How many licks DOES it take to get to the center of a Minimate? You won’t find the answer to that question in this week’s AskDST, but you will discover the future plans for Minimates vehicles, the likelihood of Buffy Minimates and how many times DSTChuck can be asked about DC Minimates before his head explodes!  Check out your questions and DSTChuck’s answers after the jump!

J B
Will there be more Terminator Minimates and will you make any more singles of Marvel Also why did you stop making DC figures

DSTChuck: We are pretty much done with T2 for the time being. We were able to cover most of the characters we wanted, but you never know. Right now we have no plans to make Marvel in single packs. We like to just focus on the two packs and the four packs. DC Direct hired us to do the designs and production on their Minimates, it was always their program, so you’d have to direct any questions on that line to them- sorry.

Brian Petersen
1) Deadpool truly is the greatest Minimate EVER! The accessories, alternate mask (Which is EPIC) and over all quality are astonishing. Thank you so much.
2) I really enjoyed the Dark Avengers minimates. Has there been any thought towards doing the Dark X-Men or any H.A.M.M.E.R. soldiers?

DSTChuck: Glad you like the Deadpool! I know he was a long time coming. We have considered the Dark X-Men, so they are very possible but none are on the line plan at this moment.

Doug Wolford
Hi, would it be possible to buy the Deadpool and Dark Avengers Hawkeye Minimates prototypes?

DSTChuck: Doug, no I am sorry that’s not possible, we do not sell our prototypes. Once in a while we do donate them for a charity fund raiser or such, but most times they go into storage.

Rustin Parr
I can’t express how excited I am for the BSG Mini-Flyers and how raging my anticipation is for what could follow if they are a success! But, as the old adage goes “a Toy Collector is never satisfed”… I beg, Beg, BEG you that if you are able to make a BTTF DeLorean or GB Ecto-1 that they be large enough to fit two figures. Even keeping just one figure pack-in I would far rather pay $20 or $25 for a more “properly” scaled Delorian/Ecto-1 that can hold 2 figures and have play features closer to the actual vehicle in the movie (for example gull wing doors, a slide-out proton pack rack). I fear that IF the DeLorean happens the entire roof and windows would be part of a pop-up canopy, a la the Cylon Raider, and would only have a single, centered seat for Marty or Doc, as if it were a go-cart… But I trust in you, my beloved DST cast & crew to not wander astray and to continue kicking the ass! (PS - Can we suggest, say, a specific line-up with specific accessories to you? Or would that hurt the chances of that specific thing happening for Legal Concerns. For example, when I was a kid my friend and I submitted a design for a new Lego castle and had it resent to us with a letter explaining that for liability reasons they could not accept unsolicited designs. I feel I have a killer pitch for a Minimate box set but am worried about jeopardizing any chance of possibly seeing it or a version thereof)

DSTChuck: Rustin the size and features of the vehicle line have to be very price driven. We very much feel we have to keep the SRP under 15.00 to give a good value on shelf with the other vehicles on the market. We’re going to give as much value as we can (sometimes even a little more then the budget will allow) with each vehicle. Feel free to submit IDEAS for figures and box sets, fans do that the time, but you are correct we’d rather not accept designs for fear if our final product looks like that design we could be putting ourselves in a bad position.

Mike Rodriguez
Any luck with Small Soldiers Minimates?  My son saw the movie and has been asking for a vintage Nick Nitro…  I know it’s funny, but I thought about you guys…  Although it could be a hit!

DSTChuck: Sorry Mike, it’s a cool movie but we don’t have any plans right now to look into that property.

