operates today. That, and Men Without Hats were pretty amazing.

The recent 25th anniversary of GI Joe surely brought my generation a bit of cognitive dissonance. While our general unhappiness with the government seems to dominate our mindset (until recently), GI Joe also represents that same government. Of course, GI Joe actually represents the government what we wish we had – America’s secret fightin’ team faces off against hissing terrorists with a penchant for stealing the Statue of Liberty and emerge victorious, mitigating damage to the point where the whole situation ends with a hearty laugh and the bad guys sulk away, soundly humiliated. Those guys got stuff done, dammit.

Do we need all of these re-envisionings of our childhood heroes into super-exploding, larger than life, realistic movies? Absolutely not, but maybe the eleven and twelve year olds of today do. Cel animation just doesn’t charm like it used to.

Shout! Factory’s release of GI Joe Season 1.1 has all of this, plus gigantic rub-on tattoos. Unless your kid has serious glandular problems, it’s pretty obvious that these are meant for the adult collector. These would dwarf lesser arms. This is just one of many indications that this set has been made for the collectors.

All 22 episodes remain firmly intact across four discs, complete with animation blips, ‘we’ll be right back’ bumpers and credits that feature the original Hasbro logo. It’s as close to the original airings as possible, which collectors will definitely appreciate. The set also includes a booklet with handy episode synopses, which might help you pinpoint that favorite episode across one of the many 5-episode arcs. Given how often we have to suffer through poorly ‘remastered’ versions of things, this is awesome.

DVD bonuses include a three-part interview with one of the original authors, which runs for about 20 minutes in total. While an insight into the process of writing something both narrative and toyetic is interesting, it’s a little dry and definitely for dedicated fans.

Of special interest to me is the original 1963 GI Joe 12” figure presentation that Hasbro showed to press and investors at the 1963 Toy Fair. As a Toy Fair attendee, I am very comforted by the fact that Hasbro’s been boring the living snot out of people with patronizing presentations for decades, and that it’s not just me. I loves ya, Hasbro, but 2 hours of Powerpoint? I got a cramp in my everything and I never wanted to see another toy again.

The DVD also presents some original, and oft parodied (warning : link NSFW!), ‘Knowledge is Half the Battle’ PSAs – six in all. Future anthropologists will surely wonder about the IQ of the 20th century, what with animated kids swimming in thunderstorms and eating glass and playing in traffic.

With this release of GI Joe on DVD, we’re one step closer towards completing the holy quartet of 1980s boy cartoons. We already have handsome editions of Thundercats and Masters of the Universe, so with Shout!’s GI Joe and Transformers reissues, both pure in their content and presentation, we’re almost there.

And, appropriately, happy Fourth of July.

It was many a month ago that I read about a little company called Ponoko in Wired, or Make, or some other magazine that makes me look hip. Based in New Zealand, they used lasers to cut things up. As if the words ‘New Zealand’ weren’t enough to enchant the pants off of me, ‘lasers’ were just the icing on the proverbial cake. At this point, my pants were a distant memory at best.

Ponoko wasn’t cutting up just anything – they were cutting your designs into materials of your choice. As long as it was flat and you could plot it out using a vector graphics program, you could have it made. The possibilities kinda took over my whole brain, so when a Ponoko hub opened up in California, and I knew that I had to make something. Anything. I needed more lasers in my life.

No, this wasn’t like my obsession with the LEGO Creator program, where I made a giant $100 Iron Monger out of a pre-set collection of plastic pieces. I was going to make my very own pieces into my very own item. Making one laser-perfect item of my own devising was super exciting, but the idea that I could potentially make hundreds of identical items was even more amazing. All of these custom art toys, all of these shapes I’ve been seeing in my head, and all of these crazy items I’ve had in my head since high school were now makeable.

I immediately set to work sketching, measuring, analyzing materials and concocting plans to make a science fiction astronaut character out of flat pieces of 6.0mm thick wood. While the NZ hub has a huge array of materials readily available to fabricators, from fabrics to acrylic panels and fancy hardwoods, the US hub is still coming up to speed with their material complement. In the meantime, Ponoko has compensated for this difference by offering shipping prices from NZ comparable to shipping from CA. I wanted my stuff quick and easy, so I stuck to the US.

