2004 SAN DIEGO COMIC CON
-- Special Thanks to LordoftheRingsGuide.com,
Action-Figure.com, AFTimes.com, ADC, etc. --
-- A SUPER Special Thanks to all the Dragonspies who will be contributing to our exclusive coverage along with our coverage of everything else going on at various portals across the internet like LOTRG.com, Action-Figure.com, and TheOneRing.net --
Prelude: The 2004 San Diego Comic Convention was a huge success if you are a Lord of the RIngs fan. There were a plethora of booths centered around Middle-earth and even more that had a piece of the action. THe toys and collectibles seen were MASSIVE and probably the largest showing of Lord of the Rings specific stuff outside the INternational Toy Fair! Companies like Decipher, Sideshow/WETA, Toybiz, Master Replicas, Art Asylum, and tons more were on hand to distribute news and details about their respective lines and what is coming in the near and not too distant future. New Line presented the Return of the King : Extended Edition giftset with the Sideshow/WETA collector's piece of the Minas Tirith Environment. The companion piece of Minas Morgul was also a pleasant surprise...this set will be a HUGE seller! With all that said, read the synopsis for each company and enjoy the imagery we have and the links to other site coverage. By far the best coverage is at LordoftheRingsGuide.com! If you see something we have missed, please don't hesitate to drop us a line with a link.
Art Asylum
Play Along Toys (NO SHOW!)
Master Replicas
NECA
New Line ROTK DVD
Sideshow/WETA
Toybiz
Convention Highlight: The highlight of the show is a bit of a partial determination on the part of the Green Dragon. The highlight, in our opinion, was, by far, the NECA Balrog. As many of you may or may not know, The Green Dragon started the Balrog petition and strove to get theis figure made into plastic. Not even we could have imagined the level of detail and accuracy that is going into this figure. The NECA Balrog literally dwarfs the Toybiz prototype and even has what appears to be BETTER articulation and greated details. It will be a truly scaled Epic figure to go with your Toybiz collection of 6" scale action figures...and it WILL be the centerpiece of many a collection!!
Convention Disappointment: There were a few disappointments at the show, but none more glaring than the no-show by Play Along Toys...enough said. Wether this means anything about the future of the AOME line remains to be seen. The AOME line has the greatest potential of all the toys lines as far as coverage...would be a shame to see it go by the wayside!
Sideshow/WETA: Thanks to Dragonspy Mike, we got some very awesome Exclusive Green Dragon imagery and they did not disappoint. The highlight of the Sideshow/WETA exhibit was the fact that they brought so much cool new stuff to the show. They had their new Helms (Sauron, Eomer, Forod Oorc, etc.) as well as the AWESOME new Gothmog on Warg statue. All in all, Sideshow/WETA probably had the best booth of anyone at the show...Mike's hard work produced some of the BEST images seen to date from the Sideshow/WETA booth...no kidding...check out that Gothmog statue... SUPERB!! Also Check out Sideshow/WETA's EXCLUSIVE coverage at Sideshow.com as well!
Other Coverage: There were aton of other sites that covered the Sideshow/WETA booth including the folks at Sideshow/WETA themselves. They had a cool product display webcam that they presented thei products to the world on so everyone could see the new stuff even if you were not at the show! The best Sideshow/WETA coverage (aside from Sideshow/WETA themselves) was by LOTRG.com...check them out!
Master Replicas: Again Dragonspy Mike's images said alot about the presentation by Master Replicas of their Lord of the Rings products. Master Replicas is new to the LOTR world and they were primarily focused on their Star Wars bread and butter, but they had the very cool FX Sting and the first ever showing of the FX Sauron's Hand at the show for all to see. Check out the images!
UPDATE on Light of Earendil and Gandalf's Staff: The latest we heard is that these are not cancelled, but also not planned for the near future. They did state, howeverm that MORE Lord of the Rings products are planned and will announce them as they get closer to finalizing the details! If their product continues like the FX Sting...they will be around for a very long time in the LOTR business! Check out that sweet new Hand of Sauron. Other images also contributed by Rebelscum.com!
Other Coverage:
Toybiz: Unexpected was the showing of the Dark Galadriel and the Gothmog 2-up, but these are coming as 6" Action figures in 2005. There are more planned, but the folks at Toybiz were pretty hush-hush about the reast of 2005 and 2006. Rumor has is that LOTR is on the way out since there is no movie to support the product. Of course, if we buy it, they will continue to make it! The figures of Helm's Deep Aragorn (Superposeable) and Boromir were impressive as well as the cool figure of the Transfixed Bilbo!! Check out the exclusive TheGD.com images from our Dragonspies at Rebelscum.com! That Transfixed Bilbo is AWESOME!