Sidney Fontinele
Hello my friends, I am a 22 years old and big fan of your Minimates, I want to buy them all but I have not started my collection yet. No money for now! First I want to say that you are doing an excellent job, the Minimates are great. Very good idea about Ghostbusters, The Godfather and Beverly Hills Cop. Now I want to make a request. Please can you guys make new waves for the DC Minimates? I really like them, and not only me, but several people want more new DC mates. Bring back the Street Fighter set too, but not with the Street Fighter name, but Capcom instead. And not only Street Fighter mates, but all Capcom characters, like Street Fighter, Darkstalkers, Resident Evil, MegaMan and a lot more. How about a SNK set? You know SNK has great characters that would make great minimates, series like The King of Fighter’s, Fatal Fury, Samurai Showdown and a lot more. How about Namco set? Namco has great games with some remarkable characters, like Tekken, Soul Calibur and more. How about Koei set? Koei has Samurai Warriors, Dynasty Warriors, Dead or Alive games that has lot of characters that will be awesome on the collection. And bring back some movies sets, like Back to the Future, I don’t saying new waves, but new exclusives will be good. I don’t think anyone of these ideas like a new Marvel Collection, but I am certain they will make a lot of success among the collectors. Sorry about my English, I am from Brazil , and I am training. Thanks

DSTChuck: Seems to be the week for DC questions, but sorry as I said above the DC line is out of our hands. While we had very high hopes for the Street Fighter line, it just never seemed to get the traction needed to continue the line. The last of the product was even closed out at TRU years ago. Our thinking (right or wrong) is if Street Fighter did not work, the other properties have even less of a chance of finding a home, but you never know. We’ve had great success with BTTF products, so we’d certainly never close the door on making more Minimates -so you never know.

Joe Casson
Hi Guys, I live in London, and the main shop I get my Minimates from look like they may be closing down. There are some other comic shops near me but they rarely get in Minimates. Are there any chances that you might make Minimates more readily available in the future? Also, is there a chance that you would be making a deal with the British TRU soon, as there are a lot of exclusives that are almost impossible to get due to TRU US not shipping to the UK.

DSTChuck: Joe, all of us here at DST are very sad about the lack of distribution of MM outside of North America. For years we paid to test for the EU market beyond what was practical from a business sense, hoping to build the brand. For whatever reason, we could not get any distributors or retailers to support the brand. Even though we assured them the collectors were there. Seems every trade show we go to someone for the EU comes in and says they want to be the supplier for Minimates, but nothing seems to happen. You’d be amazed how low we are willing to go to make this happen. We have another trade show in October so hope spring eternal– sorry!

Drew G
Hello. I’m a new Minimates collector. I really like the Ghostbusters line, but was disappointed that the first wave of two packs was only available at Toys ‘R Us - making it a little more difficult to get for me. I saw that in one of the Minimates blog updates (Aug. 18) that for series 2 of the two packs only two of the sets are exclusives. Does this mean that the others will be available via Diamond Select Previews catalog? If so what month can I expect to see them, or did I already miss the chance to order them? One more question: Is the Silver Age X-Men set only available through ShopAFX.com or is it also in the Previews catalog? Sorry if that is a stupid question, but I thought they may be an exclusive since you mentioned that website specifically. Thanks for the help.

DSTChuck: Welcome to the club! We do have an interesting situation with TRU and the other markets — such as comic stores and places like AFX. We need to make each market unique enough to say in business but not so unique to hurt collectors. Let me be the first to say we are FAR from perfect where that goes, but we do our best. The plan is, if you just buy the four packs and the PX two pack , you will have all the key characters from the two movies, BUT of you want a complete collection of everything GB then you are going to have to buy from TRU and/or TRU.com. There is really no way around that. We’ve decided to focus on the ghost for TRU, while they are very cool and some of the most sough after figures, they are not need to complete the team like a Winston, or even Slimmer or Stay Puft would be. If it’s in the TRU assortment and does not have a sticker on it, that just means it COULD come out somewhere else BUT it does NOT mean it WILL. The success and length of the line would be the way that gets decided.  YES Silver Age X-Men is exclusive to AFX, but from time to time they do offer their items back to Previews, so just keep your eyes open.

