Comic book artist and film maker Matt Haley and I have a mutual acquaintance who just happens to have created two of the toys featured on BEM. We had been chatting about doing an homage to the toys and getting said creator to tell their story and finally got off our butts to approach said creator. 

Good news is he agreed! So at some unidentified point in the future we will be getting the unabridged editions of the creations of two of my favorite toys. 

Can you guess which toys and how they’re connected? First person to do so will get some lame prize from me.

Shoot Out In Space

Yeah! I finally got off my rear end and put up a new toy. The picture tells the story, the new addition to BEM is Shoot Out In Space, one of my all time favorite ray gun toys. Read on and take a peak at my not so terribly insightful scribblings on this classic Sci Fi toy.

I have posted nothing in forever. So, uh, here’s a post.

I actually just got back from Comic-Con in San Diego. Was fun. Mark Texeira is working on a Robotron painting for me (for work) and Matt Haley, who is a toy geek as well, is doing Defender and Sinistar. Darick Robertson and Ken Kelly are both doing Joust. Some very cool stuff. These images will ultimately be turned into desktop images that people can download for free at GameTap, where I am the head of content. 

Con was fun. Reconnected with people. Met people for the first time. Took no photos so there is no permanent record. Did not buy any toys. I love toys. They’re like crack to me. So I have a very small list of classic toys I want and in what condition and if an item isn’t on that list - I don’t buy it. Ever read Frog and Toad, the children’s stories. Think “The List.” I have toy purchase paralysis if it isn’t on my list.

Shoot Out In Space - which I had as a kid and still have as an adult, will definitely be the next page when I get to it.

I feel like putting up a new page this weekend and I am going with the will of the person. One person requested Mego Flash Gordon, so this weekend I’ll snap some shots Flash, Dale and Ming and get ‘em up!

you decide!

1. suckerman
2. mego flash gordon
3. shoot out in space

Let me know what you want me to do next in the comments. Still don’t have a good poll plug in yet for wordpress.

Actually, I just finished uploading all the Micronaut pages, so my transition to Wordpress is complete! And I did a ton of the work on my delightful new MacBook Air from the comfort of my couch. I love this machine!

So I moved the testing environment live tonight. BEM is now a wordpress powered site! I love it. Wordpress rocks.

I am planning to add a links page to each toy as well, so if you have suggestions, stick ‘em in the comments for the main page for each toy.

There might be a few broken links. If you find any, please let me know!

Thanks!

Rick “The Bem”

Added 5 different toys to WordPress. Took longer than hoped. Have to go back and edit some of the code because the relative URLs all broke. oh well. Be done soon…

Just found a very cool Italian line of toys called TH3. Kinda magnemo-ish, but without the magnets. They are a sci-fi themed toy line with lite up stuff. I’ll eventually take pictures and post them, but a quick google search will probably reveal some pics for the curious.

I just upgraded The BEM to a wordpress blog system. Now I can post whatever random toy thoughts come my way and have a CMS for the toys themselves. No more broken links! Yeah!

Hope you like it. Look forward to seeing any comments as well.

Toodles. Rick “The BEM” Sanchez.