Hot Thing Summer: Fantastic Four First Steps Funko Pops

I don't blame Funko for going as off the rails as it eventually did. It gained national awareness and seemingly had every license in existence. It got as big as possible on a pretty simple idea.

I think the fad is ending, after, what fifteen years? I don't think of myself as someone who was ever a really big fan of Funko, and yet I've got Fantastic Four Pops, Weird Al Pops, Futurama Pops, the occasional Steelers Pop...a few years ago, Target sold an exclusive Rhinox Pop. I bought it. I suppose I'm as much to blame as anyone.

It was inevitable that Funko would make figures for the First Steps movie. These new FF designs are part of the third wave for the superhero team. The Thing and Dr. Doom helped launch the line back in 2008. Just a few years ago, Funko released a bunch of new figures as Marvel brought the title back from its hiatus, and we saw core characters as well as villains like the Mole Man and Super Skrull and a few mega-sized Things to boot. Now we've got a new line, with designs from the movie. I grabbed the Thing in his various poses. Let's take a look!

There are three versions of the character. The first has him in his First Steps costume.

The second is an Amazon exclusive with Ben in a trench coat. Funko upgraded their exclusive stickers relatively recently, probably because the previous ones were easy to fabricate. The new ones have the illusion of depth, and a QR code.

The third is a Target exclusive, with the Thing in his Galactus-chasing spacesuit. Target had space suit versions for all four characters.

Lastly, we've got a Comic-Con exclusive set of all four characters, in Funko's Bitty Pop! line. As the name suggests, these are the familiar molds, just a lot smaller. The figures are all about an inch in height.

This set has all four characters in miniature. Comic-Con also had a regular-sized H.E.R.B.I.E. figure. I wasn't able to grab this at the show, but prices were thankfully pretty low on eBay when I was finally able to grab one -- about $30. I'm glad that these were all pretty easy to find.

Thing sketchbook, part 23

Happy Thingsgiving, everyone! THINGSgiving, right? You got that? Thingsgiving. Yes.

Let's, uh, check out a new entry in the long-running Thing sketchbook post series!

Brian Level - New York Comic Con 2017

This is the only Thing sketch that I managed to get at NYCC 2017, but I like to think that I made it count. It's from Brian Level, a friend from the FUBAR days that has since gone on to work on a number of books for Marvel and other top-tier publishers.

Alex Harris - Free Comic Book Day 2018

For FCBD in 2018, I spent the day in Boston at a few different New England Comics locations, signing copies of The Tick and catching up with friends. Alex Harris drew a short story that I wrote for the Tick #2 (2018 series); I got an opportunity to hang out with him at a signing on this Saturday morning, and, of course, I asked him for a Thing sketch. I appreciate the fact that he knows how to properly spell "clobberin'".

Jay Kennedy/Ian Nichols - Free Comic Book Day 2018

Jay Kennedy is a local Boston artist who took my spot at the signing table once I moved on to another store. He did a quick sketch of the helmeted Thing that Ian Nichols finished up later in the day. This is peak mid-'90s Thing!

Ian Nichols - Free Comic Book Day/Comic-Con International 2018

Ian Nichols is my friend and frequent Tick collaborator, and he provided a couple contributions to my previous sketchbook. This is a new sketchbook, so it's fair game to ask him to draw once again in this book! This sketch is a different one, and I love it for that fact. It's Alicia Masters with a bust of her favorite subject, Ben Grimm.

The evening of FCBD, I left the sketchbook with Ian, who returned it when we saw each other again a few months later at Comic-Con in San Diego. Ian included this rough sketch on a separate piece of paper. Note the bust of Dr. Doom in the background!

Tony Sedani - Free Comic Book Day 2018

Here's the last one for now, another helmeted Thing by Tick contributor Tony Sedani! Tony's a really nice guy and I was happy to meet up with him for a little while at FCBD. And he's right - the helmet doesn't actually have a mouth hole, so wouldn't get it a little, uh, uncomfortable wearing it? Looking back, this was a big day for me as I got parts of four sketches on one day! 

There'll be more Thing sketches later, but before we go, I was in Target a few days ago and, of course, I stopped in the toy section, only to see a long, multi-panel cardboard display showing off a lot of collectibles - including the new Funko Pop Thing! How in the world am I going to convince Target to let me have this giant display, and where am I going to keep it??

While I was there, I (naturally) checked, and yes, the Target-exclusive 10-inch Funko Pop Thing is still available! It's a great Christmas present, folks.

Every Funko Pop! Thing bobblehead

How's everyone doing? Staying safe, I hope? Here's to staying in and catching up on the mountain of comics that I'm sure everyone has waiting for them. In the meantime, let's take a look at some toys I have.