Because I didn’t expect my initial attempts at designing to fit together flawlessly, I plotted out two different prototypes – similar in shape and purpose but using completely different structures, one a little tricker than the other. After encountering a lot of difficulty with uploading the very specific files (which turned out to be a glitch on my end), and with some quick and personal help from Ponoko staff via e-mail and on their forums, I managed to get my prototypes uploaded into the system, which does a great job of altering you if something about your file is incomplete or incorrect.

Despite the US hub being hammered with orders, my designs were organized, cut and were in the mail to me in less than 24 hours. Potential designers should note that the pricing to make your stuff is determined by a lot of factors. You’re charged for your materials and the amount of time it takes for the laser to cut out your designs. The more lines you have, and the more complex the shape, the more it’ll cost you. This is where a bulk of the cost seems to come in. Shipping is also a little expensive, due to the special size requirements of most shipments exceeding typical packaging. If you buy a Ponoko membership, which is $39 a month, your costs will be significantly cheaper. I managed to save $17 in my first order alone. By order #2, the membership cost will almost completely cancel itself out.

The next week was spent in a state of nearly wetting myself with excitement, waiting for the Ponoko cut pieces to arrive. I spent the time making other components that would be used in the final product, and playing a whole lot of Evony, because the nearly-naked elf chick that Google Ads was showing me insisted upon it.

The pieces arrived on a Monday, right before work. It smelled like a delicious fireplace. All of the cut pieces rested safely in the cradle of the wood that they were cut out of, backed on both sides with a protective film to hold them in place, waiting for me to pop ‘em out. Despite some of these pieces being incredibly tiny, and as narrow as 1mm thick, everything was so perfectly cut that I was able to use every piece that popped out of the puzzle. And because of my precision measuring, and the ever-so-slight material loss because of the laser cut, all of my notches and grooves slid together with a perfection so excellent that it was almost poetic.

Since the prototypes worked with such ease, it’s now time to go back into the files and perfect them so that they’re optimized for cost and quantity, slipping in all of my needed pieces into the allotted spaces, leaving no empty, wasted space. There is where I can begin mass production – an army of original characters to take over the art world, or at least a few display shelves.

Official production pieces, pieces that are entirely handmade, and pieces that are handmade out of manufactured materials all have varied collectability and audiences, and all depend on the materials used, as well as the popularity of the artist. While my dreams of grandeur are mighty, we’ll see how my little spaceman fares. Perhaps it’s the first step towards a collectible empire. So, my thanks go out to Ponoko for finally making this collection of ideas finally real, and hopefully, the readers will swing on by and make some awesome stuff that I can collect too. It’s an awesome experience to see these things come to life. You can also visit the existing store of products and buy your own awesomely design-centric stuff.

Here’s a sneak peek of my Spaceman. Shhhh.

It’s time to check in with the bi-annual Batman watch. I mean, it’s a pretty hourly thing for me on a personal level, but I choose to make it public twice a year – for your benefit.

We’ve finally seen a healthy ebb in the Batman Returns merchandise that Mattel had clogged the local toy shelves with. Wal-Mart can only carry so many slightly different variations of Christian Bale’s Cookie Monster Batman and not-even-close-to-Heath Ledger 4” Jokers, which have pretty much dominated more shelf space than they ever had the right to. Unless you stumble upon a super-rare Movie Masters ‘Unmasked Batman’ or ‘Fear Batman’ with the all-black ghoul mask, these aren’t worth squat. Even the Movie Masters Jokers, which exploded in secondary market value shortly after Heath Ledger’s death, are now commonplace as they’re no longer serving as creepy personal memorials.

New from Mattel, however, is the super adorable ‘Action League’ Batman, based on the ‘Brave & the Bold’ cartoon. While Hasbro pioneered the chunky ‘Superhero Squad’ style of simplified figure, which was quickly emulated by every other toy company, Mattel enters the fray with the most animated, clean bunch of figures.

Collectors and completists, please note that there are three different Batmen in this line at this time. Two Batmen, both in classic blue and grey, come in two different fightin’ poses – one holding a Batarang. They’re available in single packs for around $5, but also come in two-packs with villians. A third Batman, decked out in his grey and blacks, comes with the Batmobile set, which also includes the Clock King and retails for around $20. For my money, the Action League blows away the sloppy paint and occasionally goofy sculpting that Hasbro launched the aesthetic with.

