Bill Ward's Brickpile » LEGO Company

LEGO makes a deal with Marvel too?!

Bill — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 17:27:36 +0000

I just posted about the new deal with DC Comics, and now I hear that LEGO’s Disney deal has expanded to include Marvel superheroes as well! So it looks like we’ll be getting Spider-Man back also. According to an article on stitchkingdom.com:

The LEGO SUPER HEROES Marvel collection will spotlight three Marvel franchises – Marvel’s The Avengers movie, and X-Men and Spider-Man classic characters. The LEGO Marvel’s The Avengers movie line brings such ever popular Marvel characters as Iron Man, The Hulk, Captain America, Thor, Hawkeye, Loki and Black Widow to LEGO minifigure form. The LEGO X-Men collection includes minifigure comic versions of Wolverine, Magneto, Nick Fury and Deadpool, while the LEGO Spider-Man sets offer minifigure comic versions of Spider-Man, and Doctor Octopus. The first buildable characters in the LEGO SUPER HEROES collection are highlighted by Captain America, The Hulk and Iron Man. Select figures will be unveiled in the LEGO booth (#2829) during Comic-Con International at the San Diego Convention Center July 21-24.

LEGO Batman is coming back, with reinforcements!

Bill — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 14:24:24 +0000

Good news for superhero fans! LEGO and DC Universe (aka DC Comics) have announced a new partnership made through Warner Brothers that will have LEGO making new sets featuring Batman and other heroes from the DC Universe. According to an article in Variety,

The multi-year licensing deal, made through Warner Bros. Consumer Products, will start rolling out the new line in January, starting with 13 characters, including Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and villains the Joker, Bane, Harley Quinn and Lex Luthor.

This is great news for minifig collectors and superhero fans! LEGO made Batman themed sets a few years ago, which have become highly valuable to collectors in the past few years. My advice? Buy as many of these new sets as you can afford and stick them in your attic for a few years, then sell on eBay.

Why Does LEGO Ignore Girls?

Bill — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 19:46:37 +0000

Blogger and podcaster CC Chapman has set up a great video series where his daughter Emily pontificates on the issues that matter to her. The latest one is “Why Does LEGO Ignore Girls?” where she makes the case for LEGO to make more products that are accessible to girls.

I’ve always been bothered by this. They say time and again that their target market is boys ages 8-11 and that’s what they target all their products toward, and they offer token girl sets such as the lame Belleville line and pink brick buckets, which don’t sell well because they are lame!

Like Emily says, girls like the town sets a lot. She suggests a shopping mall. I’ve heard this from other girl LEGO fans as well: build sets that model everyday life, and girls will love them. The town sets always seem to be about police and firefighters historically. Lately the farm line has some promise, as do the Cafe Corner type buildings (though these tend to be for an older age group, and you’d lose the girls before they got to be old enough to be able to build them without frustration).

Another suggestion I’ve heard many times is to make LEGO babies. The new 1×1 stud footprint figures used in the LEGO games might be a good starting point for this.

Anyway, watch the video for yourself, and share it with anyone you know who has girls that might feel the same way. And more than anything, keep pestering LEGO about this issue. They won’t do anything about it until there’s a large groundswell of support for LEGO sets aimed toward girls.

Let Your Android Control Your Robot

Bill — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 19:28:05 +0000

Today, LEGO has announce a new Android App for LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT. If you have an Android based phone, you can use this to manipulate your LEGO robots using Bluetooth. I have a Motorola Droid, and I have two MINDSTORMS NXT sets, but have never built anything with them. I really should get around to doing something about that.

(About half the words in this post are trademarks of someone or other, but I don’t feel like inserting all of the ® and “TM” indicators….)

Pirates Advent Calendar Petitions

Bill — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 21:14:55 +0000

You’ve probably heard by now that the Pirates Advent Calendar is not going to be sold in the US. After last year’s debacle with the Castle Advent Calendar, you’d think LEGO would know better. Well, the good folks at Classic Pirates over on Eurobricks have a petition going, and The Brothers Brick also have a similar post calling for support for the Pirates advent calendar. Post your support now!

