Comic Con '06 has come again and the SCS staff was in the house! The big news so far is that McFarlane Toys has on display at the booth the first prototypes of the upcoming Manimals set. This set, due out this Fall, features Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, Maggie, Comic Book Guy, and Dr. Hibbert in their manimal forms from the infamous THOH short. Having seen the set in person, we can assure it's far more impressive than it sounds. It is a larger set than the two McFarlane has released so far and the sculpts are much tighter. We hope to gave more McFarlane news for you later this weekend. Thanks to Michael Crawford for the quick updates with the images.

UPDATE: Michael Crawford met with a representative of McFarlane Toys on Sunday and spoke to them about the manimals set. They stated that there are individual manimal figures scheduled (tentatively- not a definite plan) for a later release to complete the campfire scene. One can assume that will depend on the sales of this initial boxed set.

The SCS will be at this year's Comic Con International in San Diego (July 19-23) and we have again made plans to interact with our fellow collectors. On Friday, July 21, we will have a Simpsons Collectors Meeting from 6:00-7:30pm in Room 24A (in the new portion of the Convention Center, on the top floor, on the city-side hallway near the South end of the building). This will be a friendly get-together, so come and show your faces! We are also inviting any attending SCS members to join us for a BBBQ on Thursday night. Another dinner or get-together is likely for Friday or Saturday night. There also will be many panels of interest to Simpsons collectors and other planned activities throughout the weekend. We all had a great time meeting everyone last year and we hope to see many more Simpsageeks this year!

Note: A full schedule of planned SCS activities is up in our Magazine. Full, official Con programming schedules also available.

In a move that does not bode well for the future of the McFarlane line, it appears that the Ironic Punishment set has already been put on clearance due to slow sales. A reader informs us that the Times Square TRU has marked down the set to $12.90 from its original $19.99 price. This may also be the case at other TRU locations. Hopefully the Couch Gag set, as a more appealing Simpsons family set, fares better.