Today is the two-year anniversary of the Dork Dimension! Unlike the first year in which I was still feeling out my vision for the site, not much has changed in the past year other than a few relatively superficial design updates. The biggest change has been the implementation of navigation pages like this one for the Toy Reviews. The pages give me the opportunity to list the articles alphabetically, while also including scores for the reviews for easy perusal. But there's also been plenty of new content, so let's check out the top ten most popular articles in the past year. The results might surprise you...
10. Toy Review: MOTU Classics He-Man and Beastman
Despite the age of the article, this MOTUC He-Man and Beastman review makes the yearly top ten list once again, down from the #2 position last year. MOTUC is still as red-hot as it has ever been and there has been no indication of its popularity slowing down anytime soon.
9. Toy Tribute: Beetlejuice by Kenner
I didn't expect that there was all that much interest in the Kenner Beetlejuice line, but I suspect the fact that very few websites cover the line in any sort of detail has something to do with the relatively high number of hits for this Toy Tribute. It probably ranks highly in the search engine results simply by default. But it's a cool line nonetheless and deserves more attention than it gets.
8. Toy Review: Xtractaurs Quikfire and Battlespike
Xtractaurs looks like it might be another one of those "flash in the pan" lines. This review scored plenty of hits through last December, but the hits trailed off quickly afterwards. But maybe the line has moved on to different waves and the first wave doesn't hold much interest anymore.
7. Toy Tribute: Top Ten Favorite Toys from the 2000s
I suspect the popularity for this article, like the Kenner Beetlejuice one, is due in part to search engines. There are a lot of different toys covered here so it's a catch-all for a number of keywords.
6. Toy Review: Power Rangers Super Legends Mighty Morphin' Green Ranger by Bandai
Green Ranger actually moved up on the list from the #8 spot last year. The enduring (and improving) hit performance of this review seems to indicate that Power Rangers are starting to come into their own as collectibles.
5. Movie Review: Turtles Forever
Turtles Forever was one of my favorite movies of 2009, and it seems like it struck a similar cord amongst TMNT fans. It was by far the most-hit movie review this past year. And judging by the fact that it induced the most number of comments for any article, it was pretty controversial among the fans.
4. Jabba's Rancor w/ Luke Jedi
I don't review many Star Wars toys because my Star Wars fandom seems light years away these days. But every once in a while Hasbro produces a toy I just can't resist and Jabba's Rancor was one of them. The still-intense popularity of Star Wars made this review one of the top articles of the past year.
3. Toy Review: Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers Dino Megazord
The fact that there are only two reviews of Power Rangers toys on The Dork Dimension and both are in the top ten is a testament to the growing popularity of Power Rangers as collectibles. Bandai hasn't persuaded me to jump on board just yet because most of its products aren't quite up to collector standards, but they're getting close.
2. Toy Review: Starship Legends Enterprise D by Diamond Select
Like Green Ranger, Enterprise D moved up two slots to the #2 spot for this year. This Diamond Select ship is pretty expensive but difficult to see in the box, so it's understandable that people would want to check it out in a toy review.
1. Toy Tribute: Toxic Crusaders by Playmates
And the most popular article on the site this year was this tribute to the Toxic Crusaders line which moved up from #3 last year to the top spot. Some of its popularity was due to the fact that it was linked to on the official Troma site for a while. We'll see how it fares next year since the link has been removed and the hit count won't be "artificially inflated". Not that Toxic Crusaders don't deserve the top spot... it's an undeniably awesome toy line.
7 comments:
I'm glad Toxic Crusaders received first place. It's by far the Best 'R' Rated Movie Toy Line ever made in my opinion. I think most of the hits were due to the bright colors. :D You know how kids..and most adults are drawn to bright neon colors. It's like crack for the imagination.
Of all the items on the list, Xtractaurs has to be the most unexpected to me. For One it's really the only completely original item on the list. (not counting the "2000 Top Ten" of course.) It's good to see that peoples interests don't just tap out at anything with Star in name anymore.
If I were to guess 2 articles that deserve a spot on this list, that didn't make it, and I believe may be on it next year. They would have to be your Android Krang review, and your G1 Dinobot Tribute.
Anywho, thanks for another fun year of reviews and shtuff. :)
Congrats. Love the site and looking forward to the next years of coverage.
But what I am really wondering - how did you make that logo for Year Two? I'd love one for my site.
The first two years have been lots of fun! I look forward to many more. :)
Congratulations! I enjoy reading all your posts here, lots of fun!
Congrats! Keep up the good work!
Thanks, everybody! I'm glad you're all enjoying the site!
@URS Both Android Krang and the Dinobots have had a few strong months after their respective articles were posted, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if they show up in the top ten next year.
@John K. Thanks! I couldn't find an easy way to do this, like through some sort of Photoshop automatic effect. So I had to do it the hard way:
1) In Photoshop, I created a top layer of "Year 2" text, with a red stroke of 3 pixels around it. Then, I created a separate layer of text, but at about half the font size and centered below the first.
2) On a layer between those two, I made red lines connecting the corners between the two texts. For example, the bottom right corner of the big "Y" on the top connected to the bottom right corder of the smaller "Y" below.
3) I did that for all the corners of the text. Then, I outlined the parts of the smaller text that wouldn't be overlapped by the connecting lines (like the left and bottom sides of the "2"), deleted the smaller text layer, and there you go!
Hopefully that mini-tutorial made sense. It's a cool effect, but I don't think there's an easy way to do it. Good luck!
Congrats on your two years! And I raise a glass to many more!
I really enjoyed the Krang article, too, but I love the Star Trek TNG stuff you've been doing. You motivated me to revisit the line and I picked up a couple of figures of eBay. I hope to review them on my page soon.
Keep up the great work!
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