Daniel Pickett

AFi founder and Editor-In-Chief Daniel “Julius Marx” Pickett has been around toys his whole life. The first line he ever collected was Mego’s World’s Greatest Super Heroes line back in the 70s. He has been surrounded by collectables ever since. In 1999 he was confounded by a lack of information and news about some of his favorite toy lines he was collecting. Since he couldn’t find the information he decided to pursue it himself thinking other people might also be interested in the same news. He started writing a weekly column on the toy industry and action figure for a toy news site and in a years time he tripled the sites daily traffic with his updates, reviews and product features. He built relationships with every major toy manufacturer and many sculptors, painters and mold makers. He grew his hobby into a world wide expertise that the industry has embraced. In 2004 he teamed up with his toy buddy Jason “ToyOtter” Geyer and they created their own website www.ActionFigureInsider.com. Daniel has been quoted in both industry and mass media press outlets. Over the years Daniel and AFi have been sought out as experts in the field. Daniel was regularly featured on “Attack of the Show” on the G4 network as the primary contributor to their “Mint On Card” segment, and our front page has been linked to from USA Today’s “Pop Candy” Blog twice. Daniel’s content has also been featured on Bloomberg News, MSNBC.com, Time.com, The Wall Street Journal, The Saturday Evening Post, CNN.com, AssociatedPress.com Wired.com, Fark.com, Boing-Boing, Gizmodo.com, Ain’t It Cool News, the Official Star Wars blog, Geekologie, G4, CNet and Toy Fare magazine, among many others. He has consulted on toy lines, books, documentaries and TV shows. But all of that really just sounds snooty and “tootin’ his own horn” – the long and short of it is that Daniel loves toys and he LOVES talking about them.

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• Toy News Tuesday: The Plastic Tsunami (Part Two) says:

  January 27, 2015 at 5:40 pm

  […] Every so often, a film introduces a character, item, or vehicle that instantly becomes an iconic piece of science fiction history. An unforgettable bit of legend that will forever be remembered as a game changer, or looked back on fondly. The classic sci-fi hit film ‘ALIENS” gave us that with the Power-Loader; and now Hollywood Collectibles Group is bringing it to life in amazing detail to put in your collectible… for the right price. The cost is a bit up there, but the item is limited to only 350 pieces worldwide, so it’s likely to be highly sought after by hardcore ‘ALIENS’ fans! The full release is below-From the acclaimed Aliens™ movie, we are proud to present this magnificent Studio Scale Powered Work Loader!Commonly referred to as a Power Loader, is a commercial mechanized anthropomorphic Exoskeleton used for lifting heavy materials and objects. More importantly it was also used by Ripley to defeat the Alien Queen! Painstakingly recreated from the original blueprints, no detail has been spared to make this the most accurate Power Loader replica ever made.Presented for the first time ever as a Studio Scale model – exactly the same size as the model used in filming the movie! Standing an imposing 33” tall, and 25” wide this truly is an Epic™ scale model! Amazingly detailed, it features a webbing operator harness made of real material, a working light-up hazard light on top, and an accurate weathered finish. Our HCG Exclusive version also comes with a high quality 24″ x 18″ print of the Powerloader blueprints and specs sheet!As with all Hollywood Collectibles pieces this museum quality Studio Scale model is constructed from heavyweight polystone and mixed media, then hand painted to the finest detail. The centerpiece of anyone’s Aliens collection!Limited to 1000 pieces worldwide! The piece is priced at $1,199.95, or as little as $119 a month if you use an optional payment plan. The Power Loader is available for pre-order through hollywood-collectibles.com.(via AFI) […]

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