The Eagle has crash landed

Very sad news for the geeky community that I only found out about last night, and am still in shock….Eaglemoss are bankrupt.

I didn’t even realise they were actually a British company so that makes things even sadder.

This was the publisher that was running partwork builds of the Back To The Future DeLorean and the Ghostbusters Ecto 1 car.

They also ran figurines collections of Dr Who, Game of Thrones, and also had a big Star Trek section, though this was not the full extent of their offerings. By all accounts they had a broad range, and it’s puzzling that they’re suddenly sunk. But perhaps the blame lies in the apparently cuntish people at the top – as the article I linked to describes several traitorous executives jumping ship:

_{Sadly, hints to the status of Eaglemoss were starting to emerge as executives began defecting to other companies in the collectibles space, including Zavvi, Mighty Jaxx, and others over the past year.}

This is something not mentioned at all in any of the other articles I’ve read so far. It’s all very well their subscribers, who I’ve seen already, thrashing around moaning about the lack of issues or out of stock notices, or defective products. All of that is a by-product of things not being run properly from the top, not the company itself. If you don’t have the best people driving the train, you’re going to come off the rails fairly quickly. Sadly this is exactly what has happened.

I’m so sad for all their employees, and yes I’m definitely sad for the customers who probably won’t ever get to complete their builds now. None of these partworks are a minor investment and the Ecto 1 in particular was quite a long way through. Some are speculating that another company many cherry pick parts of carcass they want to give customers a chance to finish. But I don’t know really see any other publisher, no matter how good natured they are, wanting to pump money into a half finished project that they’ve previously not had to invest in.

What this shows to me is, once again, how fucking stupid all the whingers are in the articles you see bashing part work models that the more clueless sections of the media run. “Build a DeLorean time machine…but customers may be unaware just how much it costs”. Err, no, subscribers and model builders are NEVER unaware how much these things cost. It’s all explained when you sign up. There is no surprise. Yes sometimes you do have to go searching a bit, but it’s all there on the site when you sign up. And then there were the comments – “HOW much???!!! These greedy companies are ripping off the public”. These people clearly have not got the feintest idea just how much it costs a publisher to put out just ONE part work model. You have to pay designers, then build a prototype, then take this round to suppliers, then hook up with a supplier, have the parts designed and made – that’s BEFORE it’s even launched!! Then you have marketing costs, import costs, writer and editorial costs, printing costs, replacement costs, postage costs. Do these fucking idiots think any of that is some tiny little expense…?

I never thought Panini were in any trouble, who are publishing my Ferrari F40 Competizione – their main business is stickers and trading cards – and that’s a colossal global brand. But it makes me a tad concerned for the likes of Hachette, who have very similar portfolio to Eaglemoss. But with any luck they have the best people in charge. De Agostini are, I believe, still a family business, thus should also be stable.

But it’s a sad demise. And knowing a little about how much creditors tend to get owed when a company goes under, I’m not sure there will be any phoenix rising from this one. But we’ll see….