the vynsane asylum

I have no idea. Oddly, in that report on the main page of SSG, it said that Hasbro's overall sales were down, but their Star Wars sales were up, from this time last year. God knows how, when there's been virtually nothing to buy except for one wave of figures and some comic packs. Hopefully they'll realize in time that this shit can't be helping them. I know they don't specifically set the exact prices but they've been raising the MSRP, so it's at least partially their fault.

I think the worst price gouging I've seen recently (apart from the upcoming $60 ARC-170) is those TRU exclusive repaints with repacked figures (one is a V-wing with a pilot; the other one is a hailfire droid with Grievous). They're $40!!! What the fuck!!! I sure as shit ain't buying those at that price.

Apparently, Transformers Animated Deluxe-scale figures are now $15 and $16 at most Targets, up from $8 in December.

Don't they jack the prices of regular figures up to $7 every few years and then cycle it back down to $5?

Well, the prices would drop in the movie years, but they would sell like gangbusters to a much wider audience, so they could afford the drop. Even though there was the movie and premiere of the show last year, the prices didn't drop a whole lot, but maybe a dollar or so depending on when and where you looked. In short, I'm not expecting a drop any time soon.

For anyone who was waffling on the new Rancor, I say get it. It looks really great.

Also, I saw the Sarlacc sets for $14 today at a Target, so there's that. You could really just get it for the skiff and Sarlacc at that price and throw out everything else.

That Luke from the Sarlaac set looks like he should glow in the dark.

The Rebel Ground Crew guy from the Yavin Battle Pack looks a lot like Ryan Stiles.

Triple post. Suck it Grimlock.

Is that ESB wave hitting the stores yet? Out here, everything on the pegs is Clone Wars, a few Yarnas, and some of those re-released Legends figures. Plus a ton of comic packs no one seems to be buying.

Yeah, it appears that it's out. I've had the wave for a few weeks now but I get my figures through Brian's Toys and they seem to ship about the same time they hit the shelves.

I haven't seen anything from the ESB wave. I saw a repacked Imperial Engineer with the redundant U-3PO part a few weeks back, meaning the store had it in but all the good stuff was gone. I'm still also looking for Kit Fisto from that Clone Wars wave, having seen the other figures only twice each at one apiece. I wonder if they're deliberately trying to lighten up on the shipments, after the glut of Yarna, Breha, and the cantina figures? That wouldn't be a terrible idea, but they overshot it to the point where it's hard to find a damn thing.

As for the Clone Wars, it still seems to be selling through like a mother fucker. There's a lot of it, but it always sells out. However, I have been seeing a ton of IG-86 and some other ones like that. I hope they redo the SKUs or whatever when the packaging changes in a few months so they can clear the shit out.

Yesterday at Target, we saw some exclusive remote controlled astromechs. They were cool, but not $17 cool. When she saw I was surprised, my wife said it wasn't as if I didn't know they were coming out. She didn't believe until that moment that I don't look at Star Wars news a thousand times a day. Anymore.

I look at SW news a thousand times a day and it's still hard to know exactly what's coming out.

The AOTC wave is pretty spiffy, if anyone's interested in those figures. I got them online, though, since I only saw the ESB figures (and only three of them) in stores like a week ago.

I had no idea those things were coming out until I saw them in Target. Haven't seen R2-D2 but seen the other 3. They don't seem worth $17.

There's a few truly new things at Comic-Con. But way too many "improved" resculpts. Do we need a tenth Ten Nunb? Or Malakili with 14 points of articulation?

They've got a Funeral Pyre Vader with a card that says, "Concept only. Should we make it? Let us know!" They apparently didn't have room for the, "We've really not been paying attention to a goddamn thing anyone's said for almost two decades and wanted to prove it by showing our ignorance about whether you'd want Funeral Pyre Vader. We're going to go sniff an old man's crotch now."