DC Collector's Edition: The Flash 1,000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle (Ravensburger)

I found out about these Ravensburger puzzles featuring DC superheroes recently, and slapped price watches on several of them so I could grab them when they went on sale. Looking them all over, I may have peaked with my first puzzle from the set, as this one may well be the best of the bunch! The Flash is the coolest of all superheroes; he's not my number one favorite, and he may not be yours, but I maintain that he is the coolest, regardless. The selection of characters makes for a vivid and interesting image, and the rendering of the Flash as he zips around faster than the eye can follow will be familiar to anyone who has read the source material. 

The pieces seemed a bit softer, and the fit a bit looser, than usual. Not enough to really ding the quality, but it was noticeable. The art is varied enough that it was generally easy to figure out where most pieces went, though it was easy to get some pieces of Grodd and the Black Flash mixed up. The Flash himself gave me the most trouble. All of the linework and cross-hatching made for a rather confusing jumble of pieces, so I found it easiest to simply set those pieces aside and assemble them last. 

This puzzle took me a bit longer than I expected, but I really enjoyed it. I'd like to see another one set at the Flash museum, featuring Wally instead of Barry, with a different assortment of rogues. Keep some of the most iconic ones such as Grodd and Mirror Master, but mix things up by adding villains such as Dr. Polaris, Girder, and Magenta, and replace Reverse Flash with the uber-creepy Zoom. I have no idea how likely that is, but I would definitely buy it. I wouldn't even wait for a sale! 

I spent some time trying to figure out who the artist was, but came up empty. There is no artist credited on the box, and I could find no credits anywhere online. There are areas where the inking style looks like Kevin Knowlan, but not consistently enough for me to be certain. While I wait for the rest of these puzzles to go on sale, I have another in the series that I snagged the day after this one. I'll be getting to it soon! 

Rant Review: The Mystic Maze 1,000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle (Magic Puzzle Company, art by Boya Sun)

 Be aware that there are spoilers ahead for the final version of the puzzle! 

Magic Puzzle Company has been talked up quite a bit, and I'd been looking forward to doing one for some time now. It turned out that a recent Target sale that pretty much allowed me to get two for the price of one netted me my first pair of them! I've seen numerous people claim that MPC puzzles are the best they've ever done, enthusing about their quality and creativity. It was quite a lot to live up to, and I was a bit apprehensive that the experience might be a bit of a letdown after so much hype. 

I was immediately impressed by the quality. The packaging was well-designed and sturdy, the pieces contained within resealable envelopes. One of these cautioned that it was only to be opened after the puzzle was assembled. I'd avoided all discussion about MPC puzzles apart from general comments about quality, so I had no idea what to expect from this. I set it aside and dumped the pieces from the main envelope into the box top for sorting, and set about my work. I wound up not actually sorting much, and mostly kept all the pieces together. I separated out the edge pieces, some of which were clearly intended to go within the puzzle's interior, and the various oddly-shaped pieces into their own tray. I grabbed one of the two included posters to help begin assembly, and things went fairly quickly from there. The art has a simple style that belies the complexity of the overall design, and I greatly enjoyed taking in the details as I pieced it together. The scene depicting the hero weeping as he is forced to kill a monster struck a chord with me, as someone who has been in situations in which I had to hurt another person to prevent greater harm. Regardless of circumstances, hurting someone else hurts you as well. There are many notable scenes depicted throughout the puzzle art, but this one held a particular poignancy. 

Once the puzzle was assembled, I opened the secret envelope. Two more envelopes had to be opened to access the secret pieces, so there is definitely no possibility of seeing them by mistake! I knew by now that sections of the puzzle would need to be shifted around, and a sheet was included to show exactly which ones needed to go where. It was pretty obvious which ones needed to be relocated simply from looking at the art, but the sheet is a nice inclusion to ensure that anyone who does the puzzle will have a helping hand if they need it. Shifting these sections created an opening in the center of the puzzle, in which the portal is to be built. There is no reference image here, so box-peekers like me may find it a tad tedious to begin with, but the shape of the opening makes it easy to pick out the edge pieces. The art on those pieces gives you the clues you need to hit the ground running from there. 

The overall experience was a lot of fun, and almost completely lived up to the brand's hype. The box promises no puzzle dust, and while there is a tiny bit, it's about as close to "no dust" as is likely possible. (Seriously, it's about the amount of dust you get from five Ravensburger pieces!) The pieces are my favorites I've ever encountered, and were a joy to work with as I assembled the puzzle. My one gripe is that the fit of the pieces was rather loose. Given that the interior sections that need to be shifted around have their own edges, the loose fit is not necessary for the secret section. On the contrary, the loose fit makes it more difficult to move those sections without them crumbling! Given MPC's attention to detail in every other aspect of quality, I can only assume that this must have been a conscious decision. I really have no idea why they decided on such loose-fitting pieces. It doesn't ruin the puzzle or anything, though it can be a bit annoying at times. It certainly won't prevent me from doing more of their puzzles in the future!

