Battle Beasts IDW Comic #1 in New Previews, Due in July

The new Battle Beasts IDW comic book is coming a heck of a lot sooner.  We just received this shot of a page in the new issue of Diamond Previews advertising the comic as a 4-issue limited series... and Transformers started off as a limited series, and look at it now!

It's due in July, and IDW Publishing posted a solicitation which also confirms a variant cover.  Apparently, the whole thing should be kicking off in time for Comic-Con!

Guido Guidi Contributing to Beast Saga

Via Twitter, artist/designer Guido Guidi (who you may know best for his work on Transformers, confirmed he did indeed contribute designs to Takaratomy's Beast Saga line-- and gave us a couple of names!  He writes:

"Great to see some designs I did for Takaratomy "Beast Saga" coming to (plastic) life : in this pic Coelence & Pirazon!"

I'm assuming Coelence is on the left and Pirazon is on the right, but I guess we'll know for sure later!

Beast Saga: Painted Figures Revealed, Beast Fight Collection?

Commence pants-dumping jokes, because painted Beast Saga figures and pricing in Japan have been revealed! In short: they're not expensive, but not as cheap as what Diamond's line is likely to be in the USA. RobotKingdom posted a ton of pictures to Facebook of Transformers and, of course, the Beasts. Their store doesn't have pre-orders up yet, but hey, it's early.

Of particular interest: they don't have the traditional "Battle Beasts" eyes, the single-color robotic peepers like the figures of the 1980s-- Diamond's line artwork appears to have retained this trait. On the other hand, Beast Saga seems to have more in the way of cybernetic elements and insane goggles. So I'm not crowning either as "better" just yet, as each line seems to have familiar classic elements and new changes making neither "just like the originals" just yet.


WHO: TakaraTomy will be making these
WHEN: Ship date is September
HOW MUCH: About $7ish per figure, it appears there will be singles and multi-packs
WHAT: The chest squares are actually some sort of dice launchers
HOW BIG: If I'm reading the pictures right, the box is about 60mm tall, which is pretty close to the originals



So far it looks like we're looking at a minimum of 18 figures, some die packs, a game board of some sort, and a bunch of things I don't know because I don't speak Japanese. There is no known plan for a US release, but the year is young, and sometimes Hasbro or whoever sits on this stuff for a convention or something. What I do know is this: set aside $150-$200 if you want in on this action. Minimum. These might be blind boxes, I can't tell.

Vintage Battle Beasts Resource: LittleRubberGuides.com

Here's something new: LittleRubberGuides.com launched a swell Visual Guide for Battle Beasts Collecting yesterday! It has an amazing selection of packaged photos with the cringing low prices of the late 1980s. Lionel PlayWorld sold 2-packs for 97 cents! Argh! Well, check it out. It's a great resource.

C2E2: How Many Battle Beasts Minimates Are In Series 1? We Ask Diamond!

Intrepid contributor Shaun Clayton went to C2E2 for the blog, and he sent along a recorded quick Q&A with your pal and mine, Zach Oat of Diamond Select Toys! Here's the choice quotes you need to know.

"This year series 1 will be coming out at Toys R Us and specialty. I do not know the assortment count for specialty, whether it will be four-packs or two-packs, and I do not know how much overlap there will be between them and the Toys R Us wave, but since there will be 8 figures in the Toys R Us wave, expect there to be anywhere from 12 to 15 different releases in series 1, in addition to the exclusive 2-pack we're doing for San Diego [Comic-Con in July]."

Shaun asked if anyone else would be getting exclusives beyond Toys R Us, and Zach replied:

"[When it comes to Minimates] Toys R Us and specialty always get exclusives, but it's a question of whether any will be shared between the two waves. It'll either be like the old Marvel movie formula, where they share 4 figures, or it'll be like the Marvel comic formula, where there are 8 in one [Toys "R" Us] wave and 7 in the other [specialty] wave, or it will be like the Ghostbusters formula where there are 8, and there is a 4-pack that has 2 new characters. Or there may be multiple 4-packs. I don't know if the specialty line has been nailed down at this point."

Rise of the Beasts Figures: Still Coming, I Asked

With all the hubbub about Beast Saga and Battle Beasts this past week, you might be wondering-- as I was-- what's going on with Rise of the Beasts? Some of you have even emailed me asking/telling me what you heard, so I bugged Jon Karis for a quick update.

In short, there's nothing new right now, but there are discussions regarding the manufacturing to move things forward. So for those of you saying this line is dead: no, it is not. As always, more as we have it!

C2E2 Swag: Battle Beasts Poster

In addition to everything announced, it turns out there are a few more giveaways at C2E2 if you like Battle Beasts. On eBay, some guy is selling a poster! A free poster, mind you, but it's not like I'd pay for it anyway. It's basically the same artwork as the freebie ashcan (promotional) comic book.

So the tally for C2E2 so far: Red Vorin, Grey Vorin, Comic Book, and Poster. What else did you find? Let me know!