New Arrivals - Early April 2014

Wow. It's looking good for April isn't it? I can tell you right now this is going to be nothing like a Heroic Decepticon or Brr-Icy new arrivals post, we are definitely into WTF territory with this one. What can I say/? It's been a slow Spring in terms of toy purchases for me, in fact apart from the Hot Rod reissue I bought my daughter, everything I got was a generous free gift and either for my daughter again, or something someone really didn't want! "No Transformers March" has segued unpleasantly into "No Transformers April".

How (Yel-)low can you go?

So, why on Earth would I pick up such a wretchedly worn, yellowed (browned?) and broken, incomplete Macross 1/55 vintage VF-1S Valkyrie? For a start, it was free courtesy of The Spacebridge, and most importantly, I thought it was a variant. I had already stumbled inadvertently onto a vintage 1/55 VF-1S Strike Valkyrie variant (or at least I think I did) and I mistakenly assumed that the Macross collecting community didn't give two craps about moulding and parts variants (let alone packaging variants) the way some Transformers collectors do. In truth, they were just smarter than me.

Takatoku 1/55 vintage Macross VF-1S Battroids

The one on the left is the newly acquired VF-1S (shall we call it pre-Jetfire to be TF collector-inclusive?) and the one on the right is the vintage VF-1S by Takatoku toys I already had. The box colour for this famous toy is green, but this new one was the second time I'd seen a blue box version. I couldn't resist, I had to investigate. The red colour on the Macross logo hadn't faded (although the toy was almost orange - examine the other leg-half to see what it should look like) and that's usually the first thing to go, so I figured it must be something else! Also, the box was uniformly blue all over, even the inner box flap section that should never have been exposed to sunlight. Surely then it was a box variant, right? Wrong. It was faded. When I looked at all sides up close, certain greens (the artwork of the robot's eyeband) had equally faded from green to a light blue. I guess the real giveaway should have been the "BATTROID VALKYRIE" lettering on the front. Fail.

But hey, I finally have a replacement landing gear part for the nice one.

Turrican Soundtrack Anthology - Chris Huelsbeck

If you're reading this blog, you are more than likely a child of the 80s, possibly even the 90s. There is also a good chance that if you love robots, you have a soft spot for video games too and experienced their explosion in the 80s/90s as well. Now that robot love may well have also led you to the series of C64 and Amiga games by Factor 5 / Rainbow Arts called "Turrican". If they did, first of all I salute your unbelievable style and taste, and secondly I suspect you'll be a fan of the music of synth genius Chris Huelsbeck. Huelsbeck's music has been available for years on CD, but a successful Kickstarter project in 2013 got him back into the studio to record a "Soundtrack Anthology" of the music from all 4 Turrican games (T1, 2, 3 and Super Turrican). The result is what Huelsbeck and Turrican fans have wanted their whole life. 

Unfortunately I missed the original Kickstarter and was never going to pay £200+ for a second-hand copy. I was shown a Reddit Q&A with Huelsbeck recently where he was advertising a few spare copies left over from the sale that were available, and $99 shipped later, it's sitting on my desk along with the shipping slip that says "From Chris Huelsbeck...to Maziar S...", and I have 2 emails in my inbox from the man himself. Magical. The money could have gone on a MP-13B Soundblaster or MMC Leo Dux, both of which I desperately want, but any person who collects vintage Transformers can tell you, childhood nostalgia wins every time.

627 of 2500, signed.

All the best

Maz