Toy Bender

You know what’s great? Helping others. This time of the year is the perfect time to help the less fortunate, because there are a lot of kids out there that might not be able to have a good *insert religious or secular holiday here* this year. That’s where Toys For Tots and ToyBender come in. If you donate a toy(s) to Toys For Tots, you’ll have the chance to win some fabulous prizes!

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If you think you’ve seen cool T-shirts and you haven’t been to 80sTees.com, you’re a damned fool. Let’s take a look at some of the awesome found on 80sTees.com, a generous sponsor to the Joes for Tots contest.

Superman: Kiss Me I Have Superpowers:

If I won the contest, I’d buy this shirt and put a Post-it note with an arrow pointing down on the bottom, which is the universal sign for, “In my pants.” I’m all class.

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Not to toot my own horn (in public at least), but the final pieces are being put into place for having a seriously epic contest this December. I’ve been very pleased from the responses I’ve gotten for possible sponsors thus far, so it looks like my lovely, sweet readers will be able to get their grubby, toy loving hands some great prizes. How will you get the chance to win an assortment of amazing prizes? Well, I can’t give it all away right now, but I will say it involves tots.

So far sponsors that are on board include the super nice people of Sideshow Collectibles, Brian’s Toys, and 80stees.com. Hopefully more sponsors will donate prizes to put more sweetness in the awesome sauce, but even if they don’t we have enough stuff to blow the doors on your everyday lame giveaway.

So have I gotten you excited yet?

It’s our third and final installment of the SDCC Cobra Commander Contest. Think of it as the Revenge of the Sith of the series, except with less children dying. Let’s get this party started with a short story by the world famous Esbat:

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It’s time for more contest entries from the SDCC Cobra Commander contest that concluded a few weeks ago! This time let’s take a look at a few of the poetry submissions and some of the illustrations I received.

There were a few poems that knocked the later Joe mythos:

Scott Rosenberg

Untitled Haiku

Burgess Meredith,
You deserved a better role.
La La La La La

But it could be worse.
Golobulus became a toy,
Big Lob is AWOL

Matt Semmler

Cobra Commander
Leader of the Masked Legions
Serpentor’s a Douche

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After finishing the San Diego Cobra Commander giveaway a few weeks ago I had promised to put up some of the entries. Then my work exploded and I forgot about it, but now I’ve finally gotten it together and can share some of the great entries (in a couple of posts). I’m not going to be posting everything, just the winners and a select few others. Thanks again to everyone who entered and I hope you enjoy these.

The Winner was David Anderson’s short story, which wasn’t really titled, but should be called, “The Things You See in Bars.”

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Well after many delays I’ve finally can reveal who the winner of the San Diego Comic Con ‘08 Cobra Commander figure… but let me first play a song from my new album.

But seriously, the grand prize winner is…

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So you are probably wondering just who the heck won this contest, well rest assured the judges are busy still. We are close to picking a winner and it will be finished soon, but we thank you for your patience. I’m really happy you guys haven’t set fire to the blog yet. Part of the issue has been my “real life” job. In order to keep my job I’ve had to put in some insane hours, so the blog has suffered a little. Sorry kids. Hey at least it gave me the chance to get a lot of millage out of the bikini chick.

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Like everything awesome, the contest to win a San Diego Comic Con Cobra Commander is over. The judges are hard at work judging and I’ll make the announcement as to who the winner is as soon as bloody possible. As one of the judges I have to say that there was a lot of high quality submissions sent in, so many that it’s ridonkeylous how hard it will be to pick a winner. It would be a shame if only the secret cabal of judges and I were to see them though, so I’ll be posting a few of the runners up in addition to whoever is figuratively crowned with winner.

Oh yeah, and I’m not above bribery. I’ll accept anything from cash money to Hostess Fruit Pies to scantly clad pictures of your wives or girlfriends (preferably in superhero outfits).

Just a quick reminder to everyone that submissions are still open for my totally rad San Diego Comic Con ‘08 Cobra Commander giveaway. So far I’ve gotten a good amount of high quality submissions. I’ve also picked the other judges who will judge as they’ve never judged before! It’s going to be tough too, because there’s a lot of great stuff sitting in my email inbox right now. Still, I’d always like to get more, so keep at it!

And just because I feel like it, here’s a picture of some dinosaurs fighting from the stage in history I like to call, “The Great Dinosaur Wars.”