Esther Min
Hi there! I have been desperately looking for the Back to the Future 4 pack. Do you know when you’ll have more of these available?? Thank you! Esther

DSTChuck: If you mean the one themed around the first movie, that one has been out of stock for sometime. At this point we’d never run the exact item again, but we could come up with a new set with different looks or change those character slightly and put them out in other ways. Right now we do not have any immediate plans for either.

Graham Batten
Hi First of all fantastic job with the BSG Minimates line, I only discovered the show 3 months ago and now I own nearly all the Minimates that were made. My only question is why have you not made Buffy Minimates yet? Reading recent AskDST answers and doing research about this topic here is my 2 cents. You aim Minimates at collectors.- Buffy was a cult show with a very loyal fanbase, the 6″ figure line was doing well until DST changed the sizes e.g tiny Buffy’s, giant Fred’s and pointless repaints. Electric Tiki tooned busts are doing well and the show has jumped from TV to comics and has at least 4 years of issue releases left. There is a potential film remake in the works and the success of the comic has spawned Angel after the fall and countless spin offs. The last DST Buffy products did not reach the sales requirements to merit more Buffy merchandise.- Minimates are not in the same league as busts, props and statues, they are not as expensive and easy to reuse parts and if it wasn’t for Palisades toys going under we would still have the Buffy palz, Season 2 palz were sell outs and warranted the season 3 line and the 1st Angel tvs palz to be created. All I am suggesting is that you give Buffy more consideration, this is the only way collectors and fans will ever own a Fray, Satsu or Twilight figure. I know it would be awkward starting from season 1 as lots of people own the palz, I suggest you start with season 7 and work backwards with a line focused on the finale ‘Chosen’, everyone who owns Buffy merchandise would want a mini Buffy with scythe, I could even design a wave for you for free. That’s all my ranting done for now but if my advice counts for anything, you would be barking not to make Buffy and a Stargate line is a must with SGU coming and nothing else coming out apart from Caprica it’s gonna get a lot of interest in your mass market.

DSTChuck: While I think your recounting of what you see as the overwhelming success for the Buffy Palz line is…a bit off… Many of the folks here at DST count Buffy as one of their favorite TV shows of all time. Heck I’ve even seen one of them in a Dr. Horrible T-Shirt. Buffy is a very important part of DST history and one we do not want to ignore. Based on polling of our top retailers, right now the support just does not seems to be there for Buffy Minimates - you never know but for now we’re going to hold off. Hopefully SGU and Caprica will meet with success and we can crank out great new lines of Minimates to go with them.

Super Spider Piggy
I got a couple questions:
1. would you ever try to make Public Domain Minimates, with characters like The Phantom?
2.Is it possible to do a feature on Unreleased Mates? Just to show items that never got the Green Light?
3. Any plans for an Egyptian Mythology/Greek Mythology series? Thanks! Super Spider Piggy SSPig Productions

DSTChuck: Right now I don’t think we have any plans to expand the Minimates line in that direction. We have talked about from time to time some sort of feature as you describe on the blog, but, we’re having trouble just keeping up with the current projects. Something like what you describe could be in the distant future though, it’s a cool idea.

A. Diaz
Hello I’ve bought hundreds of Minimates, starting from the early days of the Marvel Minimates and don’t plan on stopping any time soon. I had most of my figures in their boxes since I didn’t have room to display them but I recently opened most of them and found a few problems. I was reading the Q&A and saw another collector had a problem with a Minimates and DSTChuck said if we had any problems to contact customer service. Hopefully you will be able to help. 1)DC Minimate Clayface’s leg won’t stay on 2)New X-Men Jean Grey’s arm won’t stay on 3)Lord of the Rings series 1 - Frodo’s sword didn’t come in the package. Thank you!

DSTChuck: Your best bet is to email CS with those request but while I do not know exactly what we have for parts, I am pretty sure we do not have any LOTR parts and have very few DC parts, but they will do the best they can for you.

