A view of what came before, during and after Planet Studio's pins
To explain my love of Planet Studio pins, i am going to show you what came before before, during (1988 -1996) and after Planet's brief exsistance.
Late 1980's - Just before Planet released its first pins, another company tried and seems to have flooded the market across the western world with these pins. I've seen these pins sold in the UK, USA, France and Germany on eBay in large numbers. I don't know the name of the company, but most of the pins have a 1988 copyright Marvel Entertainment on the back. Planet started in 1988, so I can only presume Planet took their contract. Most of these pins are a third to half as large as the Planet pins. But the painting and artwork is crude. Most are soft enamelled but seem to have a top coat of hard lacquer.
Made in 1988. One of the first pins I ever got... Quite large, but the hard enamel and overall design is poor. Why is he wearing white sunglasses. Also missing enamel on shield.
Made in 1988. I really don't like this pin... The image itself is great, but why didn't they use orange or something else... it looks like a film negative... And what have they done to his mouth?
Great Hulk pin but hasn't got the detail you get in a Planet pin - wavy lines to suggest his breasts and abs...
Made in 1988 just before Planet got the contract for Marvel. Nasty hard enamel pin. I really don't like the gold webbed fingers, something I can't recall Planet ever did.
Made in 1988. A soft enamel pin, slightly larger than a Planet pin but a good design... Shame, you can only just see the features on his face.
Punk Storm in almost the same pose as the Wolverine pin... that's another thing about these pins, there is no humour in them. I find the little glint in the Red Skull's eye or the dialogue box on the Moon Knight pin saying "Suddenly" make those pins come alive. Whereas most of these are still cutouts with no life.
I have to say, despite bad-mouthing off about these pins, I've always enjoyed this Dr Doom pin. Same problem as the Thor pin, in that you can only just make out the outlines of his face.
Cerebus was a self-published comic started in 1977 and finished in 2004. It began a Conan the Barbarian parody, but later started to reflect the writer/artist Dave Sim's life and beliefs.
These are copyrighted to Graphiti Graphics and were made just before Planet Studio started their business, and for a long time I thought they were made by PS.
Fantasy Pins
From about 2010 there has been a culture of people making and designing their own pins... for as little as £200 you can design and send off to be produced a batch of about 100 pins to be made. Some people are designing their own, and some are using existing designs from the comics (like Planet did). The quality of some of these pins is excellent, even some of the soft enamel pins. I'm unsure as to the legal status is when making a pin of a copyrighted character but judging on the number of people doing it, Marvel can't mind that much... I expect only when you start producing pins in large numbers will the lawyers descend.
These four are some of the best. Made by Adam Konkle and I believe he still has a few left to sell
