EMCE is for Effigy Manufacturer Confirms Events

Back in December I received a nice eMail from Joe Sena, on the subject of the little output/figure list I appended to one of the earlier EMCE posts, a subsequent back and forth of correspondence produced this pocket/potted history of the various brands I had been getting confused by, so - with Joe's permission - here it is for those who may be interested;

 

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"After a 10 year period in Los Angeles, where I helped grow the merch side of a large Star Trek convention company in the early ‘90s as designer/creative director, I moved over to the New Media Group at Universal Studios where I went from writer/producer to Creative Director in a few months – largely because in the mid 90s, anyone who could spell “Internet” was an expert (also, I was the studio’s “Official Universal Monsters” expert because I was the only nerd who made it past the gatekeepers). A few years later, Universal was bought, I saw handwriting on the wall, started a web design firm with other Uni' ex-pats which crashed and burned within a year.

Moved back to NYC with my tail between my legs and went back to what I did for a living before the internet, which was to make merch. Most was of the apparel variety, off-brand and original stuff for fans of horror movies. I made a product called the “Zombie Outbreak Survival Kit” which exploded, and made me enough money to put toward growing the business.

My business’ legal name is SphereWerx, LLC, which I named after the Unisphere, the steel globe landmark in my hometown of Flushing, Queens, near the stadium where my poor Met's attempt to play baseball. After a few years of having to re-spell or correct the pronunciation of “Spherewerx,” I registered “Fourth Castle” as a “doing business as” name. I named it such because of the influence of your fellow countrymen – as with the King Of Swamp Castle in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”, this was my fourth attempt at business, and it didn’t fall into the swamp😉

Coming back to NYC reunited me with an old high school buddy named Paul Clarke, who I was stunned to discover had a business called “Dr. Mego”, in which he would hand-make replacement parts for collectors of Mego action figures. If your Captain America lost a shield or Batman his cowl, Paul hand-poured them in resin, colored them and sent them off.

Eventually, he received a cease and desist from DC and Marvel, and asked me what he should do, and I said that I would put money into trying to get licences And bring back the Mego toys of the 1970s.

 

Through several partnerships with other license-holders, we successfully brought back Marvel, DC, Star Trek and other Mego-style figures, expanding beyond mere reproductions. I created the brand EMCE toys, drawn to look like the “Mego” logo, but pronounced “EM-CEE” or “M.C”, which stood for “Mego Corporation.”

Paul and I were handshake-partners, we never had anything on paper, but we agreed that we would split EMCE branded toys. Sadly, Paul’s “Dr. Mego” work was not enough to cut it professionally, so we hired out sculptors for heads and certain body parts, but I would sculpt small accessories or adaptations (Spock’s beard for the “Mirror, Mirror” set, Spider-Man’s webshooters and belt, etc.). I am not the sculptor of any of the major parts of any of our toys.

 

In 2008, the recession cratered sales, so even though Paul was a Mego fundamentalist, I said we had to do something to make a cheaper product. Megos were expensive to produce, so I focused on another old-school toy format: little green army men.

After a while, Paul stopped being involved in the toys brand, focusing more on his Dr. Mego business and coming back together with me for the occasional elaborate Marvel Megos we did with Diamond Select Toys.

 

I kept on with the army men and dubbed them “Nanoforce”, so I had a trademarkable name. Initially, the clunky sculpts were done by hand in the factory in China – we left them that way because a) they looked about as clunky as classic army men and b) it came free with the price of the production 😉

You pretty much know the rest, but I hope when my aforementioned presentation is complete and has made the rounds, I will send it to you as it does contain a pretty complete look at the Nano's we made from Day One. However, it’s so similar to your list as to be almost identical."

 

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So, to paraphrase the above, SphereWerx (legal), Forth Castle (trading as) and EMCE ('em-cee', line/range brand-mark) are the company name/s in the order they were acquired, Nanoforce is the brand-mark for the small 'army men' figures, and all the other names on the various sets or packaging generations are either the license-holders to the subjects depicted, or the contracting end-user (Diamond Select, Previews Exclusive/PX), even though EMCE's own branding is usually retained alongside as one or more marks. Toynk are the current distributor of the more commercial sets.