New Power Functions Remote Recall

Bill — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 20:51:17 +0000

I just got the following notice in my email from LEGO:

SAFETY RECALL NOTICE

Dear LEGO Consumer

In cooperation with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, the LEGO Group is voluntarily recalling the 8879 Power Functions IR Speed Remote Control unit, which poses a thermal burn hazard to users when batteries inside overheat. The remote control unit was sold separately as item #8879 or was included in K8882 Power Functions Kit or the K10194 Emerald Night Collection.

We are writing to you because our records indicate that you purchased one of these items. LEGO Systems has found that some of the remote control units (the kind that was included in your set) are not performing correctly. If your remote is one of the affected you would have noticed that it becomes hot to the touch in the first 5 to 10 minutes of initial operation. If you did not experience this situation when you first loaded batteries into the remote then your remote is not affected. If your remote is affected, we ask that you return it to us in exchange for a new remote control unit. Simply call 1-800-718-1858 between the hours of Monday-Friday 8am-10pm ET and Saturday-Sunday 10pm-6pm ET (if outside the US/Canada dial +1-860-763-3211) and we will give you instructions on how to return the unit and also answer any questions that you might have.

Thank you for your time and attention to this, and we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. We wish your family many more happy and creative hours of building fun with LEGO brand products.

Yours sincerely

LEGO Consumer Services

LEGO Systems, Inc.

555 Taylor Road

Enfield, CT 06082

Mine seems to be fine – how about yours?

LEGO Ads found via Twitter

Bill — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:49:18 +0000

A collection of LEGO ads with some very clever pictures. I recently subscribed to the RSS feed (in Google Reader) for a search for “#lego” on Twitter. This is a great technique to follow “hashtags” that I learned on Amy Gharan’s blog.

Anyway, back to the LEGO ads. I don’t think these are real ads, since some of them seem quite out of character for LEGO’s style (especially the sex/drugs/violence ones). They seem more like what a designer might propose to the LEGO company for use in an ad. But anyway, this one was my favorite:

LEGO survey of adult fans

Bill — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 23:09:00 +0000

This showed up in my email today. I filled out the survey, and encourage everyone else to do it too.

The LEGO Group Wants to Hear From You!

As Adult Fans of LEGO, you bring an important perspective to the LEGO Group. We respect your creativity and passion for our brand.

Please take a few moments to complete this short online survey to let us know your opinion on how we are doing.

We promise to listen to you and use your feedback to improve!

You might notice that the link refers to the LEGO Kids Inner Circle; this is because Satmetrix, which hosts that site, is also supporting our efforts to track AFOL opinions. Rest assured that this survey is for AFOL’s only.

Thank you.

Steve Witt
LEGO Community Relations Coordinator

Truthfully I didn’t have a lot to suggest. I think LEGO’s pretty much doing everything right these days. My only beef is the discontinuation of 9V trains but then, I understand why they are doing it. I just hope the new Power Functions trains that are supposedly coming out next year are good enough.

BrickArms Controversy in Mainstream Media

Bill — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 17:39:30 +0000

It would seem that BrickArms has garnered international attention. The article “Lego-Style Islamic Terrorist Figurine Sparks Outrage” appears on Fox News and similar articles appear in a number of other sources; see Google News report for the story for more.

The gist of it is that one of the “bad guy” kits that BrickArms sells has pissed off some Islamic organizations in Britain, who’ve raised a stink about it. BrickArms calls the kit “Bandit — Mr. White” without any implication that it’s an Islamic terrorist, but the Ninja-style headwrap it comes with, combined with a substantial arsenal of weapons, does remind some peole at least of a stereotypical Islamic terrorist.

The article quotes a source at LEGO disclaiming any endorsement of BrickArms, saying “The LEGO Group is committed to developing toys which enrich childhood by encouraging imaginative and creative play — and does not endorse products that do not fit with this philosophy.” They’re implying that BrickArms are not encouraging imaginative and creative play which sounds like pretty strong words. While I’m not a fan of the BrickArms and BrickForge products personally, I would not go so far as to say they don’t encourage imaginative and creative play!

