Joebot

Hey everyone, I finally wrapped up the "Origin of Mr. Fister" storyline. I've actually had the pictures done for weeks, but it's just taken me forever to get the time to put the pages together. Sorry for the long delay. Hope you enjoy!! As always, please let me know what you think! -Joebot

The police "battle pack" sounds interesting, although I certainly don't need any more policemen in my town. It's nice to see TLC continuing this concept of a small set with 5-6 figures and some accessories. In terms of City stuff, it's disappointing to see rehashes of previous themes (police, Space Port) rather than some new stuff. I did enjoy this phrase in the description of the series 3 collectible figs: HA! I have no idea what that is, but I know I want one!! I'm assuming there's probably a comma missing in there somewhere? Punctuation is important, kids!

Sounds like there's a lot of "buyer's remorse" in this thread. It's not that surprising actually. For many collectors, the fun part is the "hunt." The challenge comes from acquiring the items. Once they're purchased ... well, the fun is kinda over then, and it's just another thing on the shelf that you have to dust around. I love the idea of the mini-figures, and I think the individual figure designs are terrific. I just hate the way that TLC marketed and sold these things. The blind packaging, artificial scarcity, and bizarre distribution (here in the U.S. anyway) sucked out a lot of the fun for me.

Wow! I love the fact that it's actually a playable boardgame! My other hobby is boardgames, so this is really amazing. I've heard of Ave Caesar, but never played it.

Good question. Off the top of my head, I can think of three other existing pieces: - a green / white pine tree from an old Belville set - dark green / grey rock piece - Fawkes the phoenix (red / orange)

Really well done! It's hard to convey a mood through Lego bricks, but the isolation and lonliness come through very strongly. Maybe in Series 4 of the collectible mini-figs, TLC will come out with a cave woman. Then you could re-enact all the naughty bits from "Clan of the Cave Bear!"

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you don't have kids, do you? Intellectually, your argument makes sense. From the perspective of my 10-year-old son though? Not so much. From his point of view, there is a HUUUUUUUGE difference in "value" between the Spartan and, say, the pop singer.

Good post, Fred67. You hit on a lot of points that have really frustrated me about these collectible figs, and I appreciated your well-articulated viewpoint. In regards to the blind packaging, you're right that it has been around for a long time, and it DOES work well ... for the company. It's very anti-consumer, which is why I hate it so much. It's a transparent ploy to get you to spend money on stuff you don't want in the hopes that you get what you DO want. They try to spin it as being "fun to collect them all!" It's not fun though. It's not fun to watch your kids be disappointed. I guess I'm just frustrated that Lego would go this route. They've always been a consumer-friendly company, with a good product, excellent customer service, and a positive family-friendly message. Blind packaging undermines all of that. I wouldn't exactly call it "sleazy," but ... well ... maybe it is kinda. It's bit a line a carnival game with a carny trying to get you to play. You KNOW the game is rigged and you're going to lose ... but hey, maybe you'll get lucky, so you give it a try. The fact that you can't actually FIND the damn things here in the U.S. just acerbates the problem. If you could find these things everywhere at grocery stores, gas stations, and Walgreens, hanging next to the gum and candy at the checkout counter, then it's just an impulse buy. It's $2, big deal. Instead, it's a stressful hunt and a race to beat the scalpers. When you invest that much time and energy into it, you'd like to be able to buy what you actually WANT!

Lego is definitely leaving money on the table. It's a really strange business plan. I have $32 in my pocket that I would love to give to Lego in exchange for 16 mini-figures, but it's like they're pushing the money away. I simply cannot find their product. I've stopped at TRU and my local Lego store every day this week, and I have yet to see a single series 2 figure. They're like the Loch Ness Monster -- people claim to have seen them, but I don't really believe they exist. So, instead, my money will go to the scalpers and hoarders on the secondary market. I guess you could argue that Lego already got their money when the scalpers purchased the mini-figure, so they don't care about the secondary market. That seems short-sighted to me. Had Lego simply manufactured enough product to meet demand (and actually had some sort of logical distribution scheme here in the U.S.), they could have easily sold, what ... twice as many figures? Three times? Ten times??

No such luck around here (Schaumburg, IL). I called the Lego Store in Woodfield Mall this morning, and was told they got a shipment on Monday and sold out within 24 hours. They have no idea if they're going to get anymore. The Toys R Us neraby is either sold out or never got any(I can't even find a shelf tag that says anyting about "series 2 minifigures"). So, I guess this is supposed to be "fun," huh?

You got that right. The distribution here in the States is beyond maddening. I suspect part of the problem is that the retail employees are snatching these things up before they ever get out onto the sales floor. That's not unhead of for in-demand collectibles.

Awesome, thanks SavaTheAggie! Or should I say, "Gig 'em!" (my ex-wife was an Aggie, so I know the lingo). So, does this mean that series 2 has finally hit the North American shores somewhere??

You mean with the terrible distribution, artificial scarcity, blind packaging, and the scalpers?? Those things aren't fun??!?! Yeah, here in the U.S., it was pretty much the opposite of fun. If the mini-fig designs weren't so freaking awesome, I would just ignore the entire product line and save myself the aggravation!

Five bucks?!?! Geez, and I thought the $2.50 that TRU was charging was gouging the customer. Well, I guess it's still cheaper than eBay or Bricklink for Series 1 ...

