Tracking toy tariffs

To go serious for a second, I believe it is less about parent groups potentially complaining, and more about fear of some nutbag redhat going on social media and praising Hasbro for finally making a KKK action figure. Which is insane, since CoCo doesn’t look like that at all in a hood. This whole stupid tempest in a teapot goes back to Lorenzo di Bonaventura running his mouth about the hood back when he was working on his crap Joe movies. It’s the silliest, most reactionary, least logical thing ever regarding this brand. I mean he’s the leader of a terrorist organization for shit’s sake. Not only is the “ban” ridiculous and unnecessary, it also dilutes the very real need to root out *actual* redhat/fascist/nazi dog-whistling in media. This topic seriously grinds my gears.

Not to go too far off the rails here, but it's not even logically consistent anyway. We have loads of toys of either actual Nazis or other 'bad guys' essentially wearing Nazi clothing without the logo. And we're supposed to think that's okay because the big bad S-symbol isn't on the arm. But a blue, form-fitted hood with a loose lower edge is 'too close' to KKK? It's weird.
 
I remember the Four Horsemen were putting out a historically accurate Templar Knight horse but were informed by fans that the KKK have used that dressing. They pivoted rather than canceling entirely. They came up with another look that was more in line with the fantasy of Mythic Legions rather than being historically accurate. Unfortunate that things like that happen but I thought they handled that well.

It still baffles me that the hooded Cobra Commander is falling into that same issue now. They made Toht, a literal nazi, in the Indiana Jones line recently and only left off the symbol on his lapel pin. Nobody panicked or got upset over that. A blue hood with a cobra on it shouldn’t be any more triggering than anything else in the toy aisle. Although at this point I just hope we have toy isles left after all this craziness.
 
Well, and I keep saying...,.no he doesn't resemble a KKK person, but even if he DOES, so what? A villain resembling some of the worst people on the planet is bad?

But the idea of Hasbro preferring not to wade into possible support from the wrong people makes sense to me.
 
Tracking how different companies are handling it... I get some of the critiques of BBTS but I like the "you can cancel if it's too much, and here's the separate surcharge" option better than what we know big companies like Hasbro or Mattel will do (just increase the price, and NEVER go back down again once their investors see that) or just giving up. I actually saw one small business retailer actually say "buy from Amazon so we don't have to pay the tariff" which ... I don't even know if that works or if they're making a leap of logic, but a small business finding the the Amazon cut easier to take than the tariff is sign of the times.

The smaller guys are fucked no matter what they do. Semi-related - I had the visceral reaction to boycott anyone using Shopify after the CEO announced last week they won't hire anyone until they prove the job can't be done through AI, but at least three indie toy companies I buy from use Shopify and a half-dozen wonderful TTRPG publishers. I don't want to punish them because their POS/point of sale vendor is a POS/piece of shit.

(The CC thing - possibly the most anger-triggering thing in my entire world is cruelty to animals and even I'd buy a hooded CC with an articulated puppy and a flight stand. Would I set up that CC being mauled by Rawkus, Junkyard, and Order in my office? YUP)
 
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The CC thing - possibly the most anger-triggering thing in my entire world is cruelty to animals and even I'd buy a hooded CC with an articulated puppy and a flight stand. Would I set up that CC being mauled by Rawkus, Junkyard, and Order in my office? YUP)
As someone who’s best friend in the world is a 13 year old orange cat named Oliver Queen, I absolutely relate to that. I think that specific pinup of CC is the only “mean to an animal” thing I can do, mostly because the pup looks so genuinely unhurt and CC looks like such a douchebag loser.
Also it totally encapsulates CC’s character as a sleazy, low-life piece of crap.
 
I'm sorely tempted to get some of those D20/FishToys 1/12 horses. Local vendor I was pondering ordering from sold out of the ones I was considering. Which leaves me only with Chinese overseas retailers. They haven't adjusted their prices to reflect any tariffs, but I'm not even sure what would happen if they shipped my order. I assume it would get hung up in customs. And then the local delivery company would be on the hook for custom fees. Who would then somehow charge me? I have no idea, as everything I've ordered from overseas has been under previous custom thresholds. Obviously, I can try waiting it out for a few days and see what happens.
 
No sarcasm, I love when pets have not just real, traditionally human names, but especially full names. Yes I know who Oliver Queen is, but still.
 
Yeah, the comedy of the CC kicking the dog scene is the dog looks surprised rather than hurt, like CC can't even muster a good arse-kicking with his noodle legs.
Our pets have weirdly stylized human names: Watson (ten pound terrier), Birdie (dignified tortie cat), Frobisher (undignified tuxie cat). The vet refuses to even try to pronounce Frobisher's name. We made a mistake with that one.
 
No sarcasm, I love when pets have not just real, traditionally human names, but especially full names. Yes I know who Oliver Queen is, but still.
His full name is Oliver Queen Cat, and then my wife’s and my last names, hyphenated.
😁
 
The Marvel GI Joe run got me into comics and I was jumping onboard right around issue 100 which is where that dog-kicking panel was pulled from. That page is pretty Iconic to me personally and an action figure based on it would be an automatic buy.

In the meantime, I have the IBMMT custom head for my Classified figure, so I'm not hurting for a hooded CC despite Hasbro's contradictory stance on the whole thing.
 
Heh, yeah, 100 was about when I started enthusiastically reading it as well. I’d been a Joe fan for years at that point but never realized the comic was actually good (I had no mentoring on this subject and only read superhero comics at that point) but the “revived” Cobra Commander design, with the hood and the dress uniform and the jackboots and the epaulets and braids totally hooked me in: it was a version of CC I had never seen before at the time (I now know it was a badassified version of his original comic outfit, which makes it even cooler) and there wasn’t even an action figure of it (yet). That was so iconic to me, along with the comic version of the SAW-Viper and also the way the comics depicted Snake-Eyes versions 3 and 4: waaay cooler than the toys they were based on.
 
His full name is Oliver Queen Cat, and then my wife’s and my last names, hyphenated.
😁
Our dog has our last name, but I used to have a black cat named Ashley Johnson and a tabby named Sid Saunders.
Heh, yeah, 100 was about when I started enthusiastically reading it as well. I’d been a Joe fan for years at that point but never realized the comic was actually good (I had no mentoring on this subject and only read superhero comics at that point) but the “revived” Cobra Commander design, with the hood and the dress uniform and the jackboots and the epaulets and braids totally hooked me in: it was a version of CC I had never seen before at the time (I now know it was a badassified version of his original comic outfit, which makes it even cooler) and there wasn’t even an action figure of it (yet). That was so iconic to me, along with the comic version of the SAW-Viper and also the way the comics depicted Snake-Eyes versions 3 and 4: waaay cooler than the toys they were based on.
Definitely better late than never. I think I read the comics starting around the one when Destro and Firefly ambush Snake Eyes at his cabin and Airborne and Spirit come to help him. Probably why I see all of them as essential. But even still, reading all those issues straight through to the ninja force stuff, where I fell off), his look on issue 100 is still the iconic one. If you say Cobra Commander to me, I think of that cover.
 
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