Here are some looks of our Robert’s Warhammer Prototype.
We’ve found that the head is so heavy we need to reinforce the haft more so we’re going to have another prototype made with a stronger haft before going into production. This will delay the ultimate on-sale date of the item by at least a couple months.
But it is one big bad hammer.
Probably about 90% of the Ice preorders have shipped, we’re working on getting tracking numbers to those who have not yet received them. Others who received them early will start seeing activity. Still, some of you may receive the sword before your tracking number.
Damascus Longclaws will head out by August 9th.
Far be it for anyone to accuse us of not being a cheerleader for the HBO series. We definitely want it to do well, and we like to cheer it when it does do well. Our facebook fan page is nearing 5,000 people, but the Game of Thrones series page just passed 1 million. I don’t know if it is the fastest to 1 million ever, but it did seem pretty fast.
I decided to do some analysis comparing Game of Thrones social reach to some other acclaimed cable TV shows.
I included Breaking Bad and Mad Men, even though they’re not on premium channels, because they are perennial emmy competition. I also included a handful of shows that are off the air now, those have been marked with an asterisk.
Surely the number of Facebook likes a series has will depend on the genre and the demographic it appeals to. The younger the demographic, the more wired the demographic, the more likely you are to get the Facebook love. However, parents and even grandparents are getting on Facebook now, the world changes.
Why is this sort of metric important? Well, Facebook is the new water cooler, this is where people get recommendations from their friends, this is where people discover new media and new content. The number of facebook likes lends itself both as an indicator of a show’s success, and as a predictor of future viewership growth. The more fans you have, the more new fans those current fans can introduce.
So, Game of Thrones is doing pretty good. It is no Dexter, no True Blood, but it spanks Boardwalk Empire, and destroys shows like Camelot and The Borgias, and even The Tudors, which had years to gain fans.
To be fair, shows that have been on for 6 seasons have had more time to accumulate fans. So I did another graph, I did total air time for a series, from the date of the premier to today, rounding it off as necessary to keep things simple. In the case of series that are now off the air I did premier to finale dates, or simply gave them credit in years for the number of completed seasons.
So this graph shows the average yearly number of likes a show has received since premiering.
Here, Game of Thrones knocks the pants off of everyone. The only close competition is The Walking Dead, which I liked, and thought was a decent show, but the writing wasn’t nearly as good. Often in that show the characters did really dumb things, and there were a couple plot holes. Of course I am almost assuredly biased, and in truth they aren’t even that close.
So, this is just another metric that shows how successful Game of Thrones has been. Let us hope it keeps up.
Ice will be leaving our facilities and going out to customers starting Wednesday. At that point it won’t quite be “in stock” because we’ll be playing catch up for a week or so and moving the bulk of them (that are left), to our Michigan warehouse from our LA warehouse. But, by the second week of August it should be to the point where any new orders would ship within 24 hours. Thank you everyone for your patience, especially those of you who ordered way back last October.
On the Damascus Longclaw, we have some final prep to do so we have to wait until they’re trucked here to Michigan, so those won’t go out for another week to 10 days or so.
We are going to start processing orders for Ice, so you may receive a shipping confirmation. This does not mean your order has shipped. It merely means we have printed the label. We have so many orders to get through that we want to print all the labels up in advance so that the swords can get back out as soon as possible. So, when you see an email and see an email saying your order has shipped, you can get excited, just not too excited.
This is also your last chance to change your address if it has changed.
All of this is applicable for the Damascus Longclaw as well.
If you’ve not ordered it yet (and plan to) what are you waiting for? It is not too late to order from Amazon and have it delivered to you on the 12th, you don’t even have to get out of your pajamas.
In related news, guess which 5th book in a fantasy series is #1 on Amazon right now? A Dance with Dragons. Considering Amazon’s huge sample size that probably means it is the #1 book in the world right now. Guess what number 2 is? The 4 book boxed set of A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, and A Feast for Crows. So, the top 5 selling books worldwide right now are the 5 A Song of Ice and Fire books. How cool is that? I’m giddy about it and I’m not even George R.R. Martin.
In other related news, a week after A Dance with Dragons is released, the 2012 ASOIAF calendar will be released. In previous years this has sold out, leaving many fans without one, so I would order it soon.
Finally, please remember, NO SPOILERS. Please do not post a comment on any post on this blog referencing anything from the plot of A Dance with Dragons until at least August 12th, giving everyone 1 month grace time to read it. If you post a spoiler it will be deleted anyways, so just don’t do it. If there is a cool sword in ADWD you want us to manufacture… don’t email us, please, we’re readers too, and maybe we’re not reading as fast as you, we have swords to ship out and everything afterall. So, just wait, wait until August 12th, then we can all talk about it. Thank you.
We’ve been posting updates in a variety of places such as Facebook, or in comments to older posts here as people ask questions, but it has been awhile since we’ve done an actual update post. So, here it is.
Ice will start shipping by the end of July, barring tsunamis, earthquakes, and union strikes in the shipping industry.
The remainder of the Damascus Longclaws will go out at the same time.
For all customers who have ordered these products, if you’ve moved since you placed your order, please make sure we have your correct address.
We continue to work on King Robert’s Warhammer. We don’t know when preordering will open on this item. Maybe August.
