Book Review - Gus & Duncan's Guide to Star Wars Micro Collection Toys

There's nothing I like more to foster a new collecting obsession than reading about it. So when I started to get into the Star Wars Micro Collection, I read A LOT about it on the Internet, and even found a podcast where it was discussed. The podcast was a fun listen but not too deep - however one thing the podcasters mentioned was Gus and Duncan's Micro Collection book. WHAAAAAAAT???

So no sooner did I hear about, than I went on the web to try and find it. And here it is. I got it from lulu.com, which I highly recommend, especially since it was $25 less on lulu than on Amazon and $20 less than on ebay. Not sure why anyone would get it from those bandits, maybe free shipping on Amazon? But lulu shipping, even to the hinterlands of Canada, was pretty reasonable.

ANYWAY... you're wondering what the book is like. Well it's a high-quality glossy hardcover 148-page book, full of information from Gus and Duncan, photographs of toys, packaging, and prototypes, and is very attractively laid out by friend of the hobby Mattias Rendahl (and that's his very cute little boy on the cover).

The book takes a comprehensive look at each of the released Micro Collection playsets and ships of course. These are the Death Star Compactor and Escape playsets (collected into the Death Star World set), the Hoth Ion Cannon, Shield Generator, Wampa Cave, and Turret Defense (the first three comprising the big Hoth World set), and the Bespin Freeze Chamber, Gantry Walkway, and Control Room (Bespin World), as well as the X-Wing, TIE Fighter, Snowspeeder, and Millennium Falcon vehicles.

The great thing about Gus and Duncan's books is the unproduced stuff they include - and there was plenty of it for the Micro Collection. The Hoth Bacta Chamber nearly made it into production and the prototypes and packaging are amply illustrated in the book. Likewise the Bespin Torture Chamber and Dagobah sets, although they didn't make it quite as far towards production. But we see the figure sculpts and prototypes all the same and that stuff fascinates me.

Anybody who thinks the Micro Collection figures are crude or lack detail needs to check out the four-up sculpts in the book. These are four times the size of the production figures and the detail on them is just incredible.

So if you're a fan of the Micro Collection, or just of Star Wars toys that are a little off the beaten track of 3 3/4" action figures, you'll love this book. Gus and Duncan know what they're talking about, write about the toys with humour and love, and the book showcases some truly remarkable prototypes and "what-might-have-beens" from the Micro Collection range. Highly recommended!

Gus & Duncan's Guide to Star Wars Micro Collection Toys by Gus Lopez and Duncan Jenkins

Completist Publications, 2015

$50 from lulu

Boba Fett Star Wars Holiday Special Animation Script & Character Model Sheets Package

My friend Mike F, proprietor of 4th Moon Toys in Toronto, runs an annual special "Life Week" sale full of cool goodies both vintage and modern. Being a fan of Star Wars books, especially the oddball ones, I was particularly interested in this book by John Celestri, formerly an animator at Nelvana Studios here in Canada, and an industry artist and creator for over 50 years. The book was offered in a limited edition signed by the author with a bonus autographed print. SOLD!

The book arrived quickly and was all that I'd hoped. It's a pretty slim paperback, magazine sized and perfect bound, with colour covers and a B&W interior, all on high-quality slick paper with heavy card covers. 

It has some awesome character reference pictures done by John for the holiday special animation. They're so good!

The book also includes the full shooting script of the Fett cartoon from the Holiday Special...

...and of course many many renderings of the sinister bounty hunter himself!

As if the book wasn't cool enough, the package included this signed Fett print by Celestri. I put it in a frame and it's hanging upstairs in my house. 

Highly recommended to Fett fans and enthusiasts of the Holiday Special. The tv show was awful for the most part but the Fett cartoon was AWESOME and this book is a great memento of that time in Star Wars history.

"Vintage" Custom Captain Antilles and The Mystery of the Rebellious Robot!

Another fun custom project - Captain Antilles of the Tantive IV, the putative "consular ship" upon which Princess Leia travelled with the stolen Death Star plans at the beginning of Star Wars.

The opportunity for this project came about a bit randomly. I'd had a beat-up Han Bespin kicking around on my desk for awhile, and when I happened to visit a local antique shop and spotted a loose POTF2 Rebel Fleet Trooper for cheap, it was on...

Unlike the custom Rebel Fleet Trooper I made a little while ago, I didn't want to use the new POTF2 head for Captain Antilles, because I'd already used it on the custom RFT. Instead, I planned to transplant the POTF2 helmet onto Han Bespin's head. So I plunked the POTF2 figure into boiling water and removed the helmet. As shown above, I took a slice or two off the top of Han's head, and Dremeled out a hole in the top of his head to accommodate the trimmed-down stud on the inside of the helmet.

