Since the premiere of his first film, the world of writer/director Kevin Smith has long been associated heavily with the geek community. His films are known for being heavily laden with both comic book and geeky movie references, so it seemed like it was only a matter of time before we got some really amazing products based on Kevin Smith’s ‘View Askew’ brand! That’s where the always amazing Diamond Select Toys come in! They had quite a few new pieces of View Askew brand merchandise on display this year at New York Toy Fair 2016, including some brand new items we had never seen before! Here’s the full rundown…
Last year, our friends at Diamond Select Toys announced they had acquired the license to produce products based on quite a few of Smith’s films like ‘Clerks’, ‘Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back’, and ‘Jay & Silent Bob’s Super Groovy Cartoon Movie’. Sadly, one of the major Smith films that they hadn’t received the rights to was Smith’s cult classic sophomore effort, ‘Mallrats’. Now things look to have taken a turn for the better, with plenty of ‘Mallrats’ products coming our way from Diamond Select Toys that were announced just in time to commemorate the film’s 20th Anniversary!
One item we’ve seen before are the new Mallrats Minimates! This is supposed to be the first in a series of MInimate box-sets based on ‘Mallrats’, and features four of the films lead characters- Brodie Bruce, Rene, Jay, and Silent Bob! This is set to hit stores in just a few weeks this March!
New on the scene are the all new ‘Mallrats Select’ figure line! These 7″ figures feature highly detailed sculpts with all of the standard ‘Select’ line articulation and bring some of our favorite ‘Mallrats’ characters to life in plastic form! Each figure includes a piece of ‘The Mall’ as a display, which you can connect to make one big Mall diorama for your display!
Brodie here features a spot on likeness to actor Jason Lee, who portrayed the character two decades ago. DST was unable to confirm if the graphic from Brodie’s tee-shirt in the film will make it on to the figure just yet due to licensing, but we’re hoping it makes the cut before the final production run this May! Brodie is set to include some great accessories like a SEGA controller, a cookie (for mid-mall snacking), and of course, chocolate covered pretzels!
This new version of Jay will include a few great new accessories like a baseball bat and a sock full of quarters! He looks like he’s got plenty of articulation to boot, so he should be all set to pose in any berserker rage stance you can come up with for your display!
The latest iteration of Silent Bob here might just be the best one yet! While you may ask yourself, “how can they really keep making different versions of a fan guy in a trench coat before it gets boring?”. The answer, as DST has proven so far, appears to be an infinite amount, because each new version looks better than the last! This new ‘Mallrats’ edition of Silent Bob includes an alternative helmeted head (“Fly Fatass! Fly!”), a grappling gun, utility belt, an alternative ‘force’ hand, and he even includes the toy truck he trips over in the film!
If you aren’t huge on ‘Mallrats’ but dig Jay and Silent Bob anyway, Diamond Select is also pumping out these fantastic Jay and Silent Bob Bobbleheads! These two bad boys should be in stores now!
If you’re a View Askew fan, it looks like the team at Diamond Select Toys are certainly the ones to thank this year! Be sure to stay tuned to ScienceFiction.com all this week for all of the latest news coming out of New York Toy Fair 2016!