I've talked about my thoughts on Funko Pops before, but it bears a brief recap: I don't know what someone would do if THESE are what he or she decided to collect. There are literally thousands of these things, and yet I know there are some out there who try and get every single one. What kind of warehouses do these people own?

For my own part, I like to think of myself as someone who is kind of ambivalent about Funko in general. I'm not particularly taken with the molds and the whole thing has a Beanie Baby flavor to it.

AND YET!

And yet. With the license to almost every property ever, it's hard to avoid buying at least a few of them, right? I never thought I'd have many, but then they made Fantastic Four Pops. And Futurama Pops. And Space Ghost Pops. And Firefly Pops. And Tick Pops. And Pittsburgh Steelers Pops! Last year, they made two Weird Al Pops. It seems that they've got my number, except that they've also got almost everyone else's number, too! It really is something.

Because of Marvel's self-imposed clamping down on all things Fantastic Four, Marvel's First Family went underrepresented at Funko for several years. But now that the embargo has been lifted, they're catching up. A few months ago, the first FF Pops since 2011 showed up, and there have been quite a few. I've gotten some of them, but naturally, the first priority for me was to get the new Thing Pops. Since Target released its 10-inch Thing exclusive a few weeks ago, I've now got all of them that have been released, and I thought I'd take some pictures of them to show here on this very important blog. Let's take a look!

This is the first Thing Pop made, part of the first wave of Pops based on Marvel characters. The Thing is number nine in the set! I bought this at a comic shop when it first came out, naturally, and I'm glad I did. It soon went out of production and is hard to find (and is kind of expensive). I've got this one in one of the protective cases that Funko makes (which, I know, is another way they get you), but for years, it was just in a box with some other Thing toys. It's got a little scratch on the box, but, honestly, whatever.

Here's a look from the side.

Next is a black and white exclusive from Gemini Collectibles. I got this online and, for whatever reason, it seems like this one is the easiest to find of all the original Thing figures.

And here it is from the side. This one has the same number as the regular figure. Funko took a different tactic in later years and gave individual numbers to all different variations.

This is the metallic San Diego Comic-Con exclusive from 2011. It is, unbelievably, one of the most valuable items I own. I picked this up at a small convention in Pittsburgh sometime around 2014 or '15. It was listed at, I think, $30, and I tried to talk the seller down to $20, and at the end of the show, I succeeded. Now this thing, limited to 480 pieces, is listed at around $1000. That's ridiculous, and if I had any sense in my head, I'd sell it now because there's no way it'll retain that value. But I can't get rid of a Thing figure. You're all welcome to think of me as an idiot, because it's probably true.

There is, supposedly, a version of this figure out there with black eyes instead of blue. I've even heard that all of them got shipped to one Hot Topic store in Chicago (but who knows if that's true). I'm not sure if the black eyes were a mistake or if it was meant to be a different figure altogether. I've never seen a picture of one, so I don't even know for sure if they actually exist. But I'm not really concerned about that. Is my collection incomplete without one? I don't know - maybe, but I'm okay with not having it.

Until this year, the only Fantastic Four Pops out there were the previous Thing figures and Dr. Doom, which had a regular and metallic version (there was a Silver Surfer Pop made as well, if you count that). In January, though, Funko got the green light to start releasing FF figures again, and they went all out in doing so. There have been three new Thing figures so far, and I expect them to release more versions in the future.

The first one is the regular version. In the nine years between figures, the Thing looks a little more detailed with a longer face. This one is numbered 560, and I think that number represents all of the figures released in the Marvel line.

Here's the side view.

Barnes and Noble landed one exclusive, and went with the Thing in a trench coat, an old FF staple. This one was easy to find - I walked into a store once I knew they were on sale and picked one off the shelf.

Here's the view from the side.

This last one is the most recent, just released in February. It's a super-sized, 10-inch figure exclusive to Target. Your friend (and mine) Larry helped me out by picking one up on the day they landed in our local stores, and let me tell you...this thing is massive. Why is it so big? Where am I going to put it? It's huge. This one cost $30, as opposed to the usual $10-$15.

And here it is from the side. It has an ever-so-slightly different pose from the regular figure, and is numbered 570.

Some of the other FF members got exclusive figures made, from the Collector Corps subscription box, to GameStop, to Hot Topic...Dr. Doom just had one branded with the cancelled Emerald City Comic Con logo. Fantastic Four merchandise is quickly making its way back to stores. These are just a few Things among many.

Thing sketchbook, part 22 (plus some new Thing toys!)

It's Leap Day! It's the Thing sketchbook! Here are five more entries!

Christine Larsen - 2017

Christine Larsen is a criminally underrated artist; she's one of my favorites and I grab some artwork from her whenever I can. This sketch is officially the last one where I was willing to mail the book to the artist, but hey, it was good while it lasted. Check out this full-color Thing bust! Yippee!