 

This is an updated/re-edited version of that original list, alphabetical;

• Aliens in Glowing Slime (figures from the below set, but glow in the dark polymer with a unique, oversized (in scale) 'Facehugger' sculpt. One figure per egg of slime, out of production and getting hard to find, old stock has now-solid, rubbery slime) - Diamond Select Toys / PX Previews Exclusive  / designed by Nanoforce by EMCE Toys) Licensor - 20th Century Fox.
• Aliens -vs- Colonial Marines (35 figures, out of production, but findable, getting a bit pricey - Diamond Select Toys / PX Previews Exclusive  / designed by Nanoforce by EMCE Toys) Licensor - 20th Century Fox.
• Fallout 76 [bags, see also You Will Emerge - below] (12 or 24 figures per bag, 3 sets, still around, affordable - Bethesda / Toynk / Nanoforce by EMCE Toys / Forth castle) Licensors - Bethesda Softworks a Zenimax Media Co.
• Fallout 76 [boxes] (13 figures per box, 4 boxed sets include a 4" figure and extra [blind pack] poses, still around, affordable - Bethesda / Toynk / Nanoforce by EMCE Toys / Forth castle) Licensors - Bethesda Softworks a Zenimax Media Co.
  
• Gears 5 (Gears of War), (5-figures + droid, bag, glow in the dark variation, still around, affordable - Nanoforce by EMCE Toys (a brand of) Forth Castle Macromedia) Licensors - The Coalition / XBox Games / Microsoft, UK retailer Toynk (?)
•  John Carpenter's Halloween (8 figures + 4 accessories and 1x 4" figure, very rare, limited edition of 2500 units, very expensive when found - Fright Rags / Nanoforce by EMCE Toys) Licensor - Compass International Pictures
• Night of the Living Dead (12 figures + 1x 4" figure, very rare, limited edition, very expensive when found - Fright Rags / Nanoforce by EMCE Toys / Image Ten)
• Star Trek - TNG (12 figures + micro-ship model, 'The Next Generation' boxed-set, newest, affordable, easier to find in UK - PX Previews Exclusive / Nanoforce by EMCE Toys / Fanwares a division of Fanwraps) Licensor - CBS Studios
• Star Trek - TOS (12 figures + micro-ship model, 'The Original (TV) Series' boxed-set, newest, affordable, harder to find in UK - PX Previews Exclusive / Nanoforce by EMCE Toys / Fanwares a division of Fanwraps) Licensor - CBS Studios
• Universal Monsters (planned/cancelled/next? EMCE / Mego?)
• You Will Emerge (24 figure 'Army Builder' bag of Fallout expansion, 23 common figures in 9 poses (twos or threes) with exclusive Jersey Devil flying monster, still around, affordable - Bethesda / Nanoforce by EMCE Toys / Forth castle, no Toynk) Licensors - Bethesda Softworks a Zenimax Media Co.
• Vault Tech Convention Exclusives (six figures from Fallout, in blind-bags, one per-bag, limited-edition yellow polymer, still findable/affordable - Bethesda / Toynk / Nanoforce by EMCE Toys / Forth castle) Licensors - Bethesda Softworks a Zenimax Media Co.
•  Zombies at War (35 figures, out of production, but findable, getting a bit pricey - PX Previews Exclusive / Brilliant Novelty Co. / Diamond Comic Distributors / EMCE Toys (a brand of) Forth Castle Macromedia, no 'Nanoforce')
• Zombies in Glowing Slime (as per above, but blind-bag model, in a tub of slime modelled as an oil drum, one figure per unit, glow-in-the-dark polymer, getting harder to track-down - PX Previews Exclusive  /  EMCE Toys) 
•  Zombies -vs- Zombie Hunters (35 figures, 10 poses, 3-each survivors, 4-each zombies, out of production, but findable, getting a bit pricey - PX Previews Exclusive / Brilliant Novelty Co. / Diamond Comic Distributors / EMCE Toys (a brand of) Forth Castle Macromedia, no 'Nanoforce')

In December, Joe was hopeful that more figures would come out this year, but I haven't seen/heard anything yet? Halloween was the last set issued, last autumn.

S is for Solid Slime!

This'll be the seventh post on the Aliens franchise this year, so clearly 'the year of the Aliens' here at Small Scale World . . . purely accidental, or coincidental! These are another iteration of the EMCE 'Nanoforce' figures with an additional Alien sculpt and no Colonial Space Marines!

Further branded to both Diamond Select and Previews Exclusive (PX), who have been associated with a lot of the EMCE 'toy soldiers' stuff, the slime has, over time, set solid! The material is a sort of bouncy-ball rubber now, so I had to break them out physically, rather than just pull them gently away from the gloop!

