Posted in: Comics | Tagged: diamond select, NYCC, toys

Diamond Select Toys Wants To Be In Your Freezer

By Jeremy Konrad

Diamond Select Toys held a panel on Saturday morning at NYCC, and they are an interesting company to look at right now. They hold many licenses including Star Wars, Marvel, Ghostbusters, Lost in Space, and Star Trek. What is interesting about them is that they mostly seem to focus on making products that you would be able to find in any general retail store, with minor variations that they make exclusive to comics retailers, including their popular line of minimates, which were not shown here. From ice cube trays to bottle openers, it feels like they are getting a little away from higher end toys and statues. This was evidenced by what was seen on their slide presentation, which we were not allowed to photograph.

The panel started out previewing their offerings from the Batman 66 TV show, which will include resin statues, bust banks, and of course bottle openers. The statues will naturally begin with Batman and Robin, and they have plans to expand the line into the villains of the series as well, showing off The Joker, The Riddler, Penguin, and Catwoman. Their extremely popular line of bust banks will continue, with Batman and Robin being produced. The line concluded with some admittedly cool looking bottle openers in a mold of the logo and a batarang. Look for these products to start hitting towards the end of the year.

Diamond then showed off a beautiful Dawn holiday ornament, and a Domo pizza cutter and ice tray. After showing an electronic B9 robot from Lost in Space, it was on to Ghostbusters. The first product they showed was an amazing Ghostbusters 7-inch replica firehouse, complete with a light-up sign and windows. The detail on this thing is fantastic. Count me in for one of those at the end of the year. That will be followed up early next year by a gigantic 24-inch Stay Puff Marshmallow Man bust bank. After a few slides for size comparison on Mr. Stay Puff, they quickly moved on to Knight Rider, showing a K.I.T.T. with real pursuit sounds exclusive to their version.

Next was Marvel, where they showed off 7-inch figures from Thor: Dark World, and announced that quite a few of their previously exclusive figures for the Disney store will be made available to comics retailers, specifically Classic Thor, Hawkeye, Black Widow, and The Lizard. Silver Surfer was shown off next, and he looks ok, but the "translucent" part of the base did not really seem to achieve the desired effect. As with the other lines, there were bottle openers and ice trays, with Deadpool, Venom, and Infinity Gauntlet openers shown, followed by Thor, Captain America, Spider-Man, and Iron Man ice trays shown last.

They then showed a slide for Pulp Fiction, saying that while they have nothing to show, they will be making figures from the film, along with minimates. After that they also revealed the 4 figures from their Munsters line, with deluxe figures available in specialty shops, each containing a piece to build the Munster staircase. The Munster glow in the dark coach car also looked pretty neat. Universal Monsters were also covered with some more figures shown off, including the Son of Frankenstein and an original concept design for Van Helsing, which they seem to be very excited about. The highlight of this part of the presentation for me was the Wolfman bust bank they showed off. It looks stunning, a perfect likeness of Lon Chaney Jr. But where oh where is my Wolfman figure, Diamond?

The duel threat of Star Trek and Star Wars were shown next. Star Trek seems to be their most popular line, and they had a lot of product to show. Ship replicas of the Excelsior, Bird of Prey, and the Enterprise B with battle damage shown. They also announced the next two figures in their 7-inch Select figure series, with the third figure being Captain Picard. The fourth figure is still to be announced, but was said to be from The Next Generation. Bust bank wise, Spock is up first, to be followed by Captain Kirk. Trek was wrapped up by—you guessed it—ice trays of the Next Generation Enterprise and Star Fleet symbol. On the Star Wars front, sadly there was not much shown. A bust bank, an updated Cad Bane, was shown. That was followed by a Darth Vader bottle opener with Boba Fett coming next year. The last slide shown was for the film Aliens, with them saying that vehicles, minimates, and other products will be coming soon.

Q&A Time:

Van Helsing and 30's Dracula figures? Due to likeness issues, those will not happen. When asked right after about more classic monsters, the panel told us to think of Universal Monsters as the Justice League: once you get past the big ones, it becomes harder to produce the figures. Sales drive everything, and retailers may not be interested past the big monsters.

Any plans for the 30^th anniversary of Ghostbusters? Nothing planned right now, besides the upcoming firehouse.

Any plans for Deep Space 9 figures? Not at this time, no plans.

Maybe a box set that includes unmade Star Trek Captains? They would have to have a retailer on board, and they are skittish without a show or movie out currently (umm, Star Trek Into Darkness?).

Anything you can do with the old 2004 Clone Wars Star Wars show? Nope, but they did say they are VERY interested in what is happening with the new show Rebels.

And that was it. Some nice things were shown, but what I took away from the presentation is that while they own many licenses, what they are allowed to produce with them is extremely limited because of existing contracts with others companies.

Jeremy Konrad is a contributor to Bleeding Cool. Find him on Twitter @jeremyohio.

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