Find our previous Blockade Runner Pickups posts here.
Ryan:
Monsters and Aliens from George Lucas
Category Archives: Products
Blockade Runner Pickups: September 11th – 17th
Check out previous Blockade Runner Pickups here.
Ryan:
3.75″ Yoda
Ryan’s internet is out at the moment, but he texted me this pic of the Last Jedi line 3.75″ Yoda he found at Target this week! I’d only heard of those showing up at Wal-Marts so far, but looks like you’ll be able to grab him and the new Obi-Wan everywhere soon.
John:
Jason Gibner Chewbacca Painting
First, and most exciting this week, is actually a gift I picked up for my brother Jason’s birthday. Jason and my sister-in-law Erin share my love of Blast Points, the preferred Star Wars podcast of our entire family. We often end up messaging each other our favorite Blast Points moments after each new episode drops, so I bought a Chewie painting from host Jason Gibner’s Etsy shop. Even though I gifted it to Jason, I’ll definitely be placing another order from Jason’s shop soon, and you should too. You can even grab a Blast Points shirt while you’re there.
Porg Mug!
Ryan is awesome and he sent me the much-coveted Disney Store porg coffee mug!
Birthday Presents for My Son
My youngest son turned four this week and while he mostly wanted Ninja Turtle stuff, we snuck a few Star Wars treats in there for him too.
Chewie mask (that’s my mouth inside Chewie’s mouth there)!
Galactic Heroes AT-AT with driver!
Galactic Heroes speeder bike with scout trooper!
Target exclusive 3.75″ 7-pack set! This photo is a bit of mash up though as it’s missing the included RotJ Luke Skywalker and Finn from the Vs. pack with Phasma is there in his stead.
Blockade Runner Pickups: September 3rd – 10th
Check out previous Blockade Runner Pickups here.
Ryan:
So I’ve been getting kinda into Lego recently…
Blockade Runner Pickups: Force Friday II edition
Ryan
This Force Friday was ridic; so much good stuff. This is my haul from just two stores :-O
Force Friday II: Toys, Books, Porgs – The Blockade Runner Podcast – September 2nd, 2017
Ryan and John discuss a bounty of Star Wars toys, books, porgs, and more on Saturday, August 2nd (otherwise forever known as the day following Force Friday II!). Join us as we breakdown our pre-Force Friday II expectations, share a bit of footage from the line at our local Toys ‘R Us (video version only), recount our favorite purchases, and even take a quick look at a few interesting pages from some Journey to the Last Jedi books!
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Blockade Runner Pickups: August 21st – August 27
Ryan
The Jedi Master’s Quizbook
After the incredibly entertaining episode of Blast Points, I HAD to get a copy of Rusty Miller’s Star Wars trivia book.
Entertainment Weekly Magazine
I don’t typically buy multiple covers of magazines, but I couldn’t resist with these; they just make such a great pair.
Light week for Star Wars pickups; the calm before the Force Friday II storm…
John
X-Wing MicroKite
My pickups are pretty light this week as I’m mostly waiting in anticipation for Force Friday II, but I did find a couple of little deals at my local Meijer when I went to look for street date-breaking Last Jedi merch (I didn’t find any…). The asking price on this X-Wing MicroKite was slashed all the way down to a buck, so I thought “why not?” Not sure if I’ll ever use it, but if not, it’ll be a fun thing to pull out of a Star Wars bin full of Star Wars-themed magazines, party favors, and school supplies in 10 years or something.
Force Awakens Folders
At least I think these are from The Force Awakens. They’re certainly not Last Jedi product, so I’m guessing they were designed for this season’s Back to School sales window, and hastily so judging by the questionable font/text choices. I actually sorta hate these, but they features Star Wars images, so I was compelled to buy them, especially at sixty cents apiece.
Autographed Star Wars Stern Pinball Machine Flyer
My brother Jason went to the Star Wars Pinball Party and Toy Store event at Logan Arcade in Chicago last Friday night and was nice enough to grab me this Stern Star Wars Limited Edition table info sheet signed by Stern’s Steve Ritchie! You can find more info on the table here, but it looks amazing and I can’t wait to make the trip into Logan Arcade to scope it out.
Blockade Runner Pickups August 14th – 20th 2017
Check out last week’s pickups here.
