Minifigure Mini-Review #6: Firework Guy

In the last review, we looked at Cactus Girl, and today we’re taking a look at Firework Guy, who's also from Series 18. On the face of it, this is a pretty fun costume. But I can tell you exactly who would wear this sort of costume to a party, and it's not fun at all. 

The main sort of person to buy this costume would be an ageing uncle, invited out of obligation and with the secret wish that he wouldn’t come. He’d carry on like he was the life of the party – but in truth, he’d forget to bring to bring a present, proceed to drink too much and then embarrass everyone with crass rocket/penis analogies. 

When he finally poured himself into a cab, hours after the party had finished and all the other guests had left, the hosts would secretly hope they’d seen him for the last time.  

Arriving home to his one-bedroom apartment in a bad part of town, he’d burst into tears because he’s still not quite over the wife that left him all those years ago for a much better guy. Deep down, he knows how little other people like him – at work, down at the pub, and worst of all, his former family. The moment his kids turned 18 and they didn’t have court-ordered visits anymore, they stopped showing up. He’s staring at the wrong end of 50, all of his ambitions have amounted to nothing and the nights can be so lonely. 

Fireworks may light up the sky, but they can never truly brighten the darkness within your soul. 

Aside from that, Firework Guy is a pretty solid Minifigure. Just make sure you keep him away from the liquor cabinet at any Lego party he might attend.

Minifigure Mini-Review #5: Cactus Girl

Minifigures are one of my favourite things about Lego. Collecting them helps stem the encroach of the void within™ and it’s a huge source of joy for me to see what they come up with each series. Well, Series 18 is finally hitting Australian shelves – and boy oh boy is it a great one. 

It’s a Costume Party theme! Today, we take a look at Cactus Girl!

My immediate thought upon seeing this Minifigure was to think of a Cactuar from Final Fantasy, and I’m sure I’m not the only one to notice it. Beyond this, the Minifigure does exactly what it says on the tin – it’s a girl in a Cactus costume.

But let’s get a little more granular. She’s specifically dressed as a saguaro, which is often thought of as being the archetypal cactus thanks to a ton of American movies that feature shots of the desert. However, there are actually 1750 known species of cactus, so it’s kind of selfish of the saguaro to hog all the attention. Yeah, we know your flower is the state wildflower of Arizona! So what?  

The arms are posable, so can be rendered at the jaunty angle of your choice. I prefer mine both up, but I’m sure you can change things according to your specific taste. Cactus Girl also comes with two faces – one happy and one anxious. I’m not totally sure on why they’ve done this, but it’s always nice to have an extra option, particularly if you like to mix and match parts.

The only real letdown is that there’s no paint on her spines. It’s understandable why they didn’t do it, but it detracts very slightly from the final effect. Nonetheless, Cactus Girl is a solid figure, and would easily be a series highlight in any other series. She’s not the standout figure from this particular series, but I do like her very much nonetheless.

POP! WWE – The Undertaker

I was a bit of a wrestling fan around the middle years of high school. Not a massive one, but I enjoyed the action, the over-the-top personalities and the campy tone. This was the “Attitude Era” of WWE, which was an interesting time for the company. The departure of a number of big stars like Hulk Hogan had left them floundering a little, and they were trying to figure out where they sat in the market – were they aiming to bring in a new generation of kid fans, or where they trying to cater to their existing and now-adult fans?

As might be expected, they kind of went for both, with predictably weird results. There was a big emphasis on being EDGY and DARK and SEXY, which meant kids were pretty keen to watch while their parents – and older fans – were often less than approving. It was a big financial success for the company…but a lot of really hasn’t aged very well. Still, a number of modern wrestling legends like Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Triple H and rose to popularity during this era. Modern day golden boy John Cena also debuted shortly after its end, so I guess you could tack him in there too.

But the wrestler that always leapt out at me was The Undertaker. As a teen who was interested in kind of dark and goth-y things but hadn’t yet properly discovered heavy metal or horror movies, the Undertaker was a bit of a pointer in the right direction. A gateway drug, even. So when I stumbled across this POP a few weeks ago, I thought I should add him to the horror shelf.  

This POP looks to be based on ‘Taker in his "Phenom" phase, a look he debuted in 2004. It was a bit of a hybrid of a number of his previous looks, essentially functioning as an edgier update of his original mortician look. It was a great choice; for fans like myself who haven’t kept up on all of the minutiae of the WWE’s lore, it serves as a good generic look for the character.   

