Joebot

I totally agree. I was checking out the Marina at TRU yesterday, thinking maybe the pictures online hadn't done the set justice. I found the set to be even LESS impressive. Without the background graphics on the box cover to give the set a sense of place, it's really going to appear bland and empty. The mini-figs aren't even that interesting. The Harbor, on the other hand, looks decent, although some raised harbor plates for the road would have been much appreciated. I'm curious to see some reviews on these to see if the Marina looks any better once it's actually built.

Gives new meaning to that old phrase about "not having a pot to p-ss in."

I fully expect to see some awesome Monthy Python "Lumberjack Song" MOCs.

You'd better hurry, because in about three years, you're going to discover girls, pack up all your Lego sets and hide them in your attic because they're "childish," and enter into your Dark Ages. About five to ten years after that, you'll realize you don't care if they're "childish," you'll dig all your dusty old Lego sets back out of the attic, then regretfully look back on all the cool sets that you missed during your Dark Ages. Don't feel bad though. It happened to all of us ....

Thanks for the comments, guys! He will be back in the very next chapter, although only briefly. Normally that's true, and I will typically have the next 6 or 7 chapters written. For whatever reason though, I've fallen behind in my writing, and I only have the next 3 chapters written. I need to get going on that! That's a very insightful critcism, Zepher. Writing is always a balance between plot and character, and I have probably strayed too far into the "plot" side of the equation lately. As for Starfish Head and Death Plie, I totally agree! As I've been redoing the special effects for the N-vasion story, I realized how much I miss those guys (especially Death Plie). I also realized that Starfish Head never called in that favor that Anemone owes him (last page of #13). I have some ideas in that direction ... I'm excited about the next few chapters, but I have to build some sets, and order a couple of torsos off Bricklink. That Speed Racer torso with the "R" on the chest definitely looks like a superhero costume to me!!

Apathy Boy wasn't really a character; he was just a handy plot device. If I couldn't figure out how to end a story, just have Apathy Boy snap his fingers and resolve everything! That's certainly convenient, but it's also boring and a bit of a cheat. I guess what I'm saying is don't look for A.B. to show up again any time soon! I know some people had guessed that Monchromancer was indeed The Benefactor, but I'm glad to see that I managed to surprise a few people.

Sorry for the long wait, but the next chapter in The Unlikely Society is done and posted. This chapter concludes the current "Headbutt and Wrench" story arc, and also ... reveals the identity of The Benefactor!! I've been milking this story for about 20 chapters now, but I figured it was time. I also finished the "special editions" of chapters 8 through 13, with updated special effects and word balloons. And, along with that, I finished the Collected Edition #2. This PDF file collects chapters 8 - 13 (the second half of the N-Vasion story). It's available on The Illustrated Section for only a dollar. I also dropped the price of the first volume to FREE! You can't beat that deal! As always, thanks for reading, and please let me know what you think!!

Her expression perfectly mirrors the expression of every Spider Man fan when they read this story. I never understood why Joe Quesada and the other senior editors at Marvel felt they couldn't write exciting, compelling stories with a married Peter Parker. They've been doing it just fine for 20+ years! Ugh. Anyway, I love this MOC, but even more than that, I love the basic idea of rendering classic comic book scenes as Lego vignettes. I hope you do some more, Dreamweb!!

What I find most frustrating about TLC's baseplates is the illogical, scattershot "strategy" behind their offerings. The return of the blue baseplate was a welcome surprise. But when TLC had those nifty Farm sets last year, why not come out with a brown baseplate to simulate a plowed field? There are some new Harbor sets coming out this summer; why not have some tan or yellow baseplates for beaches? With all the Hoth Star Wars sets they've made in the past few years, how about some white baseplates to sell alongside them?? This is not a new problem by any means. Back during the Wild West theme, the Gold Mine set had a printed curved road, but they never made a matching straight road. The Wild West theme also had sets printed with a curved river, but they never made a matching straight river. Conversely, the Rocky River Retreat set had a very cool green and blue straight river plate, but they never made a corresponding curved river. Why not?!!? Road plates are a whole other problem. Selling a "straight road / cross road" bundle was a huge mistake, and guaranteed that I will never buy another road plate direct from TLC again. At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old man ... you used to be able to buy two straight roads for $5. Now you're paying $13 for a straight road and a cross road that you may or may not want. That's a terrible deal for the consumer.

I was at the Lego Store in Schaumburg, Illinois last night, and was trying to use the dot cheatsheet. A store employee stopped and chatted with me while I was there. I was complaining about the lack of consistency in the dots, and he explained that those dots are created by the machine that presses the bags closed. The dots are intended only to be used internally within the factory to help them track / monitor various batches. The dots are supposed to then be "rolled" flat prior to the bags getting shipped out. Obviously it's not a perfect system as some bags still have dots on them, and some don't. The employee was VERY adept at the "sqeeuze" method though. He actually helped me find the figs I was looking for. He was amazingly fast too! Squeeze ... "Rock star" squeeze ... "sailor" ... squeeze ... "werewolf." I was in awe of his squeezing prowess!

Hey, there -- www.bricklink.com is your new best friend. You can find any brick in any quantity imaginable.

Dude, that is some crazy-impressive stuff right there. I was a big fan of R.A. Salvatore's books back in the day. A few years ago, I went to one of his book signings and got a couple of books autographed. He was very friendly and gracious, and told some hilarious stories to the crowd about his role-playing adventures. I don't read his Drizzt books anymore, as they started to get REALLY repetitive, but when I was younger, I loved them. Your Lego Menzoberranzan is a really great rendition of Salvatore's creation. Very, very cool.

Not sure if this counts, but -- in the original Idea Book from the 80's, Bill and Mary (the characters in the book) go to a kitchem appliance store, which features a coffee maker. Unfortunately, I don't have access to a scanner, so I can't post a picture of it.

After several fruitless trips, I again stopped by the Toys R Us in Schaumburg, IL (Chicago suburb) last night. This time, I saw the tell-tale orange box at the end of the aisle ... my heart raced ... and then sank when I drew closer and saw that the box was empty. Oh, but wait! There's one orange bag still in the bottom of the box! I grabbed it, thinking, "Okay, I'll buy just one." Then I saw that someone had cut a slit across the front of the bag and stolen the contents. The bag was emtpy. The lesson as always: People suck.

That's what she said!

I have a 10-foot square table built using 2x4s and plywood. I have two raised areas in the town, also built using 2x4s and plywood. Originally, I built the raised areas entirely out of bricks, but man, does that eat up bricks FAST. Plus, it's really hard to suspend baseplates, because they're so floppy. I later rebuilt the whole raised area, only using bricks around the edges for landscaping. It's much sturdier, plus I reclaimed a ton of Lego bricks! My raised areas are 10 bricks high, which allows for a train to go underneath.

Cherryhilltech -- I think this looks great. Very useful, with a slick, professional presentation. Oh, and welcome to Eurobricks! I love the fact that "iOS vs. Android" is the new "Mac vs. Windows."

And, so it comes to this. Our heroes finally confront Commander Awesome head-on, and it's all-out battle in the skies over Fluxington. The next chapter in my ongoing Lego supehero comic is posted! As always, thanks for reading, and please let me know what you think!!

Agreed. Whenever I see a picture of that mini-fig face here on EB, I have trouble making out the rims of its glasses, so it just looks like he has huge, freaky white eyes, like one of the Clone Wars mini-figs or something. Maybe it looks better in real life? I'm not sure, as I don't own one yet. Anyway, thanks for the review! This new theme seems like a nice update to the old Space Port theme.

TLC has tried and tried to figure girls out (Bellville, Scala, Clikits, pink buckets), but just don't seem to able to do it. Based on its longetivity, Bellville appears to have been the most successful. My daughter (now 14) had a TON of Bellville stuff when she was younger, and she loved it. I know it gets a bad rap around here, but I think it was pretty successful for what it was intended to do. The structures were simplistic, but in my anecdotal experience with my daughter, girls are a lot more interesting in PLAYING than in BUILDING. My daughter quickly got bored with building a new set, but she loved the role-playing aspects of it once it was built. My son (10 years old) on the other hand, builds all kinds of crazy laser-gun-chainsaw-wielding robots, then never actually does anything with them. For him, the fun part is the building. The biggest drawback to Bellville were the figures. In my opinion, they were too articulated, with too many joints. They ended up being sort of "floppy." It was impossible to get the damn things to stand up. I'm encouraged to hear that this rumored new theme will be mini-fig based.

Wow, kinda strange to think that we went from Series 1 (nearly impossible to find at retail in the U.S.) to Series 3 possibly having to be sold off at clearance prices. Does that mean that TLC over-produced for Series 3? Or is interest waning on the collectible mini-figs, now that their novelty has worn off a bit?

Hey, Unlikely Society fans, I have two announcements for you: 1) I have embraced my inner George Lucas, and went back to the beginning of the series to make some updates and revisions -- all new word balloons, some tweaked dialogue here and there, and a lot of new special effects that are more consistent with the effects used later on. I've learned a lot about Photoshop over the years, and I finally took the time to go back and clean up some stuff. So far I have the first seven chapters done (basically the first half of the "N-Vasion" story line), which you can check out on the website .... OR ... 2) The first seven chapters are ALSO now available as "The New Unlikely Society -- Volume 1" in a PDF download. The website The Illustrated Section is hosting the PDF file. It costs one dollar to download. One measly dollar for 53 pages of Unlikely Society action! I'm working on getting all the rest of the N-Vasion story line converted over to a PDF for Volume 2. After that, I'll get the rest of the old chapters converted over too. I'm still going to post chapters on the website as I finish them, and that will of course be free. The PDF thing is just a fun extra, and hopefully people will check it out. As always, thanks for reading!! -Joebot

Absolutely!! You can find lots of pictures of my "classic" style town on my website. I own all of the modular sets, but the first thing I do when I build them is rip out the back wall to make them classic-compatible (it also frees up a lot of pieces for use elsewhere). No backs, no stairs. And 4-wide vehicles too, please!!

I know, can you believe it?? I'm posting a new chapter IN LESS THAN A MONTH!! It's unprecedented! There's no precedent, baby! The adventures of my Lego superhero comic continue in this newest chapter. It's a supervillain smackdown as the gang goes after Headbutt and Wrench. As always, thanks for reading, and please let me know what you think!!

A baseplate may not add function, but I think it adds a lot to the visual appeal, especially for Lego sets that are designed as location-based playsets (as opposed to vehicles). For example, I bought a couple of the Prince of Persia sets last year. They're decent sets, but they seem so empty once they're built, because they're just little structures floating in space. Stick them on a big tan baseplate though, and they look much better. Or look at the new upcoming Pirates of the Caribbean sets. That new London Escape set looks pretty nice, but again, it's just a little building and two carriages in an empty void. Imagine if it came with a printed baseplate, like that old Wild West dirt track, but printed with a cobblestone street pattern instead. NOW the set starts to feel like an actual physical location. I agree with meyerc13 that a good compromise would be if TLC had a wider range of baseplates avaialble for sale through Pick-a-Brick. I would love different sizes (8x16, 16x16, 16x32, 32x32) in different colors (green, blue, grey, brown, white, tan).