Ryan
Empire Strikes Back (Game Boy)
Grabbed this Game Boy ESB game (weirdly published by Ubi Soft) for our Power of the 90s: 1992 episode. I haven’t played much, but my first impression is that it’s fairly technically impressive for a Game Boy licensed game, but also has some oddly difficult platforming early on.
Star Wars Galaxy
With their bold artistic visions of the Star Wars universe by a variety of artists (including some of the biggest names in comics), the Galaxy card series showcased the Star Wars universe in ways we’d never seen before in 1993. This book chronicles the first three sets of the cards, which range from gorgeous and detailed to post-modern weirdness. I love it.
Weird 6″ figures
I’m really digging these 6″ 5POA figures I grabbed at Big Lots. Not bad for $6; they can almost hang with 6″ Black Series figures!
Star Wars: The Magic of Myth, Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu, RotJ Illustrated Edition
We have an awesome bookstore here in Denver called Kilgore Books that specializes in zines, weird literature, and sci-fi. Not only is their focus totally in my wheelhouse, but their prices are great too- I was able to grab these three books for about $16 total. Really stoked to find out what the heck a mindharp is!
John
Hassk Thug #2
I grabbed my first long-sought-after Hassk Triplet (or “thug” as the Hasbro packaging refers to him) a few weeks ago when Target initially started their Force Awakens toys clearance sales, but everyone knows that Takodana werewolves travel in threes, so I jumped at the opportunity to grab my second figure when I saw him swinging from the pegs the other day. Two dollars and thirty cents!
Glad Star Wars Sandwich Bags
I’m assuming these first released with The Force Awakens, but I’ve never noticed them in stores until now. The bags and packaging are super fun and this is the kind of stuff that is super fun to pull out of a storage box twenty years later. Plus, I figure these will double as handy weapons/accessories bags for my Last Jedi figures!
Darth Vader Backpack
A thoughtful coworker grabbed this for me from the Duty Free shop on the Canadian/U.S. border recently. I guess it was in a clearance bin, but her intuition served her well when she thought, “if it features Star Wars art, he’ll love it.” I do!
Blockade Runner Pickups: August 6th – 13th
Ryan and I (John) have been having a blast over the past few weeks texting each other hot tips about good sales on Star Wars march and photos of any stuff we’ve been able to pick up. Ryan suggested we put together a weekly or bi-weekly post for the blog showcasing all of the stuff we add to our collections and I think the Force is very much with that idea, especially considering Force Friday II and The Journey to The Last Jedi is just around the corner! Check out pics and quick descriptions of the items we’ve recently acquired below and stay tuned to the blog for more Blockade Runner Pickups posts to come! We’d also love to hear about any good pickups or deals you may have found recently either in the comments below or by emailing us at blockaderunnerpodcast@gmail.com.
Ryan:
Uniqlo Chewbacca shirt
Uniqlo is pretty much my favorite clothing store ever, and the fact that they occasionally have exclusive Star Wars shirts only amplifies that love.
Complete Rogue Squadron
Grabbed this for $15 at a local game store. Still super fun, and one of the best looking and sounding games on the N64.
Ezra Bridger + Speeder Bike
$5.98 at Target, heck yeah
Thrawn ebook
While I love the character, Thrawn hasn’t hooked me like other recent SW reads like Inferno Squadron and Rebel Rising. Still, it’s incredibly well-written and I’m curious to see how and where the story ends.
Doctor Aphra Issue #10
Not really a pickup per se (I have a mailorder subscription), I’m always stoked to get a new issue of Aphra. She’s just the best.
John
Jedha Revolt and Base Malbus/Stormtrooper 3.75″ Hasbro Toy Bundles
Wal-Mart (along with Target and may other retailers) is clearancing out most of their Force Awakens and Rogue One toys, so I got some incredible deals on these figures. The Jedha Revolt pack was $13 (just over $3 per figure) and the Baze/Stormtrooper combo was $7 ($3.50 per figure). I was particularly stoked because I’ve never even seen figures like Two Tubs and Saw on shelves, so scoring them at that price point was pretty sweet! Now is the time to grab any toys from the TFA or Rogue One lines you’ve been wanting.
The Glove of Darth Vader/The Lost City of the Jedi/Zorba the Hutt’s Revenge
I grabbed this for around $10 on Amazon for our upcoming Power of the 90s show covering 1992. This hardcover collection was actually released by Barnes & Noble in 1997, but all three of these children’s novels were first published in 1992. They’re super fun and we’ll talking about them a bunch more when our 92 show drops later this month.