But it’s not perfect; in person, The Undertaker is extremely physically imposing and visually interesting – but this hasn’t always translated well to his toys, because he’s pretty much just dressed in different shades of black. This toy suffers from a little of that, with the only real differentiation between different areas of black being the gloss on his coat to give it a leather look. Nonetheless, it’s a well-sculpted figure which allows him to be instantly identified – something that I don’t feel can be said for quite a few of the other WWE POPs.

Undertaker here was apparently released all the way back in 2014, but I managed to stumble on him in a Sydney record store. He’s probably about due for another iteration, perhaps one focused on his "American Bad Ass" era. Until then, this is a solid piece for the casual and dedicated Undertaker fan alike.  

Lego Review: Creator 3in1 Modular Winter Vacation (31080)

Creator is great at slice-of-life stuff, frequently accompanied by a healthy dose of the fantastic. Most of the sets would look great in a full-blown City set-up, but they also work as standalone dioramas for your desk. The Lakeside Lodge that I bought a couple of years ago is a great example, and this one probably exemplifies it even more effectively.

Today though, we take a look at the Modular Winter Vacation. The primary build of the set – seen in these photos – is essentially a chalet. Originally developed in the Swiss Alps, you can now find them dotted all over snowfields around the world. In real-life, its angled roof serves a practical function; snow naturally slides off, preventing build-up and reducing maintenance in the process. Sadly, in real life a couple who can afford to rent or own it would likely be extremely high maintenance.  

However, Lego is free of real-life WASP-ish social concerns and so the minifigures included in this set look friendly enough. There’s a guy and a girl – presumably a couple, though you can insert your own narrative here – equipped with skis and a snowboard respectively. You can make either of them bust out a sick 1080 if you want. Neither of them warrants a lot of comment; they’re both dressed in appropriate snow gear but they’re not particularly exciting. Though in a nice touch, the guy also has a frightened face printed on him too, which is great if you want to send him down the sloping roof of the house.

The chalet itself is great fun to build; a deceptively simple design that looks quite impressive, effectively creating the illusion of fallen snow and a cosy cottage. There’s two exterior elements too; a snow-capped tree and a bench for lunch.

The interior isn’t as great, but it looks generic enough that it could be a place to stay, a café or perhaps even an equipment rental store. For myself, I’m sticking with accommodation, particularly as that’s how it looks from the front.

On the roof, there’s also an area for the holidaying couple to sip on schnapps, beneath the light of a lantern. An owl also perches on the balcony, presumably drawn by the heat – and here we move to an unusual point.

Towards the end of building this set – actually, pretty much when I got to building the owl – I stumbled upon a subconscious reason as to why I may have wanted this set in the first place. Sure, it’s pretty cool in its own right, and the build featuring the Yeti looks really fun. But I think an underlying reason I wanted it was because the main build looks a lot like the way I used to picture Whitley Strieber’s cabin in Communion. Those of you who’ve read the book or seen the movie will also know that owls play a significant role in the narrative, which makes its inclusion particularly poignant. As you can see in this link, it doesn’t look much like the real thing. But I first read the book around ’98 or ’99, and I don’t think I ever saw a picture of his cabin until ’10 or ’11.

There are two other ways to build the set – a bobsled launching point, and a public toilet being attacked by a Yeti. I like both of them, but my main issue with them is that they’re sort of devoid of context on their own. Ideally I’d buy three separate copies of this set and build them all together, but in the meantime I think I’ll just maintain this build for display.

Even without the (admittedly tenuous) Communion connection, this is a really fun set. It doesn’t have a lot of other sets to go with it at the moment, but hopefully there will be more snow-themed sets in the near future. It’s an area that could have plenty of potential and hasn’t been widely explored outside of the of the Arctic-themed City sets a few years ago. Highly recommended.

POP! Movies: Tyrannosaurus Rex (Jurassic Park)

Well, articles and reviews haven’t been coming nearly as fast as I might have liked this month. There’s a few reasons for that. One is Lost Tunnels, which is in the process of being edited. Another is that I’ve picked up some freelance work (if you would ALSO like to hire me, flick me a message at lupinebookclub@gmail.com).

But the main reason is that I was actually overseas for a couple of weeks. My wife, myself and some other family members headed to New Zealand on a cruise, to celebrate my mother’s birthday. It was great fun, but it did mean that I ran a bit behind on my usual stream of articles. My apologies, dear readers. 

Nonetheless, things are settling back into a more normal routine now. So on to today’s review!

