Q&A April 2011

A new feature here for the site, I saw Ages 25 and Up doing this first (always try to give credit where it is due) but also I got a rash of questions last month and thought I would start answering them as sometimes I get the same questions over and over.  I am thinking a monthly feature is a good idea, if I get more questions than I can handle in a month I will change it over to a bi-monthly.  

If you have a question just ask in any of the threads I post to promote, or you can pm me on those sites, or you can e-mail me at zedhatch@yahoo.com If you want to remain anonymous just say so, otherwise I will most likely use a screen name or first name (dependant on how I receive questions)

Questions are in bold, some of the questioners never got back to me on how they would like to be listed so for now I have some of them listed as "anonymous"

What is your favorite figure?-Billy B.

That is a tough one, I have to say it is very hard to decide just one as a favorite.  Microman Batman (both versions) rank high, 30th anniversary Darth Vader as well.  SDCC Movie Spider-Man is another one I love and wave 3 POC Snake Eyes as well.  But if I were forced to make a decision, 30th Vader.  He is perfectly detailed and the articulation is just right to me, not too much but not too little.  I generally am not an articulation hound but I do like movement and he fits that bill just fine. 

Why are you so anti-GI Joe?-Billy B.

I really am not but I kind of get where someone might get that.  I really love GI Joe, and Cobra and Iron Grenaders ect.  I think what might be giving this impression that I have been much more vocal about my frustration of repetition Joe keeps going through.  From recycling the Cobra Civil War to Snake Eyes version 500 and repeating the exact same characters everytime there is a new version of Joe (Duke, Cobra Commander, Destro, Firefly Snake Eyes, Storm Shadow, ect).  I mean I understand the core character idea, but it gets old fast.  I love new things like Shadow Tracker or revisits to characters who have not received as many versions like Low Light, but the repetition is killing me.  I have tried to support the line all the way through, and continue to do so but of late it has gotten stagnant because of those repeated characters.  Some accuse Star Wars of the same thing but if you look at Star Wars a bit more closely they do mix things up quite a bit more than Joe has been able to do.  That's all it is, nothing complicated or fancy.

Although I admit Star Wars Vintage line has been wearing me thin too.  Another story. 

In the great GI Joe vs. Star Wars debate, who do you think wins?-Anonymous

Not sure how to answer that, if you mean in popularity and sales, Star Wars of course.  If you mean preference, I generally jump back and forth between the two.  I was six when Star Wars came out, but I was quickly attracted to GI Joe as well.  I was there when Joe took over Star Wars and I was there when Star Wars came back and overtook Joe.  I have never been one to get uptight about a huge problem between the two either.  I like both and my preference will change depending on a combination of my mood and what is available on the toy shelves, right now its Marvel Universe LOL. 

How many lines to you have in your collection?-Anonymous

Wow that is a tough one, I honestly don't know.  I have a ton of single figures from obscure lines I have picked up over the years which is what makes such a count very hard to make.   I will say a bunch although my main concentrations of late have been GI Joe, Star Wars, and Marvel Universe, not necessarily in that order. 

As for individual figures, my last count was over 2,000.  I never tried to make a goal or limit to my collection.  I started around 1975 and haven't stopped since.  I don't get figures everyday but I do at least get one a month (dependant on what is out at the time) and I do sell off a few after a while, but for the most part I have never, ever slowed down.

Way back when you had a dog pictured in the story, is that your dog?-Anonymous

I imagine this is what you mean.

Yep, that is Lexxy (my kids named her Alexandria).  She is half lab-half collie from what I can tell.  Her story is pretty cool, we found her (and her siblings) crawling around a dumpster outside of a restaurant.  She had sever mange and barely had any hair.  We took the pups home and cleaned them up, cured the mange (which we found out was hereditary) and found homes for all her siblings but kept her.  She ran away at 6 months and we found her a month later at the house we were moving to (nearly 15 miles away, she was chasing my car).  We figure someone had to pick her up and take her there, she was starving and happy to see us.  Since then she never goes far from us if she gets loose.  Anyway she is 11 now. 

While we are on the subject, the two cats pictured in the Spy Troops Halloweeny Special are mine as well.  The black kitten died last year after she got sick, she had a genetic defect that was incurable.  The Siamese is still around, she is always just off frame when I am snapping pictures (If you ever notice a brown hair in the shots, its her). 

Where do your ideas come from?-Razor

That is one of those questions that is near impossible to answer, but I will try.  Tons of stuff comes from real life situations.  Many of the interactions of me and my children come out with Vader and the kids (but not all, and all the jokes do not come from those interactions, but there are some funny things that happen that have made it there.  Sometimes it comes from something I see, hear, ideas come from all over the place.  I'm a jokester anyway so sometimes it's just from conversations I have during the day, things I see on TV, hear on the radio, the news, just all over the place to be honest. 

So short answer there isn't one place I get ideas from. 

Since you took the comic daily, I have only seen you take one week off for finals at school, you even updated a bunch extra for your anniversary month last year, are you a work-a-holic and this all you do?-Razor

HA, might seem that way when you put it like that.  But no I do plenty else.  Part of it is how I handle this little hobby of mine, I work on it at night and on weekends when I am relaxing.  In fact it is a GREAT outlet for me, I really enjoy posing the figures and making up situations all the time.  It's a great use of my collection as well as justifies it's existence.  The thing is that in doing this as a way to relax I get a head most of the time.  I am anywhere from a week to a month of updates ahead of what I am posting (with occasional stuff I add in).  I do on occasion get tapped for ideas but also I have time to come up with stuff the way I work. 

I have contemplated brief breaks though, the last one was right around Super Bowl time this year.  Then Christina Agulara screwed up the National Anthem and I came up with this.  I had to post it ASAP so there went my break.  Still I enjoy this too much not to keep posting it in some form or another. 

So that's it for this session of Q&A's, If you have a question just contact me and you probably will see it here next month, until then: Insert catch phrase here!