Week of: July 30th, 2001

Sunday, Aug. 5th:

Sorry for the lack of updates this last week, but I was out of town on vacation. I got back late Friday night from Door County to find several store reports waiting, but I was off to GenCon yesterday and am just now able to post.

GenCon Report

Rebelscum.com has a GenCon report posted here. Instead of repeating everything they have, I will augment it and explain the pictures that they have up.

The first thing to note is that GenCon is a game fair. As such, there are a lot of people who dress up for the role playing games as well as a costume contests. Along with almost every other possible character that people might dress up as are Star Wars characters. Among the costumes were dozens of Jedi, Stormtroopers, Sandtroopers, Biker Scouts Imperial Officers, and more. It is pretty fun to see a couple Stormtroopers walk by.

Wizards of the Coast sponsored GenCon and they had a huge area set up showing off their role playing games. One game that they were demonstrating used action figures as playing pieces. All of the action figures that they were using were older ones and they had them moving around a "playset" (or playing board) that looked like it might have been borrowed from Dungeons & Dragons.

Billy D. Williams was the Guest of Honor. The floor opened at 10:00am and he was to sign autographs (for free) from 10:00 to 11:00. He was a little late and the line was huge. At 11:00, they cut the line off just 10 people behind me. I was thinking I was lucky. Well, the line didn't move too much in the next 20 minutes and I had to settle for a free B&W photo instead. He then moved to a Q&A session that was pretty lame. He pretty much had a guy who fed him questions to answer such as "You just finished a new movie, could you talk about that?" There were some real questions asked by fans, but Billy D. isn't much of a public speaker. Later, he was signing autographs again, this time he was charging $20 per. He was also selling some of his artwork and an exclusive 2-pack that is limited to 100. This 2-pack is pretty lame, basically it is two figures crudely cut from their card and glued onto another printed card. Definitely not worth the $50 he was asking. The lines were again long, but I finally got his autograph.

There were plenty of others to get autographs from including Michonne Bourriague (Aurra Sing, left) and Shannon Baksa (Mara Jade, right). Also on hand were Michael Stackpole (X-Wing series), Timothy Zahn (Heir to the Empire series), R.A. Salvatore (Vector Prime), and Steven Sansweet (Star Wars Encyclopedia). I was able to get several signatures including an Aurra Sing figure (finally).

Decipher had a large booth and they were giving away an oversized CCG card that having Michael Stackpole, Shannon Baksa, and Timothy Zahn on it as characters from the expanded universe. You could get these cards for free if you bought $20 worth of merchandise (I didn't) and have them signed by all three characters (Michael Stackpole is on the left, Shannon Baksa in the middle, and Timothy Zahn on the right) for free as well.

Del Rey had a booth showing upcoming books and they were giving away some small posters with artwork from Cloak of Deception.

Hasbro shared a small booth in the Wizards of the Coast area. Paul Palmer was the only Hasbro person there and he brought along a few of the upcoming toys. Besides some figures that are already out, he had a loose Tie Interceptor, loose Shmi, loose Han Solo (Death Star Escape), loose and carded Darth Vader (Emperor's Wrath), and a carded Luke (X-Wing Pilot). The Tie interceptor looked just like you would expect it using the body from the Tie Fighter and new wings. Shmi looked great and has added arm articulation. Han Solo looked pretty nice having a new head sculpt, but the legs are posed in an odd position. Darth Vader looked OK, but I was hoping that there would have been more definition on his skull. The loose figure had lightning bolts added to his helmet while the carded figure didn't. The Luke looked pretty good, but I couldn't get that close.

There was a licensee Q&A that hardly anyone came to. In attendance were Wizards of the Coast, the Star Wars Insider, Del Rey, Steven Sansweet (Lucas Licensing), Paul Palmer (Hasbro), Decipher, R.A. Salvator (Author), plus another author. They would not talk about anything even close to EP2. There wasn't anything new to report from Hasbro. The New Jedi order series of books is huge. It will include 17-21 novels over the course of 5 years. There were tons of really specific questions that wouldn't make sense if I repeated them here.

Steven Sansweet also had his Star Wars Connections show. As we were waiting in line, people were handing out two promo cards (P1 & P4) from the upcoming Evolution series by Topps. This presentation is very cool and fun, but doesn't really show you that much. By that I mean there is tons of behind the scenes stuff from EP2 and tons of footage in front of blue screen, but it is tough to tell what any of it really will look like in the movie. There is one spot where a guy is using two lightsabers, very cool looking. The idea of the presentation is to help show how EP2 ties EP1 to the classic trilogy. There were some spoilers, but not too many unless you live in a cave.

Target Reports

Most all Targets got in a case or two of the 12" bounty hunters. It is good to see them show up again, especially at $19.99. Both Madison area stores had a case or two of the army builder case, Ketwol wave, and Sandtrooper wave. Thanks to Ray H., Gary S., Don M., and Joe Y. for their reports. It looks like Thursday would have been the day to hit the Targets here in Madison. Many of the Targets on the way back from Door County had some new figures on their pegs and the 12" Bounty Hunters.

TRU Reports

TRU west in Madison got in some of the Fan Club exclusive figures on Thursday. They got Leia Hoth, Death Star Droid, and AT-AT Driver. I did not get any reports of any Pote Snicken figures. These figures are selling for $2.97. I saw a couple Leia figures at the TRU in Fond du Lac. It looks like both the east and west Madison stores also got in the Ketwol wave and the Sandtrooper wave on Thursday. Thanks to Gary S., Ray H., Don M., and Joe Y. for the reports.