UK’s Eaglemoss Publications, responsible for the popular Marvel Classic Figurine Collection, has recently started releasing DC Comics characters into the US – starting with a 4” lead statue of Batman, which I couldn’t resist. They’ll run you about $10 a piece, are planned to span a huge amount of characters., and all come with a pretty impressive glossy magazine that details the minutae of each character’s developments, statistics, enemies, and a ton of pictures. Most of these pieces are great – heroic poses, clean paint and excellently sculpted – but there’s also the occasional piece that doesn’t exactly fill the mold and will come out warped, completely broken, or will get painted blindly. As a result, it’s best to know what you’re looking at before you bring it home. Also, don’t eat it.

The next two Batmen of significance both come from DC Direct’s statue lines.

The ‘Batman Black & White’ line has been an excellent way for DC Direct to show off the art of dozens of different illustrators and how they interpret Batman. Bruce Timm’s May 2009 entry into the series is only the third Batman in the series that has never appeared in a canonical comic, and might just be the Batman with the widest audience, because that audience includes my mom. I admit to a distinct love of Bruce Timm’s squared-off Batman, since it was through the 1990s cartoons that I really found my inner Batman. Only 4000 of these were made, but don’t expect these later pieces to increase in value. Early pieces from the series, like Mike Mignola’s statue, now sell for around $200, while Brian Bolland and Eduardo Risso’s statues have peaked at around $100. Considering the original price of around $50, that’s not too shabby – but those are the only three that have truly taken off.

Finally, there’s one more Batman statue from DC Direct that was released last month, as the second release from the new (but ongoing) Heroes of the DC Universe line. Based on the art of Carlos Pacheco and sculpted by superstar Jean St. Jean, it’s more if an ‘iconic’ Batman than a ‘dynamic’ Batman – a good piece to anchor the display, and in full color.

It’s a bevy of Batmen, and despite this flagging economy, I’m still all in for Batman. Sorry, Iron Man – you’ll just have to be on hold for now.

By now, you know that the King of Pop has passed on. One’s fame is directly proportional to how fast people will learn the intimate details of your life, or death, as the case may be, so the news traveled quickly. The folder of Michael Jackson songs on my hard drive is once again seeing use, and people have been coming into the library looking for something, anything, about MJ. It’s strange how a person who, in life, was reduced to little more than a punch line is suddenly revered in death.

Where celebrity meets mortality, there is eBay.

When Steve Irwin died, the gulf between his collectability before and after death was cavernous. A doll that didn’t sell for $18 on Monday was selling for over $350 on Wednesday. Sellers immediately pulled their Irwin auctions so that they could relist them at inflated prices.

While Irwin’s fame was perhaps C-level at best, MJ’s ascent towards collectability has always existed, and has been on a fairly constant climb since his self-imposed isolation began years ago, soon after his unconventional relationships with children were explored. When you offer less of yourself to your adoring public, the demand increases. You become a modern deity. Your signature becomes evidence of the hand of god.

Why people grieve with money is another issue entirely, but it happens. We all express ourselves differently, and I’m not here to question that. It’s the vultures, those resellers whose businesses are predicated on death and injury, who make their appearance now. Yes, we’re in a bad economy and people need to make a living, but it’s endlessly profitable to pinpoint which celebrities are in failing health, scoop up as much of them as you can on eBay, and wait for the inevitable. After losing two different sources of income over the past 2 months, don’t be surprised if you see me stalking Hollywood with a pen and a baseball bat soon.

Of course, there are also those people who buy stuff immediately after a celebrity’s death in the hopes that the value will Increase – much like the people who went out and bought comics when they read that Captain America died. Too late, fellas. Things tend to peak in the few days immediately following a tragedy. By the time your signed 8 x 10 arrives in the mail, it’ll be worth less than what you paid for it. Mourning does not age like wine.

Most telling is this MJ coin. Manufactured by a no-name company in China, and not even licensed, it failed to sell for a mere $7 on June 23rd, and multiple times before that. On June 26th, the closing bid hit over $117. This seller definitely doesn’t fall under the ‘vulture’ category, as it’s an item that was already listed on eBay before MJ’s death, they certainly lucked into a killer sale.

While general memorabilia are selling strong, it’s signed items that remain the truly powerful sellers after a death strikes. People can always print up another poster, but the quantity of celebrity X’s signatures has just become finite.

