things I witnessed at Toy Fair

There exists an Elvis chess set. I don't need it, but a kind impersonator was willing to let me photograph him.

I saw a life-sized Batman constructed of Lego blocks. I don't know if he was commercially available or if he was just a display piece. I imagine it was the latter.

I got to play with a Tardis playset.

Spider-Man was there plugging his children's books.

And shortly after returning to work, we began receiving topless Little Mermaid figures. I'm affectionately referring to her as "Party Ariel".

an admittedly disjointed update

I haven't updated in a while, due to the lingering specter of writer's block, but here's something.

-I saw TMNT today. I loved it, actually. I didn't realize it was possible to make a Turtles movie this nice.
-I saw 300 a couple of weeks back. I liked it overall; it was a fair representation of the comic and nicely costumed, if not poorly timed, what with the emperor's eyeballing of Iran. The movie, like the comic, was a typical Frank Miller testosterone trip of two hours or so.
-I had a mild argument with an elderly customer about the fact that book stores actually do have some books that are shrink-wrapped, and if one is opened to check content with no sample available, no one will want to purchase the opened one, and it will be considered damaged, making it unreturnable by the retailer. It was the most ridiculous thing she has ever heard in her long life, she tells me. I failed to convince her that other stores also are saddled with such books.
-I read Grant Morrison's entire X-Men run in one big gulp thanks to Marvel's Omnibus edition. Wow.
-I went to Toy Fair in New York. My head exploded.
-I found a copy of Mitchell on DVD. I figured if it was out there, it was destiny, so it's on the shelf now.
-I found a DVD containing the first several episodes of the first anime I ever encountered as a child, Starblazers.
-I've been looking for publishers for my comic and discovering that the pamphlet/magazine format of comics really is losing ground to trade collections and online comics.
-Still haven't bothered doing my taxes.
-Getting paperwork ready for this year's Small Press Expo.
-I've been approving lovely thumbnails for Fatalysia #2.
-My dream recollection has almost completely abandoned me for now.
-I've decided to become the Tom Baker incarnation of Doctor Who by Halloween this year. I bought a sonic screwdriver and a nifty remote controlled K-9.
-Come to think of it, I'm going through a silly period of nostalgic Doctor Who obsession. So here are some pictures sent to me today by my friend and cover artist Chris of some old Doctor Who Mego toys from the 70's.

Captain America publicity stunt

Captain America dead? Whatever. Somebody will impersonate him for a while, then he'll return with a mullet and a new attitude just like Superman did when they pulled this crap with him. I guess Marvel will probably write it better though.