Rant Review: Hammer: House of Horror- The Mummy 500 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle (Aquarius, art by Joseph Smith)

I enjoyed the puzzle montage of classic Hammer horror movie posters I did last year, so I've had the trio of smaller puzzles featuring some individual posters from that montage for some time now. I saw this for an irresistible price last week! While this poster isn't a patch on the poster art for the 1932 Karloff-starring Universal original, it's quite moody and atmospheric, with a striking image offset by bold, colorful lettering and the requisite recoiling actress. Aquarius have cropped out the bottom chunk of the poster, so the credits (along with a sizeable portion of the actress) are missing. 

Putting this puzzle together unfolded pretty much as I expected: everything went together quickly and easily except for the titular mummy and the dark sky behind him. The highlighted areas of the mummy went together fairly easily and served as a staging ground, and from there, it was a matter of buckling down and brute-forcing my way through all those dark pieces. This was made slightly more difficult than it should have been due to all the false fits. 

It had been awhile since I'd done an Aquarius puzzle, and I'd forgotten how loose the fit tends to be with their pieces. The wonky piece shapes alleviated this somewhat, giving fewer possibilities for false fits than would otherwise be the case, but it still led to some annoyance. Pieces were very glossy, and several were bent or otherwise damaged right out of the box. On the positive side, there was not very much puzzle dust. Given that their puzzles routinely cost about the same as puzzles of comparable size from companies such as Ravensburger and Galison, this is not really up to snuff with the level of quality I expect for the MSRP. For the sale price I paid, however, it's pretty much in line with what I'd expect. If you enjoy these movies, or just like the art, these puzzles are definitely worth getting. Just be prepared for glossy and rather loose-fitting pieces. 

Rant Review: Peace 300 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle (Ravensburger, art by Michael David Ward)

I recently grabbed a few smaller puzzles from Ravensburger's Puzzle Moments line to serve as palette cleansers between larger puzzles, and this is the first of those I tackled. I really like the serene, colorful art, and while there are areas that would be a challenge in a larger size, at 300 pieces, it all just flew together. The quality was on par with the Ravensburger I did last week, though there was much less dust owing to the much smaller size. I can definitely see myself picking up more of these in the future! 

Rant Review: Squishmallows Squish Squad 500 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle (Buffalo Games)

I was obliged to take this one over when my little niece ran out of patience halfway through the sorting. She's done fine with the few 100 piece puzzles I've given her in the past, but this one was a bit overwhelming. My mom had pitched in and helped her assemble about 2/3 of the edge and a teeny bit of the interior before tapping out as well. (My mom has assembled many a puzzle in her day, but she just really wasn't feeling this one.) I neither know nor care about Squishmallows, but the art is cute and pleasant enough that I didn't mind putting this together. It was quite easy, and took me only a couple of hours to assemble the remaining ~450 pieces. The only slightly challenging bits were the vines and letters. 

I've had several puzzles from Buffalo, bought on clearance, sitting in my to-do pile for some time, but this is the first of their puzzles I've actually put together. The quality was not exceptional, but entirely acceptable for a cheap puzzle you can grab for under $10 at a big box retailer. There was only a moderate amount of dust, always a good thing! The pieces were akin to the thin, sturdy pieces you find in Galison puzzles. The fit was a bit loose, however, and false fits occurred more often than I would have liked. I had to reassemble parts of the edge due to this. This wasn't a pervasive problem, though, and I've encountered far worse-fitting pieces with puzzles that cost more than this one.  It actually passed the lift test, for a few seconds, anyway! 

Rant Review: Disney Villainous: Prince John from Robin Hood 1,000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle (Ravensburger)

Don't check your brightness setting; this puzzle really is that dark on the left side! I struggled to get a decent photo of this puzzle, and I finally just accepted that, with my less-than-stellar photography skill, this was as good as it was gonna get! I knew from looking at the images online that one side of this puzzle being so dark would make this one a bit tough, but I went for it anyway. I'm not really interested in Disney much at all, but their 1973 animated Robin Hood has been one of my favorite movies for as long as I can remember. When I came across this-- on clearance, no less!-- I had to have it. 

The art is quite nice, and the dramatic lighting properly sets the mood of the piece, even as it makes parts of it much tougher than they would otherwise be. Some of those pieces on the left side are so dark that I had to shine a flashlight on them to make out any detail at all! While this made that section of the puzzle a bit difficult, it's tough to argue with the look of the final product. All those frames also ramped up the difficulty, as some are quite similar to one another. I knew those frames had potential to get rather tedious, but they were more difficult than I expected. Still, most of the puzzle is straightforward enough that I would rank the overall difficulty at slightly above average. I won't be running to do any of the other puzzles in this series, but if there is one featuring a character you really like, the tough bits are worth the trouble!

This was my first Ravensburger puzzle, and I was interested to see if its quality lived up to their reputation. There was a moderate amount of dust, certainly nowhere near what I was expecting based on what I've heard. I quite like the thickness and texture of the pieces, though the fit was not as snug as I expected. False fits were rare, however, and the puzzle passed the lift test! I have a few more Ravensburgers on my to-do pile, and the quality of this one is definitely encouraging. It was a nice change after a couple of my recent puzzles had a tendency to fall apart if I looked at them.