The Rock-afire Explosion's Billy Bob in Vinyl from Justin Ishmael

     This one is bringing back some crazy memories for me and the love I have for anthropomorphic automatons and the pizza that came along with them.  I was all about Showbiz Pizza as a kid and was beyond mesmerized by the Rock-afire Explosion.  Their music wasn't great, but I loved watching as the robotic band wearing the skins of friendly wooden creatures came to some form of life unlike my own.  Looking back I'm sure you could trace a healthy amount of children's nightmares back to this group and their rodent successor Chuck E. Cheese.  But at the time who could have ever foreseen the possibility of the hulking mechanical behemoths being anything but wholesome as their dead eyes blinked audibly when they sprang to life in a restaurant that could serve not only an Italian staple but as the actual waiting room to Hell?  I could swear to you I had the best time there and somewhere I have the pictures to prove it.

    All kidding aside, this vinyl rendition of band leader Billy Bob captures a time in many of our lives that was filled with wonderment; where our biggest concern was the possibility of running out of golden tokens.  Relive it all thanks to the hard work of Justin Ishmael as he offers this officially licensed figure for preorder.  There are two versions available to collectors: the standard which includes the 11 inch tall toy, or the deluxe which comes with an exposed animatronic head and Birthday Bird.  There's also pint glasses and t-shirts so you can make Showbiz Pizza an entire lifestyle choice, which honestly should happen way more often than it does.

Everything can be found by visiting https://www.justinishmael.com.  

Flat Bonnie DesignerCon Exclusives

    I love the creations of Flat Bonnie, because not only does she create the cutest hand sewn critters in existence but she also raises money and awareness for real life animals.  So I was beyond excited to see that two of her designs will be featured as part of the DesignerCon Dunny series from Kidrobot.  One of her designs has the distinction of being the first ever plush 3 inch Dunny while the other one continues her fight for our Earth's creatures by speaking out against shark fin harvesting.

     Of course she will have her own booth as well, filled with the 2 dimensional creatures she's known for.  Check out all the exclusives that you can find later this week a booth number 802:

Dobichan - Monochrome Edition

DesignerCon 2018 Exclusive - $50 each

9" tall - Limited Edition Plush

Special DesignerCon tag and numbered sewn in label.

Made of vinyl pleather (Animal friendly materials).

Flat Knuckle Bear - collaboration with Touma

DesignerCon 2018 Exclusive - $60 each

11" tall - Limited Edition Plush

Special DesignerCon tag and numbered sewn in label.

Made of vinyl pleather (Animal friendly materials).

Flat MAOCAT - collaboration with Touma

DesignerCon 2018 Exclusive - $40 each

7" tall - Limited Edition Plush

Special DesignerCon tag and numbered sewn in label.

Made of vinyl pleather (Animal friendly materials).

Momo the Anxious Axolotl (Holiday Ornament/Charm)

Designercon 2018 Exclusive - $20 each

5" wide x 3.25" tall - Limited Edition

Special DesignerCon tag and numbered sewn in label.

Made of vinyl pleather (Animal friendly materials)

Wonder Goblin DesignerCon Exclusives

    The psychedelic nightmare creatures of Wonder Goblin are some of the most interesting figures you're going to see at DesignerCon this week.  Each one is a visual over load of color and detail that may or may not forever imprint themselves on your retina, casting a monstrous shadow in your line of sight forever the way that looking at an eclipse without filtered glasses will.  These toys won't LITERALLY burn their image into yours soft tissue, it's more figurative than that.  But will you see them when you close your eyes at night, taunting you as slow heavy metal music plays in the background?  Probably not either.  You're taking this way too seriously.

   Let's take a look at some of the craziness you can take home with you:

    * 2 Budfoot releases - "Yeti" and "Yeti Kush" one is painted and the other is flocked. $300 for Yeti. $350 for Yeti Kush. 12 inches tall. Each run is limited to 7 pieces. (se above picture)

 

* Windigo "Night Tripper" release limited to 8 pieces, 3 of which will have special dread hair       attached. $350 with hair. $300 without hair. 13 inches tall. Painted in black light reactive vinyl paint. Windigo is part of the Boogey Boys toy series with Grizlli Atom. 

* Hagopuss Family - Queen + Defender + Baby. All 3 figures are sold as a set, and limited to 7 sets. Each set includes a 20 x 14 inch signed and numbered giclée print of the Hagopuss Family Portrait oil painting, printed with archival inks on cold press paper. The figures are painted in vinyl paints to match the fine art print! $450 for the whole set.

* Fungoid Man "Marbled Watermelon" release limited to 24 pieces. This will be the first soft vinyl Fungoid Man sold within the USA! Collaboration with Skinner and produced by Science Patrol! $150 each.