Star Wars: Ominbus #1 – A Long Time Ago…
I was able to find this collection for about $15, this time on eBay, and I thought I was buying it for the 1992 Power of the 90s show too, but it turns out I had my circuits crossed and the comics contained in this Dark Horse collection aren’t actually relevant to the next episode of that series. Still, I’d consider it a happy accident as it’s a high quality reprinting of a bunch of the original Marvel Comics Star Wars run and part of a large collection of Star Wars Omnibus releases from Dark Horse I’m now itching to track down.
Abrams ComicsArts Star Wars: Galaxy and The Empire Strikes Back Topps Cards Series Books
Abrams ComicsArt released the excellent Star Wars: The Original Topps Trading Card Series late last year (which I wrote about here). Author Greg Garani has followed up that first book with collections covering the Topps cards for The Empire Strikes Back as well as the Star Wars Galaxy series from the 90s.
Both books include an introductory essay from Garani chronicling the production of each series as well as hundreds of pages of images that faithfully every card from both. Like the first volume, the production quality of these books is excellent; they feature hardcover binding and thoughtfully crafted dust jackets (Galaxy’s is a shiny foil-style while Empire‘s emulates the waxy paper associated with trading card bubble gum) that result in a classy and collectible product. The included images of each card are often paired with captions from Garani that share trivia or anecdotes about the thought process behind design and marketing choices, and the books are just a joy to flip through in no small part due to the author’s obvious enthusiasm for the subject matter.
I haven’t seen much chatter about these books in the fan community (which is a shame as they are exactly the type of archival collections I’d love to see more of from Lucasfilm and its partners). If you didn’t own or collect any of these trading cards in the past, these books act as an excellent method of affordably experiencing the sets without tracking down and storing the originals. Even if you do have some or all of the cards, these volumes are lovingly produced tributes to the series and act as great collectibles and convenient ways for experiencing the series all over again.
The Return of the Jedi volume is slated for release in August and is up for pre-order now on Amazon. They come highly recommended and I’m looking forward to more collaboration from Lucasfilm and Abrams as these collections have left me thoroughly impressed. You can find links to the other books the companies have collaborated on at the Abrams site here.
Star Wars: The Original Topps Trading Card Series Volume One
I recently picked up a copy of Star Wars: The Original Topps Trading Card Series Volume One from Abrams ComicArts on Amazon after Ryan pointed it out to me on Twitter. I hadn’t heard anything about the book, and I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I’m super happy I grabbed it as it’s a great collectible and a convenient (an inexpensive) way to enjoy the Topps cards series without having to track them all down.
The book opens with an essay by author Gregg Garani about the production of this first series of Topps Star Wars cards and it acts as a primer for viewing the volume’s primary content: images of every card from the original run for A New Hope. Garani also includes captions for many of the cards themselves and his commentary is thoughtful and informative as a result of his being part of the team at Topps that put the series together. He apparently also co-wrote Pumpkinhead, so it’s safe to say he rules!
In addition to the hundreds of pages of images of the card series, there’s also an afterword that focuses on the Wonder Bread cards released alongside A New Hope and even some sealed bonus cards attached to the back cover (I opted not to remove/open them, so I can’t comment on their content).
The care and quality with which the book was put together is what makes it an exciting product, at least for me. I liked the idea of a volume collecting the original Topps Star Wars cards, but I was a bit skeptical of how engaging the final product would really be, so I was happy to find that Abrams created a really special product here. The hardcover binding is excellent, each page features just one card in a simple, clean layout (one can imagine how the publisher could’ve easily opted for a more cluttered approach resulting in few pages, but also less class), and every choice from the images of gum sticks on the front and back of the book to the wax-like feel of the dust jacket indicate Abrams, Garani, and the rest of the book’s contributors took their time to create an excellent collectible.
Star Wars: The Original Topps Trading Card Series Volume One has a list price of $24.95, which I would argue is a fair price, but it’s currently selling for about $16 on Amazon. At either price I’d strongly recommend it to fans of the original Topps cards or those looking for a quality Star Wars collectible. Amazon currently carries listings for volumes based on Empire and the Star Wars: Galaxy card series, so it appears this is the first in a number of books that will provide an exhaustive look at Topps’ Star Wars card series.
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