After the warhammer, we don’t know what we will make. Items being considered include Oathkeeper, Tyrion’s dagger, Khal Drogo’s Arakh, and/or a Night’s Watch “dragonglass” obsidian dagger.
We’re also investigating the production of a Damascus Ice. GRRM has not signed off on this yet though, and if we do make it, it will likely not be out until 2013 (if our experience with the Damascus Longclaw is any guide). It will probably cost $700 assuming there is no major inflation or currency upheavals in the next two years, which could change things. But again, not confirmed yet.
Tonight is the final episode of season 1 of Game of Thrones on HBO, then we’ll have to wait a year. In looking forward to the episode tonight (and on the side wondering if GRRM will even be able to watch it, in Poland, or will he have to wait until he gets back?), I find myself looking back on the series as a whole. After the final episode I fathom I’ll do an overall series review, but for now I want to talk about one man, Mark Addy.
Mark Addy was, outside of hair color questions, the one actor I was unsure of with the original casting. The child actors were largely unknown, but all looked right. I’d tune into see Sean Bean read the phone book. Peter Dinklage was an obvious choice. I liked Lena Headey in both Terminator and 300. But Mark Addy? I knew him well, there was a time when Still Standing was my favorite sitcom. But, this was the guy from Still Standing, A Knights Tale, The Full Monty, and Friar Tuck in the most recent Robin Hood movie. This was a comedic actor, and he wasn’t even tall.
Looking back though, I think he easily did the best acting of the entire cast for season 1, which is not to say the rest of the cast were slouches, they weren’t, but Addy nailed it.
His best scenes where when he talked about Lyanna. They’re some of my favorite scenes from the series. Mark had to portray bawdy drunk, raving mad, jovial, annoyed, lecherous, and tearfully sad – sometimes all in the same scene. He elevated the performance of the actors who worked with him. What was Lena Headey’s best scene as Cersei? The one where she shares a private moment with Addy’s Robert. What was Nikolaj Coster-Waldau’s best scene as Jaime Lannister? The one where he tells Addy’s Robert about Mad King Aerys. What was Sean Bean’s best scene as Ned Stark? Probably one of the scenes with Robert, perhaps a tie between when they visit the crypt in Winterfell together, when they talk of Jon’s mother, and when they talk of Daenerys’s assassination.
It is telling that every actor that had a scene with Mark Addy performed best in that scene. They were feeding off the powerful performance Addy was putting on. The only sad thing is that we never had scenes of Robert going one on one against people like Littlefinger or Tyrion, those would have been great scenes too. If the definition of a supporting actor is one who helps the lead elevate their work, Mark Addy is the paragon of best supporting actor.
Supposedly GRRM jumped on the Addy bandwagon during casting when he saw him read the scene about Lyanna in the crypt, and that scene was so powerful, so adeptly done, it remains one of my favorite scenes from the series to date, and definitely my favorite from the premier. My other favorites would be the assassination attempt in Bran’s bedchamber, for the directing of it (which was awesome), the scene where Robert tells Cersei they never had a chance, again for the acting. Then probably the Baelor scene, for the writing. I find that the scenes where I have most appreciated the acting, all involved Mark Addy.
I know much of the buzz has been about Peter Dinklage’s Tyrion, but I am going to disagree with that. Dinklage was a critical darling prior to Game of Thrones, the one member of the cast really who was, so it would make sense that he remains so, but his performance was not nearly as strong as Addy’s. Not that Dinklage is any less of an actor, but the material simply is not there for Tyrion this season. Tyrion was largely a one dimensional character this season, he required far less range to pull off.
People of course like Tyrion, as they’re supposed to. Likewise, people dislike (or feel indifferent to) Robert Baratheon, as they’re supposed to. But it should not be a character popularity contest. You may rather hang out with Tyrion than Robert if you had the choice, but that shouldn’t matter is a discussion of the actor’s performance.
In anycase, Tyrion’s best material comes in later seasons, Robert has no more material. I wouldn’t want to see Mark Addy miss out on recognition because Peter Dinklage gets the critical attention, when I know Peter Dinklage will be getting the attention next year, and the year after. There is no doubt in my mind the Mark Addy’s performance was the best of all the actors this season, and he deserves recognition for it.
When Addy’s Robert Baratheon talks of Lyanna and his voice breaks as his eyes well up, there is magic.
I leave you with this scene, as exhibit B. I couldn’t find a clip of the scene from Winterfell’s crypt online, that scene is exhibit A.
These have already been posted to GRRM’s blog, and to Facebook, but here they are here. The first look at the hammer prototype.
This is not final. There are some finishes that need to be applied to the head, and to the gold rings on the grip. But it is pretty close. Big. It weighs just under 10 pounds (with of course most of that concentrated at the end, which amplifies the force of a blow).
The Damascus Longclaw has sold out. We have a small buffer in case of damaged ones, and there is always a chance of an order cancellation between now and when the final shipment ships. So, when it is all said and done, we may end up with 3 units or so.
So, here is what we’re going to do. If you want an option of purchasing one of those leftovers, post in the comments of this blog post that you want to be on the wait list. Then, we’ll just manually contact people on the wait list, in order, if we have any extra after fulfilling all existing orders.
Update We’ve got more than enough people on the list, we’re likely to have less than 5 units available, and there is like 30 people waiting now. So, no need to get your hopes up and add any new names. The stainless Longclaw is going to be the only option for most of you. With Ice, we’ll make more damascus ones.