Tyrannosaurus Rex is my favourite dinosaur, hands down. Sure, I love plenty of other dinosaurs too, but gun to my head, T-Rex will always trump all other contenders. So I was pretty excited when I discovered that there would be a T-Rex as part of Funko’s Jurassic Park line. Awesome! It inspired some amazing toys back when the original movie was released – there’s no way it could be anything but awesome. And surely it would be a 6” POP, right?

Sadly, the final product is not quite what it could be.

The first issue is the size of this guy. He’s much too small! Funko seems to have slowed right down on the 6” POPs in general, and I suspect this guy is just a victim of circumstance. I can understand that, given that they seem to shelfwarm a lot harder than most other figures, but it’s still disappointing. How many other T-Rexes are we likely to get in this format? Surely this was a shoe-in for success.

Second is the fact that he can’t stand on his own – his gigantic head is solid, which makes the whole thing far too bulky. A stand is provided but it only plugs into one foot...the softer plastic of the leg has already warped and caused him to fall over once on a hot day, so I am not super-optimistic about long-term display prospects.

The pricing bugs me too. It’s the same price as regular POPs – $19AUD – but it feels like more of a rip-off. Now I didn’t mention this in my Dilophosaurus review; I’m prepared to pay a premium for a Dilophosaurus because there aren’t a lot of Dilophosaurus toys around, and you need to take what you can get. But for a T-Rex…if you’re going to charge $19AUD, it had better be something pretty amazing. Your average dollar store will offer a far better T-Rex toy, at a mere fraction of the cost. This really lacks the necessary x-factor and feels like it’s coasting on the back of the license.   

Finally, a word about the paint. The teeth are incredibly sloppy, and there’s a big mark across the tongue – neither of which was visible while in the box. This time it’s annoyed me enough that I am actually going to take steps to fix it. I know I say this a lot in my POP reviews, but I think this one is bad enough that it’s actually warranted.

While this POP isn’t a total write-off, I don’t think I would have bought Rexy here if I had my time again. But in the absence of a time machine, I’ll have to live with my decision; hopefully he eventually grows on me. Or at least stays standing up. 

Novella Update 2: March 2018 – You Can Write Too!

As many of you will be aware, I’m moving towards the final stages of self-publishing a novella of mine – Lost Tunnels. If you missed the update I wrote about it a little while ago, you can find it here.

I’m still trying to set a final release date, which is contingent on a few different factors – not the least of which is me properly getting to grips with Kindle Direct Publishing. I want to make sure it’s a quality product that you – and other readers – get, not something that I have to go in and make a ton of edits to after launch. Watch this space!

But in the meantime, I thought I’d write a little bit about writing itself – to provide a bit of encouragement to anyone else thinking of giving it a go. If you’re thinking of writing a book, a short story or even just a blog yourself, I would really encourage you to do it. Pretty much everyone has at least one book in them, and the rise of digital self-publishing has meant far greater democratisation in publishing. But here are some things you might find helpful to know first, before you launch in head-first.    

You’re going to have to give something up

Many people think that they need to “find the time” to write. True, many of us could use our time more efficiently, but having been a professional writer to varying degrees since I was eighteen, much of my best work tends to happens by deliberately excluding activities from my schedule.

For me, writing in recent years has tended to come at the cost of video games. Now I appreciate that for many people reading, this would not necessarily be a huge sacrifice. But I love video games – to the extent that I actually worked for a prominent video games retailer for many years. Gaming while I worked there was not just a fun pastime; it was actually a necessity. You needed to keep up to speed on which titles were coming out, and you wanted to be able to give customers accurate information. You can fake it till you make it for many forms of retail, but it’s harder with gaming than most.

Now that I don’t work there any longer, I barely play games at all. My wife does; she’s obsessed with The Elder Scrolls Online. But I just get in the odd round of Mortal Kombat X or the occasional session on the SNES Classic. 

My larger point is that unless you are exceptionally disciplined with your time, you are probably going to need to give up one or more things that you like in order to write. Choose wisely; part of the reason I chose gaming was because I knew I could afford to lose it. I love writing more than I love video games, and completing Lost Tunnels was much more important to me than completing whatever Call of Duty came out that year. Your own mileage will vary. You don’t want to exclude yourself from something vital to your being in order to do something that will just cause you resentment.    

