Grave Considerations: Keeping the Boxes

Recently, Maz at the terrific TFSource blog documented his purging of boxes and packaging materials. I think this is an interesting topic to explore, so I thought I’d try working my way through it. I’m not an in-box collector, but like Maz, do hang on to some and certain boxes for a variety of reasons, and after an initial response of terror to what he was doing, I figured I should examine the idea myself.

I don’t keep many boxes, but the ones I do keep tend to be larger ones. Masterpiece figures for prime example come in real large, space-consuming boxes that are often much larger than they need to be to house the figure inside. Third party figures sometimes come in excellent packaging as well, yet nothing so far that can rival a Masterpiece box. Reissue or special edition figures may come in boxes that are considered worth holding on to. But I don’t display things in box, nor do I display boxes. So why keep them?

With this, my examination may begin. I don’t keep boxes for any display purpose, so why do I keep them? I’ve come up with three reasons: storage, resale value, and aesthetics. As I feel my chest tightening at the thought of throwing these boxes away, let’s see if I can find a good, rational reason to keep them.

Star Wars: The Black Series Darth Revan

Feels like forever since there's been any Star Wars figures here. Oh look!

 

Long loved in lore, Darth Revan is an Expanded Universe character who has gotten quite a lot of fiction over the years, but a very small number of physical incarnations. This might be the second one, the first being a Fan’s Choice entry in the 3.75” line and now impossibly expensive, and this one coming in the Black Series wave with the Imperial Snowtrooper and AT-AT Driver. Winner of a fan vote again, a practice of which the Coffin is always skeptical, Revan would end up being, if nothing else, a harbinger of things to come for The Black Series.

Grave Considerations: Third Party Brand Loyalty?

The first week of a new semester allows my thoughts to drift to the really important things in life: toys.

As the Coffin delves deeper and deeper into the 3^rd party transforming robot scene, it seemed like a good time to take a look at how that journey is progressing. To this point, the Coffin’s 3P focus has been on combiner teams, and then, ones that are no represented by official product. This is not out of some fealty to Hasbro, or anything like that: this has been the result of there not being official figures for these characters, or in the case of the Hercules team, no official product that appears worthwhile.

It is the end of August, 2017, and over the past almost year I have acquired 21 third party figures, two short of four complete Decepticon combiners. Hercules arrived all at once, and the Hades crew saw their two missing comrades arrive early last week. This past weekend brought the full complement of Ares, only briefly experienced but high on this weekend’s to-do list. Missing are the last two figures to complete Ryu-Oh, and those are up next on my hunt list. Of these 21 figures, only four of them are not from TFC Toys, and, as I start to scribble my shopping list for the next set of figures I’m after, I find myself pausing to ask what may be a fairly prescient question: why TFC Toys? Am I becoming a TFC brand loyalist? Should I be spreading out to other companies? Does this make me the same as the Hasbro loyalists that I routinely cast sideways glances at?

TFC Toys Hercules: Structor

 

It’s been a little while since a Hercules team member got the spotlight here, and in light of recent figure acquisition events, there is a growing fear that, if not completed soon, the rest of the Hercules dudes could be lost to enthusiasm over other, newer acquisitions. So, let’s take a gander at Structor, the Scrapper on the team.

Transformers: Titans Return Topspin

 

If G1 updates happen long enough, one of two things will eventually happen: either all G1 characters will be remade, or only some G1 characters will be remade a seemingly infinite number of times. While it usually does seem that the latter is true, there are signs that, for some reason, there is an effort to achieve the former. The slightly underwhelming yet generally excellent Titans Return Topspin is a testament to that.

Grave Considerations: The Live Action Transformers Movies

This summer. Get ready. Nothing can prepare you for close to three hours of explosions. Indecipherable CGI. Tragically unfunny improvised one-liners. Bad mugging for the camera. Explosions and car chases. Mangled storylines and entirely optional plot and character development. And explosions.

That’s right, another Transformers movie is sliding its’ way through Hollywood’s intestine, getting closer and closer to the sphincter of summer movie season! Transformers: The Last Knight is the fifth installment in the financially viable franchise, and marks the first time that Hasbro has decided to try and pretend that they think a unified narrative is a good thing. For years, since the release of the second plot starved movie, the official Hasbro party line has been that there was no overarching narrative, and that continuity amongst and between films was unimportant. Now, with the fifth installment, suddenly a “cinematic universe” will be established. Ten years and four movies too late. At least, mercifully, by mid-August The Last Knight is gone from theaters, having made substantially less money at the box office than was hoped.

TFC Toys Hades: Rhadamanthus

 So behind are we here at the Coffin that we still have figures to review that were Christmas gifts. Here we are in August, and finally we’re going to get to a toy that we got in December??? Perhaps more shocking is that parts of my TFCon 2016 haul are still unevaluated. Well, we do have two weeks off between Summer and Fall semesters, so maybe we can close that gap a bit. I also need to hurry up with the Hades figures in general, because thanks to a Big Bad Toy Store sale in June, I’m expecting the last two figures to arrive at my door within the next week or two, so I’ll have the entire set.

Rhadamanthus is the Leozack analog for the TFC Toys Hades team, and oh man is he gorgeous. A really detailed and intricate mold, Rhadamanthus wears the teal and white color scheme of Leozack, and it really does look great. The head sculpt is also terrific, with a lion helmet surrounding a smirking, characterful face. Rhadamanthus is the group leader, as is Leozack, and that comes through in the figure. He looks like the leader of a combiner team, thanks to that face, which oozes confidence and ability.

Coffin Shaker: Katatonia, The Great Cold Distance

If there has been one album that has to this point defined my 2017, it would be Katatonia’s The Great Cold Distance. Another one of those albums that I heard long, long ago and mostly brushed off, something with this album clicked for me early in the year, and has not left me since. Katatonia began life as a doomy Death metal outfit from Sweden, the band morphed over time to a more moody, depressive rock, Gothic metal group, where they’ve done largely excellent work since. 2006 brought this album. I heard it back then and really liked a few of the songs, “My Twin” being the one that I truly remember, but ultimately panned the rest of the album without giving it too much thought.

Years later, in a fairly sullen mood, the wheel of my iPod stopped first on Katatonia, and then on this album. What happened next was really nothing short of magic.

Transformers: Titans Return Kup

 

 By early August, I think I’m about as caught up on Wave 4 of Titans Return as I’m going to be. Classic poor distribution means I’ve seen figures from the wave like three times, and never all at once. I am really starting to worry about what this means for my prospects of ever finding a Misfire and Twintwist from the next wave. But, I did manage to find all three of the original molds from the wave, so let’s look at them, beginning with Kup.

Grave Considerations: Music Hoarding

There has been an issue in my life for the longest of times, and I have tried to parse some sense out of it for years; I’ve never really been successful, or at best, I’ve never found any of my conclusions to be satisfactory in the long run. So, once more we will try it again.