March 2006

A Year To The Day

ExVee, 03/01/2006

One year. Twelve months. Fifty-two weeks. Three-hundred and sixty-five days. However you wanna think of it, It Figures! has been out here and made it to its first birthday.

Y'know, I've spent time running a number of sites through the years, one always leading into another, except for the questionable year off I took to work for Somebody Else, which only proved to me that nothing is better than being your own boss. But never in all that time have I so anticipated a site's anniversary rolling around. Any of you reading this who haven't ever tried to maintain your own site probably don't realize just how much work goes into solo webmastering. It's a considerable task, depending on what you're trying to accomplish, and for me it always led to burnout. I simply could not cope with the demands while maintaining an update schedule that was acceptable to me.

Back in September of 2004(!), I approached RAC, who I had gotten to know while working for Someone Else (just about the only positive thing to come out of that entire experience), with a crazy, yet elegantly simple idea. I knew we both had similar approaches to reviewing toys, and we both were recently out of a job, so to speak. So as a way to fill our days, I suggested we start a site of our own, never again to work for anyone else's vision but our own. Nearly six months later, It Figures! went live for the first time, on March 1st, 2005, with only about a dozen reviews to show. So here we are, a year from that date, with nearly six times that first content, and well over 900 photos in our gallery. Even now, sitting here and writing this, it's just amazing for me to think about. It doesn't even feel like that much time has passed, as if it were only yesterday that we started posting Revenge of The 90's.

But I have no delusions that this is all due to my brilliance. I am good, but doing such things as this is frankly beyond me, and I've learned enough over the last few years to be able to acknowledge this fact. No, none of this would have been possible if not for the amazing support of my co-webmaster, RAC. His dedication to the site has been nothing less than heroic most of the time, not to mention his patience with my overly demanding ways. His contributions are immeasurable, and could never be replaced. If he hadn't been here, this place wouldn't have made it to its first year, and without his continued involvement, I'm certain this place would end up folding in short order. I could say he's the oil that keeps the machine running smooth, but it's not just that. To extend the analogy, he's the mechanic who makes sure all the parts are in good shape. He's a counterpoint that keeps me in check a good part of the time, and beyond that, he's just plain a hard worker, and I'm privileged to have him to work with.

And though for reasons beyond everyone's control his contributions have been limited to one special event so far, in October, we welcomed Magnus PI to the team. To eventually become a reviewer (get a camera, you bum!), and a valued counterpoint to some of our views. Anyone who read our Gundam of The Year feature in January will realize, Magnus is almost a polar opposite to the shared views RAC and I have. And while our like opinions are beneficial in many instances, we both feel that the site is lacking in dissenting views, something that adds not only a certain element of flavor, but also we think would make our site more complete. To offer both sides of the coin is better than only giving one perspective. So we await the day that Magnus can begin contributing in full. With any luck, he'll be sharing his thoughts here at our next anniversary.

We spent some time looking back in the build up towards today, and in doing we took a good look at where the site had gone since opening, looking at what was working and what wasn't. Some changes have been instituted based on this. The most visible is the fact that we've settled into a new address. It was always part of the plan to get a site specific domain name eventually, but obviously we didn't want to make a financial commitment of that nature before we were reaonably confident that we could keep this up. This may not make much sense, since it appears we must spend a bit anyway to even have the site. Truth is, we're here in this format based on the generosity of an anonymous benefactor, so the domain is the first bill on what's been a free ride. I'll take this moment to extend thanks to the man whose financial support has made this possible over the past year.

Another change worth note is the cessation of our attempted forum. It was from the very start experimental, with little guarantee of longevity. And though we weren't surprised that it failed, some disappointment is inevitable. But, we take things in stride, and know that perhaps one day it can return with more success. There's no telling what the future holds. We'd like to thank what few of you did come by and post for taking the time to do so.

We also have tweaked our format a little bit, considering feedback we'd received over the course of our first year. The current format you see for review menus is something I'd wanted to get done for quite a while, but it simply wasn't practical before the move to the new domain. We think the new format is better looking, provides more information before reading a review, and is better looking than filling the side menu, not to mention increasing visibility of our real content.

I think I've about run out of things to say. But just so you don't have to go through all this and having nothing to show for it, we've prepared a few reviews for today. First up is Cybertron's Downshift, who is quite possibly my favorite Transformer in quite a while. Plus, the EMIA Zaku II, which is great, but not at all groundbreaking like Bandai may have promoted it as. There's two potential schools of thought about that, read the review to find out more and decide for youself!

We've made a year. We've picked up quite a few visitors along the way, so we know we must be doing something right. From here, we can only hope to continue to do so. There's no telling what our second year will hold for us, but we can only hope for great things to happen over the next twelve months. Thanks to all of you, because you bring the life to this site.

A year already? Good Grief

RAC, 03/01/2006

Time has a way of getting away from us- I've spent a lot of time thinking about that lately for various reasons. But when you find a really enjoyable way of spending your time, it flies away at an astonishing rate. And so I'm proud- if a bit dazed- to have reached the first anniversary of It Figures!' public debut.

Toys are a point at which three great human pursuits converge- art, engineering, and commerce. Watching a toy line grow and evolve is a satisfying thing, and even an exciting one, if you're of the right mindset. If you follow a line closely, you can see where the engineers have figured out new and more effective ways to do what they want to do. You can see trial and error in action. Beyond the joys of a well-made action figure, I find the development of a line of toys fascinating to track.

Today's case-study in the growth of a toy line is the Japan-only Gundam GP02A. It uses a couple of tricks that are put to further (and better) use on later MSiA, and almost, almost, manages to compensate for the oversized absurdity of the shield design. But not quite. While that's a bit of a disappointment, as are a few other little things, it's not a bad figure when the shield's taken out of the equation. I have full confidence that if ever a third attempt is made on the Physalis design, Bandai will get it right on all counts.

All pretentious pontification on the nature of toys aside, I really have a great time working on the site and reviewing stuff. I used to review things in absence of any possible outlet or audience, but now the thought that my reviews are actually read and used to inform people's purchases is a great feeling for me. I hope our reviews have been of use to somebody out there- if nothing else, I hope we managed to prevent the purchase of a War Machine or a Strike Freedom somewhere along the line.

In the drowsy haze in which I first wrote this, I forgot something very important. The most important thing, in fact, and that is thanking ExVee, for everything from conceiving of the site on forward- and for doing all the work on the transition and site rebuild single-handedly while I tend to family matters. Everything you see here today is due to his hard work over the past few weeks. In all my life, I have never had a better collaborator, or a greater friend.

I'd also like to thank everyone who's visited this past year, as well as the webmasters who have thought us worth a link- it's been a great year, and we hope the coming one will be too. Like the toys we cover (and covet), we will keep trying to refine and improve our product to make it more appealing and useful to our audience.

Fear the Psyco Bunny!

ExVee, 3/03/2006