The solvent for slime is apparently vinegar (discovered for a forthcoming post!), but I'm not sure it would succeed in re-hydrating these lumps! I kept a few of the larger lumps as a 'might be useful later' addition to the 'spares box'!

Of the six possible, I managed to end-up with four sculpts, which is not bad going, when I already have the standard ones, but there is a surprise here, in a sixth pose (a 'Facehugger'), as the previous issue only had the five adult Xenomorphs. It's not a very good sculpt, and out of scale (unless you collect Action Man/GI Joe dolls) but may - therefore - remain uniquely in the glow-material, as far as being a collectable goes.

The Facehugger is not on the press image (left), probably because it's a bit shit, but the box clearly states "collect all six Aliens!". The box is shown as being apparently a 24-egg double-decker, while mine only has the one layer of 12 eggs, which also calls for a shout-out to eBay seller 'silver-acre' (Darryl Jones, Silver Acre Comics) who sent me the whole box with a multiple purchase even though it wasn't part of the offer - cheers dude; got a post out of them!

F is for Follow-up - THK 'Aliens'

L is for Louche & Lanky!

The only thing worse than a blind bag, is a blind box! With a blind bag, you can squeeze it to find the pose you're looking for, or discard the one's you've already got, or, you can learn/look-out for the pack code-numbers after Small Scale World gives them to you, as was the case with Horrible Histories . . . sadly no one did it for the second wave!

But with a blind box, you haven't the faintest what you getting, and while the blurb says "...from 4 to 8 figures" I've only seen the same three or four-figure sets (unless they're counting eggs and 'Norwegian' containers, which would be double the swizz! But anyway the above is what you were looking out for to 'army build' your big-box playset; a rather naff card thing with plastic decks/edges.

I seem to have deleted the original image, so I'm reusing one I've used elsewhere a bit sooner than I might usually, but se la vie as the French say and they know what they're talking about, they all speak French!

How they come, I don't see up to eight figures in either of these, it's a four-count every time!

I think I'm missing two Colonial Marine poses, another with the thermal lance and a trooper, but I think I have all the characters? However, as you can see, and apropos the title of this post, while beautifully sculpted as far as detail/etching goes, they are all too long and thin in the vertical!

And it's not even an anatomical thing particularly, just that they seem to have been designed by one of the not-so-good stand-in Judge Dredd artists! They're all about seven-foot-six and streaks of piss!

I'm also missing one of these Xenomorphs I think, running/lunging forward with the tail out back, but I won't be buying one soon as they will turn-up loose in a year or so, they must have sold quite well, as there's always plenty of these on eBay (which may - of course - just mean they didn't sell first time round!), but to get the three I need (there may be a Facehugger too?) I would have to end-up with twice as many duplicates however I worked it, so I'll wait.

They're usually around the $£€-25/30-mark (always look for those around 12/15, they're there), with the odd idiot wanting 70 for his 'really rare' set! And buy the opened ones, so you know what you're getting!

These are also a bit lanky, but it works quite well with them, and possibly the best way to game the franchise would be with these Aliens, the Walmart egg-aliens (suitably painted) as juveniles and the Lanard Corps Elite 'Space Marines'?

I think I bought five sets to build my sample, in total, and this one may be the mythical '8 figures' one! Two Xenomorphs, four eggs (the missing ones brought the price down and how many do you need? . . . Oh, a cavern full!) and three containers which could be food, ammo, medical supplies or science'y-stuff, but they remind me of Norwegian containers used in the modern military to keep foot hot or cold.

There's also four window-box sets which consist of one-each transparent blue Xenonorphs (or one has four transparent blue eggs) and US Colonial Marine named-characters in grey plastic, which - as of two minutes ago - I've two in the post, so a follow-up, soonish? Now to be found here!

That's it, an uncommonly eggy Easter, just not the sort of eggs you want to find on a hunt round the garden. Palisade/THK Aliens - This time it's . . . err . . . skinny war!

H is for Happy Easter Bunny . . . Not!

 

Stolen from Todd Killinger on the Pod Stallions Faceplant group

 

N is for Nanoforce

Mentioned in the previous post; they aren't 'nano', nor even micro, or mini, but Britains 'standard' 54mm'ish!

A funny one this, coming after a discussion the other day on Brian Heiler's Faceplant Group page and Shawn's Fantasy Blog just posting the Star Trek figures (I have one; The Next Generation, but Original Series aren’t on UK Amazon yet) leading me to feel a look at EMCE, the common thread in a number of nice figure sets is in order.