Someday if you’re good I’ll tell you some secret tales from the Dinosaur Wars, including how Journey saved us all. And yes, I mean the band Journey.

You’ve read that title right. Toy Bender is now offering you the chance to get your hands on a San Diego Comic Con ‘08 Cobra Commander that is no longer available for purchase except from the secondary market. What, what! Why pay extra for one of these bad boys on eBay or from some shady dealer when you can get one for absolutely free for doing almost nothing?

In order to get your mitts on Cobra Commander, there are a few ways in which you can enter. I’m a big fan of the creative arts, so we’re going high school art/creative writing class on this one. Here’s what I’m accepting for submissions:

1. Short essay (50 words or more) on who your favorite G.I. Joe character is and why.

2. Short story (200 words or more) staring your favorite Joe character.

3. Poetry. No free verse. Points given for iambic pentameter. Haikus are cool.

4. An illustration of your favorite G.I. Joe.

Send your works of art to Paul.ToyBender@gmail.com with your name and address. All entries must be received by 8/24/08 in order to qualify. A panel of judges will crown the ultra-lucky winner.

Be sure to tell anyone you can to enter, if participation is low then it’s hard to give away stuff in the future, ya dig?

*Fine Printy Print: Winner will be notified via email. Winner has one week in order to respond before a new winner is chosen. By entering, you agree that your submission may be posted on ToyBender.com. All submissions must be created by the submitter and not have been used before for any purpose. All Toy Bender readers are qualified to enter, however if you are an international reader you must agree to fork over some extra cash for shipping. Hey, I’m not rolling in gold dubloons here. Please contact Paul.Toybender@gmail.com for any questions.

Yeah, there’s not a whole lot of toy related stuff going on this week, but I kind of expected that as we are still coming off the high that is Comic Con 2008. What’s great is that it seems to be contest season now so I thought I’d update you with the ones that I know about:

Unleaded Logic is having a contest were he’s giving away an exclusive Toys R Us Halo 3 Spartan. That’s a pretty damn good prize if you’re a Halo nut. He’s also offering a couple of lucky runners up a “limited edition 16×20 Halo 3 Series 2 Vinyl Poster featuring all the figures from the campaign of series 2.” Shew that’s a mouthful.

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Last year I had a totally awesome San Diego Comic Con swag contest. This year, not so much. I’ve got nothing cool to give out*, since I wasn’t there. However, Savage of Old Man Musings has come to the rescue. He’s having a swag contest over at his blog that I encourage you to check out.

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You’ve probably no doubt realized that it’s a super slow week for toy news. In order to overcome this drought I’ve got two noteworthy contests.

The first is from Mezco Toys who have the Heroes license. If you’re a Heroes fan and want to score a set of their test shot figures (there’s only five in existence), then all you have to do is dress up like your favorite Heroes character, take a picture of yourself, and then send it to heroes-contest@the-owi.com.

You know, this contest might be a little more effective if the Heroes characters were a little more distinct. Aside from the cheerleader when she wears her cheerleader outfit, they’re just a bunch of people dressed up like… regular people. Here’s to hoping it’s an excuse to see a bunch of hot chicks dressed up like cheerleaders and not forty year-old beast men dressed like Hiro.

Moving from TV to video games, McFarlane Toys is giving away a full set of their Halo 3 series 1 figures. All you have to do to enter is to go to this page and then fill out some basic info. They have two sets available, so good luck because I’m winning one.

Update Boy, I am a fool. I forgot all about Poe Ghostal’s caption the pic contest were you can win a Hulkbuster Iron man figure. I won the last contest and got my prize in the mail, so it’s not an impossible win if I could do it.

Over on Hasbro’s G.I. Joe website they’ve got a fun little flash trivia game called Do You Know Your Joe? Normally I’ll pass on these kinds of marketing gimmicks, but in this case I’d recommend giving this a spin if you have a few free minutes. The trivia is a mix of super easy and pretty tough questions (if you’re a casual fan) and it’s pretty funny when the characters react to their right and wrong answers.

Once you’re done you can enter in some contest to win stuff. I’m not sure what’s going on with the contest, because some obnoxious band’s music started playing when I clicked on the link. I’m not sure of their name, but they’re some douchebag band that’s derivative of the smoothed over emo grunge rock that’s popular today. If you can somehow get past this irritating single you can enter the contest. Me, I abandoned ship.

toy, toy collecting, G.I. Joe, Action figure