Mr. Sardonicus sent me this sighting of a super-detailed line of Japanese gashapon (aka capsule toys).
He says,
Produced by Takara/Tomy, the complete set includes 10 figures (3 octopi, 2 cuttlefish, 4 squid, and 1 “secret” argonaut) and runs upwards of $75, but it’s not too difficult to find individuals being sold on eBay for $10 or less.
I’ll definitely have to keep an eye out for these. Thanks Brian!
Yeah, I know, I’m a few days late, but Happy New Year!!! I probably say this every year, but I have a feeling that 2010 will be the Year of the Cephalopod. (Well, I don’t say that about 2010 every year, but you know what I mean.)
My week offline, while a pleasant change of pace, has resulted in a large backlog (well, larger than normal) of material for the blog. So, let’s start with a trio of octopuses I spotted at the Antropologie store at my local mall.
These De Vincennes Dinner Plates are Antropologie exclusives by artist Nathalie Late. They are $24 each and are also available at the Anthropologie website.
Pictorial Webster’s: A Visual Dictionary of Curiosities by John M. Carrera.
When I was a kid I was always fascinated by the illustrations in the dictionary. I used to make up stories, often about a zoo that put all their animals in alphabetical order and you traveled through it in a series of similarly organized vehicles. Anyway, this book contains over 1,500 engravings from 19th century editions of the Webster’s dictionary. And yes, they are arranged alphabetically.
List price $35.00. Also available at Amazon.com.
Lastly, we have The ABC of Animals Activity Book by the North American Bear Company. It contains a cute little plush animal for each letter of the alphabet. O is, of course, for Octopus, and well…that’s all that matters isn’t it?
List price $75.00. Also available at Amazon.com.
We had a marvelous Christmas here at ISK headquarters, and if you celebrate I hope you did too! This year was Kid Indie Squid Kid’s first Christmas, and even though he is a little too young to know what was going on, it was still very exciting. Family came to us, so we didn’t have to worry about traveling with the baby, and that turned out to be ideal, because I seem to have the virus and/or secondary bacterial infection that WILL NOT DIE.
It will come as little surprise that there were a number of cephalopods underneath our Christmas tree. Here’s a rundown of all the loot…
Well, I think that’s it for now. I’ve been unplugged for a week so I got to ease back into things, you know?
Christmas octopus sees you!, originally uploaded by Cryptonaut.
Cephalopodmas (aka Squidmas, aka Solstice) is next Tuesday, so every day this week I will post a bonus photo of a different cepahlopod holiday ornament.
I don’t think this rubber octopus was intended to be a Christmas decoration, but it has a string on it so…POW! ORNAMENT!
Welcome to the 1st Annual Indie Squid Kid Holiday Shopping Guide!
Every day this week I will feature the best new products for the cephalopod enthusiast in your life. In most cases, these will be products that I don’t own (yet…hint, hint) and haven’t previously reviewed. To kick the week off, we start with one of my favorite subjects…TOYS!
Ocean Squid
Part of Imaginext’s new Ocean line, and of course it’s the one piece I haven’t been able to find yet.
List Price: $6.00 — Buy on Amazon.com (but it will be cheaper if you can find it in a retail store.)
Ocean Mega Playset
This set combines four different pieces that are usually sold separately. It not only includes the Ocean Squid (see above), but it also comes with a green plastic ammonite (one of the Ocean Boat’s accessories).
List Price: $74.99 — Buy on ToysRUs.com
3-Headed Dragon Gift Set
Spotted at my local Target store, this set includes not only an awesome three-headed sea dragon, but a Tylosaurus (from Imaginext’s discontinued Dinosaur line) and a repaint of Sea Blade the Octopus from their Pirate line.
List Price: $29.99 — Target in-store exclusive.
Incredible Creatures Giant Pacific Octopus
This is yet another example of something I haven’t been able to track down in the store. Safari’s Incredible Creatures are larger scale (and more detailed) than the Wild Safari line, but are made of softer plastic and are comparable in price.
List Price: $10.99 — Buy on SafariLtd.com
Also still available: Wild Safari Sea Life Octopus and Giant Squid.
Mega Rig Pirate Ship!
There’s a lot of talk about pirates versus ninjas, but if we learned anything from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, the pirate’s natural enemy is actually the cephalopod.
List Price $39.99 — Buy on Amazon.com
Also still available: Mega Rig Squid Sub
Giant Octopus
List Price: $19.99 — Buy on PlaymobilUSA.com
Pirate Raft
List Price: $10.99 — Buy on PlaymobilUSA.com
Kraken Attack
List Price: $10.99 — Buy on Amazon.com
We have arrived at the end of Action Figure Week, and now it is finally time to talk about George Lucas’ favorite cephalopod—Squid Head!
To me (and, I assume, nearly anyone else who was born in the 1970’s), Star Wars toys are the quintessential action figures. I actually don’t remember the first time I saw Star Wars, or when I got my first Star Wars action figure, but in all but my very earliest memories I am already a fanatic, and I seem to have always had Star Wars toys.
Debuting in 1977, Kenner’s 3 ¾” figures were revolutionary, displacing 12″ dolls (like G.I. Joe) as the industry standard, and this size continues to dominate the action figure market today. The original toy line was produced until 1985, and Kenner revived it in 1995. There has been a steady stream of Star Wars figures on toy store shelves ever since.
Squid Head™ (Kenner, 1983)
Part of the first wave of figures for Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, Squid Head appears only briefly in the crowd of aliens that reside in the palace of Jabba The Hutt. In fact, this figure is a great example of two long-time Lucas traditions: 1) making toys of obscure characters, and 2) giving those characters dumb, yet descriptive, names. And like all obscure Star Wars characters, Squid Head’s back story would be fleshed out over time through the RPGs, comics, and novels of the Expanded Universe.
As it turns out, his name is actually Tessek, and he is a Quarren, an alien species from the ocean planet Dac. Dac is also the homeworld of the Mon Calamari (such as Admiral “It’s a traaaap!” Ackbar). Despite their name, the Mon Calamari are actually fish people, not cephalopods, and the two species have a long history of antagonism, often ending up on opposite sides of various galactic conflicts.
So, even though he is from a species native to the deep ocean, Tessek somehow ended up on the desert world of Tatooine in the employ of Jabba the Hutt…as his accountant. I suppose it is best not to dwell on the unlikeliness of an air-breathing humanoid species evolving from deep-sea invertebrates (presumably) on a planet with very little dry land.
Anyway, getting back to the figure, it is fairly obvious why this guy is called “Squid Head.” His beak-like mouth is surrounded by four tentacles, and two fin-like structures project off either side of his head. The suction cups on his finger tips provide a final squiddy touch. The toy comes with a blaster pistol and a real cloth cloak and skirt (which is held in place with a silver plastic cummerbund).
I lost my original Squid Head figure when I was a kid. I picked up this replacement on the collectors market, so it’s in fairly pristine condition. I do still have the card that my original figure came packaged on (above). It features a nice close-up shot of the Quarren accountant enjoying a tasty beverage on board Jabba’s Sail Barge. As a bonus, you can just make out my sad nine-year old attempts at drawing Imperial Shuttles, an AT-AT walker, and some kind of creature that is maybe supposed to be a Tauntaun.
Tessek™ (Hasbro, 2000)
Even though Kenner began producing Star Wars action figures again in 1995, it would be five years before they made an updated Squid Head. (2000 was also the year that Hasbro, which had owned Kenner since 1991, consumed the Kenner brand for good.) The new Tessek figure was released as part of Star Wars: Power of the Jedi, a toy line that contained a combination of figures from the original trilogy and the recently released prequel, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. The new Tessek figure is more detailed than the original and has molded plastic clothes. The colors of this figure more closely match the way the character appeared in the the original movie.
The Star Wars toy line has undergone seemingly constant rebranding over the past 14 years, and Star Wars: The Legacy Collection is the name of the current line (although I think the packaging has been redesigned again). It includes characters and vehicles from all six films as well as the two Clone Wars animated series.
Quarren™ Soldier (Hasbro, 2008)
This figure, the only non-Tessek Quarren figure to-date, is a “realistic” version of the alien warriors as portrayed in the Chapter 5 of Genndy Tartakovsky’s Star Wars: Clone Wars animated series (2003-2005). In that segment (which is my favorite after Chapter 13, where Mace Windu single-handedly defeats an entire army of droids), amphibious Jedi Knight Kit Fisto leads an battalion of Clone scuba troopers and Mon Calamari knights against Separatist battle droids and the Quarren Isolation League. Here’s a link to the segment on YouTube. I highly recommend the entire Tartakovsky Clone Wars series, which is available on DVD.
There are a few other Quarren characters from the Star Wars Universe that have yet to be given action figure treatment, but I’m sure it’s just a matter of time.
If you were paying attention at the beginning of the week, you’ll remember that the world’s first action figure was Hasbro’s G.I. Joe. By the 70’s, the line had moved away from war toys and toward adventure and superheroes, and 1976 would mark the end of the original line of 12″ figures. One of the last G.I. Joe Adventure Team vehicle playsets was the “Sea Wolf Submarine,” seen here in a 1976 product catalog.
photo from www.plaidstallions.com
This working toy submarine is pretty cool in and of itself, but obviously I’m more interested in the large plastic squid that was included along with it. It is 11″ long and a sickly shade of light gray. I’m not a aware of a species of squid that looks quite like this, but considering that it’s nearly as big a G.I. Joe himself, I’d guess this was based on the Humboldt Squid.
Here’s my G.I. Joe squid, which I got off Ebay a few years ago. The right tentacle club is stamped “© 1975 Hasbro.”
A Plush A Day: Day 2 Baby Socktopus, originally uploaded by Futuregirl_LeahRiley.
