StarWarsShop’s Matt Martin reports his findings from Day 2 of his trip to New York’s Toy Fair, with some great new finds from LEGO, Comic Images, Nikko, and others! Stay tuned, as we’ll be posting more of Matt’s photos and video from the Star Wars and Indy booths later today!

Report from Toy Fair Day 2:

Tuesday was a busy, busy day for me so let’s get right into this so I’m not up all night writing (starting this after midnight was probably a bad idea in the first place).

An artist outside Toy Fair gets into the spirit

Today I spent all of my time in the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, the main showroom of Toy Fair. It was a pretty huge place filled with vendors in every facet of kids entertainment, from basic blocks and action figures to serious collectables to jungle gyms to “La Teenaz: the Latinas with a feel for keeping it real” (seriously). Obviously my mission was to focus on Star Wars and Indiana Jones products and I had an appointment or two every hour to help me accomplish this.

Super-deformed plush General Grievous from Comic Images

First up was Comic Images, most well known for the instant-classic Yoda backpack, they make all kinds of plush items ranging from the “super deformed” plush dolls to slippers. This year they’re expanding on the slipper line with Chewbacca slippers that look great. Also in the works, an R2-D2 backpack, several more super-d dolls and a few other items that aren’t cleared yet… so I won’t talk about them.

Next was a new licensee for Indiana Jones, Uncle Milton. They’re making a line of educational toys for kids, using Indy’s archeological background as the basis for teaching kids some interesting information. Their products were super secret so, again, I can’t go into details, but let’s just say that if I, as an adult, can get excited about educational toys they must be doing something right.

From there I moved just a few booths down the way to Scholastic, one of the biggest (if not THE biggest) publisher of children’s literature in the world. They will be continuing their Star Wars line with the final two books in the “Last of the Jedi” series, which, by the way, is a really awesome read! I’m only on book 6 or so but it’s a fun series and I can’t wait to see how they end it. Also to be released in the summer are the junior novelizations of all four Indy films.

Full-size LEGO clone trooper and C-3PO

After that I went over to the LEGO area, which was fully enclosed so one couldn’t see anything. I had to beg just to get in the door without an appointment but when they eventually let me in I was very excited to see the full line of Clone Wars and Indiana Jones LEGOs! It’s still a little weird for me to see products from these since I haven’t seen the films yet and don’t really know exactly what it is that I’m looking at. There were definitely some cool new ships though and some exciting mini-figures including Asajj Ventress (yeah, I know I keep mentioning her but she’s awesome, deal with it), Obi-Wan in clone armor and Ashoka. The Indy line was even more foreign to me but I’ve got to say, there’s nothing cuter than a Cold War-era Russian soldier in LEGO form.

Looks like the full-size Indy has things well in hand

My next meeting was with DK Publishing, a company who didn’t actually have a booth at the show but since I knew they would be attending I managed to set up an appointment to go over some of their upcoming books. Slated for this summer is Star Wars Blueprints: The Ultimate Collection, which is, obviously, a book full of blueprints of vehicles and other items from the entire Star Wars saga. I was given a sample of the foldout Death Star schematics and it looks great. They’ll also be continuing their great “Visual Guide” line with The Clone Wars in the fall and in the summer they’ll be releasing a guide to Indiana Jones as well!

Nikko’s new R2 Digital Audio and Video Projector

I then happened upon a licensee that I was unaware was even at the show, Nikko, creators of the two coolest R2-D2 products ever: the R2 Wireless Webcam and the R2 Digital Audio and Video Projector. The webcam not only does video and stills but it also comes with a lightsaber shaped phone that allows you to chat using Skype as well as controlling R2 himself with full forward, reverse, and turning functions. The video projector is even better. Though I can’t go into all the sweet features it has, sufficed to say it works as a full home theater and then some. I want one. Seriously, Nikko, after that plug maybe you should send me one? Yeah?

My final official appointment of the day was with Diamond Select Toys who, unbeknownst to me, is coming out with their own line of large-scale (between 17”-19”) figures. These haven’t yet been fully approved but from the prototypes I’ve seen I’m very excited about this line. In addition to that, they are working on a full line of different banks for both Star Wars and Indy. They didn’t have any prototypes yet but from the concept images I’ve seen they look to be very cool and far more detailed than any of the Star Wars banks released in the past.

A “Ladies of Star Wars” card deck — hmmm….

I was finally free to roam the halls aimlessly for a little while. During this time I came upon Cartamundi, the makers of Star Wars playing cards and poker chips. They have a several great new decks coming soon, including a deck of famous quotes and a “Ladies of Star Wars” deck featuring nearly every female character spied in the films. One full suit is dedicated to Padmé and another to Leia with all the other characters mixed into the other two suits. They are also working on some Indy decks, one featuring a suit for each of the four films, one based on some very cool modern Indy graphic images and some very kid-friendly decks, which have things like ants and skulls as opposed to hearts and spades. That’s about it for Toy Fair. I’ll be returning again tomorrow to check out the rest of the hall but since I’ve been through all the Star Wars and Indy licensees already I probably won’t be blogging tomorrow night… not to mention I’ll be on a plane heading back home (to go to work the next morning). All in all this was a great experience and I think my time here was well spent and will definitely help me help StarWarsShop.com grow. And hey, it’s only 1:30am! Looks like I’m getting to bed earlier than yesterday. Hooray and goodnight!

This entry was posted on February 20, 2008 at 10:48 am and is filed under Clone Wars, Collecting, Indiana Jones, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, LEGO, Toy Fair. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.