It's well-known that a fansite will generally provide more news and information about a given product than an official site. There are numerous examples of this, but in the toy collecting world one of the most salient is Mattel's official site for its Masters of the Universe line, www.mastersoftheuniverse.com, and its inferiority to the much larger and more comprehensive He-Man.org.
Another site that deserves some attention is The Green Dragon. Since ToyBiz has the only barest of web presences (a tiny offshoot of Marvel's main site), the Green Dragon gives collectors of the ToyBiz's movie-based Lord of the Rings line (and LotR collectibles in general) a single place to go to for the latest news. The site features an attractive Middle-Earth-inspired design and situates the news front and center. I especially like the "New Pics" feature to the left of the news, which offers a picture of a new figure every day (today it's a perfectly hideous close-up of an Uruk-Hai berserker). In addition to the toy news, the site features interviews with designers and other people involved with Lord of the Rings merchandise.
The Green Dragon also set up the Balrog petition encouraging ToyBiz to produce the Balrog figure they unveiled at Toy Fair 2002. So far the petition has only 437 signatures, so if you want to own a Balrog in the near future, I recommend adding your John Hancock.
