I've been on a bit of a Transformers kick at the moment, briefly deciding to collect all the Autobot cars and then getting bored midway through. I think it was the excitement of Revenge of the Fallen... Aside from that I've mainly been scanning comics and downloading stuff to play on my lovely new DIVX-capable DVD player, not a huge lot of which has really translated towards doing much for this place.
But I have got a few toys to review over the coming weeks - as well as Ratchet, Trailbreaker, Inferno, Wheeljack and Mirage to join Ironhide, I got the beautiful Soul of Chogokin Daimos and the lovely Banpresto 'Chogokin' GA-100 Gundam.
For the record, I thoroughly enjoyed Revenge of the Fallen... It was so daft it battered me into submission, and while the humour was a little broad in places, it was also quite funny. Plus Prime going spare in the forest was so awesome I can forgive the film a lot of other things. Not sure how it's going to stand up to rewatches, but it was certainly fun the first time.
- Transformers Ironhide review
Okay, the latest section to get a bit of a revamp is that of ace British 1960s anti-hero the Spider.
I've folded the Review and Spotlight stories into each other, basically making a 'master' page for each adventure. Scans have been moved to Megaupload, so we'll see how this goes - in theory it means you can download them in a single archive rather than downloading JPEGs individually, while at the same time I save on my webspace and bandwidth. We'll see how we go. Some stories have scans, some don't - I'm not putting up anything that's in King of Crooks, and some comics I've since moved on and don't have scans for. Basically, if it's not there, I don't have it at the moment.
New stuff includes scans of "The Spider and the Molecule Man" from the 1975 Lion Annual, "Robot Archie vs. The Spider" from the 1980 Lion Holiday Special and a couple of fragments of Jerry Siegel's sixties serials "The Spider v The Android Emperor" and "The Spider versus the Sinister Seven".
I've got vague plans to put up a few more classic 1960s/1970s British comics, but again we'll see where we go with that. For now, enjoy the varied adventures of the uncrowned King of Crime.
- Comics - The Spider
This is a bit of a contractual obligation review - I'm rapidly getting bored of the HCM line after some early hits, and I've already reviewed a better Zaku figure from the Kadoh Senshi line, but while I had this guy I thought I might as well review it. There's not an awful lot outright wrong with the figure, it just pales in comparison to one made ~15 years later with a much larger budget.
This also seems as good a point as any to point out that all the Gundam figures now have their own index, at http://counter-x.net/gundam/ - the old URLs should now all be switched to (text) redirects.
I'm actually hawking a trio of HCM figures, as well as some MS in Pocket Gundams and a few other bits and bobs on ebay right now, in case any of you want to find out how accurate my reviews are =)
Big thanks, not for the first time, to Denyer, by the way :)
- High Complete Model MS-06R Zaku II
Something a bit different - I'm currently working my way through my Marvel UK Transformers comics, and I've decided to add scans of some of them to the site. I'm not suicidal enough to do anything IDW are putting out in an overpriced mini-series or the like, but I am going to try and provide some way of reading the stories they and Titan have ignored over the years, without having to pay for ropey back-issues.
With the odd exception (from this batch, just the American scans of "Man of Iron", which are the scans Brendan Reilly did for the old version of the Transformers Archive, just tarted up a little) these are fresh scans done by me, rather than the sometimes tired ones which usually circulate for these stories. I've also chucked in scans of any relevant features from the rest of the comics, including posters, adverts, letters pages and the like.
So, for now there's Steve Parkhouse's curious "Man of Iron", Simon Furman's excellent debut "The Enemy Within!" and Simon Furman's slightly less than excellent second story "Raiders of the Last Ark". It's generally unusual stuff with the odd taste of the forthcoming class, but is largely worth reading. The scans are ZIPed and uploaded to Megaupload - this puts less of a strain on my bandwidth and means I can just put them up there and leave them, rather than having to rotate them if I did the hosting in-house.
- Transformers - The Complete Works
It's been over two months since I last bought an Ideon toy, so obviously I was starting to get a little twitchy. Thankfully I'd never quite got around to buying the Yamato version, reasoning that it was made redundant by the Soul of Chogokin version, and anyway I didn't like PVC.
