I have some very wonderful formative memories of playing the Dark Tower board game from Milton Bradley- It had this giant plastic prop tower that honked and tweeted to let you know you had died of the plague or been hacked apart by hobgoblins or what have you (some wonderful nerds have actually recreated the game in flash here). I was young enough that I probably had no idea what was actually happening in the game, but I was endlessly fascinated with the artwork on the cards and other playing materials.
Bob Pepper was an illustrator who was most active in the 70’s and 80’s, before all illustration was soullessly cranked out in adobe illustrator after being gang-raped in the brainstorming phase by bloodthirsty marketing hacks who demand that each character be ‘25% more extreme’ or ‘rastafied by six degrees’. Pepper lent his unique style of charcoal and watercolor to the iconic Love album “Forever Changes”, as well as a handful of boardgames and pulp novel covers (most notably several Phillip K. Dick books). His style is markedly 70’s – Mucha and Art Nouveau flourishes mixed with a more modern ‘graphic’ style influenced by comics and commercial art. It’s the sort of stoned fantasy illustration that has lost favor today, but which brings syrupy waves of nostalgia over me whenever I look at it.
Check out some Bob Pepper artwork, and read this interview with him.
-Wiley
I am obsessed with ALLIGATOR and Robert Forster and a few years ago when I saw a YouTube video for this game, I thought it was a myth. I didn’t think I’d ever find it, but today while I was typing in random searches on eBay it came up for a super low price! I declare this my eBay purchase of the year for 2009!
The idea of the game is simple. You either TAKE little plastic barrels, boxes, briefcases, etc. out of the Alligator’s mouth or PUT more of them in. The Alligator’s mouth stays open and a trigger rests under the tongue where you are to put the game pieces. Each person takes turns spinning the TAKE or PUT spinner and if you aren’t steady of hand, the gator’s mouth snaps down and bites you. Rumor has it that the game was pulled from shelves because the gator’s teeth were so sharp that it was actually cutting kid’s hands when it snapped shut therefore making it the coolest game in the world!
I understand that studios want to cash in on merchandise from the movie’s they are releasing, but ALLIGATOR? Really?! This is insane. This goes along the same lines as the Remco Earthquake Tower Playset…two things that nobody was wanting but me.
Hello! Let me begin by saying that I’m honored to help add volume to the unstoppable day-glo tsunami of pop-and-sub-culture that is the World of Mondo. I’ll keep introductions brief and get right to today’s goodies. For more information about who I am, please visit http://wileywiggins.com. My assistant/bodyguard/biographer Niki and I spent this past weekend in San Francisco, thanks to the generosity of the San Francisco Film Society. After ingesting the requisite late-night mission-area burritos (delicious but dense boluses that we would continue to incubate inside our guts for the remainder of the weekend), we set our sights on Japantown. On a tip from Mondo Tees headquarters, we hit Super7 - an art toy mecca full of colorful objets d’art, books and shirts.
Saturday marked the first solo show of Lamour Supreme, but we were there too early to see the exhibit, and I had to be at the Clay theater that evening for the Film Society event we had come for. After a little gentle coaxing, the Super7 rep on duty let me photograph a few of the pieces that would be in Lamour’s show, as well as some shots of the store.
Lamour Supreme pieces at Super7
I bought a couple of Organ Donors toys on my way out, after ogling a gorgeous, mega-sized Frank Baum Wizard of Oz art book (if you’re not familiar with the actual Oz books beyond the movie, you may be surprised at how much tougher kids a few generations back were than our current crop of disinfected, peanut-terrorized CG-hypnotized lost-causes. At one point in the Oz books, the Tin Man finds his own head in a barrel of discarded body parts and they have a nice chat. The rest of his original bits get sewn together into a Frankenstein’s-monster-flesh-golem called “Chopfyt”.)
After Super7, we immediately hit Ichiban Kan. Ichiban Kan is like a Japanese 99 cent store- everything is Japanese, and everything is around $1.50. Every time I go to San Francisco I fill up a bag with random stuff from Ichiban Kan. Stationary, snacks (Pocky! dehydrated squids! Pink mystery fluids!) dishes, gadgets, bento boxes and bags and miscellaneous bits of plastic junk all emblazoned with amazing engrish nonsense to amuse and mystify. I barely even look at what I am buying when I go there, I just shovel that shit into a bag and I’m always surprised and delighted when I get home.
Finally we stopped in New People, a multi-level cultural center that boasted a genuine gothic-lolita clothes store. Niki and I were delighted to see a white otaku dude dressed in full on bondage-strawberry-shortcake pink gothic lolita garb, with a pink dress and frilly socks, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a pink parasol hidden somewhere as well. Can you imagine the beatings that guy must have taken to get to where he could proudly stride through the streets dressed as an anime girl? Or maybe he’s one of those home-schooled weirdos who never had to deal with the outside world and its cruel, socializing slurs and beatings, and has always existed in a pure state of self-actualized Sailor-Moon pervery. Either way, I salute him (and, no, I didn’t take a picture of him). However, it would have cost Niki 100 bucks just to buy a pair of socks in there, so we preceded to the gift store, where I immediately impulse-bought a Phaidon book of art by one of my new favorite artists, Yayoi Kusama- the polka dot queen.
