Desert Island (Golden) Disks?

Last week, I received a slightly early notification that another of my Hasbro Pulse preorders - specifically Golden Disk Collection Terrorsaur - was ready for despatch. I believe it was only one day earlier than it was due to ship, but Hasbro UK were clearly very pleased with themselves.

As has been the case on the last couple of Yodel deliveries, the shipping notification was swiftly followed by the courier's own notification that the package was on its way, with the usual estimate of delivery in two days' time... and, of course, it arrived the following day.

When I was out for most of the day, helping my folks with their loft clearance and then going on to my local computer club in the evening. Thankfully, Courtney was working from home and able to accept the parcel, so it was waiting for me when I got back home that night.

I've had a quick play with him, and am largely pretty happy... The windowless presentation box appears to be on a par with Hasbro's usual 'event' sets, features generic art on the front... and Terrorsaur himself is strung up in an awkward position, which had me thinking uncomfortably of shibari for some reason...

As always, full write-up coming 'soon'...

Big Cat Arrives

And so, just a day after the arrival of Kingdom Slammer, and the day before he was originally due to ship according to Hasbro Pulse, Tigatron has arrived.

I've got a few other things on my plate at the moment, so I'm probably not going to get either photographed fully till I've dealt with at least the most pressing stuff but, in the spirit of keeping things up to date, here's a quick photo:

Looks pretty good, I think, aside from the rigid tail and the Gut Gun sticking out of his belly... Full write-up on the way, eventually.

Perhaps I should start an Instagram account for situations like this..?

Marvel/Grandreams TransFormers Annual 1985

Back in my youth, publishers of comics and teen-oriented magazines habitually ended the year with a hardbacked book featuring either retrospectives or - frequently, in the case of the comics - some wholly new material. In those days, I would always get such annuals for Christmas, and amassed quite a selection over the years, from The Beano to The Eagle (shared with my sister) to TransFormers, all of which ended up in the loft at my parents' place.

Cut to just before Christmas 2021, and my mother mentioned that she wanted to do a massive clear-out of the loft. Earlier this month, I popped over there a little earlier than I normally would when attending a local computer club, and assisted with the sorting effort. While most of my time was spent identifying toys/toy parts and grouping them together by type, we did find a couple of bags of annuals, so I grabbed the four TransFormers ones just for fun...

But then I figured I may as well take the opportunity to write about them, as they're as much a piece of TransFormers history as the toys. Here's the first...

On Hasbro Pulse, and Courier Frustrations II

While I'm very grateful that Hasbro Pulse UK exists, I have to admit I still have serious doubts about Hasbro's distribution strategy. A couple of months back, I preordered Kingdom Tigatron, then Golden Disk Collection Terrorsaur and Studio Series Jolt, then Kingdom Slammer, as each were added to the shop. All but Jolt were labelled as due to ship this month, with the first and last scheduled just a few days apart, and Terrorsaur expected toward the end of the month. Jolt shipped on his own as soon as he came into stock back in November, so Hasbro are clearly happy to split orders if that seems appropriate, even when not specifically requested.