The “Eight Questions” column appears regularly at Minimate Headquarters. In it I interview minimate customizers and other fans of minimates. This interview is with NightViper, creator of the Mini Mayhem comic pictured here. (See more of his comics at his website here!)

1. Which of the upcoming DC Minimates looks to be your favorite?
Cyborg Superman. I mean he’s got an extra chunk of flesh for his face, who wouldn’t love that?

2. Do you own a Cylon Elf?
No, unfortunately I do not.

3. Of all the Minimates released in 2006, which one is your favorite?
Hmm, a tough one. I’m going to go with Astonishing Cyclops though. I find him delightful.

4. What absolutely needs to be the next major new announcement from AA or another toy company about Minimates?
Kraven the Hunter. Now that we’re getting Thor, my next biggest “want” is Kraven.

5. How much will you spend on Minimates this year?
It’s probably around $200 usually, but there are alot more Minimates this year. It could be twice that.

6. If all of the new upcoming Marvel Minimates fought all of the old 3” Minimates (from all previous lines), who would win and why?
Since most of the 3″ are rock stars or Trekkies I’d go with the Marvel Minimates.

7. If you had to make a quick custom of yourself, what pieces would you use?
Tony Stark’s hair, Cyclops’s shirt, Professor X’s pants and Bruce Wayne’s head.

8. Thor or Wonder Woman?
Thor’s the better Minimate, but Wonder Woman has other…assets.

I sincerely hate bumping Barry’s post down like this but I need to let people know that the MMHQ Gallery is down.  I don’t have an estimated time when it will be back at this point, hopefully sooner rather than later.  I am making significant upgrades (and I happened to hit a roadblock late last night).  Hang in there, Minimate fans.

Barry moves out of the Basement and into the Asylum!

The Bond Minimate Project teaser poster by Basement #24. Click for a larger pic.

By Barry

Back in the fall of 2006, I had a wild idea that I could and would create 125 unique James Bond minimate designs over the next year as a sub article to “It Came From The Basement”. What a better time to do it with the release of Casino Royale at the end of 2006, and the new year’s number itself being 007. I started on my project with the idea that I’d create 5 figures for each film, including both ‘Fake’ movies (1967’s Casino Royale, and Never Say Never Again) and 2 more sets of reoccurring Bond Allies from the past and present. Each movie set would mainly consist of that movie’s Bond actor in a non-tuxedo outfit, the girl of the movie, the villain, and 2 rotating spots for secondary girls and/or a henchman character.

The idea for the figures of Bond himself came with looking at the current, albeit small, range of Bond merchandise. It’s all too typical to put him in a tux and be done with it. Granted, he does wear a tux at some point in almost all of the movies, he’s rarely seen doing much besides asking for Vodka Martinis in that particular outfit. There’s a whole range out outfits out there, and even to bring it down to one outfit from a movie is hard work. I planned to use some iconic outfits (the grey suit from ‘From Russia With Love’), some mission gear (the arms bazaar gear from ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’), some casual wear (the golfing outfit from ‘Goldfinger’) and the downright un-Bondian (the clown costume from ‘Octopussy’).

TOP ROW - Xenia Onatopp (GoldenEye), James Bond (Roger Moore), Red Grant (From Russia With Love), 007 (Pierce Brosnan), and Elliot Carver (Tomorrow Never Dies). BOTTOM ROW - Honey Ryder (Dr. No) , 007 (Sean Connery), Ernst Stavro Blofeld (You Only Live Twice), Vesper Lynd (Casino Royale), and Dr. No (Dr. No).

The profile drawings pictured above were part of my practice sessions for the project, I just wanted to make sure I could draw non-Minimate Bond characters before I tried Minimate ones. I began in earnest on the Minimate designs in order to have a bank-up of characters ready to begin once January 1st hit but in the end, the whole project was scrapped.

This was because around that same time, I gained a freelance art opportunity to work for Art Asylum. I decided that it was time to hang up my personal design ideas and focus on my work instead. It was a decision that I alone decided to make. So as it stands right now, the teaser graphic you see here for my personal James Bond project will be the last personal minimate artwork I will create.

So, with that, this will be my last entry for Minimate Headquarters. You can still see my full gallery of previous designs at my website and the archive of articles here under “It Came From The Basement…” in the Categories section. Thanks to everyone who supported my work over the years, (I can’t believe it’s been 3 years since my first design), and especially to Fujis for bringing me back into the Minimate fold!

Streetfighter II/Darkstalkers wave 2: John Talbain, Zangief, Guile, Dan, Blanka, Ken, and Felicia.

By Fujis

When asked in a recent Q & A if the second wave of Streetfighter Minimates would be released Chuck Terceira, director of Diamond Select Toys, had this to say:

“It’s not looking good.”

There might still be a chance that the second wave, or perhaps more fittingly the second round, will be released (see answer #7 here) but I think these Minimates are dead in the water. The push to get 4-packs into Toys ‘R’ Us along with the blind-packaged Asian market releases, although great plans, might not have been enough to save the line.  

Personally, I think the problems with this line were three-fold:

First, the lack of availability meant that collectors couldn’t find these figures or didn’t know about them. I’m pretty sure they were available at most major online toy stores but I think some collectors are more into ‘brick and mortar’ stores. I myself only starting ordering (and preordering) online in the last year.