Kusama hits a lot of sweet spots for me; a love of repeating patterns, a mystical horror that I associate with Op art and the way human perception systems work, and a fondness for women in spandex unitards. In the sixties, she filled rooms with millions of teeming psychedelic blobs, phalluses, and giraffe spots. She staged orgies of hippies covered in polka-dots to protest the fact that people were interested in artists only after they had been legitimized by death and commodified by their inability to produce new work. In short she’s kookoo awesome terrific, and she gets to live and have unlimited access to neon paint and sculpting foam after my cultural purges remove 95% of all currently existing media.
The top floor of the New People building was a gallery with an exhibit by Yoshitaka Amano, the artist behind Vampire Hunter D, Gatchaman, and a good chunk of character design in the Final Fantasy games. Now, I generally find playing Final Fantasy games about as exciting as doing my taxes, but I love Gatchaman. The sideburns, the white bell bottoms, thigh high boots, and bird-themed helmets. The art on display at New People were large panels of plastic that resembled painted animation cells, with lovely, bright glitter backgrounds. Every image was lickably candy-colorful and included Gatchaman characters drawn slightly more wobbly and sexualized and psychedelic than we’re used to seeing them… as if they were getting ready to boil down from characters into just a bundle of lines and fields of color with eyes.
Our good pal Lamour Supreme is having his first ever solo show this weekend at Super 7 in San Francisco. If you are out in SF, go to this. I promise you that it will be nuts. I can vouch for that. Lamour is a nice dude, but when it comes to vinyl toys (especially customs) he becomes a beast. Don’t believe me? Check out this custom I got from him a few months ago:
Here’s a few previews of things he’ll have at the show for sale.
He also did this killer shirt for Super 7 x Mishka that will be sold at the show:
Couple all of this crazy stuff with the fact that it’s almost Halloween. Rumor has it, that if you don’t come to the show dressed up, you won’t be able to buy anything. If you go this weekend, hit me up and tell me how it was!
Super7 Store
1628 Post Street
San Francisco, CA 94115
As I’m sure you all know, San Diego Comic Con went down last week. Terror Tuesday’s Zack Carlson and I attended and made it a point to stay away from Hall H at all costs. (Hall H is the place where everyone goes to watch like 3 minutes ot TWILIGHT and stuff like that…no thanks.) We bought hundreds of pounds of comics, lots of toys and lots of bootlegs. (Zack bought one featuring old timey love stories, but with all of the human characters replaced with dogs. Can’t find that in Hall H.) Here are some of the highlights from this years Con.
We bought so many comics this year it should’ve been illegal. Zack’s bag alone weighed 115 pounds and that was just comics alone!
And last but not least, definitely the best cover of all of the comics we bought this year: HANSI: THE GIRL WHO LOVED THE SWASTIKA! This is super fitting considering it’s unofficially “Nazi Killing” month at the Alamo. I also like the Al Hartley signature in the bottom right hand corner…it’s a straight rip of the way companies would advertise Jack Kirby being on a comic. I guess the only way this cover could’ve been better is if Kirby did it himself.
What would Comic Con be without a trip to the Furries’ booth?!
Adam West was also hung out for approximately 4 hours at the Con and as you can tell by the picture he graciously took with me, (he charged) he was psyched to be there! Don’t know if it reads in the picture, but that is a hat he’s wearing and it does say Adam West on it. I want!
Probably my favorite part of the convention are the costumes and there were some CRAZY ones this year. This first one isn’t the best we saw, but it was the most confusing.
This was a first for me…Blanka! Pretty genius.
And there are a billion Superman costumes running around, but how many are fighting the Super Powers Lex Luthor?!
I love it! The best five days of the year. Maybe Mondo will get wild next year and get a booth at the Con?
Alright…this video is super old, but for all the ones that haven’t seen it…catch up:
So, now that you’ve watched the video, let me say that this toy is incredible on many levels. First off, the design of this gun is really beautiful.
James Groman is the guy responsible for making it look so impressive. He’s also a hero of mine for doing so much with Madballs and the criminally forgotten Blurpballs.
As a Super Soaker type gun, I’d have to say that this is right up near the top. First of all, getting shot with ooze is way more insulting than water. I guess it’s kinda fun on a hot day to get nailed with a shot of water, but some hot slime…not so much.
This thing has so much firepower, it’s crazy. It has a decently sized water tank on it plus the pump action ooze.
It’s kinda like the Pulse rifle Ripley uses at the end of ALIENS. When she’s out of ammo (water in this case) she switches over to the grenade launcher (ooze). I got this in the mail yesterday and took it outside immediately and was NOT disappointed. Put this shit back on the market…now! The ooze shoots a good 20 feet…probably more. We have a balcony around back at work and Terror Tuesday Zack and I took it back there and let off some rounds. Truly disgusting. The kids in the video weren’t acting. I don’t know what the ooze is, but it’s gross and not pleasing to the palette (I had to try it).
Best part about this…it was only 10 bucks buy it now on eBay. Trust me, if you see this for that cheap again, you’ve gotta grab it. It’s worth the price. I’m gonna be cruising for ooze packs from now until my dying day. Viva la Oozinator! Best Super Soaker ever.
