The items your former company makes are also significantly less complex than a toy with multiple sprues that need to be pressed, with pins and paint applications that need to be hand assembled in a line process. Apples and oranges.
Yup. Until further notice EIRRIP is now a Thing and is entirely intentional on the part of HasTak to fully complete Blaster's transformation in to the bizarro world Soundwave. Sorry, nothing I can do. It's by royal decree. Dude gets one day where he can make all the new rules and that was one of them.
The comics are meant as advertising for the toys. Someone goofed last year and purple-tape happened. At least they were consistent with using purple, but gave red a small cameo to try to slap a band-aid on the issue of not showing off red in the first place. Also, it's noteworthy that we see Flamewar for a few panels in this issue, so all sg toys have made appearances.
This reads as legitimate. That said, things like blast effects melting paint/plastic and widespread yellowing seem like QC issues of note. But Hasbro has responded on the yellowing. And has responded somewhat on transparent plastic hinges being brittle. I've never quite understood the collector fascination with loose joints. Tight joints lead to breakage. I avoid NECA because of this. If they're so loose that a figure can't hold a pose, I understand the complaint. Goldar's wings in Lightning Collection are flawed. But some people get upset if joints wobble when you shake them and I never understood that if they hold a pose.
The point is legit whether anyone wants to believe it or not anyways. Google up random sampling QC. It's an industry recognized method for general population quality control. Definitely doesn't excuse everything. But I do feel that there are other factors leading to the yellowing. I'll bet my life savings that NONE of the yellowed figures left the factories like that. A combination of perhaps a bad batch of plastic, the shipping bottleneck keeping things in containers for long periods of time and global climate change impacting conditions are contributing to the rapid yellowing.
so it is not me that received a box that seemed smashed, after looking at the shape of the box, i wondered if that was intentional
The new boxes are likely designed such that when smushed the figure is still protected. Hence why you get something like Motormaster with the truck being a third and the other two thirds are cardboard support.