The Winter Toy Shop was sold here in the U.S., so I don't know why the Bakery set wouldn't be too. I'm guessing it will be a Lego exclusive (Lego stores and online only). I have two very minor issues with the set (which I mostly really love): 1) I'm not a fan of the roof. I don't like the mix of plates and slope bricks. They should have picked one or the other and stuck with it. 2) I wish they'd resused the lamp design from the Toy Shop, just to give the two sets a nice continuity.

Space Port is an under-rated theme. Especially when you look at in the context of the other City sets from that era. That was at the aboslute worst period of Lego City set design. The Space Port stuff was pretty decent though. I ended up buying most of it, and still have it all put together. The light/sound brick from my 6456 - Mission Control still works! That being said, since I do still have all my Space Port I sets, I have almost no interest in "Space Port II." Along with the news about no Original Trilogy Star Wars sets, 2011 is going to be a cheap year for me.

A card game, huh? Interesting. Having taken on the boardgame market last year, now TLC is going to invade the Collectible Card Game (CCG) market? I'm envisioning these things working like the Pokemon game, where the cards include stats that you can use to battle other ninjas. Reminds me of the game that was included within the Adventurers: Orient Expedition theme. A couple of the big sets came with a modular board, and then there were cards to go with all of the characters and vehicles. It was a neat idea, but failed in the execution. The game was just boring.

Wow, more police sets. There's a shocker. I'm sure the set designs are nice, and I'm curious to see pictures ... but, there's not really a lot here that I'm excited about. I liked the Space Port sets from '99 (those were the only decent City sets back in those dark days), and this sounds like a nice update to that sub-theme.

Hey, Zepher, thanks for the feedback! I always appreciate your comments. It's funny that you and zer1312 both commented that the issue felt "short." At 10 pages long, it's actually the longest issue I've published! There's not a lot of dialogue though, so the 10 pages go by pretty fast. Overall, this story arc was intended as a fun one-off, without a lot of connection to the ongoing, larger story. I understand your frustrations in that regard. I used to be a big fan of "Lost," and I would get bored and frustrated with the episodes that felt like they were spinning their wheels. Move the story along!! I just finished writing the next story arc. It's going to be a big one! Seven issues long, with major revelations, and some shake-ups on the team's roster!!

All good points. And maybe I am hypocritical. My opinions on this are based more on emotion and gut-reaction than coherent logic! I guess maybe this is what I'm getting at -- if TLC were to include guns in their police sets, I would feel like they're romanticizing, and perhaps even trivializing, the real-world threat posed by guns and street violence. By enabling kids to play cops-and-robbers with their mini-figs and toy guns, it would seem like they're making light of what is an actual, real problem. Things like Indiana Jones, Batman, Star Wars, pirates, knights, etc., don't exist, so they seem harmless. There's nothing to trivialize, because those things are pure fiction. When my son (10 years old) plays with my Lego collection, his stories are always filled with violence. There's always good guys and bad guys, and stuff is blowing up. But, he's building these crazy robots with, like, 17 laser guns and a giant buzzsaw on the front. That doesn't bother me at all. But if, for example, he were playing "drug gangster," and he had thugs killing cops ... well, then we'd have to have a little talk about what's an appropriate story to act out. No, of course not. I don't think anyone in this thread is trying to make THAT argument. That would be a whole new debate! This has been a very interesting thread!! It's nice that we can have discussions like this on a politically loaded topic like guns, and everyone is very polite and civil, even when we disagree.

I stopped in at my nearby Lego Store yesterday (Schaumburg, IL), and asked the clerk when they're getting Series 2 in. He said not until the first week of September. That seems like a long ways off!!

I dunno, saying "violence is violence" seems like an over-simplification to me. For instance, I have no problem with my kids pounding on each other with those Lego foam swords and shields. But if TLC made foam pistols and shotguns??? That's not gonna fly at my house. My kids aren't allowed to have toy guns. So, what's the difference then? It's hard for me to explain, but it just feels different. Using swords and shields to role-play as some romaticized version of a Medieval knight seems harmless. Using modern-era guns though? That just hits "too close to home." I live in Chicago, which has been plauged by a horrible rash of street violence in the past few months. Adding weapons to the City theme, even if only the police have the guns ... it just seems kinda tasteless.

I was just thinking the same thing -- as beautiful as this model is, I think it would be VERY tedious to actually build those two huge, identical towers.

I'm gonna go with "no." In my mind, there's a clear difference between themes that are fantasy-based (castle, space, pirates, wild west, Star Wars, Prince of Persia) and the City theme, which is meant to mimic the real, modern world. The fantasy-based themes are generally conflict-driven and filled with weapons, but I think that's okay, because kids are smart enough to know when they're simply role-playing. I think introducing that sort of armed conflict into the City theme would be tasteless and inappropriate. I don't want to see TLC sign a license to make sets based on HBO's "The Wire." Although, an Omar mini-fig would be awesome ... Besides, Lego cops don't need guns. They can simply overwhelm the bad guys through sheer force of numbers. There's one cop for every two or three citizens!!

I guess that will help, but what they really need to do is manufacture MORE of the figs, not just spread the same small number of figs around to more stores. That just means each store will have even fewer figs to sell.