I wish I could write a letter to Jerry at Pop Culture because he definitely has his head up his ass. Let's go back to his letter and the very first problem he indicated was when he released "Lord Raptor." Really, Jerry? You really thought this item was going to sell. It's ugly, badly sculpted, and who the hell is Lord Raptor. If you want to blame anyone for having losing money you need to blame yourself by putting out that God awful product. Then you need to smack yourself for the second problem - the ugly Lion-O that is over steroided and stumpy (looks to have short legs). Out of all poses, why not fully extend the foundation of the Thundercat brand, Lion-O, and make him the best looking of all. By making a bad Lion-O, all others suffer in sell. And there still are exclusive Lion-Os left on Sideshow. You did well with Mumm-Ra and did even better with Tygra. However, Mumm-Ra sword barely lights up - this is a universal problem. Similarly, with Tygra why would you make the exclusive feature another face that damn near looks identical to the other face. The two faces are so similar many people almost have to do a double take to notice it. Why not do something similar to Sideshows Green Lantern and make a piece that makes Tygra look like he is disappearing. I admit, I am overly pissed because I bought into this collection. I saw Tygra and had to have it. I got a glimpse of Cheetarah and was waiting for Panthro. My collection would have looked stupid with just a Tygra so two weeks ago I bought an exclusive Mumm-Ra on Ebay and also bought that awful looking Lion-O. I bought them because of the Tygra that you just cancelled because of YOUR previous bad business plans.
Brother, I think you are way out of line...I honestly do. Firstly, in retrospect, the Darkstalkers line in hindsight was not going to sell well, not because the statues weren't done well (they were) but more due to the fact Capcom hasn't done crap with the license in a long, long time! Secondly, Lord Raptor was a very, very well done statue. It is consistent with its look with the other 2 Darkstalkers products they made.
I will say that Lord Raptor although nicely done, was not a character I would have been interested in if I collected the Darkstalkers line initially. I realized early on after I bought Morrigan and before the Felicia came out that this line was not going to really work. I sold her not long after I bought her, and glad I did. I hate starting a line and a company not putting out enough product to keep me interested. I could tell early on that was going to happen with that line.
At least you have to give a company credit for trying to bring out a license to appease fans of any given license. It was hard to tell how well it would or would not do because the Darkstalkers license had never been done before especially at this expensive and bigger scale.
As far as the TCats license goes, lets face it, it wouldn't have matter who they brought out next (Panthro, Cheetara, etc.) as this license has proven to be a failure when it comes to statue sells. HH failed at it, and so did the other companies you mentioned. The Lion-O and Mumm-ra apparently did well enough to continue with Tygra, but initial pre-order sells did not meet the required amount to begin production. Maybe we should blame ourselves for not pre-ordering it? Don't blame Jerry on this one. I think both you and I can agree that Tygra was by far the best of the three (or would have been the best of the three). People have got to spend the money and buy the statues in order for it to succeed.
It is what it is though, and I can definitely understand your frustration especially after you bought the Mumm-ra and Lion-O thinking the line would continue. I don't think size and scale has anything to do with this failed attempt. All the sculpts were well done (Lion-O being the weakest of the three). But HH was $150 cheaper and much smaller and it still didn't sell well. So what gives?
might keep Lion-o after all and have him displayed next to He-Man
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