The set here is designed by EMCE under a Nanoforce^TM brand-mark, and sold by Diamond Select Toys (operation behind the 888-comic-book shop locator portal, President & CEO; Steve Geppi) under a PX / Previews Exclusive brand mark, all four brands are on the header card! EMCE were/are a design team, originally set up by Paul “Dr Mego” Clarke (licensee, marketer?) with Joe Sena (sculptor) on board.

Joe Sena was already President of Spherewerx, another brand, and the EMCE connection was a partnership which has (temporarily?) ended, although it appears Joe now controls (or can still use) the EMCE branding. Now, for those who need to know more, there is tons out there, especially on Youtube, as the bigger story involves Mattel, Mego and huge licences for action-figures, about which I have little interest.

But they have produced quite a few "2-inch figures" (their words), or 51mm, under the umbrella brand Nanoforce, of which we have seen the WWII Zombies here already, are - here - looking at the Aliens figures, and have Fallout, Gears of War and the aforementioned Star Trek in the long queue!

Some of the newer stuff (Gears' and Fallout) is actually closer to the full 54/56mm (with their thicker bases), but 'Trek, Aliens (here) and the Zombies at War are closer to 50mm, this is as complete a list as I can muster, alphabetically;

• Aliens -vs- Colonial Marines (35 figures, out of production, but findable, getting a bit pricey - Diamond Select Toys / PX Previews Exclusive  / designed by Nanoforce by EMCE Toys) Licensor - 20th Century Fox.
• Fallout 76 (12 figures per bag, 3 sets, 4 boxed sets include a 4" figure and extra [blind pack] poses, still around, affordable - Bethesda / Toynk / Nanoforce by EMCE Toys / Forth castle) Licensors - Bethesda Softworks a Zenimax Media Co.
• Gears 5 (Gears of War), (5-figures + droid, bag, glow in the dark variation, still around, affordable - Nanoforce by EMCE Toys (a brand of) Forth Castle Macromedia) Licensors - The Coalition / XBox Games / Microsoft, UK retailer Toynk (?)
•  John Carpenter's Halloween (12 figures + 1 4" figure, very rare, limited edition of 2500 units, very expensive when found - Fright Rags / Nanoforce by EMCE Toys) Licensor - Compass International Pictures
• Night of the Living Dead (12 figures + 1 4" figure, very rare, limited edition, very expensive when found - Fright Rags / Nanoforce by EMCE Toys / Image Ten)
• Star Trek (12 figures + micro-ship model, 2 boxed-sets so far, newest, affordable - PX Previews Exclusive / Nanoforce by EMCE Toys / Fanwares a division of Fanwraps) Licensor - CBS Studios
• Universal Monsters (planned/cancelled? EMCE / Mego?)
• You Will Emerge (24 figure bag, Fallout expansion, still around, affordable - Bethesda / Nanoforce by EMCE Toys / Forth castle, no Toynk) Licensors - Bethesda Softworks a Zenimax Media Co.
• Zombies at War (35 figures, out of production, but findable, getting a bit pricey - PX Previews Exclusive / Brilliant Novelty Co. / Diamond Comic Distributors / EMCE Toys (a brand of) Forth Castle Macromedia, no 'Nanoforce')
•  Zombies -vs- Zombie Hunters (35 figures, out of production, but findable, getting a bit pricey - PX Previews Exclusive / Brilliant Novelty Co. / Diamond Comic Distributors / EMCE Toys (a brand of) Forth Castle Macromedia, no 'Nanoforce')

Glow in the dark versions of both the Aliens (not Colonial Marines) and Zombies (not Hunters) were available in glowing slime as blind-capsule purchases from shop-counter boxes, five sculpts each.

The figures are OK, but a bit clumpy, like the Zombies at War, not as polished as the current Gears'/Fallout/'Trek set's figures. You get 35 figures in total, with 5 sculpts for each 'side' and you are pretty much guaranteed to get at least three-each of all ten poses in a set.

L is for The Loyal Subjects

Odd name, crazy product, and it was actually a Walmart exclusive for Easter last year, marketed by Wave 2 LLC as The Loyal Subjects, but  not really available to me at the time, in fact I only re-discovered them by accident the other day! And it's been a bit of a merry-go-round getting them here in time, but we managed by the skin of the hairs on our chinny-chin-chins!