Of course, Han's original head needed some sculpting help to add the chin cup that goes with the RFT helmet. Two-part sculpting epoxy ("green stuff") was just the thing to use.

Here's Han before paint. Painting was straightforward - the pants and jacket were painted GW Zandri Dust, the shirt was done in Steel Legion Drab, the jacket yoke was done in XV-88, the leather in Mournfang Brown, the hardware Mithril Silver, and flesh touchups in Kislev Flesh.

The chincup was painted GW White Scar and strap painted in with craft black acrylic. The white patch insignia was done in White Scar and blue.

Of course the points of articulation were retained, the helmet was superglued onto the top of Captain Antilles' head.

Here's the Captain along with one of his Troopers.

Now to recreate one of the iconic movie scenes!

The other item I picked up at the antique store was this children's book, the copyright date is 1979. I had this book as a child and remember it well. The story is only marginally of interest but the illustrations are really remarkable.

Check this out! The illustrations were done by a young artist called Mark Corcoran (you can Google him for some information about him) and this was his only Star Wars work. The author is uncredited but the story was probably written in-house at the publisher - Mark said that he was just provided the manuscript and asked to do the illustrations.

The visual style here is so good - I love the side-eye Leia is giving the "walking carpet" next to her.

Corcoran really had a great grasp of the whimsy and humour of the Star Wars universe too. Look at this Jawa blaming his friend for some mischief while the other seems to be saying, "who, ME...???"

Definitely worth picking up if you have a chance, this near-mint copy cost me less than $5CAD.

Star Wars - 40 Years of French Culture Book

Earlier this year I was contacted by my friend Stephane Faucourt, who asked if I would be willing to offer some help with the English edition of his new book, "Star Wars - 40 Years of French Culture." We'd gotten to know each other when I helped Stephane a couple years back with some translation and editing on his seminal book on Star Wars in France, "La French Touch."

Well, I was happy to help out, and I was pleasantly surprised to find a copy of the new book in my mailbox shortly after. The book is great and I highly recommend it to fans of vintage (and modern!) "foreign" promotions and merchandise. The format of the book is conversational, with Stephane and his collecting friends sharing their recollections of the toys, model kits, books, promo items and other French licensed stuff from over 40 years of the brand. There's a great variety of items featured - everything from Meccano action figures, to Super 8 films, to video games and other amazing stuff, based on the original trilogy, the prequels, and even the new Disney films. A (metric) ton of content, with great photos and descriptions. 

The book is highly recommended of course - you can find it here on Amazon. Makes a great holiday gift!

Book Review: The Ultimate Guide to Vintage Star Wars Action Figures

Let's get this out of the way right at the start: Kellerman this ain't.

Mark Bellomo has produced a slick, colourful introductory survey covering Kenner vintage Star Wars toys from 1977-85. The book covers action figures (both "mini-" and "large-size"), creatures, ships, playsets, and even coins. Droids and Ewoks toys are also covered in this slick, weighty 272-page softcover tome.
  

The content is displayed in "catalog" format. Each toy is taken in turn with ample clear photography, mainly of the figure/toy only, without box or packaging (Obi-Wan above notwithstanding). Some major identified variations are also pictured. Ships and playsets are photographed from several angles and excellent detail provided regarding their component parts. There is a "price range" quoted for each item, but the book is certainly not intended to be an accurate price guide. The text, however, concentrates on "in-Universe" information, telling us in (sometimes excruciating) detail about the background of the character or object and how it fits in the Star Wars universe canon.

Not only Trilogy information is mined, oh no. We get lots of details from the prequels and Expanded Universe stuff too. For example, did you know that Greedo's father, "Greedo the Elder", was also a bounty hunter? Me neither. It's an interesting factoid I suppose, but it's only marginally relevant to the original Trilogy and even less relevant to the toy line.

However, some of these factoids, even when toy-related, are just plain incorrect. For example, it's actor Sebastian Shaw whose face was used as a model for the Anakin Skywalker head sculpt - not David Prowse's mug!

