“Spend your money at the show, not on admission.”

That’s the marketing hook that got me to bite on this year’s Indiana Toy and Comic Expo. I’ve long ignored the city’s preeminent geek event, Gen Con. I’m not a tabletop gamer so I never bothered to attend.

Indianapolis’s two latest comic conventions, Pop Con and Indiana Comic Con, didn’t appeal to me either. Their admission price and three-day schedule were too much. Conversely, I had been a few times to the Ash comic show held regularly on the city’s east side. The tiny show always left me underwhelmed.

In the words of Goldilocks, the ITCE seemed just right. In its second year, ITCE looked to be the right mix of inexpensive, condensed, and substantial. The one day event promised lots of vendors and a few extra frills. The event was held this past Sunday at the Wyndham Hotel on Indy’s west side.
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We’ve already seen the amazing LEGO Simpsons house (which will be mine, I swear), but the series of blind-packaged, collectible minifigures based on the hit show hadn’t all been revealed yet until this week. And good news, not only did they do a great job on all the characters, but they replaced the heavy eyelids of the Simpsons family with better looking ones! These new versions of the Simpsons make me want the House set even more.

I never would have thought that Simpsons characters would look so good in LEGO form, but they do. Everyone from Ralph Wiggum to Krusty to Nelson look great, and I love that they come with appropriate accessories. A ‘Choo Choo Choose You’ valentine? Awesome.

I hope these minifigures sell like hotcakes so we can get one or two more series based on the show. There are so many more characters I need in LEGO form. Lenny, Carl, Barney, Moe (seriously, where’s Moe?), Comic Book Guy, Bumblebee Man, Skinner, Groundskeeper Willie….well you get the point.

Like most geeks I lived vicariously through the toy bloggers snapping photos of figures and sets unveiled at the recent Toy Fair 2014 in New York. Seeing all the new stuff is the next best thing to having them in your dirty mitts. At the same time, there is a price to be paid for this early access to new toy images.

It’s a phenomenon I like to call Toy Spoilers. Because of the toy industry’s necessary lead time for Toy Fair and the crucial holiday season, we see toy versions of movies still months away from hitting the big screen. While a LEGO Ghostbusters set or ReAction Back to the Future figs now won’t take anything away from these classic franchises, seeing all of Grimlock (or God forbid, an all-new character) ahead of his debut in the next Transformers film very well can.

A toy spoiler doesn’t even have to be a spoiler in the traditional sense. The toy con just turn you off the eventual film. Allow me to better explain with a personal anecdote. Growing up I was an enormous G.I. Joe fan. I loved the figures, the vehicles, the comics—even the humorously non-violent cartoon series. I was all geared up for the live-action adaptation back in 2009. I was the movie’s key demographic that the studio was counting on. I was excited until I saw the toy version of Cobra Commander. As you probably know, he was a radical departure from the iconic bad guy we all knew. It was so shocking for me that I soured on the film completely. In fact I still haven’t watched the movie or its sequel.
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I told myself I was going to go to Toy Fair this year, but it didn’t work out. Hopefully next year! I wish it could have happened because there is a metric shitton of cool stuff getting announced. I’ll be keeping tabs on all the cool stuff and rounding up a lot of links and photos this week.

First off, Playmates teased a ton of new TMNT toys and they all look great. I’m lagging behind with their current Nickelodeon line (I haven’t been hunting for new figures for a while), but I don’t know how much longer I’ll try to get every figure in that line. However, they announced a cutesy line of Turtles called Half-Shell Heroes and they are the cutest things ever, so I will be buying all of those up.

It looks like they’ll release Half Shell Heroes versions of just about every character, a few vehicles and playsets, and even some jumbo versions of the cutesy Turtles. I think I may actually like these more than the main figures in Playmates’ current line. They look so fun.

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Wow, this is too cool. Bandai is gearing up to release an awesome Mario figurine and two diorama sets that include bricks, coins, a Goomba, turtle shell, and more. The figurine looks super posable, and they’re up for preorder on Amazon right now. It looks like they won’t ship until June, but these are a must-buy for me.

It looks like the Mario will run $25, and the dioramas will be about $20 each. That’s not bad for as high quality as these look.
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