Not knowing how things were going to pan-out I helped myself to all last years promotional images, which as they differ from those on the packaging must be from Walmart's own PR department, a campaign which must have been successful, because dozens of blogs, websites, 'zines and so on, covered them in full, at the time!

I actually managed to locate some reasonably-priced mint ones; there are a fair few sellers around and about, but one is considerably cheaper than the others, so I grabbed two sets in the hope of finding a few glow-in-the-dark or rarer ones, but that's now for another day.

The Loyal Subjects' packaging artwork, There are ten basic sculpts with the glowing variants, and metallic rarities to find . . . there's a silver one on evilBay at the moment for silly money, but they will have sold in vast numbers a year ago (why there are still so many on feebleBay) and even the rare ones will still be turning-up, in mixed junk lots, years from now!

Pleased to see that Walmart put three aliens in their egg (you should get two and one 'other stage'), as I had done the same thing while I still had only a few! I refound them by accident, when some chap was selling a few of the same colour (with Lanard space marines as enemy!), and as soon as the first lot arrived, he listed another lot in a different colour, so I bought those, only for the cycle to repeat a third time!

The cavern! And my three tumbling out of their egg - after careful posing! I've missed out on one variant of blue wrap, and there may be a second green design, but it's not clear from the promotional shots. But all packs have two yellow eggs, so they are commoner than the blue or green.

Not knowing if the eggs would have the right mix, I then found a seller who was offering a set of all ten for a decent price, but when they arrived there was two blue and no purple! So I shot them against the hope a rabbit would be pulled from a hat . . . it was!

It was an honest mistake; he's obviously opened loads to make up the sets, and with four of the poses being very similar (red, green, blue and purple), had accidently sent me two alike, however he then fired-off the purple one in the mail (with a spare egg!) and it arrived earlier in the week, so I could get them finished in time for today! Happy Xenomorphic Easter!

[I'm sending him a UK food parcel (Marmite, Gold Bars, Tunnock's and Jaffa cakes) by way of a 'thank-you'!]

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And this bears a digression - The originals, like most evilBay stuff these days (which really should be called EVILbay) were sent via the 'Global Shipping Program', which 1) isn't global, there's only a few countries signed up to it. 2) Makes everything 8-14 days slower than if they are sent through the normal mail channels, and 3) seems to be a revenue generating scam for eBay, Pitney Bowes and Hermes (UK) while 4) possibly defrauding HMRC (?) as well as hideously overcharging the buyer (and short-changing the seller?), so all three 'agencies' can have a slice of purely invented pie!

Literally everything through the program is taking 10-14 days or longer, with an endless wait at "Global Shipping Center, Erlanger, Kentucky", while everything sent through normal, national, mail systems takes about 5 or 6 days. And while they sit in Erlanger, spurious and nonsensical 'tracking' notes are added every other day or so, dated to a day or two earlier; when there was no note on that date!

Now - I have been told that there's a way of opting out of the Global Shipping Program, but I can't find the button, so any help/thoughts on the subject would be appreciated by me and probably a lot of other readers?

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Facehuggers and Chest Bursters! There are two of each, so a decent set of four eggs should, could, might contain all four! Like the adult Aliens, both Facehuggers are similar, it's really only the tails that differ, These are not in scale with the fully-grown Xenomorphs, but - following the [fictional] 'science' - if the donor/infected . . . inseminated is an elephant or a rhino . . . !

I can't ever get the Spaceballs tap-dancing Burster out of my mind, despite having seen the Alien one may more times! The fact that John Hurt reprises his role "OH no, not again" might have something to do with it!

I was hoping to use the eggs to do an 'opening' video, and might have if the glitch with the purple one hadn't been sorted out, but it was, and I really am pushed for time at the moment (real life stuff), so I'll hold them sealed for now and get it sorted in a year or two, probably for Easter Day again. But; here's promo' shots with both the glowers and a silver Alien.

As I mentioned, the initial seller was including random Lanard troops (also a Walmart exclusive - in the 'States!) and they do make for the best enemy, although Previews Exclusive (PX) / DST (Diamond Select Toys) carried similar sized Colonial Marine troopers from EMCE's 'Nanotoys' design range. For the Facehuggers you'll need an Action Man/G.I.Joe!

Initial shot up at the gravel works a few weeks ago, and a full Xenomorph line-up, taken in the garden this week! The yellow one is a nice sculpt, but hard to get to stand up, while the Orange one is the most menacing, the others all look more curious, or surprised!

Oh! That's me on the radar, I'd better scoot . . . now where's the damn cat gone?!!