THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Comic Discussion => QUESTIONABLE CONTENT => Topic started by: FuseUnison on 29 Mar 2011, 00:45
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Hi,
I'm brand spankin' new here, so if I'm about to make myself look completely stupid through my own ignorance, or make some sort of faux pas....please forgive.
Anywho...
I was wondering if anyone else thinks that action figures of Pintsize and Winslow would be WONDERFUL ideas. I would buy 10 of each! (no real reason, i just get carried away sometimes)
If this has already been done and they were discontinued, or if it's been researched in the past and deemed too costly from a marketing stand point, ....I wasn't aware, and pretend I said nothing. :oops:
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A fan of the strip brought a stuffed Winslow-like backpack to a Con once upon a time. Of course, that's not much of a stretch, since you'd only need to make a plushie iPod and put an appropriate face/arms/legs on it.
Pintsize might be a little harder to put together.
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Jeph's the copyright holder, so merchandising something like that's completely up to him - especially since he makes his living off the merchandise.
But no, it hasn't been done, at least not in any mass-produced commercial way. You could try pitching it to him... but you'd probably have to corner him at a con with a prototype.
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We do have the Squishable Yelling Bird, so a move to something like Winslow or Pintsize might be doable. The only problem with Winslow is that Apple's copyright lawyers would be on Jeph like flies on manure.
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Jeph's the copyright holder, so merchandising something like that's completely up to him - especially since he makes his living off the merchandise.
But no, it hasn't been done, at least not in any mass-produced commercial way. You could try pitching it to him... but you'd probably have to corner him at a con with a prototype.
Ok, I'll freely admit to my poorly disguised subterfuge, lol. My original post was kind of a, *cough* please make Pintsize toy *cough*. I just thought that if enough people posted giving support to the idea, said idea might come to fruition somehow someday. Oh well, was at least worth a try I guess. And regarding approaching Mr. Jacques with a prototype, I haven't the skill to produce such a thing. Also, I haven't the means to travel to a convention even if I could find someone to make a prototype for me.
Thanks for the responses though everybody. :-D
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There is Patch Together. I mean, even that hack Dave Willis has characters he made into plastic resin figurines.
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Jeph only visits here irregularly, so after gathering supportive comments here to demonstrate the market I'd recommend mailing qcmerch directly.
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Jeph only visits here irregularly, so after gathering supportive comments here to demonstrate the market I'd recommend mailing qcmerch directly.
Thanks for the feedback. I really hope I'm not over-stepping my bounds, but I added a poll to try and determine whether this would actually be a marketable idea for QC. Please vote!
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You guys remember Jeph always does the opposite of what the forum wants, right? (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14073868/pictures/emotes/emot-ohdear.png)
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You guys remember Jeph always does the opposite of what the forum wants, right? (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14073868/pictures/emotes/emot-ohdear.png)
Okay, he shouldn't make a funny caricature of himself when drawing tonight's strip.
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You guys remember Jeph always does the opposite of what the forum wants, right? (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14073868/pictures/emotes/emot-ohdear.png)
Really?!? Well....crap. Does that mean the poll should be re-titled to "Who thinks a Pintsize toy is a horrible idea, and for the love of all that's holy, PLEASE don't ever make one"
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Actually, the point is that this forum contains an insignificant proportion of Jeph's fan base. It has also behaved so badly in the past that he is not inclined to do it any favours. In any case, he prefers to do what he chooses for himself, on the basis that it has worked for him up to now.
You'd could email a suggestion to him directly; he's marginally more likely to notice that than any suggestion here.
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I didn't know that Jeph had an unfavorable opinion of the forums. :-o I just thought that the fan forums would be a good place to try and form some sort of set of numbers to use as a reference for him so he might be able to better decide if the venture was worth his time and money in pursuing such a venture. I mean I'm sure having something like I'm proposing wouldn't be cheap, and would never expect he would even consider making a new product to sell if he didn't think he would make some sort of return.
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There's some bad history about that.
He pretty much doesn't come around here any more.
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There's some bad history about that.
He pretty much doesn't come around here any more.
Sorry, I'm new here so I had no idea about that. What the crap did people here do, and why? Isn't the mentality of a fan forum supposed to be, "Hey! We really like your stuff, you're great!!! Long live QC!", and not, "Hey! We're a bunch of tools, and we think you're crap! Suck it!!!"
Sorry, just having trouble wrapping my head around what could've happened. I mean every forum has it's trolls, but everyone's making sound like there was some horrible event that transpired here. "We don't talk about the Great Forum War of Tools vs. Loyalists." <-- That's the impression I'm getting for some reason. :-(
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Isn't the mentality of a fan forum supposed to be, "Hey! We really like your stuff, you're great!!! Long live QC!", and not, "Hey! We're a bunch of tools, and we think you're crap! Suck it!!!"
