This is one of the latest entries in Gentle Giant’s line of animated maquettes (or animaquettes). They’re basically statues of Star Wars characters in an animated style, and they’ve made a surprising number of them. The list price on this is apparently $99.99, which is way too much, to be honest. It’s relatively small at about 5″ tall by 7 inches wide (including the gargoyle heads). Given the simplified animated style, I’ve always thought that these pieces could be done in plastic or vinyl more cheaply and with less chance of breakage.
In fact, there have been a LOT of reports of breakage with this statue, with many people opening sealed boxes only to find the statue broken in several pieces inside. I heard that one online store opened its inventory to check after getting a complaint and found that 11 out of 13 statues were already broken. And in fact I got this on eBay from a store that has been auctioning off broken examples of this piece for weeks. I got lucky and won it for a bit less than $15, which is a fantastic deal even for a broken one. With mine, Leia’s left arm was broken below the armlet, and her pinkie finger was also broken off. In addition, there were some scuffs on the paint from where the broken parts rattled around in the box. The breaks were easy to fix with superglue, though, and I can live with the minor scuffs for the price.
However, there are some issues with the paint job as well. As you can see in this closeup, the flesh color goes way outside the lines and into the hair, and also over the bikini strap. Her eyes seem a little wonky, and the lips are uneven. There are similar problems in other places on the piece as well. I should point out, however, that these issues aren’t quite as bad as they seem, since when you look at it in person instead of blown up to five times normal size on a computer screen, you really can’t see these faults. It looks fairly impressive, in fact. I really like the style they used.
I’m very glad to be able to add this to my collection without breaking the bank, but I do think that Gentle Giant needs to step up the quality control. I wish they would make an animated Jabba to go along with this piece, but I don’t really expect it to happen, especially now that the animated line doesn’t have the momentum it once had.
New Magnets From Joel Wintersteller (Max Rebo & Bib Fortuna)
I’ve introduced a number of Joel Wintersteller’s Star Wars magnets in the past (see the links below) and he’s recently added a couple of new ones to the lineup: Max Rebo and Bib Fortuna. He’s getting a pretty impressive selection of characters just from Jabba’s palace, to say nothing of Star Wars in general. He also says that he plans to make the rest of the Rebo Band eventually, so I’m looking forward to that.
I decided to pick up an inexpensive whiteboard so I could display all of my Jabba-themed magnets together. Starting at the upper left of the picture below and moving clockwise, we have a couple of “quotable magnets” from Britain, a couple of pug-themed magnets from Brian Rubenacker, the Jabba the Hutt and Bib Fortuna mix-up magnet buddies by Joel Wintersteller, Boushh and Gamorrean Guard magnets by Artbox, Jabba and Han in Carbonite magnets by Joel Wintersteller, and various other Jabba’s palace characters by Joel.
I’m starting to think that I could make a collection out of nothing but magazines with Jabba the Hutt on the cover. There’s a surprising amount out there. This particular one is from Scrye, a magazine for collectible card game enthusiasts. This issue is from June 1998, but surprisingly (at least to me) the magazine managed to survive until 2009.
As I mentioned in my entry on the Jabba’s Palace expansion to Decipher’s Star Wars Collectible Card Game (SWCG), I don’t play these kinds of games and never have. So leafing through a magazine like this is a bit of an odd experience. It’s difficult for me to read more than a sentence or two of any of the articles without my eyes glazing over. Many of them may as well be in a foreign language. That said, it’s interesting to see how many different games there are. In addition to Star Wars, there were Star Trek, Babylon 5, and Shadowrun-based games. The article that goes with the cover story isn’t really all that interesting, since it’s mostly just a preview of the cards that will be included in the Jabba’s Palace expansion set. But I did like the ad for the expansion set that was on the back of the magazine. It’s got some pretty funny descriptions of things you can supposedly do if you get the expansion. Click the image above to view it full size.
Carrie Fisher as Slave Leia Autograph (Celebration Japan)
I’ve been wanting a Carrie Fisher/Slave Leia autograph for a while, but had just never gotten around to getting one. I generally only buy from reputable places like OfficialPix.com or from trusted sources on Star Wars forums (there are way too many fakes on eBay for my liking), and that does limit your options a bit. I prefer shots from the films to studio photos like this one, since they look pretty artificial. But I couldn’t resist when OfficialPix put these up during a recent sale for a very reasonable price. I’ll still be looking for the “perfect” autographed Leia shot, but in the meantime, at least I have her in my collection. Ms. Fisher has a tendency to sign very large, as you can probably see.