Get all this and more by visiting booth # 1251. 

DesignerCon Exclusive Sofubi Strolls from Spanky Stokes x Toy Art Gallery

   Well look at what we have here!  It's been a long time since we've seen Spanky Stokes Stroll mascot in vinyl form, and it was starting to seem like I had maybe dreamt the previous ones.  You ever have those dreams where you're arguing with someone and then you wake up and are legit pissed at them?  My wife once dreamt that I let a tiger eat her and she didn't speak to me the entire next day.   For one, you don't "let" a tiger do anything.  Have you ever tried reasoning with a house cat?  Now imagine it weighs 400 lbs and could devour you.  And secondly...there's no secondly because seriously you cannot stop a cat from doing what it wants.  So there.

    Toy Art Gallery has prepared not one but two new versions of this figure for release at DesignerCon next week.  There's the tropical fruit juiciness of the glow in the dark Boogie Beach version, or for those of you that don't like flavor on your chicken, a plain glow in the dark edition.

   Either way, you can't go wrong with the world famous mascot of the designer toy blog that inspired countless others.  These will be available at the convention from booth # 543.

Tiger Guts Taylor Resin Figure from Rultron

   I love me some wrasslin, and just thinking about it gets me all hype.  Not hype enough to actually wrestle, because I learned yesterday that I have arthritis in my right knee.  My knee cap is as crooked as our country's administration, and it's been grinding away.  I only went to the orthopedist because it became difficult to walk up the stairs without being mistaken for an extra on the Walking Dead, so a couple of X-rays later I had my diagnosis.  Oh, and I got a cortisone shot, which is its own special brand of interesting.  The doctor first found the space in between bone and tendon, sprayed it with a numbing agent, and STUCK THE ENTIRETY OF A FOUR INCH HYPODERMIC NEEDLE INTO MY KNEE.  I'm talking this sucker was buried to the hilt, which I was not warned about ahead of time, so I'm sure I made one of my famous WTF faces.  Truth be told I didn't feel much of anything, and I guess a heads up about what he was going to do would make most people get up and leave, but it was still a bit of a shock to see the whole thing disappear into my body.  I hope that is the last time I ever have cause to write that sentence.

    I will have to live my Wrestlemania dreams vicariously through Tiger Guts Taylor, a resin figure from artist Rultron.  This dude is 20 cm of suplexing fury that is out there wrestling intergalactic punks in space so that he can earn his passage home, which sounds like a way better plot than the last Star Wars film.  He was produced by Dead Hand Toys and can only be obtained by emailing rultron@gmail.com.

Designer Con Exclusive Resin Shard Dunnys from Scott Tolleson

    These beautiful resin three inch Shard Dunnys from Scott Tolleson are known as the Pain edition because that's what you'll feel deep in your guts if you don't get one.  You'll probably have a few leading up to their release at Designer Con as you fear having to live the rest of your life without one.  That's right, these are candy slick and exclusive to Scott's booth at the upcoming super sized edition of Designer Con in California next month.  As much as I would love to be there I am unable to make it, and seeing these has kind of brought that reality home.  Great, now I'm in a spiral of depression.

    Just kidding, I came to terms with it a while back, but if you're one of those lucky folks that IS going and who I'm still mildly jealous of, then you better high tail it to booth # 2005.  Scott only made 100 of these and at $60 each they won't last long.


    But wait...there's more.

    There's also this insane looking five inch Shard Dunny!!!!   This one is known as the Panic edition, because that's what people will feel as the doors open to the convention and they have to run likes it's a high school gym class to get to them.  I only run if someone is chasing me, and even then they better be armed with a weapon or a warrant, but I would make an exception for one of these.  They are limited to 80 pieces and will cost ya $150.  Make sure you're wearing comfortable shoes and don't mind being seen panting heavily in the company of others.  

Self Conscious: The Confidence Boosting Plush Kickstarter from Taylored Curiosities

    Is there a more unique designer toy creator out there than Taylored Curiosities?  Not only does she release some of the most original plush and resin designs you will see, but she genuinely cares about all of our well being.  That's a big change for me, because most of the people I meet in the course of my work day seem hell bent on cremating any good feelings I have left.  When you work with the public it will erode you worse than a beach during hurricane season. Especially when it involves money, because then people are much quicker to go from zero to crazy. But Taylored Curiosities is here to repair the daily damage that can occur to your emotional barricade through my favorite medium: collectibles.  More people should follow her example and should bring some of that to New Jersey.  Maybe once they decriminalize marijuana use it will calm a lot of these folks right down.

    There is a Kickstarter campaign running right now to help bring this plush to life.  Check it out at this link and through your donation you can be part of the process of spreading something positive in the world.  God knows we can all use it.