Amazon’s top 16 albums, as of this writing, are all Michael Jackson albums, pushing Regina Spektor and Wilco into the high teens, with more MJ albums peppering the rest of the countdown also. I’d presume that illegal downloads also skyrocketed during these past 24 hours.

Interestingly, this spells interesting things for Beatles collectors also. Upon MJ’s death, the rights to every Beatles song that he owned reverted back to Paul McCartney. As a Rock Band fanatic, I have to wonder if this sudden change in song rights will affect the release date of Rock Band : Beatles, currently scheduled for September. Death doesn’t need to be more complicated.

An strange man with a stranger life – but what artist isn’t? Thanks for everything.

I can’t count how many times my college roommate and I played the Transformers G1 theme song in our dorm room, appreciating the simplicity and impenetrable complexity of the exposition-laden tune. We did the same thing with Tiny Tim’s ‘Livin’ in the Sunlight’, except as loud as we possibly could, and projected into the dining hall courtyard. What a team we were.

I also have a confession to make. I never watched Transformers as a kid. I mean, not consciously. My heart and soul were owned by the Thundercats and Masters of the Universe, both of which were more comfortably fantastical and less explodey than the uber-masculine GI Joe and Transformers cartoons. I had a light green Transformers dumptruck that I lost the stickers to, and I’m sure that there was at least one Optimus Prime floating around the house, but despite my later obsession with all things robotic, Transformers just didn’t factor into those early years. I know – I’m a horrible child of the 80s. I’ll turn in my membership card at the end of this post.

This doesn’t mean that retroactively loving the Transformers, for what they were and have become, is out of the question. I maintain enough youthful glee and scholarly appreciation of pop culture and animation to ‘get’ what the Transformers were about. And if I ever forget, I’ll just refer back to that amazing theme song. And I’d be lying if I didn’t also admit to having a box full of Transformers toys, just because they’re neat as hell.

The Transformers, as in the original Transformers (or ‘Generation 1’ as they’re referred to) came before watching Beast Wars while eating cereal and getting ready to go to high school, and long before waking up at 5 AM with Cartoon Network blaring some especially obnoxious iteration of Transformers with huge anime eyes (which even I knew was trash).

It’s nice to get back to the roots of the Transformers with this Complete First Season DVD set, which is something a precursor to the Matrix of Leadership collection due out  in mid-July, both of which celebrate 25 years of Transformers in the US. Let’s hope that the giant, complete Matrix set doesn’t preclude the slow release of the original season sets after this first collection. These newest releases are unique, however. Shout! Factory didn’t just re-release old DVDs of Transformers material – in these 16 episodes (many of them multi-part epics), Shout! actually went back and found lost footage and rearranged the animation so that it would appear as originally broadcast, so if you’re looking for a pure experience, this is the first place to find it…. I mean, next to taking a time machine back to the 1980s and hijacking a TV and some Nintendo Cereal System. That’s right, I said it.

So, the value of this DVD set to purist collectors is immediately apparent. Plus, there’s a freakin’ huge Autobot magnet in the package.

The first 2 discs in the 3-disc set are pure episodic fun, and I love diving into cel animation with lush, painted backgrounds and viewing ‘the art of doing a lot with as few frames as possible’. Disc 3 is all of the bonus materials, which are mostly comprised of a 20-minute documentary about the relationship between the toys and the cartoon – which existed to sell each other. No one’s shy about the fact that the original Transformers was a giant toy commercial, and while it’s not talked about quite as much anymore, it’s pretty obvious that this has never changed. Transformers has been one of the toy brands that never really disappeared from toy shelves over a 25 year history, which is a statement that doesn’t apply to many action figures at all.

Other bonuses : Transformers toy commercials that charmingly look like they were copied off of a jittery VHS tape, a vintage PSA about running away from home, and a printable script. This all leads me to believe that there’s a lot more coming by way of bonuses in subsequent sets. While these are nice, they only seem to scratch a surface of something that has developed a very complex mythos and dedicated fanbase.

Potential Transformers fans, this is your gateway in. Finally understand the difference between the Autobots and the Decepticons. Learn that robots actually have personalities and emotions and different powers. And finally, begin to grasp about a thousand cultural references that happen in today’s more awesome TV shows. Pick it up this week for around $30.