That's basically exactly what happened. People got obsessive about how they felt the story should turn out and what was the "obvious" thing that had to happen to the plotline. When Jeph didn't deliver on their (almost universally trite, boring, cliche'd and completely against the grain of the characters) suggestions, some clever folks decided that meant he was a shitty writer. Hell, there's still the occasional poster who pops up only to say that they hate [character] or list reasons why Jeph sucks.
Of course that's only half the story. Aside from the haters, what Jeph despises more than anything is people shipping his characters and making sexual innuendo about them. People would make long, rambling, poorly-spelled posts about why their favourite characters should totally have hot sex (generally this meant that they wanted to see Hannelore have sex with someone). It got ridiculous, to the point where even making jokes about it disgusted him (a crime I was guilty of as much as anyone) and now it's completely unallowed. Use of portmaneu names like Darten is a good way to get a mod warning in pretty much any post.
Added to that are the general trollings and flamewars and bullshit you get on any forum filled with geeky fans and... well, welcome to QC. Jeph's commented more than once that he acknowledges that the forum has to exist somewhere on the internet, and it might as well be here in a place where he has some editorial and administrative power to cut out the worst of it. But he basically hates the QC Discussion Forum and everything about it.
Honestly, with all that, you can't blame him.
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Ahh.....ok, yeah I can see where that kind of activity could put a bad taste in your mouth.
I've always made it a personal rule that you should keep your negative opinions of a creative work to yourself. What many people don't understand is that when an artistic person, regardless of medium, creates something that thing is VERY personal too them. Being a musician, I know that when you create something, you put the very best of yourself into it. When that work is unfairly criticized it can become very insulting over time because they're not just being critical of your work, they're being critical of what you consider to be the best part of yourself.
Kinda sucks all that happened here. It's not very often that a fan forum actually has direct involvement and interaction with the creator of it's subject matter. Kinda sad (that at least for now) that relationship between fans and creator has been damaged to such a degree. =(
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Read the sticky thread "Conduct in this forum" at the top of this subforum to get more of a feel for things. There are even a couple of messages from Jeph in there (at the end).
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Not to say that the suggestion of plush toys based on QC characters is a bad idea, in fact if I'm not mistaken Yelling Bird toys are available in the QC Store at Topatoco, but Jeph is unlikely to make such decisions based on suggestions made here.
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Sorry.... :-(
If I over-stepped my bounds, I apologize. I guess, if I am indeed in bad form, a mod should shut this one down. I wasn't trying to tell Jeph what he should do. I just thought that a friendly idea might just be better received by Jeph if a poll with favorable numbers supported said idea.
My bad I guess.
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No, no, not at all. You just set your hopes high (probably based on other fan forums where the artist interacts), and we've effectively crushed them for you.
Not your bad. In fact, it's a cool idea, and you should try contacting Jeph directly with it. He may have a reason for not doing so up till now, or may even have something in the works. Or not. But we're just letting you know that he's unlikely to get the message here, that's all.
No harm, no foul.
And welcome to the wunnerful world of the QC Discussion forum. We actually all love the comic...
It's each other that we can't stand... just kidding! Can't resist a good barb. You know Ilove you guys, right? right??
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Thanks! I'll try to contact Jeph by email. Do I use the one in his contact info for his forum profile?
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From the QC website Contact page:
You can email me! jephco at mac dot com is where you want to direct your messages. I will do my best to promptly answer all mail I recieve.
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N.B. A question along the lines of "have you considered commissioning toys of other QC characters (like a plush Winslow)? I would be very interested in such a product" will probably go over a lot better than a hyper-enthusiastic, poorly spelled semi-demand along the lines of "hey, you should totally make pintsize plushies! that would totall[sic] pwn!"
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Yeah, just shoot Jeph a email. I did ages ago about Marten's pandapus hoodie and he said he was actually in the process of making them since he had so many requests. He's a very nice person, the forums just bring out the evilness in him. =P
As far as a Winslow plushie, like someone said above (I can't find who it was. :psyduck:) Apple would probably try and drag Jeph to court. Not trying to create a Apple vs. Non-Apple lovers debate, because I'm honestly a neutral person looking in. I've just seen too many news stories where Apple has drug other companies to court over some things that just seem idiotic to me, and Jeph doesn't need that kind of trouble or risk that kind of trouble.
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Actually I'm slightly surprised that Apple haven't taken exception to the presence of Winslow. Could a lawyer make the case that as Winslow is inspired by an iPod, (although Jeph did say he was Apple's (http://questionablecontent.net./view.php?comic=527)) and Jeph draws income from his characters that he therefore draws income from use of an Apple product. or is that a bit far for corporate law
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I think Jeph's best defense, should it be necessary, would be the satire defense, that and the fair comment rule. In a more practical vein, Apple might consider the PR backfire of going to town on Jeph ... or recognize the PR value of Winslow in the first place. Ohio Art Co. is supposed to have sent Scott Adams a free Etch-a-Sketch toy after the "Dilbert" strip in which the pointy-haired boss couldn't tell his new laptop was an Etch-a-Sketch. ... hell, Jeph could make money off this if Apple's smart.
