There are finally images of an upcoming LEGO DK book called LEGO: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know. It is a 240 page book filled with facts about various themes, sets, minifigures, parts, and more. It will be available starting on September 5 for $19.99 but you can pre-order it over on Amazon.
The ultimate collection of LEGO® facts and figures in brick-sized bites of trivia.
Can you believe that a wooden duck was one of the first LEGO toys? Or that the LEGO Group is one of the world’s largest tyre manufacturers? Have you seen the LEGO Batman minifigure with glow-in-the-dark eyes? And do you know where to find the glass slipper in The Disney Castle set? LEGO Absolutely Everything You Need To Know is crammed with fun and fascinating trivia for LEGO fans of every age.
From minuscule minifigure tools to the largest LEGOLAND® model, this book covers all the places, populations, pieces and themes that form the LEGO world.
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That looks like a really cool book.
Everything I absolutely need to know usually consists of the answers to the following three questions:
1. Does this piece exist?
2. Do I have any?
3. Where can I get some?
This sounds like it could be entertaining, even if some of the content is fairly common knowledge within the AFOL community. For instance, the wooden duck is something of a mascot for The LEGO Company. They’ve even released a LEGO set based on it, which was the first set to feature the 1×1 round white tile with eye print. Someone at Brickworld last year had a whole series of wheeled ducks built in as many monochrome colors as they could. The fact that The LEGO Company is the world’s largest tire manufacturer isn’t quite a shocking if you know the companion fact, which is that Mattel is the largest manufacturer of clothing. The Batman with GitD eyes is the BvS armored Batman (it’s actually a GitD head, probably due to the fuss made over GitD print and stickers that got phased out from the Monster Fighters theme), which is also the only Batman minifig to have had his cape removed as a running change. The glass slipper is the only one of the four examples that I don’t know, but I know people who own the set that could probably tell me if I asked.
I did see some facts that I didn’t previously know in the example pages, but it’s important to remember that this type of book is mainly marketed to the non-AFOL crowd, particularly parents of kids who don’t have an AFOL in the family. I do feel that the claim that the minifigure hasn’t changed in decades is not true. Literally every part of the minifig has seen functional changes, whether they be to add structural integrity, make assembly easier in the factory, or make new minifig designs possible.
Head: originally a solid logo stud, then an open Y-stud, and finally a recessed stud.
Torso: originally smooth interior walls, then two vertical ribs in front and back, and finally the X-shaped bracing on current minifigs.
Arms: besides the robot arm, there’s also the long arms from Toy Story 3, the bat-wing arms, and now there are dual-molded arms with short or two-tone sleeves.
Hands: stem comes with either a chisel tip or a flat tip, plus stuff like the pirate hook, Davey Jones’ lobster claw, Azog’s hook, baseball mitt, boxing gloves.
Hips: many replacements for the entire leg assembly are available, including short legs, two mermaid tails, a snake tail, Amidala’s dress, two ghost “tails”, the “rock tornado” from the latest Nexo Knights villains, two octopus leg bases, Mrs. Puff legs, but the only straight replacement for the actual hips pieces is the robotic hips worn by Darth Maul, which can attach at least five different styles of robot legs and three styles of skeleton legs.
Legs: articulated regular legs, articulated long legs from TS3, peg leg, robot leg, plus they’ve made dual-molded two-tone regular legs, and dual-molded “shorts and shoes” short legs.
But all of those changes and options aside, they are kind of locked into keeping the basic look of the minifig the same if they don’t want new minifigs to lose compatibility with older parts and sets, as is proving to be something of a headache for the Friends, Disney Princess, and DC Super Hero Girls theme designers, I’m sure.