Toys galore

Post by **AndyThomas** » Sun Sep 08, 2002 8:15 pm

That's not bad going! Are you going to be taking some photos then? If you took several at various stages of battle-suit dress you could animate a beam down sequence

FZeroOne · Post by **FZeroOne** » Sun Sep 08, 2002 9:12 pm

Quote: from Shane on 6:24 pm on July 11, 2002Ah that's wicked man! I haven't been able to find anything on RATS on the net, I had no idea they were originaly called Starriors.Looking at the pictures, I can only ever remember seeing the first six over here released as the RATS range. 3 of them were red and the other 3 were blue. I had the one called Ripsaw which was a blue one if I remember. It was a very short lived toy range, it was going up against 1st and 2nd series Transformers so thats probably why the other six never got a look in. Now if I could only find a pic of a robot toy I bought from a market stall circa 1982. You know the ones where you could open the robot's chest and place a smaller rubber version of the robot inside it. it had one piece legs which were red. And the robot also featured the all important springloaded fist action, It also came with a sword, and was definitely Japanese in origin. Can anyone else remember it? because I'm certain there was a lot of them knocking around at the time.Shane.Ah, Zoids, they were great. With all due respect to the Transformers fans, possibly the greatest of all 80s toys, though its quite a personal thing for me; two of my favourite things in one package - big robots and dinosaurs. (Zoids are going through a revival in Japan at the moment and I seem to remember recalling we're due to the anime series in the UK sometime in the near future!)Interested to read about R.A.Ts - I remember those, I think Tomy were responsible...?The mystery robots sounds like it could be from the Micronauts line - known in Japan originally as Diaclone, which gave birth to some other little toy line you might not have heard of... Trans-something? http://www.toyboxdx.com/is a great site for all things Japanese toy related. Sorry if I've made a faux pass by mentioning it, Andy, I'm not sure what the rules are for plugging other sites here...

Post by **AndyThomas** » Sun Sep 08, 2002 11:23 pm

No, that's fine - I think I link to that site somewhere actually, ye olde Big Dai X graces its pages as it's a Jumbo Machinder or summat

I was definitely into my Zoids as well - I had the Great Gorgon and Redhorn the Terrible (although not for long - he turned out not be as hard as he looked!)There was an interesting comic strip that partnered Spider-Man as well, actually, don't know if anyone else caught it? Geoff Senior did some of the artwork. I really liked his work - he also did Transformers, Action Force, Dragon's Claws, Death's Head. All the original Marvel UK stuff around that time, basically!

Shane · Post by **Shane** » Mon Sep 09, 2002 7:07 pm

The toy was definitely not part of the diaclone or microman range, and I don't think it was a micronaught. It was fairly cheap looking, a real market style toy and definitely not as prestigous as the pre transformer lines ah well it'll turn up one day. Shane.

FZeroOne · Post by **FZeroOne** » Mon Sep 09, 2002 8:42 pm

Quote Quote: from AndyThomas on 12:23 am on Sep. 9, 2002No, that's fine - I think I link to that site somewhere actually, ye olde Big Dai X graces its pages as it's a Jumbo Machinder or summat

I was definitely into my Zoids as well - I had the Great Gorgon and Redhorn the Terrible (although not for long - he turned out not be as hard as he looked!)There was an interesting comic strip that partnered Spider-Man as well, actually, don't know if anyone else caught it? Geoff Senior did some of the artwork. I was always one of those people that could just about get the odd small Zoid, but always had to lust after the big 'uns. Mind you, I did tend to like *every* toy of that period... Nice to know the link is okay, I was rather surprised to see X-Bomber on their site as well...!I remember the Zoids comic strip, but I think you might have the wrong artist - I might be mistaken myself, but I seem to remember that the Zoids artist was the same one that did Zenith for 2000AD (Kevin Philips? - whoever it was, their art style changed quite a bit for Zenith, whereas Geoff Senior was usually quite distinctive... )

Post by **AndyThomas** » Mon Sep 09, 2002 10:00 pm

The Zoids annual, which I actually had until relevantly recently, definitely had Senior artwork in it. That was one of the reasons I'd hung onto it! I'm fairly sure he actually worked on the comic run as well, perhaps more towards the end...

Chris Snape · Post by **Chris Snape** » Tue Sep 10, 2002 12:33 pm

I have the Zoids annual in my loft somewhere! If you want I can check for you and let you know.

FZeroOne · Post by **FZeroOne** » Tue Sep 10, 2002 8:00 pm

R.E. The Zoids comic artists, I have a feeling we're all going to end up being wrong *and* right at the same time! I popped by this site:http://zoidsfan.jerrydreiss.com/and it has a page from the UK comic scanned in, with the artist listed as "John Ridgeway" - a name I don't remember at all! I guess that several different artists worked on the strip and the annuals; the reason I remember the one I mentioned is that he did an interview where it was stated that his art style had changed quite a bit for Zenith!Interesting to see that Grant Morrison is listed as having worked on the comics; UK toy tie-in comics certainly knew where to find quality staff!