Night of the Living Dead - Karen Cooper and Barbra

[Pascal]

In an article Toyfare of May 2009, it was announced that the Series 2 of the Night of the Living Dead come out late 2009. But there was more news. Is there a chance to see Karen Cooper and Barbra?

[EMCEtoys]

In an article Toyfare of May 2009, it was announced that the Series 2 of the Night of the Living Dead come out late 2009. But there was more news. Is there a chance to see Karen Cooper and Barbra?

Truthfully, at the time, probably not. As most people here know, we produced the first 2 figs a few years ago, and since then the prices and minimum order quantities of Chinese factories have skyrocketed. The minimums are much higher than what I project would sell. I love NOTLD (I own the trademark, you see), but I don't love losing money.

[samurainoir]

You guys are Spherewerx? That's cool. How did you go about getting the TM? I assumed that Romero and co went to all the trouble back in the nineties to do that remake in order to get the trademark back!

Did you have anything to do with the recent Avatar or Dead Dog comics?

Shame about the other two figures. That would have been awesome.

[Remco Monster]

Wish we would have gotten Karen Copper in series one, along with the Cemetery Zombie. If there were only going to be two figures, I would have preferred two zombies.

[Meule]

No more NOTLD figures? Ah crap

[Harbingerboy]

Finally, some confirmation. I've been asking about wave 2 forever...

I was waiting to see wave 2 before picking up wave 1...Guess I won't be collecting this line now.

[callistofreak]

Can the clothes & head be made there?
Sent here, and put on bodies, and packaged??
What ever bodies you want to buy? DM, CCTV.... ect.
And sold in a Limed Run....

[EMCEtoys]

considered doing it in parts with some in china and some here, but not looking good.

i picked up the trademark after trying to get a legitimate merch line going for notld after it had been bootlegged to death for 40 years. took about three years (two of which were wasted as someone who claimed to have the rights strung me along), but i discovered that, although the film was public domain, the title was still open as a merchandising trademark.

the funny thing was, it only took a simple filing and a little legal oversight and it was mine. even the original producers had tried to register the trademark but they got screwed by incompetent lawyers.

so, it was a loophole we exploited. however, we consider ourselves custodians of the trademark, preventing bootleggers and moving all the money to the original actors and producers. in fact, we just sold a t-shirt license to a major manufacturer and i divided the money among the actors whose likenesses were being used and the producers. i didn't keep a dime.

sadly, the time to have done this was 20 years ago. the mark has been bled to death and there's little new. i'd love to do karen and barbra and give money to judy and kyra, but i can't justify doing it at a loss to my company.

should circumstances change ( and we have some r&d stuff going on, but nothing that can be relied on yet), i'd jump on it. but given current chinese production situations, not gonna happen.

and to answer the other question, i thought it was common knowledge that emce toys was one of my brands, along with fearwerx, klickwerx and the old magazine cinefantastique. we're really busy here :-)

[samurainoir]

Cinefantastique is yours as well! Wow, that was my all time favourite growing up. It just went into so much more depth than Starlog, Fangoria and all the rest.

Do you have Femme Fatales magazine as well? Loved that one. Why read about how the A-list decorate their homes in People magazine when I could read about Cynthia Rothrock's experience in Hong Kong cinema or how Sybil Danning's Werewolf make-up was applied!

[EMCEtoys]

Cinefantastique is yours as well! Wow, that was my all time favourite growing up. It just went into so much more depth than Starlog, Fangoria and all the rest.

Do you have Femme Fatales magazine as well? Loved that one. Why read about how the A-list decorate their homes in People magazine when I could read about Cynthia Rothrock's experience in Hong Kong cinema or how Sybil Danning's Werewolf make-up was applied!

I don't own it, but I'm happy to say I'm affiliated with the publisher (who I bought CFQ from), especially since he just sold the brand as a Cinemax TV series:

Cinemax orders anthology series

It was offered to me but I passed. Who knew?

("I passed on 'Gone With The Wind'...I thought, 'Who wants to see a Civil War picture?'")

[Pascal]

I really regret not being able to see the second series of Night of the living dead. But a big thank you for the detailed explanation.

[jasonmego1277]

Pretty sad to hear. Still planning on getting wave 1 though.

[Meule]

Pretty sad to hear. Still planning on getting wave 1 though.

I've seen 'em on eBay for $15

[jacoblb]

Truthfully, at the time, probably not. As most people here know, we produced the first 2 figs a few years ago, and since then the prices and minimum order quantities of Chinese factories have skyrocketed. The minimums are much higher than what I project would sell. I love NOTLD (I own the trademark, you see), but I don't love losing money.

Is it out of neccesity that we deal with China? I simply ask out of naivity because with so many people hard up for work, I'm surprised more business ventures don't happen here on the boards. Even if the pay is the pay of a China factory worker I imagine there's people so into the hobby of Mego that they'd be more than happy to be given work on the side or whatever. I kind of throw this out there because, while I am gainfully employed, my equally creative and skilled wife is interested in some stay-at-home work especially once our kids return to school. We didn't want to tread on the seamstress or vinyl cutting dealings others do here so I've often asked her what could we do to contribute? I've more to write on the matter, but I'll stop for now.

[generic]

Is it out of neccesity that we deal with China? I simply ask out of naivity because with so many people hard up for work, I'm surprised more business ventures don't happen here on the boards.

The costs for material and labor in China are way lower. I don't mean like $5.50 / hr, I mean like $0.14 / hr (in US dollars). Because of the exchange rate, that $0.14 buys a lot more in China that it will buy in the USA, so we're not comparing apples to apples. When the value of the US dollar drops, even if the prices for everything in China stay the same, it costs more US dollars to pay that same price. That's part of what EMCEtoys is talking about. The other part, minimum manufacturing quantities, are also a big factor. When you're talking about molded plastic parts, those aren't something that can be put together on a small scale with the same quality / quantity of a machined piece. But if your minimum quantity goes from 1,000 to 10,000, often you just know that you won't be able to sell enough of a specific product to break even. Still, you can't realistically afford to pay someone in the US to make 1,000 of them by hand and even if you could, they wouldn't be the same quality.