Toby Philpott Autograph (“Jabba’s Left Hand Man”)
As it turned out, the autographs I got for Mike Edmonds (who played Jabba’s tail) and Toby Philpott (who was his left hand and tongue) were on the same photo. Since I wanted to display autographs of all of the Jabba crew on different photos, I decided to ask Toby for another photo. If you’re interested in getting an autograph, he has a number of photos available. I went with a shot that I didn’t have and haven’t seen very often. Toby got this to me from the UK in record time, and even sent a photo of himself signing. Thanks again, Toby!
This pencil case from 1983 is a companion piece to the Frankel & Roth school bag that I posted a few months ago, and is another item that I didn’t even know existed until it popped up on eBay UK. The Star Wars Collector’s Archive doesn’t even seem to have an entry for it. It’s not in very good shape — the blue part on the corner, which at first glance I took to be part of the design, is actually an ink stain — but I won it for slightly over one pound (about $1.75) so I’m not too upset about it.
Unlike the school bag, which is just blank on the back, this has designs on both sides. There’s a nice shot of a hanger bay with the Millennium Falcon in it, plus another different shot of Jabba. It’s rather large at 8″ wide by 6″ tall.
Aaron Goulborn is a Canadian artist who specializes in making “Blockheadz” — blocky figures made of folded paper. He’s got a pretty extensive lineup of these figures for all sorts of pop culture properties (check out his Facebook page for more info). Most of them are around 4 or 5 inches tall and come in little clear plastic display cases.
Since the Leia in this “Jabba’s Palace” version is in scale with the rest of his figures, that means that his Jabba needed to be pretty huge. He’s about 5.5″ tall by 12″ long (to the tip of his tail). The entire case is about 7″ tall by 15″ wide.
Of course there’s no shortage of papercraft designs on the web that you can print off for free and assemble yourself (although I haven’t seen anything that approaches this Jabba). But I like the idea of buying something like this directly from the artist who created it. These are signed “limited editions” (this is #8 of 144), which is also kind of cool.
Aaron seems to mostly sell these at shows in Canada, but kindly sent me this through the mail.
Reader Submission: Jabba Finger Puppets!
Site reader Amy sent me pictures of some finger puppets that she and her friend Earl made after being inspired by Bonnie Burton’s new Star Wars Craft Book (which I have, and intend to write a bit about when I get the chance). Amy’s version features the full Jabba’s palace setup, including throne, Salacious Crumb, Oola, Han in Carbonite, and even a stuffed tauntaun head. And while Earl’s is just Jabba by himself, it’s very impressively done! Excellent work, guys! I’m going to have to make some myself now.
Vintage Collection Weequay Skiff Master by Hasbro (2011)
This is one of Hasbro’s latest releases in the Vintage Collection line, and the latest Jabba-related figure to be released. (I’ve already covered the Vintage Collection Jabba the Hutt and Throne, Gamorrean Guard, Wooof, and drink-serving R2-D2.) As I was writing this, I realized that I’ve never posted about any of the Weequay figures that have been released, including the original vintage figure from 1983 and the POTF version from 1995. I’ll be correcting that error shortly. But actually this figure is not a revamped version of the old ones, as with many of the other entries in the Vintage Collection. Instead, this “skiff master” version is a totally different character with a different outfit. (The name “weequay” actually refers to a race of aliens, rather than a certain character.) This particular weequay was in charge of one of Jabba’s desert skiffs.
It’s well done — certainly the best Weequay figure we’ve gotten — but it doesn’t impress me quite as much as some Hasbro’s other recent releases, like the Giran or Gamorrean Guard figures. Those could pass for much larger scale figures, or even statues, but this one seems to be more obviously an action figure. His clothes in particular seem kind of plasticky looking, and the joints aren’t as well hidden.
I also had to pay nearly $9 for it at Walmart (the only place I could find it), which is frankly more than I’m comfortable paying for figures in this scale.
I don’t actually have a skiff in my collection yet. Kenner released one at the tail end of the POTF line which is relatively rare and valuable, and there have been a couple of modern versions as well. I definitely have to get my hands on one.
Jabba the Hutt Sketch Card by Tim Proctor
I recently got some custom black mats cut at Hobby Lobby so I could finally frame and display a lot of my favorite sketch cards. When I was doing that, it occurred to me that the Bib Fortuna and Boushh cards I got from Tim Proctor back in 2009 might look nice paired with a Jabba in the same style, so I asked Tim to do one for me. I think it came out quite nicely. (Tim also did a painting entitled “Jabba’s Gift” for me a while back.)
Mighty Jabba's Collection 