Having recently sold a boatload of stuff and then not really found anything to spend the money on (I find that the more disposable cash I have, the more reluctant I am to spend it... I did think I might be growing up or something, but then realised my potential plans all revolved around buying toys, so it can't be that), I went for it anyway, and I'm bloody glad I did.
The figure's smaller size and lighter weight means it's a lot easier to have on the computer desk than the SoC, even if it doesn't have a fraction of the features. I even like the packaging - I'm pretty sure the plastic clam shell tray could be used to make an Ideon-shaped jelly, for a start.
- The Ideon - SIM EX Ideon
My first Zaku figure - kinda. It arrived in the same lot as the HCM version of the exact same suit (both were even Black Tri-Stars customs, #06 - I changed the stickers on the Chogokin).
I think the thing rounds out my collection of Kado/Kahen Senshi moulds. I'm not going to go mental collecting the variants of the figures - if I won the lottery I'd round up Char's Zaku and a squad of the start green ones (and finish off the Black Tri-Stars), and probably Amuro's Zeta, but I'm not going to go mad when there are plenty of other toys out there.
The Zaku figure itself is rather impressive, a lovely counterpart to the Kado Senshi Gundam as it has a similar level of articulation and balance - great fun for shelf display.
- Chogokin MS-06 Zaku II review
I love this thing. I'm just not entirely sure why... I think it's the flares. I'd been chasing a Rick Dias for a while, and given my usual criteria (1/144 scale, not a model kit), the High Complete Model range was my only option. Thankfully, it didn't disappoint, giving me a lovely chunk of sculpted plastic I'm delighted with.
Despite my dwindling opinion of the 1980s HCM line, I've moved the reviews to their own section, complete with a needlessly complicated menu (I'm all about needlessly complicated menus at the moment). The URLs for the old reviews will function as redirect pages for now, however, so all the old links should still work for now. The same treatment will be in store for the Chogokin figures once I get the review of the Zaku figure done as well.
We live in exciting times. Or not, as the case may be.
- High Complete Model RMS-099 Rick Dias
- High Complete Model index
I've uploaded what Ideon audio files I have to a third party server and put up links for download... The CDs of these were only released in small runs, and are long out of print. There's the TV series opening/closing themes, the first Space Runaway Ideon soundtrack, the Be Invoked soundtrack, the Symphony Ideon album and guilty pleasure "Sailing Fly" from the end of A Contact.
There's nothing here that can't be found on peer-to-peer filesharing networks, but this hopefully opens them up to people who can't use those, and gives a handy URL for reference. I'll have to see how Megaupload treat the files, I'm not sure if I'll find the time to reupload them if they're deleted, so grab 'em while they're there!
- Ideon - Music
The first of three recent High Complete Model buys, and one I decided to get out of the way, frankly. I've never liked the look of the Gelgoog, and this somewhat clumsy model hasn't done anything to change that. On top of that, Bandai made the bizarre decision of eschewing any sort of memorable colour scheme that might help in favour of basing the figure on a no-mark Zeon pilot's custom, as revealed in the Mobile Suit: Variations book.
To be fair to the figure, it's not as inept as the Z-Gundam from the HCM range, as it is at least fairly accurate to what it's meant to be. It's just that what it's meant to be is one of the uglier Zeon designs (and that's saying something).
In short, I wouldn't have bought this thing if it wasn't in a job lot... Anyone particularly after it is welcome to make an offer...
- High Complete Model MS-14C Gelgoog Cannon
I've wanted Black Ox since I purchased the SoC Tetsujin 28 a year or so ago, and finally got round to buying an example a month ago. While the figure has few surprises, with the engineering and features being very similar to its' opponent, it didn't disappoint, largely doing as it should.
Other recent arrivals are a group of Gundam figures won in a job lot - I mainly wanted the batch for the High Complete Model Rick Dias (a model that certainly deserves more love) and Chogokin Zaku (in Black Tri-Stars colours - not my first choice, but more than acceptable at the price I paid), but the auction also included HCM versions of the Zaku (again in Tri-Stars markings) and Gelgoog Cannon, as well as another Hi-Zack and the MS in Pocket Zolo from Mobile Suit Gundam Victory - none of which are all that great, but will probably get reviewed anyway.
- Soul of Chogokin Black Ox
A case of faith restored. The Chogokin Z-Gundam left me feeling quite bummed out with the Chogokin Kado/Kahen Senshi range (though the High Complete Model version has since made it look a lot better). The dynamic Hyaku-Shiki won me back over a little bit, but I was apprehensive over the combining/transforming ZZ-Gundam. It turned out pretty nicely, though.
I must get around to watching Gundam ZZ at some point - it's meant to go totally against the grain of Zeta Gundam, so can't be all that bad - I'll take goofy over po-faced any day of the week.
However, Bandai did something to get on my shitlist this week even if the ZZ-Gundam turned out okay... I bought myself an MS in Pocket Hexa Gundam, from the Victory series, because the box (and several articles at sites more reputable than this collection of poorly researched) said it was 1/144 scale. It's nothing of the sort, being around 4" tall (so, what, 1/200?). I'm a bit miffed, to be honest - I can't think of too amy times a toy company's actually printed a direct lie on the box of a product.
- Footnotes - Chogokin GD-60 MSZ-010 ZZ-Gundam review
Another update to the Ideon media section - two related updates, anyway.
I finally found some decent resolution scans of the most recent official DVD release, produced by Taki. These are the same ones used for the episode guide mini-menus (even though the menus don't quite sync up with the episodes on the disc). With painted artwork of characters who don't always even apepar on the episodes within, and an ersatz highbrow look, these aren't really my cup of tea, but I uploaded them anyway.
Instead, for my DVDs of Ideon, I unleashed my fearsome (oh yes!) Photoshop skills on a handful of scans and bits, and did a set of covers myself. They look a little grainy on screen, but look nice enough printed (especially considering some of the images came from trading cards). Even the interlinking spine thing actually works, much to my surprise.
- The Ideon - Taki DVD Covers
- The Ideon - Custom DVD Covers
Apologies for the near-total lack of updates of late. Work has been rather hectic and I haven't been up to much on my time off - mainly doing custom DVD sleeves for Ideon and some other series, which will probably be added to the site fairly soon. I've also not been buying too many toys - not much affordable has grabbed me of late.
However, the HCM Z-Gundam (which is awful) is the first of three recent arrivals, the others being the Chogokin ZZ Gundam and the Soul of Chogokin Black Ox. Reviews for these should be done over the next few days, but in the meantime here's a quick album of Tetsujin 28 and Black Ox knocking lumps out of each other - http://counter-x.net/photos/tetsujin_v_black_ox/. I was briefly contemplating doing captions, effects and the like, but it was a lot of effort when you consider my photography's so lousy.
- High Complete Model MSZ-006 Z-Gundam review
I've decided to add some media to the Ideon section. For now it's just pictures, but I have plans for some other bits and bobs when time becomes a bit more abundant.
So far there are three sections: -
- Screenshots: these were sitting on my hard-drive following the episode guide, and it seemed a shame not to use them. The galleries are a little primitive, and the shots used a little eclectic (watching cartoons with a finger hovering over the capture key isn't much fun, so I didn't do any fresh caps), but there we go.
- Artwork: official art scanned in from a variety of sources. Quality varies quite a bit; if anyone has better resolution scans, or even stuff I don't have, I'd love to be able to spruce this bit up.
- Early Designs: a few early concepts (mainly of characters, but there are some mecha designs too) scanned in from a contemporary book.
I'm probably going to add in a character model gallery at some point, and probably DVD covers when I finally settle on a layout.
- The Ideon Media section
I've been on a bit of a Transformers kick at the moment, briefly deciding to collect all the Autobot cars and then getting bored midway through. I think it was the excitement of Revenge of the Fallen... Aside from that I've mainly been scanning comics and downloading stuff to play on my lovely new DIVX-capable DVD player, not a huge lot of which has really translated towards doing much for this place.