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See today's Something*Positive for an example of the Satire/Parody exception to IP law.
Not comepletely SFW (http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp03292011.shtml).
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Would a Pintsize toy be technically difficult even if it were based on the stock 8600 chassis, the one with no knees or elbows?
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That depends on how many of his "features" are fully implemented! :laugh: :evil: :wink: (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IfYouKnowWhatIMean)
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Wants Pintsize with several assembly options (http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=465).
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A plushie with magnets? Might crush the structure too much
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Sorry. I was being unclear. I don't think Pintsize works as a plushie.
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Ok, so you're suggesting a 1 foot tall plastic/metal mechanical toy that can move, but also can have the legs/arms/head removed and replaced at will?
Starting with the joints, holding them together with magnets should be relatively OK, they won't need to be too strong as the mass of the toy will currently be assumed to be less than 1-2lb. Balance is going to be the biggest issue, you could design the weight distribution of the legs/arms (they always look pretty similar to me) so that on their own will stand upright, then keeping the rest of the body/head to a minimum mass might be enough, but walking will probably be impossible.
Another method could be installing gyros into all of the limbs and then when there are two limbs in place as legs, the gyros could be active allowing a fair degree of stability that might enable walking. One downside of this is that you would need 4 pretty hefty gyros to be able to stabilise the design, hence a high cost.
As for movement, the hip/shoulder joints can be internal to the chassis, knees/elbows could be articulated from inside the feet/hands to keep the centre of gravity as low as possible, and ankle/wrist articulation could be used to increase stability when walking. As for communication, the CPU could be in the chest, and communicate and transfer power to the limbs through an Apple MacBookPro style magnetic connector. This would enable each limb to understand where on the body it was placed. Assuming the joints are approx ½ inch would allow for a ring magnet, locator pin and 4 channel data/power (USB style) connectors. Batteries should ideally be in the base of the chassis, but on such a small toy you might only get 5-10 mins of movement.
These are just some preliminary thoughts based upon the look of some of Jeph’s more recent drawings of Pintsize close up, if anyone has ideas to improve upon this I’d love to discuss.
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Something like....
this?! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sU_6l1kwu7Y)
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Deadlywonkey, you're seriously over-engineering this...
How about a resin or plastic figure with limbs and head on same-sized dowels that can be interchanged in the chassis' holes, with a pivot joint (maybe ball and socket) on each for posing (or not), with a traditional doll stand.
Remember, it's a toy. The engineering principle KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) applies here.
Interestingly, Pintsize (and Winslow, maybe Momo) are the least-changing characters in the strip, and so the most likely for figures. Anyone else won't resemble themselves after a few hundred strips or so!
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OMFG! I should have known better than tempt an engineer. All I wanted was magnetically de-/attachable limbs and head :-). Probably wouldn't have hurt to be more specific :roll:
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Make it a plushy anyway, and use velcro attachments.
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Deadlywonky, you're seriously over-engineering this...
But it would be able to walk! also FIFY
A resin model would be fine, but you could use magnets to be inkeeping with the 'real' Pintsize.
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Howabout a Momo doll with the.........
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From the QC website Contact page:
You can email me! jephco at mac dot com is where you want to direct your messages. I will do my best to promptly answer all mail I recieve.
Thanks, just wanted to make sure. Yeah, I sent what I believe to be a very respectful message to Jeph on Wednesday, but have yet to receive a response. I'm sure he's busy, so if I even receive an answer at all, I doubt it will be anytime soon. Sorry I haven't participated in the conversation(and the forums in general) for a couple of days. I was out of town visiting my Grandparents and they don't have the internet.
As to the posts discussing the type of toy that Pintsize should be, I just thought a simple little 3 inch action figure or something like that would be perfect. No frills, no laser, just a simple little Pintsize. Although I will say that the magnet idea was pretty cool.
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I think the best would be a stuffed Pintsize based on the third panel of comic #2 (http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2). Lifesize, so about a foot tall.
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Well....I've yet to receive any response from Jeph on the matter, so I guess this may be a lost cause(for the time being anyway *crosses fingers*). :-(
I've got some friends in Memphis who major in metal work and sculpture at MCA(Memphis College of Art), so I'm gonna take some pics for reference when I go up there next month and see if I can't twist some arms to get a little Pintsize made. That would be ok right....as long as I didn't try to make money/sell them?
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I think that falls uner the category, "commissioning a work of art".
Might want to have one made for Jeph, too.
Oh, and I'd like one...
:laugh: