A couple of weeks ago my building was hosting a book fair, I always remember finding fun books when I was kid at my elementary school book fairs so I decided to see what I could scrounge up.
I happened across the My Busy Books: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles book.
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"Book", of course, being used pretty loosely. What is promised on the cover is a storybook, 12 figures and a playmat. What you get a is board book that's about 8 pages with a little write up about each character that is included in mini figure format. I don't see the story that is promised in the "storybook" part of the blurb promised on the cover.
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But who the hell cares, right? I bought this thing for the figures and playmat.
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The playmat is printed on poster quality paper and is rather large, maybe two feet by two and a half.
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The "play" part of the mat consists of of a rather rudimentary game that's just a race to the finish, with the mutagen canister acting as the die. It's hexagonal shaped with the numbers 1-6 painted on each of the sides. It's actually a neat idea for a turtles based board game.
But I'm not gonna go into too much detail of the game, again it's the figures that lured me to purchase this.
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At first glance the figures look rather nifty. Their sculpts aren't top notch but they are decent likenesses to their source material. I knew when I saw the feet on some of these guys that getting them to stand would be a pain.It doesn't help that the legs on most of the figures are pretty warped. I can get four figures to stand no problem, one is iffy and the rest I might need to heat the legs and see about reshaping them.
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Then there is the paint job...
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sloppy.
I think I would rather have had a more refined sculpt and no paint than what was presented. The mini's from the mutagen containers are a much cleaner sculpt.
I know that the publisher, Phidal, has made other books of the sort, I've seen a Batman one, but passed because those figures were attached to bases. Maybe if they have it on clearance I'll pick it up.
After all is said and done I would give these guys a solid "meh". I like the idea of an unconventional delivery system for mini-figures, but am a little underwhelmed with the end product. I guess these figures wouldn't be too bad as gumball figures, but I think I've spoiled with the likes of "Oh No Aliens", "Zombie Planet" or "Freaky Geeks" popping up on recent years.
I paid $12.99 for my copy but have since seen these at Barnes and Noble for 9.99. Perhaps that would have made these guys a bit easier to swallow.
And a comparison shot
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