Put your phone away

Years ago, my mother-in-law met the one and only Sir Terry Pratchett while on holiday. At the time I was working on some fantasy novel or other, and she asked him if she had any advice for me. I don’t remember the exact wording of what he said, but it was to effect of “Place ass on seat. Begin writing. Remove ass when writing is complete.”

Rarely have truer words been spoken. I am a natural procrastinator and can quite easily chew up my designated writing time with social media, finding a new band to listen to (to help my writing, of course), looking for new t-shirts online, deciding to have something to eat or just simply getting anxious about what I’m about to write. None of this is made easier with a phone by my side. So put it the FUCK away if you’re serious about giving writing a go. NB: I am not always very good at following this advice.  

Why are you doing it?

I don’t write to be rich and famous. It would be amazing if that’s what happens after I release Lost Tunnels, but I am actually working with fairly modest expectations. Of course, I plan to write more – and am working on more already, actually – but I would be a terrible fool if I thought that success was going to be overnight.

So why do I write? It’s because I have to. Ever since I found out what a novelist was as a little kid, I wanted to be one. Writing is one of the only things I’m good at.  I’ve been writing stories since I was a little kid, and though there have been interruptions along the way, I’ve never really stopped. Even if no-one ever reads Lost Tunnels – and of course, I hope you do – I will still know that I’ve done it, and that’s enough for me. I needed to get it out of my system in one way or another.

Similarly, I slogged away at this blog for years before anyone really paid attention. This was partially because I didn’t have a good a grip on how to promote it, and partially because it’s a niche blog which in turn means you attract a niche audience. Either way, it didn’t matter; I wrote because it made me happy and it was therapeutic. And it turns out, Field of Dreams was right: if you build it, they will come.   

I am always pleasantly surprised (if not a little jealous) when I see relatively new writers/bloggers going gangbusters, hitting milestones far beyond anything I have done. I turn 33 this year, and I’ve see authors significantly younger than me hit heights of (material) success that are daunting by comparison. But with that said, I’m also in a position some might envy. I’ve written for Reader’s Digest, I’ve helped other people write their novels, I have a blog with a loyal readership and I’ve managed to make it all the way through a first draft of my own. You would be surprised at how many aspiring writers cannot. Perhaps most significantly, I make my living writing; it is my day job.

With that said, the comparison trap is easy to fall into and rarely helpful; you don’t know people’s individual circumstances, how hard they’ve worked or what opportunities they’ve been gifted. Not to mention your own circumstances; poor health, failed relationships, work and the other vagaries of day-to-day life can literally steal years away from you – years you might have spent writing. So if you’re not where you want to be, don’t worry. 

You do need to work hard, but it’s as much down to chance as it is anything else. This can terrify and overwhelm you, but it can also spur you on to greater heights. I suppose I’m an existentialist, so it does both for me on different days of the week.

I’ve rambled enough, and everything I’ve said above has already been said by others with far more experience than me. Get out there and write – because your idea sure as shit isn’t going to write itself.

POP! Drag Queens – Trixie Mattel

Over the last few years, RuPaul’s Drag Race has become quite the cult phenomenon around the world. My wife is obsessed with it, and so by default I’ve ended up watching quite a lot of it too. It’s not necessarily something I’d go out of my way to watch, but it’s bright, it’s fun and a lot of the celebrity judges are great.

Several stars have emerged from the show already, one of whom is the subject of today’s review – Trixie Mattel. She first appeared on the show’s seventh season – and despite only finishing at 6th place, she rapidly emerged as a fan favourite. At time of writing, she’s appearing on RuPaul’s Drag Race: All Stars and acting as co-host of The Trixie & Katya Show.   

As you may have guessed from her name, Trixie Mattel often styles herself to look like some sort of Barbie doll. This is even reflected in the box design, which uses a parody of the Mattel logo and a very Barbie-esque shade of pink.

I’m not familiar enough with the show to know whether this is based on a specific outfit she wore in the show, but she looks easily recognisable. Paint is solid, particularly on her face – an essential part of getting this figure right. But with that said, this is actually the second Trixie I picked up for my wife. The first was missing its mouth – it just hadn’t been painted on at all!

The POP! Drag Queens has the potential to be an interesting one. Currently there's three figures – Trixie here, Alaska Thunderfuck and of course, RuPaul himself. I wouldn’t be surprised if we get a few more in future, as RuPaul alone lends himself to an absolute ton of variants. It would be great to see Divine get added to the line at some point too. I think it’s a good fit for the format, and will likely appeal to the kitsch sensibilities of some, even if they aren’t otherwise interested in POPs.