Just to show how much I've been "out of it" this year, I have just discovered that Scott McKillop, full-time physician and professor, and part-time model manufacturer, announced over the New Year weekend that he was taking down the Monarch shingle.
Scott is a long-time Aurora
fan. Monarch was launched with the intention of filling some of the void left by the closing of Polar Lights in 2006, occupying the erstwhile "Aurora niche". In late 2007, Monarch released Nosferatu. And for the next few years, things appeared to be steadily moving along. By 2010, however, the momentum was waning, and the realities of this hobby came home to roost. . . There would be but three more releases from 2011-2015, including our favourite Junior, Gorgo.
Scott and Monarch have been described as a "styrene garage-kit company", and I think that is quite appropriate. Thank you, good sir, and Godspeed! Your passion and your products will be missed.
2016 has gotten off to a very rough start. . .
“When the cost of a hobby exceeds the fun and doesn't attract new people, the game is over.” -
Oscar Koveleski, August 2003
Augie,
ReplyDeleteI'm very sorry to hear this. I believe, and will always feel, your vision of Monarch's Nosferatu is one of your crowning achievements in our hobby!! Both in your conversion and painting!!
Nossy owns an honored place in my collection thanks to you good sir.
Heartfelt thanks, my friend.
DeleteScott was in many ways a visionary: what he envisioned for Monarch in the long-term was pure "Aurora on steroids": horror, sci-fi, HISTORICAL, etc. etc. Unfortunately, as I said, the realities of the hobby, to say nothing of life, conspired against him.
I am in complete awe of the U.S. manufacturers today who have to off-shore the production of their products to be competitive. . .