We interrupt Action Figure Week to bring you this really cute hand-made one-eyed plush octopus. It was yesterday’s entry in Leah Riley’s Plush a Day Challenge. That’s right, Leah is making a new plush toy every day until she runs out of ideas or scrap material. Which ever comes first!
Follow her progress at Leah’s Stuff.
Ten years after Tentakil, Takama/Hasbro added a new cephalopod to the Transformers family. And this one actually resembles a real animal!
Meet Claw Jaw. He was released in 1997 as part of the second wave of the Beast Wars Basic figure assortment. The Beast Wars Transformers franchise was set several hundred years in the future of the Generation 1 continuity. Instead of Autobots versus Decepticons, we have their descendants: Maximals and Predacons. Instead of transforming into vehicles, these robots change into various animals. In the states, the toy line was supported by a successful cartoon series (1996-1999) and more recently in comics published by IDW.
Despite the fact that most Maximals were mammals (and Predicons were generally reptiles and insects), Claw Jaw is actually one of the good guys. In his beast mode, Claw Jaw has eight arms, two tentacles, and a long, finned mantle. Even though his eyes are in the wrong position, and his beak is oriented the wrong way, it’s not a bad representation of a squid, all things considered. The figure is about 6″ long in squid mode, but only stands about 4″ tall in robot mode. A trigger on his ventral side causes the beak to open and shut.
Unlike the previously discussed Tentakil, Claw Jaw looks pretty cool in both robot and beast modes.
In 1998, a green and yellow repaint was marketed in Europe as a “Transmetal” version.
Although never appearing in the TV series, Claw Jaw did appear in the Beast Wars comics series The Gathering (Feb. 2006) and The Ascending (Nov. 2007). According to these comics, he prefers to spend his time in an underwater layer, and only really gets along with other marine Maximals. Using the suction cups on his tentacles, Claw Jaw can drain energy directly from his enemies. He has a particularly bitter hatred for Predacon crab Razorclaw.
In Japan, this figure was called Scuba, and a repaint of the figure was sold as his cousin Ikard. Both squid-bots were part of the Japanese-only Beast Wars II line.
This is Tentakil, a Generation 1 Transformer, and member of the Decepticon sub-group the Seacons. Each Seacon was a different monsterous sea creature, and although the resemblance is questionable, ten-armed Tentakil does, in fact, appear to be a squid.
All five Seacons could combine to form the super-robot Piranacon. Tentakil was the left leg.
Pirnacon! (photo from tfwiki.net)
This is a little off-topic, but who the hell thought electric pink and teal were good colors for evil aquatic robots!?
Anyway…when not on leg duty, Tentakil could transform into three different solo modes. In his beast mode, this bipedal squid-bot appears to be wearing a Creature From The Black Lagoon Halloween mask. My figure is missing his accessories, but he would have originally come with two “Slime Laser rifles” that could be head-mounted (mantle-mounted?) in beast mode or carried like regular guns in robot mode. Tentakil also has a third “Targetmaster” mode where he turns into a “50,000 volt lightning rifle.”
Like all G1 Transformers (as well as the Battle Beasts from yesterday’s post), Tentakil was produced by Takama/Hasbro. The figure is stamped 1987, but it appears that the Seacons didn’t hit American toy shelves until 1988. I realize I didn’t include any sense of scale in these photos, but the toy is about 3 3/4″ tall. Even though my brother and I had quite a few Transformers in our time, we never had this or any of the Seacon figures. My future brother-in-law, who was an avid Transformer collector at the time, gave me this Tentakil figure after he found out that I collected cephalopods.
In Japan, the figure was marketed as Tentakil drone for the Super-God Masterforce line, and in 1998 a repainted version of this figure became Scylla, a female Predacon in the Beast Wars line. Another repainted Tentakil was released as part of an Official Transformers Collectors’ Club exclusive Seacon gift set in 2008.
Transformers #47 (December, 1988)
Tentakil (and the entire Seacon crew) debuted in Marvel’s Transformers comic in a four issue story arc called the “Underbase Saga.” As far as I can tell, it has something to do the battle between different Transformer factions to control the master database that contains the collective knowledge of the entire Transformer race. And it’s under water. Or something.
The Seacons, it seems, work for Decepticon mini-cassette Ratbat, and they are trying to acquire the “Underbase” before either the Autobots or the treacherous Starscream does.
According to the Transformers fan site Unicron.com, this is how Tentakil is described in his comic book appearances.
He is undeniably the cruelest, deadliest Seacon. His style is as distinctive as it is lethal. He showers a potential victim with kindness, offering him help, even complimenting his appearance. And then, once he has gained the confidence of his victim, Tentakil moves in for the kill. In a flash, kindness turns to cruelty. The soft caress of his limbs turns into a deadly, unyielding stranglehold. He seems to take a perverse pleasure in these amiable charades, enjoying them even more than their inevitable, lethal conclusions.
Wow, what an a-hole!
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