Diamond Selects Comics and IDW Bringing Back the Battle Beasts!
Thursday, April 12th, 2012 7:09PM CDT
Categories: Comic Book News, Toy News, Company News, CollectablesPosted by: GetRightRobot Views: 80,797
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Diamond Select Toys and IDW to Unleash the Battle Beasts at C2E2!
TImonium, MD (April 12, 2012) – Since 2010, Diamond Select Toys has been searching to find the right partner to introduce their Battle Beasts brand to a broader audience. Now the search is over, and DST and IDW Publishing have teamed up to immortalize a new breed of Beasts! At this year's Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo (C2E2), which runs from April 13-15, the two companies will offer a taste of what's to come: DST will give out an ashcan preview of IDW's upcoming BATTLE BEASTS comic-book mini-series, as well as an exclusive promo Minimate of one of the book's lead characters!
“We are thrilled to have found a partner in IDW, a company that understands toy fans just as well as they understand comic book fans,” said director of Diamond Select Toys Chuck Terceira. “Their experience with licensed comic books -- and with the dedicated fan bases they write for on a monthly basis -- is proof that the Battle Beasts brand is in the right hands, and we look forward to working with them for this mini-series, and, hopefully, beyond!”
The mini-series is written by Bobby Curnow (Godzilla Legends, Night of 1000 Wolves) and penciled by Valerio Schiti (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Donatello, Dungeons & Dragons: Eberron). It focuses on a group of renegade Beasts who return to Earth to protect the ultimate weapon (and the human who activated it) from an armada of their violent brethren. The ashcan will reprint the first eight pages of issue #1 in full color, and fans will be able to get a free translucent Minimate of the ram Vorin while supplies last. Both will be given away during C2E2 by DST at booth #311.
“BATTLE BEASTS is a great fit for IDW”, said writer Bobby Curnow. “What's so important about toys is they enable kids to build worlds in their imaginations, and create stories for those worlds. Since I never really grew up, getting the chance to help create the new Battle Beasts in comic form has been a fantastic and supremely fun experience. The world has been turned upside down with the arrival of the Battle Beasts, and we're going to have a great time showing just how crazy things get. IDW has a lot of experience finding riveting stories in toy-based licenses, and I hope BATTLE BEASTS is no exception. I know for a fact that Valerio is knocking it out of the park. His art is going to floor a lot of people.”
And the excitement does not stop there -- at San Diego Comic-Con (July 11-15), IDW will launch the BATTLE BEASTS mini-series with issue #1, and DST will unveil the first full wave of Battle Beasts Minimates, which will be in stores in late fall of 2012! The first wave of two-packs will focus heavily on characters who appear in the comic, and will have a gameplay element, as well. DST will also have an exclusive two-pack of Battle Beasts for sale at the show.
Minimates are 2-inch minifigures created by Art Asylum in 2002. This year marks the brand's 10th anniversary, and in that time Diamond Select Toys and Art Asylum have released over 1,000 Minimates for nearly 50 separate licenses. Highly detailed and highly poseable, each Minimate features 14 points of articulation and comes with plenty of interchangeable parts and accessories.
Visit BattleBeast.com for more information about the comic book and toy line.
Visit IDWPublishing.com to sign up for updates and learn more about the company and its top-selling books.
BATTLE BEASTS #1 ($3.99, 32 pages, full color) will be available in stores in July 2012. Diamond order code:
About IDW Publishing
IDW is an award-winning publisher of comic books, graphic novels and trade paperbacks, based in San Diego, California. Renowned for its diverse catalog of licensed and independent titles, IDW publishes some of the most successful and popular titles in the industry, including: Hasbro’s The TRANSFORMERS and G.I. JOE, Paramount’s Star Trek; HBO’s True Blood; the BBC’s DOCTOR WHO; Nickelodeon’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; Toho’s Godzilla; Wizards of the Coasts Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons; and the Eisner-Award winning Locke & Key series, created by best-selling author Joe Hill and artist Gabriel Rodriguez. IDW is also home to the Library of American Comics imprint, which publishes classic comic reprints, and Yoe! Books, a partnership with Yoe! Studio.
IDW’s critically- and fan-acclaimed series are continually moving into new mediums. Currently, Jerry Bruckheimer Films and Disney are creating a feature film based on World War Robot, while Michael Bay‘s Platinum Dunes and Sony are bringing Zombies vs. Robots to film.
About Diamond Select Toys
Diamond Select Toys and Collectibles, LLC, was founded in 1999 by sister company Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc. Headquartered in Timonium, MD, Diamond Select Toys was envisioned to create unique and exciting collectibles for children and adults alike, and today the company licenses a wide range of pop culture properties from partners such as Marvel Enterprises, Microsoft, Universal Studios, Twentieth Century Fox, Hasbro, MGM and Sony Pictures. In 2007, Diamond Select Toys acquired select assets of the New York based Art Asylum, creators of the global Minimates brand. Minimates have been recognized as the #1 selling block figure in the world and were the first toys ever to be inducted into the ToyFare Magazine Hall of Fame. In addition to Minimates, Diamond Select Toys manufactures a broad variety of products for the specialty and mass markets, including figures, statues, banks, role-play items, replicas and housewares.
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Posted by vegetacron on April 12th, 2012 @ 7:16pm CDT
I saw the toys and the comic book cover and was like, http://nooooooooooooooo.com/
Posted by MINDVVIPE on April 12th, 2012 @ 7:19pm CDT
Posted by xyl360 on April 12th, 2012 @ 7:22pm CDT
They were actually featured in the Japanese Headmasters series.
Posted by Screamfleet on April 12th, 2012 @ 7:28pm CDT
That was kind of expected though.
Clear ram figure doesn't look too good, but it's clear. Hopefully a painted one will look nice. Maybe, though, maybe.
Posted by griftimus prime on April 12th, 2012 @ 7:28pm CDT
Posted by rpetras on April 12th, 2012 @ 8:22pm CDT
I'm a little surprised there is no mention of a game component at all.
Posted by Gandalf on April 12th, 2012 @ 11:39pm CDT
However, I'm glad to see another 80s toyline getting a modern update. Just last year I was digging through an old box of junk and mixed toys that I hadn't seen in many years, and there at the bottom was my handful of Battle Beasts. They now stand proud in my collection once again.
rpetras wrote:I'm a little surprised there is no mention of a game component at all.
"The first wave of two-packs will focus heavily on characters who appear in the comic, and will have a gameplay element, as well."
Hopefully this "gameplay element" will actually involve the elemental theme of the originals.
Posted by T-Macksimus on April 13th, 2012 @ 12:00am CDT
vegetacron wrote:I saw the article and was like, "HELL YESSSSSSS!!!!!!"
I saw the toys and the comic book cover and was like, http://nooooooooooooooo.com/
That makes two of us. Having just rediscovered my stash of original BB's from the 80's I personally don't see any reason to change the design of the original toys. I was seriously hoping that the art style for the comic would have been more along the lines of the limited Beast Wars comic run that IDW did back in 2007. The whole general style would have been better suited to the original simplistic design of the characters AND still have held appeal to a new generation as well.
Posted by waaaaghlord on April 13th, 2012 @ 12:04am CDT
This is in fact one of three Battle Beast themed lines to be launching this year. As well as the Minimates line we can also expect the 'Rise of the Beasts' line from a new company called Plastic !magination to hit this summer and Takara Tomy will be releasing a new Beast Saga line to compliment the recent Manga of the same name, which seems to be set in the original Beastformers continuity. Images of the TT prototypes can be found here
http://www.littlerubberguys.com/forums/ ... pic=108804
For my money the Diamond take on the franchise is the weakest of the three.
Posted by Screamfleet on April 13th, 2012 @ 12:05am CDT
I don't like that they are based on Minimates. If they were 100% newly designed figures, I would definitely be interested.
I'm not too keen on this either. I have the universal monsters minimates, and they feel cheap and kind of crappy. They come apart, don't balance well and their parts can get in the way. The appeal of minimates is they're little versions of things you know.
Making completely original designs on a toy that really is mostly a parody does concern me.
I do love the papo mutants, they're 4-5 inch solid figures, they're anthropomorphic warriors, more a medieval theme, though the gorilla is a a cyborg.
So I'm interested in a new line of animal warriors with possibility.
Posted by Crisdecal on April 13th, 2012 @ 2:56am CDT
Posted by Downbeat on April 13th, 2012 @ 4:38am CDT
http://battlebeasts.blogspot.com/2012/0 ... -logo.html
I might get some of these guys when they come out. TakaraTomy is working on armored beasts that look just like modernizations of the 80s figures, as opposed to the Diamond minimates. I hope that Hasbro brings these over in some way since they (foolishly, in my opinion) gave up the Battle Beasts license. If not, might just import from Takara.
Posted by Screamfleet on April 13th, 2012 @ 11:10am CDT
Would have been nice to have something in between what diamond is doing and what takara is doing.
Posted by Dead Metal on April 20th, 2012 @ 4:54pm CDT