Pif Comics With Assembly Toys - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2018, 04:37:26 pm
content: When I was a kid (long time ago, in a communist country, behind the Iron Curtain) a friend of a friend of a friend use to have a subscription to those Pif comic books.As kids, we found the comics were great, but most of all, it was the toy. Pif use to have a small plastic toy that requires assembly. The closest thing of today items will be the surprise toy from a Kinder Eggs. Yet, the Pif surprise was a little less trivial as I remember it (maybe because we were just kids back than - i.e. some toys were really tricky to assemble, and also, once you assemble it, the toy use to have a functionality (e.g. a catapult), and not being just an esthetic value (as most of the doday's Kinder Surprise toys).My question is, what happened with Pif, and mostly what do you think of a today's equivalent of a Pif comics and a surprise toy? Will it fly (commercially)?

author: DC1MC
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2018, 04:58:57 pm
content: "Pif Gadget" was the one of the many arms of the French Communist Party propaganda machine, the main body being the newspaper L'Humanité, it run between 1970 and 1993 and they've tried to revitalize it in between 2004-2008 and then closed it for ever. Being a communist propaganda material (actually a very good one and not so in your face as the Russian inspired crap) it was allowed didtribution in limited numbers in the Warsaw Pact countries.For the kids of that era in a country like Romania, surrounded completely by other communist countries, was a ray of light and wonder at a time where on EVERYTHING it was the ugly mug of the blasted dictator Ceusescu and his sinister wife.Today such a business model would be a total failure, nobody buys printed kid magazines anymore, the kids are not encouraged or interested to do something with their hands ( except endlessly poking their tables, phones and noses) and the regulatory burdens for the toys will kill any chance of survival, much less profitability. Also, it's totally not easy to find cartoonists, toy designers and other necessary personnel, Pif was for ever losing money and even the communists give up on it.DC1MC

author: DC1MC
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2018, 07:48:26 pm
content: Of course the kids curiosity didn't disappeared (or at least for the kids not loaded with Ritalin and other phychotropes), it just shifted. And the parents encourage the shift because "he/she learn how to use the PC/tablet/phone/whatever stupid mindless gadget") , and it's also a "parenting device", like the TV/VHS/DVD was and it still is, you pop the kid in front of it and forget about it. Then the parent can go on HIS instagram/feisbook/whatever and forget about the kid until it gets hungry.On the other side, mounting a non-trivial gadget needs really parenting, the kid needs to be supervised, it's "making a mess" and worse, the kid starts to ask questions, so goodbye your feisbook, and tv show.Not to mention that most likely they will put the kid with the magazine somewhere and leave him alone so the kid will chocke with parts, cut his fingers or wipe his eyes with glue. If you add the regulations that have to be followed for anything kids related, you will then understand why the "NO ASSEMBLY REQUIRED" is printed proudly on any toy, including "science kits".So yeah, I#m a pessimist but this explains why there is no maket for such a magazine and even the grown-up kits just have 3-4 trough hole parts to be soldered and still be called kits.Cheers,DC1MC

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2018, 08:03:53 pm
content: SorryDC1MC, I deleted my previous message by mistake, so now your reply seems unrelated, yet your message is answering exactly what I was asking (but later I deleted by mistake). All my fault, I apologize for that.Anyway, I understand from your comments that a business with 3D printed toys (and maybe some comics) might not be such a good idea, thank you very much for the advice.