It’ll be interesting to see how this shakes out. There’s a saying in Hollywood that “there’s no such thing as bad publicity as long as they spell your name right” and if that’s true, BrickArms is sure to have a big boost in sales. On the other hand, I wonder if LEGO’s lawyers might decide to send them some kind of cease and desist order if enough bad publicity is sent their way…

Via Dr. Miniman on Flickr in the Flickr LEGO group.

Lego Diem — 1979 Commercial

Bill — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 23:57:43 +0000

Thanks to the Lego Diem blog for pointing out this 1979 Commercial for the best LEGO set ever sold…

The trouble with the LEGO fan community

Bill — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 19:47:48 +0000

The trouble with the LEGO fan community is that it takes all of the fun out of getting a new Shop-At-Home catalog. Not only is there nothing new that I haven’t seen, but I already own several of the things marked “new.” When I was a kid, a new LEGO catalog was a source of great delight…

Ah well, it’s a small price to pay I guess.

BrickCon 2008 so far

Bill — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 19:41:31 +0000

BrickCon is going very well so far. There are tons of great models on display, many great deals to be had on LEGO, and some amazing news.

I took a lot of photos yesterday and they’re all up on my Flickr account. The biggest news was the unveiling of a new castle set, the 10193 Medieval Village. I made a video of it and posted it on YouTube (but had to wait until 12 noon today so that BrickJournal.com could have an exclusive 3-hour early announcement). I also created a special photoset for just those pictures so you don’t have to dig through all the images in my BrickCon set to find them.

Interview: Bjarne P. Tveskov, Classic LEGO Space Designer

Bill — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 02:57:45 +0000

There’s a very interesting Interview on BoingBoing with Bjarne P. Tveskov, Classic LEGO Space Designer.

I grew up on some of these sets! I started collecting Space LEGO sets in the late 1970′s when I was a little kid, and spent most of my spare time building and rebuilding classic LEGO spaceships and bases.

RIP 9V Trains

Bill — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 19:17:42 +0000

Well, LEGO has finally made up their mind on the future of trains. Steve Witt has announced that the 9V system will be discontinued, to be replaced by IR-controlled, battery-powered trains.

The only silver lining is that the new system will be based on the new Technic Power Functions system rather than the much-maligned IR trains currently being sold. LEGO is working with AFOLs to design the new system, and I am really hoping they find a way to come up with a battery-powered system that has enough power for the needs of LEGO train clubs.

In the meantime, stocking up on 9V train parts might not be a bad idea….

Technorati Tags: lego, trains, 9v

Save 9V Trains Minfig Protest

Bill — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 08:40:16 +0000

In BayLUG‘s recent exhibit at MoAH, Bruce Chamberlain set up a display of minifigs protesting to save the 9V trains line. Here’s a pic:

The Save 9V Trains campaign is a grasroots movement by adult LEGO fans to try to persuade the LEGO company to not discontinue the old, rail-powered, 9V train system. Last year LEGO introduced a new battery-powered, IR-controlled system which may be better for little kids, but the motors are underpowered and the system is not considered practical for adult train displays such as put on by the various LEGO train clubs.

If you want your voice to be heard, visit the Save 9V Trains site and register your opinion!

Technorati Tags: lego, trains, 9v, save 9v trains

Interview with LEGO CEO

Bill — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 18:38:24 +0000

I know this was posted a couple of weeks ago but I only just now saw it for the first time. There’s an interview on TODAYonline with Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, the CEO of LEGO, around his recent trip to Singapore. He touches on a very important point for LEGO fans – is LEGO going to be obsolete like a typewriter, or a booming industry like books? Both have been challenged by newer technologies and media, but the typewriter industry is dead while books are selling better than ever. Can LEGO pull it off? What do you think?

Via The Unofficial LEGO Builder’s Guide Blog (Allan Bedford).

Technorati Tags: lego, ceo, interview