Rant Review: Comic Book Heaven 1,000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle (Springbok, Art by Ed Wargo)

 

I ran across this last week on clearance for $4.97. It was a no-brainer at that price, especially since I quite liked the art. I remembered old Springbok puzzles as quite good when I was a kid, but I hadn't done any of their newer ones. Springbok's quality control is definitely not what it used to be, if this puzzle is any indication.

This puzzle had the worst cut I've ever seen, by a wide margin. The bottom edge of every piece was ragged, and just did not feel good in-hand. Dozens of pieces were still clinging together in twos and threes, capped off by an entire corner chunk of eight pieces. The cutter used on this one was in dire need of retirement! Dust is normally not a big deal for me, as I simply cut the tip of a corner off the bag and shake it over the trash, which gets rid of the bulk of it, but there was a ridiculous amount of it here. Even after doing my normal dust removal ritual, what dust remained was more than I normally get from an entire puzzle of most other brands. The tops of several pieces have white spots where part of them had been torn away along the edges. (A side effect of that antediluvian cutter, no doubt!) An unreasonable amount of force was necessary to connect each piece. I remember them being harder to connect than other puzzles when I was a kid, but not to this degree. No reference poster was included, though this was not a problem for me personally, as I rarely use them anyway.

On the positive side, I like the art, as mentioned previously. I also enjoyed the funky shapes used for the pieces, though this did occasionally lead to some pieces not actually snapping together until another adjacent piece was added to connect them. I know some find that frustrating, but it kept things a bit more interesting for me. I didn't encounter any false fits. Pieces stay tightly together once assembled, which should be expected given how much force was required to connect them in the first place. This has the unfortunate side effect of causing damage to some pieces during disassembly, however.

Given that I paid so little for this puzzle, I'm not about to get all bent out of shape over the poor quality, but it didn't do much to make me want another modern Springbok puzzle. Cutter blades obviously dull with usage, but quality control exists to keep things like this from getting shipped to customers. Back in the day, getting a Springbok puzzle in this condition would have been unthinkable. If I see another cheap one that I like the look of, though, I may give them another shot. Surely I can't get two that are this bad, right?