1. Hey, the Galactic Hunter Twitter isn't being updated. What's up?
--Nobody, it's filler

If you've been following the news, someone bought Twitter and has been trying to break it. The @GalacticHunter Twitter was set up by a former staffer Adam May, who we miss terribly and is no longer with us. Somehow we got it tied to Tweetdeck, and now Tweetdeck doesn't work anymore and removed the login - as such, I have no known way to recover the account. If you're on Twitter, I would recommend follow me on @Adam16bit - I'll be posting more there now - or check out https://linktr.ee/adam16bit for my other stuff. Your pal and mine Trix set up a Federated/Mastodon server where Galactic Hunter posts as @galactichunter@retro.pizza, which you can also follow via RSS if you're old school. And why shouldn't you be? (At this point I assume a lot of you are dial-up era people too.)

If you're interested in following me post updates at SDCC as much as I can, I recommend Twitter @Adam16bit as long as I can get into it. But who knows what can happen in the next 2-3 weeks?

Also - not going to lie - the reads on the site have been slowing more than a bit in recent years, and questions to Q&A have been nil over the past holiday week. I'll probably keep writing about Star Wars for a while, but the how and the how often may change. Send questions in if you want to see Q&A continue, otherwise I'll see if I can do some sort of editorial for clicks that means nothing for money or at least continue to entertain the other collectors my age who are me.

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2. Back in 2013, Hasbro kicked off a Hail Mary pass on the then-lagging Star Wars line by introducing a higher price point 6-inch line called The Black Series. How are they celebrating its 10th anniversary this year?
--Also Nobody

As far as I know, they are not doing anything - but maybe we'll get a surprise at Comic-Con on Friday during their panel. As milestones go it's kind of amazing to take a look back at a line after 10 years and ask "so what do we have to show for ourselves?" After all, Kenner's line ran from 1978 to 1985 with closeout stuff from that era somehow still available - unsold Jabba's Pipe/Bowl sets from 1983 re-resurfaced over the last week. Again. But at the 10th anniversary, 1988, the only places you might see Star Wars were flea markets, antique stores, and maybe the back of an old dusty hardware store or drug store's toy section. So no matter what you personally feel for it, the line is unquestionably a success by virtue of not ending.

Hasbro did a great job with The Mandalorian in The Black Series, with updating 12-backs and Bounty Hunters, and even with some nice Kenner-deco figures. They also cranked out reissues of scarce figures at retail price (which I welcome) alongside "money grab" package/deco variants with slightly better paint for a $5-$10 mark-up (which I don't.) When they showed us the Rancor for the high price (with, let's be honest, terrible stretch goals) and it flopped it felt less like a loss and more like a moment of trying to figure out what it was I expected from the line in the first place.

The Black Series is a great example of how consolidation of media and licenses shapes the industry. 15 years ago, Hasbro did a 3 3/4-inch line some pretty weird stuff with obscure background character figures, build-a-droids, coins, deleted scene figures, obscure aliens, big props-as-accessories, and some generally amazing stuff. Now? You get a figure, and maybe you get an accessory with some alternate hands or an alternate head. The stuff isn't a lot of fun, and 10 years on I can't say The Black Series in and of itself has been a particularly fun experience.

I'm starting to see figures I skipped at used toy shops (still packaged, mind you) for $10 or under - a nice drop from $25-$28 - and I'm just skipping them. I never thought I'd get here, but I don't need every last Disney+ Obi-Wan Kenobi variant when what I want are droids, aliens, and other characters from the show. For some fans, The Black Series skimming mostly top-tier characters and whatever the newest thing is before quickly moving on to a new show is the best thing you can do. It seems to be working overall pretty well for business, too - but I'm not having fun with it. Nine years on, and Jabba's stooges include Bib Fortuna, a Gamorrean Guard, and a disguised Lando. And that's it. We finally got a few Ewoks starting in 2020, but the line feels like it's drowning in troopers. At $5, or even $10, buying troopers is a lot of fun. At $28 or higher, I look at a shelf of armored dudes and go "Oh, no."

I wouldn't put it past Hasbro to surprise us with another HasLab this year as they haven't yet had a successful The Black Series crowdfund, but ultimately it may be that those big figures aren't really a good thing for old-school fans. I'm certainly taking a "less is more" approach, as I don't really like the Ponda Baba they made and there's still no Hammerhead. But I've got a ton of 6-inch figures from Disney-era stuff that I look at and would probably sell if I thought anyone would pay me enough to justify digging out boxes and driving to the post office.

The line seems to be doing great as an impulse buy (or impulse pre-order) for adult fans, but it's certainly making me feel old when I have to worry about losing tiny accessories or trying to figure out just where the heck to put some of these things. As a long-time fan of Star Wars, I can say that something like a Max Rebo Band would get me pretty excited. But I also look at the shelves of opened figures - and some stacks of unopened ones - and I'm less interested in giving them the space if they're from most of the newer stuff. In an era where 4 (or 3) figures costs $100, it feels like a good time for me to reevaluate what I collect, and why, and maybe start shoving some of these things out the door.

It'll never happen - but I do think a "Matty Collector" approach could even be good for it, were it not already doing decent business. One or two guys a month, every month, would be a lot of fun instead of having months with nothing and then all of a sudden 20 figures within 30-45 days. Once they start to pile up, with no playsets or vehicles to put them in, I look at my unopened The Rise of Skywalker figures and ask myself "How can I get rid of this?"

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We need questions! Right now, the mailbag is empty - so Email me with Q&A in the subject line now! Or don't.

San Diego Comic-Con is next week and while celebrities may be staying home, Hasbro will be there and so will I! Exclusives are not expected to be on-site, but rather some sort of QR code scannable coupon with who knows what for sale. It really dampens the enthusiasm but also ratchets down my anxiety a lot, especially since I just skipped last year's black Boba Fett and honestly don't feel any void in my life whatsoever. (Meanwhile, Super7 has a TMNT Shredder in a can of pasta, which is some real innovation.)

June and July (and most of May) have been pretty quiet for Star Wars, after a year where we've had a whopping three Star Wars seasons drop. The Mandalorian came and went without much fuss despite some good stunt casting in the forms of Jack Black, Lizzo, and Christopher Lloyd all in the same episode. Star Wars Visions didn't seem to make much impact and it feels most licensors are aggressively avoiding making cool stuff from The Bad Batch - and maybe they know something I don't, as I cling to the past like the kind of sad adult you see on the teevee. Getting this much new stuff to watch and little excitement and not many toys that seem to be genuinely exciting is some sort of monkey's paw wish gone wrong, and frankly it was probably because the figures weren't the draw in the first place. It's a whole line, which builds up the movie (or show) with books and other stuff for us to pour over and enjoy the minor details of every last mask and costume. Which we can't do, because Disney doesn't want to.

I've been writing about Star Wars online since August of 1995, and for the last few years it feels like we're bleeding old-school readers every year. Back in the very end of the 1990s we were doing 3 Q&A columns a week with 10 questions each, and this week? No questions. Which shows a savvy readership and also lots more places to get information online, which is good! If you want to know how a figure looks, you've got dozens of auction sites and photo galleries for pictures and these things do a good job confirming what got revealed, too.

With new reveals expected for Comic-Con, a HasLab item is all but assured to be The Ghost and I assume we won't be getting too many more reveals. (They want it to be the star and sell enough to fund, I assume.) Back in 2019 the SDCC panel was the first time I nodded off while watching with about 5 or 6 items rolled out over the course of an hour. Some were neat items - Dagobah Luke and Boba Fett's helmet from The Black Series, and I think one of the other 8-inch figures. Remember those? Nobody remembers those.

This year I hope we get a glimpse at some The Retro Collection stuff and maybe a peek at Ahsoka figures for The Vintage Collection. Odds are we won't see many new vehicles, and that's not the end of the world - plenty of things were already manufactured and you could spend a lifetime collecting what's already on the market, were you so inclined. And you should be, there's a ton of really good stuff that you can have within a few days if you shop on eBay or Amazon these days.

--Adam Pawlus

Got questions? Email me with Q&A in the subject line now! I'll answer your questions as soon as time (or facts) permit.

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