So here’s a new action figure comic I did featuring Mattel’s JLU figures in homage to those hokey Hostess™ ads that were always in comic books in the 70s when I was a kid:  http://www.toonanet.com/afcomix/JLUsnax.html  Also, I did another last minute entry for the Toon Weekly challenge (this week to draw a good cop and bad cop combo) and again, let me stress just how little effort I put into this as a way of apologizing for it’s hemihindquartedness but some times I just don’t put much effort into things I’m not getting paid for:    

Another week, another half-hearted entry by me for the Toon Weekly challenge (maybe I should start calling mine “Toon Weakly”) and this week’s was to create a hybrid creature of two or more things and I chose a Sand Piper and bagpipes. Initially, I chose that because they sounded alike but they actually did have similar elements in common. It came out decided less cartoony than I started as I tried to make the pattern look less simple, hence the odd mixture of styles here. (Hey, you ever try to draw a tartan plaid freehand? It ain’t easy!!)  

Here is a group caricature I was commissioned to do for the board of directors of Mountain 1st Bank (my favorite bank to make deposits in person, hey – free cookies, ice cream, coffee and soft drinks!! That’s better than a sucker at the drive through, any day!!) for Lee Beason. Thanks Lee.   

• This is tricky, I would like to announce my winning of more action figures this week, and to acknowledge and thank the others I have won in the past, but I don’t know how to do it without angering the karmic gods of fortune (as we all know, you should never brag out loud about what good luck you have or how you never get any speeding tickets, or have any accidents, bad health, etc.. because then you are just asking for it to change) or making jealous/envious anyone who thinks someone else always wins everything and then give them a specific person to hate for it. It has all been either random chance OR merit-based. Sure, maybe the odds were in my favor in a lot of the cases, but that’s due to lack of participation, not any stacking the deck or other nefarious acts on mine or anyone else’s part.

• So, tentatively, starting at the beginning, I think I first won an online action figure forum contest when I entered one that the Simpsons Collector Sector was holding to award a member for submitting the best Christmas holiday themed banner using Playmates World of Simpsons figures. I was happy to hear they had selected my entry and they let me choose my prize from a list of items they had and I picked the Simpsons Trivia Game Tin:

• That was until I started back collecting superhero figures once the Simpsons figures had stopped and Marvel Legends had begun. I believe I first won this first prize, $200 Elektra statue from the Action Figure Collectors forum by being drawn from random chance amongst the active posters there. That wasn’t such bad odds since there were a mere pittance of posters there. Another poster won the second prize, which was the red version of the same statue. Man, what a great statue and HEAVY, I was so thankful to Action Figure Collectors.com for selecting me AND for incurring the nearly $20 expense of shipping that statue tome!

• Next, I believe I won this Invisible Woman figure from the Fantastic Four movie, but I can’t remember who I won it from or what the contest involved, but just for the sake of keeping the list complete, here she is:

• Then, there was the contest that also involved posting a lot at the same, relatively vacant board but there was also a requirement to state why you wanted to win the prize. I and one other poster also won that by random drawing. The prize this time was an entire series of McFarlane Dragons. My reasons for wanting to win were that my wife collects dragons (since she – and I – was born in the Year of the Dragon) and that it would be good to get some action figures that she can enjoy for once. So, sure enough, when they got here, I gave them all to her. 

•  Next, was a contest of skill, where one had to find the Vince McMahon images hidden within the site and other sites in the Action Figure Collectors Network. I seemed to be nearly the only one playing as I promptly found two of them. I won one package but was too embarrassed to press the issue on finding the other one and let someone else have a chance. Well, after a few months, the last set of WWE Ruthless Aggression figures had STILL not been claimed, so I curtailed my self-imposed moratorium on looking for them, just to end the thing already. I found him and won a second set of wrestling figures, which, again, were sent in a big box eventually a few months later at a hefty expense to the good people over at AFC, thanks guys, again! 

•  Later I enter another actual contest of skill when I find out that Wizard World’s Toyfare forum is having a contest to make your own “Twisted Toy Fare Theater” using the photos that they provide. The winner would be chosen by a panel of judges and there are a LOT of people using this forum, unlike the other forums where my odds were very good. As it happens, though, my entry was picked as winner of the grand prize, and what a prize it was!! $1,000 (their estimate) worth of swag from the NYC Toy Fair in 2007, including a $300 Rowdy Roddy Piper figure that is worth so much, I suppose because it is only “1 of 100” made. What I like best, however, were the statues, since I don’t collect them usually, due to their high costs, compared to action figures. Particularly, I liked the huge Hulk one and the nice Ghost Rider movie statue. There was also a Boba Fett and Optimus Prime, t-shirts, Gwen Stafani candy, Spidey/Green Goblin bookends, Transformer movie press kit, other cool stuff, and a great, complete collection of Twisted Toy Fare Theatre compilations (the inspiration for my own action figure dramas). Thanks again to Wizard!! 

•  Okay, that’s great, I feel confident enough now to enter the banner contest that Enchanted Toy Chest is having to find a new web ad banner for their online action figure toy store. They picked four winners from the entries received on the threads at The Fwoosh and I was happy to hear that mine was one of them. I won a $40 gift certificate to the store and promptly used it to pre-order the final DC Direct Alex Ross figure wave. Thanks to Scott at Enchanted Toy Chest!!

• Now, finally, I get to the most recent good fortune and the collection of “Super Friends” figures which are “cute” versions of DC Heroes. I won this at The Fwoosh site. This is not a dead site at all, it’s probably the busiest action figure site there is, or at least one of them. I wasn’t counting on the odds being in my favor this time, but sure enough, out of all the posts (limited to one each) left in the contest thread, they picked mine, so thank you to Fwoosh!!

• That’s it for now, thanks again to the generous action figure community out there and please don’t hate me. 

• I finished my Mtn Xpress cartoon for next week, but can’t show it until then.  

• I finished my entry in the Toon Weekly challenge to draw a cartoon version of any 90s movie. I picked one that I could have a good old 70s-style team band with: