Introduction to Funko's Smuggler's Bounty

I bought my first three Funko Pop! figures — Batman, Batgirl, and Wonder Woman (more on that here) — very early on, when they first came out. Then I got very casual with Pops! as I saw how deluged stores of all kinds were becoming with them; I worried that my toy collection would be set off-balance by a huge number of these things, so I shied away. Only recently have I come back, and come back in earnest, even committing to Funko's Pop! subscription box, Smuggler's Bounty.

And a commitment it is, as all such subscriptions are. They're the ultimate blind pack — at least 5 times more expensive than a single Mystery Mini, for a payoff that therefore has the potential to be five times more disappointing. Here's how it's gone so far.

Smuggler's Bounty 1 - November 2015

The theme of the first Smuggler's Bounty was the First Order from The Force Awakens. I knew this going in, well ahead of the movie's release. I had mixed feelings about the then-upcoming film (and still do), but I wanted to get in on the ground floor so ordered anyway. (My feelings toward this first box, I suspect, are in no small way influenced by my ambivalent feelings toward the new movie.) Funko had promised that all SB merch would be exclusive to the boxes, and while this sounded really great, my worry was that "exclusive" would mean "repaint." That was only partially the case with November's box, which, as Funko promised, would contain items other than Pop!s.

Smuggler's Bounty Exclusive Captain Phasma (Chrome) Pop!

The first Pop! in the box was a chrome-finish Captain Phasma. I had already bought the regular Phasma, so this was some repetition for me, and the chrome finish, while impressively shiny, wasn't a big draw, either. Funko's chromed-up C-3PO is great, because there are moments in the Star Wars movies where 3PO appears this way, but with Phasma, it's a gimmick akin to Hasbro's various 3.75" "anniversary" chrome figures, which I've never cared for.

Smuggler's Bounty Exclusive First Order TIE Fighter Pilot Pop!

The second Pop! was a true exclusive — the First Order TIE Fighter Pilot. It's a nice-looking Pop!, though not a character I was really looking forward to collecting. It's very similar to the original TIE Pilot in its glossy blackness, but certainly not a highlight of my collection.

Smuggler's Bounty Snowtrooper t-shirt

November's t-shirt was black with a large rendering of Funko's First Order Snowtrooper on the front. I should say first that while I really like collecting Pop!s, I'm not a fan of the Pop! style on other items. So I expected that the t-shirts would probably not be the kind I would otherwise purchase. If you can accept its Pop! parameters, though, this is a nice shirt. And of course it's always more fun to wear a t-shirt that's not available on a mass scale (like at Target or Walmart, e.g.).

Smuggler's Bounty Star Wars lanyard

Smuggler's Bounty First Order patch

Smuggler's Bounty Kylo Ren pin

The three remaining items were, for the most part, filler — a Pop! deco lanyard, a First Order patch, and an enamel Kylo Ren pin. The lanyard is pretty plain, and not the type of thing I collect. I don't collect patches, either (though I guess I do now), but this is a nice one. The pin is most relevant to my collection, though I hope future pins will feature characters I'm more interested in (it's certain that at times they will, at others, not).

November's box wasn't the most spectacular premiere it could have been, but it wasn't entirely disappointing, either. And, as is to be expected, some boxes will be better than others.

Smuggler's Bounty 2 - January 2016

The theme for this box — the Resistance — was announced soon after (or maybe even before) I had received the first one, so I knew I was in for another box full of Force Awakens products. As I suspected this would be the case for the first few boxes I had lowered my expectations. I'm sorry to say I did not lower them enough for January's box.

Smuggler's Bounty exclusive flocked Chewbacca Pop!

January contained only one Pop!, a flocked version of the previously released Force Awakens Chewbacca. What can I say about flocked figures? I don't think I can say anything more fitting than what Roger Ebert said about the movie North, so I'll adapt his review to my need:

"I hate flocked Pop!s. Hate hate hate hate hate flocked Pop!s. Hate them. Hate every simpering stupid vacant collector-insulting aspect of them. Hate the sensibility that thought anyone could like them. Hate the implied insult to the collector by its belief that anyone would be interested in them."

I didn't mean for that to sound so harsh. No, I did. Flocked toys, even when brand new, look like something you would find in your grandmother's attic, something so decrepit that you can't tell if it ever looked new or dust-free in all its life — "What was this thing? Was it always this way? Did it once have longer fur that wore off over time? Or is it covered in mold or some strange 1940's version of rubber that has since been found to cause defects in mice? Keep it away from my other toys, lest it spread its plastic virus among them!" Of all variations of repaint, flocked is my least favorite, less desirable even than "holographic" or "glow-in-the-dark." And since I had already purchased the much nicer original Force Awakens Chewie, this Pop! was completely superfluous.

Smuggler's Bounty C-3PO mug

The second Pop! wasn't a Pop! at all, but a C-3PO mug from the "Pop! Home" line. I've stated above how I'm not a fan of the Pop! aesthetic when it's applied to other items, so you can bet this wasn't a welcome item. I mean, it's OK. If you like C-3PO, or mugs, then what's not to like? But I'm not a fan of new 3PO — I don't like his dull plastic finish or the red arm. Had this been an R2 mug, though, I'd have loved it. So chalk it up to the luck of the draw, the way of the blind-packed box.

Smuggler's Bounty Resistance characters t-shirt

January's t-shirt was the month's highlight. Again, you've got to like the Pop! style, which (not to put too fine a point on it) is not my bag, Baby, unless applied to an actual Pop! But the group illustration, while it pushes Pop! cuteness almost too far, is more interesting to me than the single figure design that preceded it. And it's a nice shade of blue, which is not done justice by my photo.

Smuggler's Bounty Resistance patch

Smuggler's Bounty Resistance pilot patch

The remaining items were a Resistance patch featuring BB-8 and an enamel pin bearing the likeness of either Poe Dameron or a nameless Resistance pilot. Both items are nice companion pieces to November's patch and pin, but after two of each shape and design, I really hope things are changed up a next time.

The next Smuggler's Bounty box is Cantina-themed! What do you think will be inside?? https://www.smugglersbounty.com/
Posted by Funko on Saturday, January 16, 2016

"Cantina" has been announced as the theme of the next Smuggler's Bounty box, and Funko's Facebook announcement suggests that by "cantina" we're talking original Tatooine cantina, not Maz Kanata's place from The Force Awakens. I thought I would have to wait longer to get an Original Trilogy box, so this is great news. I really hope we get a character that has not yet been given the Pop! treatment, like Myo, Hem Dazon, or Hrchek Kal Fas. My fear is that Funko will include a third Modal Nodes Pop!, which would be a terrible thing for non-subscribers who have already purchased the first two. Looking forward to March nonetheless!

Star Wars Vintage Collection: Bom Vimdin

I finally found Bom Vimdin from Hasbro's Star Wars: The Vintage Collection line yesterday, after several months of looking and more months waiting for the release date. This figure has probably just been released — if so, I really didn't have to wait long. But I had heard months ago — maybe longer — that the release date was to be back in March or April, and I have been waiting and searching ever since.

This is one of the most frustrating things about collecting Hasbro's Star Wars line: they announce release dates months in advance, but either the dates keep changing or supply lines to retailers are slow. Meanwhile, it's a lot of pointless store checking and aggravation.

Another frustrating element here is the price. I bought mine at Target for $8.89, which is ridiculously high for a simple action figure on such a simple card. I don't place any special value on the old-style Kenner packaging, either. In fact, I think this type of packaging — which is far less bulkier and seems to use less plastic than Hasbro's other current Star Wars line, The Clone Wars — should be standard for this type of toy in order to eliminate waste and cost. Hasbro seems to think otherwise, though, and these "vintage" style figures are actually about a dollar more than their Clone Wars kin.

Which is partly why Bom Vimdin has been my first new Star Wars action figure purchase in a long while. Price is not the only reason — I just haven't been interested in the figures in this line — but price is the reason I didn't pick up the Logray I found alongside Bom, or the Han Solo. Back during 2007's 30th Anniversary Collection, I probably would have bought all three, but at $8.89 each, no way. These days I need to focus my collection even more than before — in this case, on the cantina aliens from Episode 4.

Getting to the bottom of this pricing mystery is a challenge worthy of Fox Mulder, though he would most likely conclude it was all a plot of lies engineered by the Cigarette Smoking Man. Hasbro has claimed that it doesn't set prices, the retailers do. The retailers all seem to set just about the same price, though, which suggests something about the price they pay for the figures. Meanwhile, there's the issue of who is buying action figures nowadays, especially of characters from the first three Star Wars movies — kids or collectors? Should collectors need to pay more than kids? Maybe, if they are the only consumers of a line made in less quantity than Clone Wars, though I don't know if they are. In any event, the pricing and less-than-stellar character lineup of the Vintage Collection has kept me from all but Bom Vimdin.

The figure itself, like nearly all Hasbro Star Wars figures that don't use so-called "soft goods" accessories, is excellent: outstanding sculpt, great detail on the costume and guns, and a nice balance of articulation and "default pose". (I typically don't care too much about articulation — I just want a default pose that looks good and allows the figure to stand on its own, if a base is not included.)

The next two Vintage Collection waves are supposedly to include two other cantina favorites, re-sculpts of Dr. Evazan and Ponda Baba (originally known as Walrus Man). I am looking forward to these — I just hope I don't have to look too far forward.

Compulsive Collection: HeroClix

After many years of collecting action figures, I have become pretty good at staying "in focus," that is, I have defined two or three collection "topics" (Star Wars, Batman, Wonder Woman, etc.) and have tried pretty successfully to stick only to certain items that seem to fit those topics. It is with some embarrassment that I admit this discipline has taken a long time to achieve (and it is with even greater embarrassment that I call it "discipline"). Still, I am prone to lapses. My eye strays. I sometimes look "outside the topic" for satisfaction.

I am most prone to this in two situations. First, when I am all "caught up" — that is, when I have found and purchased everything on my current "want list." This is usually a welcomed break, but if boredom sets in I get weak. Second is when I am hunting for a very difficult-to-find item and in frustration turn to something else. (My collection of die-cast 1957 Corvettes is the direct result of not being able to track down Ephant Mon from Hasbro's 2002 Star Wars line.) This happened recently while looking for the new Funko Pop Wonder Woman, which in my area is only available in one chain of stores, and there are only three such stores in my immediate area. After striking out at all three, I found myself at a local comic/collector shop browsing through HeroClix figures with my sons, helping them locate among the shelves of loose figures the ones they needed to expand their own collections. I had never collected HeroClix figures before, because I have never been interested in gaming so much as collecting. But I sensed something about these tiny game tokens.

That's when it happened. Fuelled by the urge to buy, and frustrated by my failing Wonder Woman quest, my rationalization engine kicked in full-force. A pack of Batman HeroClix figures could be considered relevant to my Batman action figure collection. It would also give me my own army that I could use to join my sons' games. Relevant-ish item. Quality time activity with the kids. Done deal.

I bought one pack, along with the items my sons had chosen, and we left the store. When we got to the car, I opened the box and was happy to find cool characters — the Batman featured in the box's cut-out window, of course, but also Penguin, Commissioner Gordon, and Bane! Holding them close to my eyes, I was impressed by the relative detail for figures this small. I was happy about this purchase. My sons were happy for me. We were all happy.

That's when it happened. We ran back into the store, and scrounging up enough coins from my loose change jar, I bought two more sets. Back in the car, I opened them to find Mad Hatter, Riddler, Robin, Oracle, Alfred, and — wow! — Batgirl! I was psyched. All cool characters, not one double! I was amassing an entire Batman min-collection right there in my car! Back into the store, bought the last set, back to the car. Scarecrow, Nightwing, Ra's Al-Ghul!

Days later, I still don't have buyer's remorse. The figures look nice in their little cluster on the shelf, still impressing me with their detail and colors. It would be a little nicer, I guess, if I enjoyed playing the game, but after a few tries with my sons walking me through it, I still don't get it — so many rules and counter-rules that in the end it's just a semi-structured way to play with toys, but maybe that's all it needs to be.

Today I caved and bought Wonder Woman on-line (just as I had eventually caved and bought Ephant Mon on the secondary market). So in the end, my HeroClix excursion didn't take the place of another, it just appeased me during a moment of frustration. But this is partly how collections grow, leapfrogging over compulsion and reason alike.

Which oft our stage hath shown; and for their sake,
In your fair minds let this acceptance take.

When Black Friday comes . . .

The Battle of Endor Ultimate Battle Pack

This time of year has always been my second-least favorite time of year to shop. (My very least favorite time is the two-to-three month period after Christmas when stores are slow to restock.) I'm sure I'm not alone in this, for I have never met anyone who enjoyed fighting the traffic, crowds, and other shoppers in order to secure the latest action figure, video game, pencil sharpener, or oven mitt that is essential to rounding out your collection (this week). Needless to say, "Black Friday" is usually my stay-at-home day.

Three years ago, however, I broke my ban and not only went shopping on Black Friday, but participated in one of those insane pre-dawn lines that extend for blocks beyond the doors of "big box" retailers. The year was 2007, and the item I was after was the Target exclusive Battle of Endor Ultimate Battle Pack from Hasbro's Star Wars line. This item had a confirmed street date of the Monday after Thanksgiving, but I had heard a rumor about a rumor that it might be available on Black Friday. Since I considered the Endor Battle Pack a "must-have", and since I just knew that they would be sold out before they could even be unpacked and placed on store shelves, I therefore just knew that I needed to be first in line at Target on the day after Thanksgiving.

We were traveling this particular year, but our hotel was right next to a Target-anchored shopping plaza, so it seemed like an easy trip. I set our room alarm for 4AM, and backed it up with a wake-up call. When I awoke, I made the last-ditch effort of asking if anyone would like to come with me (No), and set off.

The Target in question was next to a BJ's Wholsale Club, so when I saw a line wrapping around BJ's, I assumed they were having an early-opening sale as well. They weren't — the line was entirely for Target. If you know how wide Target and BJ's stores are, you know how far away I was from Target's front door when I finally took my place at the end of the line. I couldn't see the front door — I couldn't even see Target — because I was around the corner, on the side of BJ's, next to their automotive repair shop. It was cold and the wait was long, but the novelty of what I was doing kept me entertained, or at least I imagined that it did.

Eventually the line began to shuffle forward. 45 minutes later, I reached the front door, where I rationalized the sight of several police officers into assurance that I wouldn't be crushed by a stampeding crowd, all the while aware that it was for this contingency the officers were on hand, all the while aware that should a stampede occur, the officers would also be crushed. Lemming-like, I stepped through the doors.

It took longer than usual to walk through the crowd to get to the toy section. It wasn't really "walking" so much as "advancing". Imagine a row of soda cans in a convenience store refrigerator moving up to fill in the empty space of the can you just pulled out, or a huge viscous mass being poured into a rat's maze, oozing slowly into the various pathways until the entire maze was full. But I did gradually ooze into the toy section, whose aisles were tightly packed with shoppers intent on finding an unspeakable deal. What struck me most (aside from various boxes falling off shelves or being tossed between members of family shopping teams) was that there wasn't that much on sale. This could have been any given Friday, for all it mattered.

I realized after some time and patience what I had suspected all along — that the Endor pack was not yet available. I worked my way to the front of the store and glanced at the battery of cash registers. I was surprised to see that the lines were not too backed up, so I decided to pick up a few essentials we had forgotten when packing for our trip. In the time it took to round up these items, however, the lines had grown to intolerable lengths, and I was about to scrap everything and call it quits when one of the pharmacy registers opened, only four feet from where I was standing. I stepped up and set down my Black Friday haul — a six-pack of bottled water, a tube of triple antibiotic ointment, and nail clippers. I tried to look unfazed when the cashier asked, stupefied, "Is this all you came in here for?" "Yes" was such an easier answer.

Epilogue (In Color)

The following Monday, back on my home turf, I queued up outside my local Target for the regular 8AM opening. With me were just a handful of regulars, collectors who check in every day looking for new toy releases regardless of advertised sales. There was no crowd and no mad rush to the back of the store. I found the Endor Battle Pack — an entire display of them, in fact. As it turned out, I was the only early riser interested in Star Wars that day, so I took my time and selected the one that best met my criteria — the best possible combination of paint application, apparent joint and accessory condition, and condition of packaging. The packs were available for a couple weeks before selling out.

Star Wars Mini Muggs

Biggs Darklighter Mighty Mugg
with Mini friends

I was stopped in my tracks at Target a couple weeks ago by Hasbro's new Mini Muggs, a half-scale follow-up to the company's iffy Mighty Muggs line. While it took me some time to warm up to their Mighty predecessors, the Minis grabbed me right away, thanks mostly to the line's MVP, Bossk. Only three sets are currently available (you can see them all here), but I imagine it's only a matter of time before we see more. (Here's hoping we finally get a Slave Leia!)

Not only are these things cuter than the full-size toys, but the three-packs, priced around $12.99, allow you to bulk up on characters a lot faster.

A truly devastating follow-up would be Mini versions of the Marvel Muggs, which in Mighty scale were on the whole much more appealing than their Star Wars counterparts. My collecting budget braces in anticipation...

Gort

Wind-up toy by Rocket USA. More pictures here.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Compulsive Hoarding Behavior

I was driving to my therapist's the other day (for some reason she insists on seeing me in person before refilling my Zoloft), and I started thinking about what I should do with all of my action figure cardbacks — you know, the cardboard backing behind the plastic bubble that action figures are packaged in. This is a debate I've had with myself many times. I'm one of those collectors who keeps the cardbacks. I figure it's for reference, or as the "next best thing" to having an unopened figure. In the past it hasn't been much of a problem, but as I pulled into the medical center I started thinking that the cards are really not serving any purpose if they're just packed away in a box.

As I sat in the waiting room, I considered scanning the cards, keeping the images, and throwing the actual backs into the recycle bin. But I'm not a pixel collector — I collect tangible stuff, and the cardbacks are part of that stuff. Plus, scanning is very time-consuming. I mean, I already spend lots of time taking pictures of all of my figures, taking pictures of all of their accessories, taking pictures of all the figures with all their accessories in various poses, editing those pictures in Photoshop to remove the background so they look like something from a DK book, labeling each part of the picture to identify the different joints used in the action figure, the "in-universe" names of their accessories, and vital statistics about the characters. This takes a ton of time. And then I have to scan all of my store receipts and put them into albums so that I can refer to them when I enter the data into my collecting database. So with all that, who wants more scanning?

I had to put all of this out of my head for a while when I was called in to the therapist because I needed to ask her if the Zoloft was working or if I needed a bigger dose or something new or whatever. This led to a few new prescriptions, some lab work, and a book by Jon Kabat-Zinn.

When I finally left the shock lab, I started thinking about an idea I had heard of putting cardbacks in page protectors and keeping them in binders. This would allow me to pull them off the shelves to flip through every now and then and relive some happy memories. Unfortunately, I think the page protectors would be too big for the cards and I wouldn't be able to center the cards in the protectors without tape, which could trap fingerprints and damage the cardboard. But it does seem a little easier than what I do now, which is to laminate each card with peel-off laminating sheets. Not the kind you get from Staples or wherever, but a kind I special order from Germany. They're really expensive, but I find they repel fingerprints a lot better, protect from unexpected spills, and in only a few tries I can cut them into an exact size and symmetry. The problem is, they take a lot of extra preparation to use. You've got to use a special heat gun so they set just right, and because they're super-sticky, you only get one shot at sticking them to the card — if you mess up, the card is ruined. You don't know the hassle I went through after I messed up the card to my Ultimate Galactic Hunt Chewbacca. I ended up spending way too much money on eBay to replace the Chewbacca figure just so I could get another shot at laminating the card. Luckily it worked out on the third or maybe the fourth try.

Anyway, this whole process takes about 30 minutes per card, so I was thinking maybe the binder idea would save some time. But I was interrupted again when I got to the pharmacy because I had to ask the pharmacist if the Prozac my therapist had just prescribed would make me queasy like the Celexa used to. He told me no, as long as Prozac was the only such medication I was taking. So I guess I'm out of luck, but I'll deal.

So I finally got back home and all the thinking about cardbacks made me want to get out all of my cards and reevaluate the whole situation. So I opened up all six of my fireproof safes and took out every laminated card and, after putting down a few sterile tarps, laid them all on the floor. This took a little longer than I wanted because the last time I put them away I neglected to alphabetize them, so I had to alphabetize all the cards and group them by series. I can never decide if I want to order them by figure name first, regardless of series, or by series first, then figure name. I did each way in turn, then re-sorted by manufacturer first, then series, then character name.

Eventually the cards were all in place and that's when it dawned on me — my current solution is OK, but it's only half-way there. Combining it with a variation on the binder idea is the key to taking it to the next level. I figure if I leave just enough excess laminate on the left side of each card, I can then three-hole punch them and put them into a custom-made binder so they won't flop around like they would do if they were in sheet protectors. The problem with this, I guess, is that I didn't leave any excess laminate on all of the cards I've laminated so far, so I'm not sure what I'm going to do about that. Maybe I'll try something with duct tape, or I could re-laminate, but that usually doesn't work. So I may need to buy new cards. I'm not sure. The point is that I was just really excited to finally have some resolution on this. And I think it was that excitement, combined with the queasiness the pharmacist said I might feel, that made me throw up all over my cards. But luckily, they were laminated.

Originally performed on Episode 118 of Star Wars Action News.