See the press release below...
HASBRO RELEASES NEW STAR WARS ACTION FIGURE NAMED AFTER MATT BUSCH?!
Hasbro, the official licensee for STAR WARS toys, has released a new "Droid Factory" collection of action figures, where collecting six figures gives you six extra pieces to create an all-new "Build-a-Droid" figure. The new series lets you build MB-RA-7, a character somewhat created by and named after artist Matt Busch.
After the first STAR WARS film was released in 1977, Kenner (a subsidiary of Hasbro) released "Death Star Droid", a chrome protocol-type droid which was later named as an RA-7 droid. Comments Busch, "The Death Star Droid as seen in the movie is actually black, though a memorable chrome RA-7 droid communicates with R2-D2 in the Jawa Sandcrawler."
Fast forward to 1998, almost a decade before the book You Can Draw STAR WARS was released, Busch was the regular writer and artist of the "How to Draw STAR WARS" articles for STAR WARS KIDS Magazine. "To help make these tutorials fun for kids, I wrote and illustrated them as if a droid was teaching you. I always loved the look of the RA-7 droid, and so, to give this fictional teacher an identity, I simply tagged on my initials, making him MB-RA-7."
Over the course of two years, every issue of STAR WARS KIDS featured a drawing tutorial, lead by MB-RA-7. Now you can build your own MB-RA-7, by collecting the new wave of "Build-a-Droid" STAR WARS figures, which includes General Grievous, Bail Organa, and FX-6! Hasbro STAR WARS figures can be found in any store that sells toys.