Second, the number of exclusives. There were 4 exclusive 2-packs, which brought us 1 variant and 7 repaints. The last thing this line needed was 3 versions of Ryu and Akuma.

And third, the Darkstalkers. Darkstalkers is a highly-recognizable property in Japan, where the bulk of the video games from the franchise have been released, but I don’t think your average North American collector would recognize them. I had never heard of Darkstalkers until this line of Minimates was released and I imagine many people were in the same boat (although their inclusion might have been the factor that allowed for the blind-packaged release in the first place).

Despite my analysis of the situation, no official announcement has been made one way or another. Could these Minimates still make it to the shelves and into our collections thereby completing the duo that embodies Streetfighter as a whole? Yes.

What is more likely is that these will fall by the wayside, much like the third wave of Lord of the Rings. Which is unfortunate since having Ryu without Ken is like having Snake Eyes without Storm Shadow. In any case, I’m sure we’ll know soon enough as the American International Toy Fair is right around the corner.

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If you can’t live without Ken, Felicia, or the rest, Big Bad Toy Store still has the set (minus the chase) available for preorder here.

Pandor from the Beariorrs BearBlokkz line by Top Hatt Toys. Pic from Toyfare #86. Scan by antacost.

By Fujis

Workout Rocky and “Meat” from the first Rocky Minimates box set.

By Fujis

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and in the case of this miniature side of beef, I think they’re right. In 2006 Jakks Pacific announced that they would be producing 6″ action figures from the Rocky movie franchise and included in the first wave was a honking slab of beef known simply as “Meat”.

Diamond Select Toys has not shied away from this brilliant move but instead included the side of beef as part of their first Rocky Minimates box set which should reach specialty shops in about three months. Joining the carcass are two versions of Rocky, as well as Adrian and Mick. I wonder if the following box sets will have five Minimates in them, that is, I wonder if the side of beef counts as a figure in this one.

Maybe even more exciting than official Rocky Minimates are the quick custom possibilities that they will afford. The list for Stallone is almost endless, first and foremost being Rambo of course, but I imagine we’ll be seeing plenty of Burgess Meredith as The Penguin as well.

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Click here to see the official product debut from DST and here to see some high-res pics over at the Art Asylum forums.

Click here to join the discussion on the Minimate Multiverse forum.

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I am very pleased to introduce the first JP1000 & Friends: Inked episode created by Ivan! We are continuing where we left off story-wise but, as you can see, with the addition of the artistic talents of Ivan, we are taking the visuals to a whole new level. The intricacy and detail of this one panel are simply mind-boggling. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you will enjoy our little story as it unfolds. -Fujis
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Minimate Action Theater Cover by Templar.

By Fujis

Minimate Action Theater is a Minimate pic-fic created by Templar. It currently has six episodes but hasn’t been updated since July of ‘06. It might soon be counted among the many other retired Minimate webcomics, like Fungal Haven and Minimate Madness, or it might return like the renewed and revamped Minimate Adventures. Are we going to see more episodes, Templar?

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Click here to check out Minimate Action Theater!

Death Jr. (DJ) and Pandora from Death Jr. II: Root of Evil for the PSP.

By Fujis

“Diamond Select Toys & Collectibles, LLC has recently signed on with Backbone Entertainment to create a line of toys, collectible plush, and Minimates based on the upcoming video game, Death, Jr.”

The above is a direct quote from this article which Action Figure Collectors posted in March of 2005. The game went on to be a huge success spawning a sequel for the PSP and a version for the Nintendo DS due out later this year. There is a Death Jr. comic book, a movie in the works by Sony, and action figures created by Gentle Giant Studios. Could we still see Death Jr. Minimates?

At this point, I think the chances are slim. The article was posted almost two years ago and there has been no mention of the property since then, as far as Minimates go anyway. Perhaps DST is planning on focusing on characters from the sequel or the DS version but with six Minimate lines in the works (Marvel, BSG, Star Trek, Rocky, 24, and SF2) I doubt they’d load up another one. But who knows? Toy Fair is coming up…

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Click here to check out the offical Death Jr. website and make sure your speakers are on - the music is wicked!

Marvel Wave 16: Thor, Loki, Thunderstrike (bearded Thor), Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, She-Hulk, and Wonder Man.

By Fujis

Here’s the pic that DST was supposed to have up on their site yesterday. My apologies to them for posting it but apparently this image has been circulating online since Tuesday although it was kept mostly under the radar. This image is from Action Figure Xpress (which has them available for preorder) and I removed their watermark for your viewing pleasure. It’s too bad that DST dropped the ball on posting it but after all of the great news it’s hard to fault them.

Back to Wave 16, I think we could easily see a green version of Quicksilver along with She-Hulk in her Fantastic Four uniform as part of the Target repacks/repaints ala the Blue Suit Professor X. Ionic Wonder Man could still appear, since Gamma Hulk came 5 waves after the original version, and the tooling has already been done on a bow (among other archery paraphernalia) which means that the bulk of the work on Hawkeye is already complete.

As for Vision, Ultron, as well as Wasp and Hank Pym (Yellowjacket perhaps?) and many other prominent Avengers I believe they are in the chute so to speak. And even if they’re not I think we need to take a moment to appreciate the arrival of many, highly-desired characters. Wave 16 feels like a renaissance, a return to the comic book roots, that made this brand popular in the first place.

I might even skip the Ghost Rider wave for this…