| 2006 NEWS & UPDATES |
| December 17, 2006 |
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It isn't very often that I find new movie-scene/publicity-type photos to post. But I've added a new picture of Madmartigan today, and you can see it in Movie Pictures Part 16. New action-figure pictures are also rare, but thanks to Paul Falconer there are pictures of a couple of variant Canadian figures in the Merchandise/Action Figures section. In the Art/Props section, there's a new picture of a live-action brownie arrow and a picture of a flame arrow from the battle of Tir Asleen. |
| October 29, 2006 |
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The Willow Color-Me Tees are such a rare item that it's difficult to even find pictures of them. But thanks to an auction on Ebay, you can now see a picture of the Kael t-shirt (still in package) in the Merchandise/Wearables section. The chapter on trolls has been added to the Sourcebook. It has a reference to talking trolls; an early version of the script and the Willow novelization had trolls that spoke pidgin English. But as we all know, in the actual movies the trolls just make animalistic noises, which is probably a good thing. Paul Falconer is a collector who's interested in finding any prototypes from the toy line that may have survived.
In particular, he's looking for toy designers and/or sculptors that worked on this project or even worked for Tonka
during the time in question. If you have any helpful information, please write to him at
madmartigan37@yahoo.com.
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| September 30, 2006 |
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The Sourcebook project now includes the chapter on Brownies, with some entertaining information on brownie mischief. I've also added a set of black and white Japanese lobby cards to the
Merchandise/Posters section.
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| August 20, 2006 |
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Today's update features some great new Fan Art - two wonderful drawings of Sorsha by Stephanie Durdik. The black and white one is my favorite! I've also added the chapter on Fairies to the
Sourcebook.
This chapter includes some information on the nature of fairy dust.
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| July 29, 2006 |
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Some additional pictures have been added to the Cartoon Art section. Check them out, they're great! We now have a new Willow pop-culture reference! The harcore punk screamo band
Kane Hodder has
several Willow-related tracks on their album
The Pleasure to Remain So Heartless.
The titles include The Child Of Prophecy, Crushing Everything In Sight, Attack On Tir
Asleen, and Assault At First Light. Most of the Willow content is in the titles
rather than the lyrics. Thanks to Cody Severtson for the information.
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| June 17, 2006 |
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I check the auctions on Ebay on a regular basis looking for Willow collectibles, and most of the time all I see is the same old familiar stuff. But once in a while I learn something amazing from these auctions, and that happened recently. It seems that a Willow cartoon series was contemplated back around 1988. No cartoons were ever made but some character sketches were produced, and some of these recently turned up on Ebay. The characters in the series apparently included Willow, Madmartigan, Sorsha, Elora (looking about three years old), and the brownies, as well as a new bad guy named Minrak. You can read more about it and view some pictures in the newly-created Cartoon Art section. My last update featured some material provided by Matt Dauer, and Matt has sent in some new pictures for your viewing pleasure. Go to the Fan Art section to see the great Battle of Tir Asleen diorama that he created using Willow toys and some imagination! Matt also contributed a bizarre poster that was used to promote a Val Kilmer film
festival in 2000, combining themes from Willow and The Ghost and the Darkness.
You can see it in the Merchandise/ Miscellaneous/
Promotional section. He sent in two pictures of a Willow Crayon-by-Number coloring set
that I hadn't seen before, which are now in the
Merchandise/Children's Literature section.
He also sent a picture of a set of boys' Willow underwear for the
Merchandise/Wearables
section as a final and rather humorous touch, and I've
added a picture of the Madmartigan Color-Me Tee to that section as well.
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| May 21, 2006 |
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Matt Dauer has provided some information on the mysterious Japanese Willow promo record, viewable in the Merchandise/Miscellaneous section. He says it has the Willow theme only and no words in any language. The B side is blank. Matt has also provided a page of in-store display ideas for Willow merchandise, which is also in the Merchandise/Miscellaneous section, and a picture of the back of a flyer for the Capcom Willow arcade game, which you can see in Merchandise/Posters. Merchandise/Posters also has some new in-store display posters from Kraft.
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| April 3, 2006 |
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If you've already read yesterday's update, you need to read it again because
it's been significantly changed.
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| May 21, 2006 |
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Matt Dauer has provided some information on the mysterious Japanese Willow promo record, viewable in the Merchandise/Miscellaneous section. He says it has the Willow theme only and no words in any language. The B side is blank. Matt has also provided a page of in-store display ideas for Willow merchandise, which is also in the Merchandise/Miscellaneous section, and a picture of the back of a flyer for the Capcom Willow arcade game, which you can see in Merchandise/Posters. Merchandise/Posters also has some new in-store display posters from Kraft.
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| April 3, 2006 |
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If you've already read yesterday's update, you need to read it again because
it's been significantly changed.
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| April 2, 2006 |
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Putting rumors to rest department... On April 1st, Starwars.com posted a prominent announcement on their front page which led to a story saying that Willow/Shadow Wars had been merged into Star Wars by literally making the Willow world a planet in the Star Wars galaxy. On April 3rd this large announcement was removed and a small disclaimer was added to the April 1 story saying that it was all an April Fools joke. Because the original announcement was very noticeable and the retraction wasn't all that easy to find, this is probably going to create rumors and wrong impressions that will take years to die away, if they ever do at all. This may do something to increase the sales of the Willow sequel novels, but it doesn't strike me as a very nice way to treat the fans of either Star Wars or Willow. I'm not going to discuss the details of the hoax in detail here, because printing
them would encourage misunderstandings and the spread of rumors. But you can read
all about it
here on
Starwars.com.
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| February 20, 2006 |
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The Fan Art section now displays a great custom Bavmorda figure by Jared Chalfant. If only Tonka had produced Willow toys this good! Scroll down to the bottom of the fan art page to check it out. And I'll repeat something
I said there: if there are other Willow
customizers out there, then Jared and I would like to hear from you.
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| February 13, 2006 |
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Here's some interesting news! The website of movie sculptor Keith Short has some
wonderful pictures of the Willow
castle sets under construction. The first picture you see when you follow that link is
the Nockmaar set, and it's ENORMOUS. The heavy-duty construction equipment being used
to build it looks tiny in comparison. It looks like the pictures just went online
recently, and I've never seen anything quite like them before. Thanks to Chloe for the tip!
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| February 12, 2006 |
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The Nockmaar Minions chapter was added to the
Sourcebook
today. And you know what? They don't sound very nice. But they don't sound quite as
evil as you might have expected, either.
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| January 16, 2006 |
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The first update of 2006 starts out with an item that's very interesting to me, because for many years I thought that it didn't exist! But it turns out that there really is such a thing as Willow sheet music. Although I bought this piano score of the main theme from an Ebay seller in Canada, it was apparently published in the USA. The publishers' names include Warner Brothers Publications in New Jersey and Tusken Music (ASCAP). Like most such movie scores, it's rather simplified although they don't hesitate to throw a lot of sixteenth notes at you every now and then. This baby is WAY out of print now, and I'd never suspected its existence until the day it turned up on Ebay. You can see a picture of the cover (which is similar to the US poster art) and the opening bars in The Music section. Today's update also includes adding the chapter on the Knights of Galladoorn to
the Sourcebook project. This new chapter explains the
basic organization of the group. If you'd like information on the knights' fall to Nockmaar,
check out the sourcebook's Airk Thaughbaer chapter, which is already available. You can also
read the Madmartigan chapter to find out how he got kicked out of the knights.
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