Steven Parrish
Are the Godfather Minimates ever coming out? If so when? If not…. well crap.

DSTChuck: Right now those are on hold, we have not had very good support at retail but we’re going to see several key buyers in a couple of weeks in Dallas and we’re holding out hope.

Jacob Bartlett
I love the Ghostbusters Minimates! Thank you for bringing these awesome new things to fans! If you plan on doing a series three, I would like to see: Janine, the Rookie (from the game), the Scoleri Brothers from the 2nd film, and Vigo. Thanks again for making something great for GB fans!

DSTChuck: Some of the ones you list are VERY high on our list as well, so I think you’ll be happy but I think as far as the game goes we’re most likely going to keep it to that one box set.

Adam Debolt
Hello. Firstly big fan of Minimates. Are there any future plans to release an Alpha Flight box set? I’m a big Shaman fan and really haven’t seen many toy incarnations of him. Thank you for your time. Keep up the good work and thank you for your time. Adam

DSTChuck: Adam, while I can not confirm or deny that we’re doing a set or figures I will say as time goes on with this line classic Byrne Alpha Flight moves higher and higher up our list of ideas.

Khair Gulifield
Would you guys be capable of making Dragon Ball Z Minimates if so why haven’t you made them yet?

DSTChuck: We do not currently have the license for DBZ.

Ethan Williams
Great work on the Ghostbusters Minimates! Do you have any plans for Real Ghostbusters Minimates? Also, why does the Slimer in the Louis/Slimer 2-pack have a painted on nose? I thought Minimates lacked noses as a matter of principle (the other Slimer figures lack noses as well)?

DSTChuck: Right now our license does not allow for Real Ghostbusters - but that could change. For now Sony and DST want to concentrate on more adult oriented collector product and the animation in some eyes skews the property younger. I keep meaning to ask the guys in NY about that nose, I’ll try and remember to ask next time we have call.

Gary Tabar
Is there any possibility of more Ghostbuster Minimates sets, since many of us are buying the Toys R Us exclusive sets, and don’t want additional figures to obtain the boxed only figures, like Dana and possessed Louis. Also, the Toys R Us exclusive sets are selling out everywhere as soon as they arrive… will series I and II continue to ship for any foreseeable future? We drove 250 miles the other day JUST trying to complete both series, and we are still missing a few sets. (Since we also have real life full uniforms and gear, we even picked up a Battlestar set, so we could make Minimate Ghostbusters of ourselves! They have been very popular with the biggest Ghostbuster fan/prop building web site, gbfans.com since release.) http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb2/Gareee_photos/GhostBusters/MinimateGB3.jpg

DSTChuck: Gary, I would say at this point it’s more then possible, it’s probable that there will be more GB Minimates in 2010. I can not say that figures from one outlet will cross over to the next, so if you want to be sure, unfortunately you will need to pick up the comic store sets. I think the sales of GB in some of TRU’s stores caught them off guard and we’re all very sorry fans have not been able to pick up the figures in local stores. For series one we figured sales would be a little less then a Marvel release and for series two we created qty equal to a Marvel release, so in both case it was NTO our intention to short the market.

Rob Beavis
Thank you for a sensational year for Minimate collectors. I have seen the release of characters that I, personally, never thought would be seen… ever! Some devout Minimates collectors, in fact, still haven’t seen some of them… the TRU releases. They can be seen however on ebay at generally twice the retail price & some ‘us natives ‘ are becoming restless. You can’t be happy with what is turning out to be “Custer’s Last Stand 2″ … a scalper’s paradise… but please, is there anything you can do about it? I appreciate that you may not be able to stop something that is obviously TRUly endemic but perhaps a word in their ear may help? TRU.com ought to be the solution but ‘dire’ is the only word that comes to mind… harsh perhaps but true. Minimates are an absolute credit to your superb company & the TRU deal would seem to be a stunning marketing move… but, please realize that it is currently flawed & needs tweaking. Thank you for your time.