Anakin

Not-Anakin

I suppose it was inevitable that a mass-market oriented book about the toys would cross-over into a discussion about the Universe. There's only so much you can say about a mini-action figure that might be interesting to a casual reader. For example, discussion of cardbacks is limited to stating that the first issue are called "12-backs" because of the number of figures pictured on the cardback. "20/21B", same thing. But Bellomo states that beyond this, cardbacks are only referred to as "ESB", "ROTJ", or "POTF". Tell that to somebody who's looking for a 4-LOM on 47-back offerless ESB card ;-) Although to be fair, each character's debut cardback is referenced in its entry.

Okay, so I guess we know why the book is jam-packed full of information about the Star Wars universe - it's to fill the whitespace. Which is fine - if you're interested in the Expanded Universe.

Bellomo's writing style is also... complicated. Here's a quote that's typical, from the entry on the Droids ATL Interceptor:

"Utilized by the Fromm Family of Crime (a.k.a. the Fromm Gang) around 15 BBY, the spacecraft is used by the Fromms (see Droids, Sise Fromm and Tig Fromm) as an interceptor (see INT-4 and TIE Interceptor) where the ship functions to protect their weapons satellite, the Trigon One, and to subjugate and terrorize the inhabitants of the backwater Mid Rim world known as Ingo: specifically, R2-D2, C-3PO, and their masters, Thall Joben and Jord Dusat, along with their ally, Kea Moll (see their individual entries)."

Whew! How about:

"The ship was used by the Fromm Gang around 15BBY to protect the Trigon One (their weapons satellite) and to subjugate and terrorize the inhabitants of Ingo, a backwater Mid Rim planet."

The author also uses the same hyberbolic adjectives again and again... "impossibly rare," "incredibly expensive," every playset and vehicle's parts are noted as being "removable/easily lost"... it just gets a bit same-y.

Those are some examples of how the book might have benefited from more aggressive editing. Another example is a very confusing discussion at the beginning of the book about the terms "MIB" (mint in box) and "MISB" (mint in sealed box). Explanations are given of these terms, then Bellomo introduces the terms "MIP" (mint in package) and "MISP" (mint in sealed package), which have essentially the same meanings as MIB and MISB. Why?? It's incongruous and a waste of space, especially when some figure collecting basics like COO are not even referenced.

However, Bellomo can be commended in producing a worthwhile introductory text for vintage enthusiasts. If you're looking for a guide to what accessories come with what figure, or identification of some major variations, or just want to look at pretty pictures of vintage toys, then this is your book. It's comprehensive as far as it goes, covering all the vintage figures (plus Ewoks and Droids) plus creatures, ships, and even coins. It's all here, in colour, in one volume. The identification of the parts that come with each vehicle and playset is an invaluable reference. And the photos are spectacular!

But as reference for more advanced collectors and fans, there are things lacking. A major deficit, in my view, is the lack of information on cardback variations and more fundamentally, on packaging at all. Kenner's package design is one of the toy elements that's most attractive to collectors and enthusiasts and some pictures or reference on that would certainly be welcomed by the collecting community. This is especially relevant in light of recent developments in the world of reproductions - not only repro cardbacks, but reproductions of boxes and even inserts! I suspect that a major reason for this omission is that the toys pictured in the book are all from Bellomo's personal collection, and he may not personally own boxed versions of the toys - or maybe, like my own collection, his boxes aren't all in a condition that's "ready for prime time" ;-) However, if the book had included photography of cardbacks, packaging and boxes, there wouldn't be the need for all of the extraneous Universe information to fill the book.

I can understand the concentration on loose toys, and that's great. But even in accepting this focus, the lack of any information, or even any mention, of COO information as regards the figures is a significant deficit.

Collectors will love to use this book for parts reference to ships and playsets, and as an accessories/weapons guide for figures. The toy photography is also exquisite. But don't expect any meaningful discussion of packaging or cardbacks, figure variations or COO information. You may also find the excessive discussion of the Expanded Universe and Bellomo's florid prose distracting.

I guess in the end, the book is just a bit confused as to its purpose. Is it a collector's reference? Or is it a fan reference to character backgrounds and the "history" of the Star Wars universe? As it happens, it's a bit of both (almost more the latter than the former), and as such will likely have an increased mainstream appeal. I certainly recommend it for eye candy alone, especially at the price. However, this also means, unfortunately, that we still await the ultimate collector reference. Roll on Kellerman Second Edition!
 Verdict: Recommended for what it is, especially at the price.
 

The Ultimate Guide to Vintage Star Wars Toys by Mark Bellomo
Krause Publications
$17.70 from Amazon.com

EDIT: This review was mentioned on the Star Wars Collectors' Archive podcast (the Vintage Pod/'Chive Cast) episode 59. Tune in around 1:24 to hear for yourself :-)