Deagostini Jabba the Hutt Figurine and Magazine (“The Official Figurine Collection” #26)

Deagostini published a series of Star Wars magazines in the UK and elsewhere that each came with a painted metal figure. They were published every two weeks and originally retailed for £5.99. (This particular issue is from 2006.) It’s a little difficult to know whether the magazine is the main product or the figurine is, but I’m going to put them under “Figures” because I think the figures were actually the main selling point.

The figures are well painted and have a nice weight to them. Jabba in particular could easily double as a paperweight. Most of the humanoid figures are around two inches tall. Jabba’s about that height, but is about 3 inches long so he looks huge compared to the others. The magazines themselves are rather thin (around 20 pages) and while they may have that issue’s character on the cover, in most cases there are only a few pages actually dedicated to that character. The rest will often be about unrelated Star Wars characters or topics. Jabba does get about half of the magazine devoted to him and his palace, retinue, etc. In terms of content, it’s a combination of background information about the characters and locations from the movies and behind-the-scenes information about the making of the movies.

One thing I do really like about the magazines is that on the inside back cover they have an explanation about the figure, showing pictures of the sculpting and painting process, along with some explanation.

It took me quite a while to finally track one of these down for a reasonable price. For a while they weren’t coming up on ebay at all, and when I would find one the seller would want $20-$30 just for shipping. The figure is heavy, but not that heavy. Luckily I finally found a good deal. There are several other Jabba-related figure/magazine combos. I have Bib Fortuna and the Gamorrean guard and will be posting entries about them shortly. I still need to get Oola and Max Rebo.

Apparently Deagostini is going to start publishing these magazines in the US soon. The first four characters will be Vader, Luke, Yoda, and C-3PO. I imagine that sales will determine if they keep putting these out. From what I understand, they published a few in Japan a while back and then stopped due to lack of sales.