DSTChuck: To start I can tell you its not TRU or DST’s intention to short the market. In fact the rarest TRU release is in fact produced in greater quantities than the rarest comic store release. Perhaps TRU is reaching collectors that do not go into comic stores, or casual consumers are picking up more of these then we thought, or for some reason the TRU content is stronger then we thought. We’ll keep working on finding the right qty and mix going into next year. TRU does not want empty pegs, that cost them money and neither DST nor TRU make any money on toys that are sold in the secondary market. We’ll keep trying to keep a balance between too few and ever worse too many for 2010.

Dan Shabet
For about seven years now, I have been an avid collector of your Minimates figures, particularly the Marvel series. My collection spans well into the hundreds containing numerous variants and convention exclusives. I have always been impressed and excited for the quality of products that your company puts forth, however, today I have encountered my first ever problem. I recently got my hands on a Toys R Us exclusive two pack of Bullseye and Moonstone figure, and upon returning home, I opened the package to find that Bullseye was missing his Sai accessories. The package was in good condition and both ends were sealed, which makes the possibilities that they were stolen from the box less likely and due to the limited nature of this product, an exchange at a Toys R Us is an unlikely. I was wondering if it was at all possible to procure Bullseye’s Sai accessories by any alternative means. Your feed back would be greatly appreciated.

DSTChuck: Dan, very sorry for that, I would think it was just a pack in error at the factory, just drop customer service a direct email and they will help you out.

Ryan Jones
Dear Art Asylum, First off, I am a huge fan of your Minimates products and absolutely love what you do with them. They are simply genius and I appreciate all the details and attention that your team puts into the design of each and every ‘Mate. I just saw the preview pics for Marvel Minimates Series 33. Wow! Some real winners in that line-up! By far the standout for me is Excalibur-era Rachel Summers. Great facial expression and the Phoenix effect is a very cool accessory! I do have two minor suggestions for this figure for you to consider: 1) How about a two-sided face (like the Skrull faces in the SECRET INVASION set) that shows Rachel’s hound tattoos? 2) The Phoenix effect sculpt is incredible but would look much more dramatic in the same translucent material/color scheme as the blast effect from the IRON MAN box set. I LOVELOVELOVE this figure… but I think these minor additions could not it up to perfect figure status. Thanks again for hours of collecting fun! Best, Ryan Jones

DSTChuck:
1) yes that’s a VERY cool idea and while I am on record as shying away from that type of design, I did break my rule for the Skrull since it made SO much sense and this does as well. To be perfectly honest even this late in the game I am not 100% decided what I want to do.

2) The final product will be translucent just like the Iron Man, the one pictured was a hand painted prototype.

Luis Diaz
Hi DST Chuck, just wanted to say that you guys are doing great with the selection of Marvel Minimates that are coming out these upcoming months. I was wondering if you were thinking of releasing the army builder Minimates like the AIM agents, Skrulls, and the other army builders that are being released, in single packs like you released the Terminators for the Terminator 2 series. I know if I saw them packaged as single packs I’d pick up at least 12 of each army builder mate.

DSTChuck: We have absolutely thought about it! Right now the answer is, no we are not going to, but that could change at any moment.

Brian Felgar
Have you ever considered doing a “Best of Marvel Minimates” wave, kind of like the Best of Marvel Select re-releases you’ve recently done? Something bringing back some of the more popular early characters newer collectors might have missed?

DSTChuck: We kind of did that with the Heroes and Villains packs. They have done well but not great so we’ll have to see going forward if it becomes a yearly release.

Doug Wolford
Love the Secret Wars art! Any possibility of making it into a t-shirt? There’s a non Minimates version of that cover on shirts out there and they’re awesome.

DSTChuck: Right now a shirt would not be possible.  We are not allowed to make shirts in our current license.  You can check out the larger size in our blog post.