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12" Vincent Price from The Raven

When people heard that a sixth scale Vincent Price figure was coming out, based on the horror film 'The Raven', they were excited.  Finally a Price figure to fit in with their Sideshow Universal display!

Then they heard that it was being produced by NECA.  And they screamed like little girls.  See, NECA produced the truly God awful Beetlejuice figures a year or so ago.

But there's a new sheriff in town, or at least new blood at NECA.  Just like Mattel, they got smart and hired themselves some ex-McFarlane talent.  When I found that out, I had a change of heart - perhaps we'd get the Vincent Price we'd been hoping for!

The choice of the Raven as the first horror movie for a Vincent Price figure puzzled some.  With a career spanning more than 150 films, there's plenty to choose from, and notables like Pit and the Pendulum or The House of Usher (along with many other great Roger Corman films) seemed like likely candidates.

Suggested retail on the figure is $30, and it's a limited run of 5000.







But visually, it's a good choice. The outfit from the Raven is truly distinctive and unique.  And perhaps we now have the door open to get several other of his well known characters!

Packaging - ***1/2
The packaging has some terrific graphics, and is completely collector friendly.  The only thing that would have boosted it to a four star rating would have been the inclusion of additional text - the description and text on the back is pretty sparse.

Sculpting - ***1/2
This is a great Price sculpt.  They've captured the look in the style of his mouth, shape of his head and nose, and the hair style.

The hands are also a nice sculpt, although they are rubber - they have bendy fingers!  The hands are sturdy, with a realistic size and design.

Paint - **1/2
The paint ops aren't quite as nice as the sculpt.  The flesh tone seems a bit off, and the rouge and wash is too heavy.  Weak paint application can hurt an excellent sculpt like this, making it appear not quite as good as it really is.

Although the wash and rouge are a bit much, the lines are clean, with no slop.  The eyes are particularly well done, and they've painted them looking upward in classic Price style.  That's a touch that many companies would have missed completely.  It's one of the most evil, mean looks you can do - it's a staple of the Clint Eastwood characters as well.  He didn't just squint, he squinted with the top half of his eye.  Try it yourself sometime - look into a mirror, and cover the top half of your eye with your lids, leaving the bottom half showing some white.  Scared yourself, didn't you?

Outfit - ***1/2
The outfit features extremely nice material and stitching.  We're talking top quality, and the coat is just amazing.

But let's talk about the bad part first, since there's so little in that department.  The belt is basic pleather, with an interesting belt buckle.  However, the buckle doesn't hold very well, and I had a heck of a time with it.  It looks like you'll need to use a spot of glue to keep it in place.

On to the good stuff - everything else!  The rest of the outfit consists of  boots, flared pants, the over shirt, the large coat, and his turban style hat.

The boots are large, and go on and off the feet easily.  The hat...well, the sculpt on the hat is good, and it looks like the source material, but poor Vinnie just doesn't look good in it.

The pants are very well tailored, and have a pirate look to them.  They do use velcro though, and I would have preferred a snap.  The silky shirt uses snaps, and has full length sleeves.  It also has a very nicely sculpted pin at the top, also true to the source material I believe.

But the piece de resistance is the coat.  The purple is a soft, velvety material, with the fuzzy gray edges.  Quality material, excellent stitching, and great tailoring make it an exceptionally good looking coat.

Articulation - ****
Now here was the big surprise.  Let's face it, most small companies just getting into the sixth scale market tend to skimp on the body.  It's pretty common to get a CC style Joe body perhaps, at least when they are first starting out.

Not so here - Mr. Price is far more flexible than I suspect he ever was in real life.  He has a ball jointed neck, interesting ball jointed shoulders (they also move up and down on a separate joint to increase the range of motion), cut joint biceps, double jointed elbows, unique wrist joints, bendable fingers, chest, waist, ball jointed hips with deep cuts in the pelvis to allow for a greater range, cut joint hips, somewhat unique knees with deep cut thighs and calves to again add more range of motion, ankle joints with cut joints just above, and a final joint mid-foot.

I swear I've seen this body someplace before, but it may just be that some of the joints, like the knees and ankles, have been used in combination with other body styles.  Overall, this is one of the best bodies for posing I've ever seen, and I was also impressed with the sturdiness of the joints and the quality of the construction.

The bendy fingers aren't going to be everyone's cup of tea, and I have to admit that on a figure that would be required to hold a lot of accessories I might not find them as useful, but with this type of character they allow for tons of cool hand poses.

This body might not work as well for the spandex crowd, as the deep cuts in the pelvis and legs might show with such tight fitting clothes.  But for this type of character it's absolutely perfect.

Accessories - **
The accessories are very light - probably to offset the cost of the body, sculpt and outfit.  All we get is the fairly obvious Raven, and while the scale and sculpt are good, he's simply solid black with no paint ops of any kind.

Value - **1/2
Most places are selling these for $30-$35, and that's a pretty steep tab in the sixth scale market.  We're talking about bbi and Dragon pricing, and the amount of accessories and extras you get with those figures is pretty amazing.

Still, it's a licensed figure, and the value is pretty similar to Sideshow figures, which also run about the same price.

Overall - ***
I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of this figure, considering it's a first foray into the 12" market for NECA, and considering their past work.  The transfusion new blood into the company has clearly made a major difference, and I'm now looking forward to see how the 12" Crow turns out.

I put Vinnie up with the Sideshow Universal figures, and he looks great.  The style and size matches up pretty well, and it's nice to finally have a classic Price figure to go along with all the Universal monsters.  Now if we can get a great Christopher Lee or Peter Cushing we'd be all set.  And for our next Vincent Price figure, can we please, pretty please with sugar on top get a Doctor Phibes?  That would kick all kinds of butt!

Where to Buy - 
Your local comic shop may have this guy, and stores like Media Play or Suncoast might end up with it as well.  On-line:

- the best deal I found was at Monsters In Motion, where he is $32.99.  They have tons of cool monster and sci-fi stuff.  The main page is here.

-  It's also at Entertainment Earth, but more expensive at $34.99 plus shipping. (MROTW Affiliate)


Figure from the collection of Michael Crawford.

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