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Action figures have long been a perfect compliment to comic books, since every kid (or kid at heart) has that natural desire to act out adventures with their favorite heroes off the drawn page. Every so often, a unique style of figure comes along that breaks the mold, so to speak. Each Saturday, Donny B will be showcasing various offerings from Art Asylum’s take on the ‘block figure’, with a weekly spotlight on Minimates.

The Question has been around for a pretty decent amount of time… well, the original one, anyway. After his first appearance back in Blue Beetle #1 (June 1967), Vic Sage (later retconned to Charles “Charlie” Victor Szasz) made the transition from Charlton Comics to DC Comics in a buyout that merged many characters into the DC universe. Once there, he found his way to a larger status via interactions with Superman, among other big name characters. Then, in DC’s year-long weekly comic event, “52”, the original man behind the mask passed his mantle to Renee Montoya. It is this incarnation of The Question that we are given in Minimate form.

Behind the Image:

This one isn’t a straight-up photograph. I wanted to visualize the dark, gritty feel of the character’s essence, so I over cranked the exposure while taking the photograph. Then, through photoshop, I muted out some of the highs and lows, and superimposed it over a photo of some buildings. Once I placed all of that together, I ran each layer through filters to give it a sort of grainy look, as if it were an older photo taken with a cheap camera. The overall effect gives off a feel that is reminiscent of an old pulp comic, which I found to be very appropriate for this character.

On Ebay: the Question

Action figures have long been a perfect compliment to comic books, since every kid (or kid at heart) has that natural desire to act out adventures with their favorite heroes off the drawn page. Every so often, a unique style of figure comes along that breaks the mold, so to speak. Each Saturday, Donny B will be showcasing various offerings from Art Asylum’s take on the ‘block figure’, with a weekly spotlight on Minimates.

Henchmen are a staple of comic escapades. The hero needs a challenging fight before taking down the main villain, and what better way to provide that challenge than for the villain in question to hire, build, brainwash or genetically engineer a small army of goons?

When producing each wave of Marvel’s Minimate releases, Art Asylum plans out 6 distinct characters, with a 7th short-packed character as a variant (to appease the hard core collectors who enjoy the thrill of the hunt). Since all of Marvel’s waves (not including 4-character boxed sets or the relatively new trend of Toys R Us exclusive releases) are a standard set of four 2-packs, this inevitably results in the variant being packaged with a repeat character. Before long, a cry arose among collectors for this duplicate spot to be used as a chance for buyers to build armies of uniformed characters. The options were abundant, with available henchmen like Hydra, Hand Ninjas, even Sentinels being high on many wish lists.

Art Asylum listened, and in wave 25, we were given our first chance to build armies with the release of the A.I.M. (Advanced Idea Mechanics) Soldier.

On Ebay: A.I.M.

Action figures have long been a perfect compliment to comic books, since every kid (or kid at heart) has that natural desire to act out adventures with their favorite heroes off the drawn page. Every so often, a unique style of figure comes along that breaks the mold, so to speak. Each Saturday, Donny B will be showcasing various offerings from Art Asylum’s take on the ‘block figure’, with a weekly spotlight on Minimates.

Everybody loves a good hero, but what is a hero if there are no formidable villains to fend off? Toy companies understand this concept, since no super powered protagonist can compliment an active imagination without a baddie to conqueror in an epic showdown.

Even big name Spidey villains such as Green Goblin or Doc Ock occasionally need a day off so they can recuperate from the massive butt-kicking they receive at the hands of everybody’s favorite wall crawler. That’s when Spidey’s B-list antagonists step up to try taking out our radioactive hero where the A-listers failed. One such mid level villain is the electrically charged Max Dillon, A.K.A. Electro.

On Ebay: Electro

Action figures have long been a perfect compliment to comic books, since every kid (or kid at heart) has that natural desire to act out adventures with their favorite heroes off the drawn page. Every so often, a unique style of figure comes along that breaks the mold, so to speak. Each Saturday, Donny B will be showcasing various offerings from Art Asylum’s take on the ‘block figure’, with a weekly spotlight on Minimates.

Minimates don’t exactly have a huge corner on the action figure market. In fact, when most people see a minimate, they just assume it’s a Lego figure. Since Art Asylum is fighting an uphill battle for recognition (and therefore, sales), they have to rely heavily on recognizable characters that will catch the eye of the casual buyer. However, the addition of a couple big names in a wave is enough to carry the occasional obscure character that only appeals to the more hardcore collector.

Last week’s photo featured two very high profile characters from Marvel Studios’ Iron Man 2 movie. This week, we’re taking a trip to the opposite end of the spectrum with a look at Ambush Bug.

DC Comics’ off-the-wall character, known for breaking the 4th wall and displaying whacky antics, is far from being a household name. However, Ambush Bug has gained a cult following from his sporadic slap-stick appearances over the years, and apparently Art Asylum felt that they would do well to honor those few proud fans.

A far cry from the detailed look of the Iron Man Moviemate sculpts, Ambush Bug sports the basic Minimate body, with only one small sculpted piece. Not only is this week’s Minimate an antithesis of the high recognition factor of last week’s featured ‘mates, but it also represents the “minimalistic” look that Minimates became famous for.

Behind the Image:

As is my usual technique when photographing small objects (remember that minimates stand at a mere 2 inches), I set my camera to macro mode to belie the small scale. Then, to enhance this photo’s overall look via post production work, I ran it through some Photoshop filters that intensified and contrasted the color scheme.

On Ebay: Ambush Bug

Action figures have long been a perfect compliment to comic books, since every kid (or kid at heart) has that natural desire to act out adventures with their favorite heroes off the drawn page. Every so often, a unique style of figure comes along that breaks the mold, so to speak. Each Saturday, Donny B will be showcasing various offerings from Art Asylum’s take on the ‘block figure’, with a weekly spotlight on Minimates.

Marvel Comics’ vast library of heroes and villains has provided Art Asylum with enough source material to produce “the longest running collector line in toy history”, with 35 currently released waves (that’s just from their Marvel line). Of course, the market is always favorable of high profile characters, and with the theatrical release of Marvel’s Iron Man 2 this weekend, it just made sense for us to see an Iron Man themed wave. So, to kick off this feature of Cyberspace Comics’ blog, I decided to feature the heavy hitters from AA’s Iron Man 2 movie wave (dubbed by collectors as “Moviemates”, since they are based specifically off of the movies rather than the original comic book material).

Behind the Image:

When taking photos of minimates, I usually try to get as creative as possible with placement and lighting. These two figures, however, needed very little work on my part to show off their incredible sculpting. The massive amount of detail crammed into these 2″ figures isn’t very common for most Minimates, though in this case, it lends itself beautifully to dynamic photo taking – so much so, in fact, that the above photo required no post production work (in Photoshop) aside from the glow effect for the eyes and chest piece.

On Ebay: Iron Man | War Machine