Luke McGarry - Comic-Con International 2017

In 2017, I took the sketchbook to Comic-Con in San Diego for the first time, and I have to say, I managed to get some great artwork on this trip. On Preview Night, I found Luke McGarry, who was selling a poster for a music festival that he drew. Included on the poster was Weird Al, so I grabbed that and managed to get a Seussian Thing sketch as well. Here's a look at the poster, too!

You can see Al in the top right corner!

Billy Tucci - Comic-Con International 2017

The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, the industry standard for price guides, releases an update every year, and like many comics, they now come with different cover art for different versions. 2017's oversized edition came with a Tick cover by Billy Tucci. Naturally, I grabbed one at the show. Tucci was offering up quick sketches with every price guide purchase (his booth was near the New England Comics booth, too), so I managed to talk him into drawing the Thing in my sketchbook.

Heck, let's look at the price guide, too!

Lots of Easter Eggs in this cover.

Douglas Paszkiewicz - Comic-Con International 2017

Douglas Paszkiewicz is probably best known for his Arsenic Lullaby comic, but I became familiar with him after her drew and issue of The Tick that came out in the fall of 2017. I got a chance to meet Douglas at Comic-Con and, of course, I had my trusty Thing sketchbook with me at the time. I really love this one.

Travis Sengaus - Comic-Con International 2017

Last up is a sketch I never thought I'd get. I've known Travis Sengaus for a while and we've worked together on a few projects, but I had never met him until we bumped into each other at Comic-Con. He wasn't at any booth or table, but he still found some time to hide away for a few minutes and draw this great cigar-chompin' Thing. 

One more item for today! With Disney's recent acquisition of Fox's media properties, Marvel is back to admitting that they own and publish the Fantastic Four, and that means that there has been quite a bit of FF merchandise on the shelves lately. My friend (and yours) Larry found these giant Funko Pop! Thing toys at Target and picked up two for me. There's also a new Fantastic Four Marvel Legends series out there, including this really impressive Thing figure. Both are now mine, and I'm happy to have 'em!

UPC Codes...AND YOU!

As comics have more or less lost their space on spinner racks in grocery stores and gas stations, the need for UPC codes have lessened; comics have since found more homes in smaller specialty shops with no capabilities or desires for electronic scanning devices.

If you pick up a back issue from one of the large companies published in the 1980s, it's easy to see which of them were originally sold in comic shops (i.e. the "direct market") and which were sold at, say, a Walden Books at the mall - direct market editions would still have the box on the cover where the barcode would have been printed, but instead of the zebra-stripe lines, companies would put logos or artwork in their place.

Until I figured this out, I would wonder why Marvel decided to put a picture of Spider-Man's head in the bottom left corner of all my Fantastic Four issues. Did they think I just wanted to see it? Was it a marketing tactic to get me to pick up issues of Web of Spider-Man? No (well, maybe on some level), it was because stores selling this version didn't need to scan a barcode to keep an inventory of what they were selling like they would at, say, a hardware store. They sold one thing and almost exclusively one thing - comics. If comics cost a dollar and you bought 16 of them...well, I'll bet adding all the books up wasn't the most difficult thing, either.

This, apparently, is changing, as I found out when I listed the first issue of Teddy and the Yeti in Diamond's Previews publication. It seems that anyone listing a book in Previews is now required to have a unique, scannable barcode on the cover.

I'm honestly not sure that I've yet been to a comic shop equipped with a scanner. The one here in Wilmington is a fairly up-to-date shop; it's a decent size with lots of different products - comics, shirts, posters, action figures, games - to choose from. They write down what you're buying on a piece of notebook paper and add the total up with a calculator. This is how they do it! And it's never once struck me as odd.

But I suppose that it was bound to happen, and, I thought, now I could have my own shiny barcode that I could flaunt around school to all of my friends. It seems that most barcodes are bought in bulk, and it was suggested that someone like me, who needed to buy...well, one...go to a website where they resell barcodes. I'm curious as to why there are barcodes available to sell again. The one you had wasn't working out for you? Found a newer one and decided to replace the older model?

At any rate, I ended up buying three from www.buyabarcode.com. One UPC code cost $85 and the total for three was $150...so now I have two codes just lying around, taking up space in my house. Maybe I'll take one and slap it on my pants...just so I can walk around scanning my pants when I go out shopping. Maybe there will be guards who will try and stop me as I walk out of Target or some place, and I will have to explain that this has all been a big misunderstanding, because you see, these pants are mine, and the barcode is mine. And then we will laugh.

So Teddy and the Yeti #1 is appropriately tagged and coded. I had to move a few things around on the cover to make sure nothing was obstructed, but it worked out just fine. Now the three comic shops with scanners can all breathe sighs of relief.