McFarlane fans are in for a treat at next month's San Diego Comic Con. New info posted at Spawn.com reveals that, in addition to their regular Con attendance, Todd McFarlane himself will host a panel entitled "Todd McFarlane Tells All," on Saturday, July 16, from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. in Room 8. This panel will cover all of McFarlane's current projects. Also, their booth on the main floor will feature samples of two-up prototypes of current and upcoming figures. This will be our first opportunity to see the upcoming Simpsons figure line! The SCS will be in attendance at the Con and will be reporting back with news and images. You can keep up with info on our McFarlane discussion forum. Thanks to member jellostick for the heads up.

On a related note, for those of you attending the Comic Con, there will be plenty of opportunities to meet your fellow Simpsons collectors. One such activity is the officially scheduled 'Simpsons Collectors Club' meeting on Friday, July 15 in ROOM 24A from 2:00-3:00pm. We will post a full schedule of planned SCS activities at the Con next week.

Earlier today, the SCS staff sent a mass email, asking all registered website members to verify their accounts. We have had a few questions about the validity of this email (given the number of scams around), so we just wanted to assure everyone that this email is legit and was sent by the SCS. The links in the email are completely secure. We apologize for any confusion.

Also, we wanted to update everyone on the message board thread loss that occurred after the recent hack. Ezboard has been working on restoring the lost threads and putting them back in the proper order. This process is almost complete and we have seen almost all threads restored at this point. Thanks to ezboard for their round-the-clock efforts.

On June 14, 2001 Mark Lindsey (and a group of loyal staffers) opened the Simpsons Collectibles message board, following the closing of Bill LaRue's Collecting Simpsons forum. Mark had hoped to create a new home for Simpsons collectors to discuss our favorite family and their merchandise, but we grew above and beyond our wildest expectations. Soon we would have this website (and new name- Simpsons Collector Sector) and would go on to become the biggest Simpsons collecting site on the web. WoS or no WoS, and despite the recent ezboard hack crisis, the Simpsons Collector Sector is still going strong. The SCS staff thanks all our readers for sticking with us and making SCS what has been these past 4 years.

Tired of your boring old computer accessories? SCS member FantasticDan has informed us a cool new Simpsons product- the Homer J. Simpson USB Optical Liquid Mouse, available now on USBGeek.com. Some features are: USB Interface, Optical Mouse Structure, 2-button mouse with scroll wheel, Comfortable control, and easy control on most surfaces. Supports PC and Mac OS or Notebook. FantasticDan also points us to a review of the mouse, which is very complimentary.

We first announced last Fall that Gentle Giant Studios was planning to release a line of Simpsons Bust-Ups this year. Now, we have our first look at them, courtesy of Action Figure Xpress. The first series (due appropriately enough, in October) is Treehouse of Horror-themed. They will be packaged in coffin shaped boxes. The series consists of: Devil Flanders, Bart the Raven (w/ Homer), Dracula Burns, and Kang and his daughter Alien Maggie. Later releases will likely have have a more general theme. These bust-ups stand 2-3" tall and come in several plastic pieces that fit together like a kit. These should be available in comic and hobby shops upon release.