Toy Stories : Episode 1

Growing up, my childhood was awesome. I was and am still surrounded by a loving family and because I was a good kid and almost never got in trouble I was given free reign to lose myself in my toys, my art, and comic books. I have so many great memories associated with these things that I've become a very nostalgic person as I've gotten older....whether that's a refusal to let go of my childhood or just holding onto the stuff that made/makes me happy, regardless I have a lot of tales to tell. One such tale took place in the spring of 1983 right on the cusp of the release of Return of the Jedi. This was obviously before the internet and rampant speculation about the plots and characters in movies so it was amazing to go into a film with no idea what was going to happen, except for the little glimpses you saw in trailers and tv commercials....and did I mention action figures? And this is where our tale begins. In Centerville there was a K-mart where Spring Valley and Main street crossed that we used to go to when I was a kid. And this one glorious day, I would have been 9 at the time, my trek into the toy department was met with a huge wall of action figures from Return of the Jedi. I just remember it was like visual overload, that classic Star Wars packaging that upon seeing it would spark the happy part of my brain and probably 90% of them featured characters I had never seen before. I don't want to speculate as to who all was available because I know ROTJ figures came out in waves and I know someone's going to call me out and say "that particular figure came out in the second wave so he/she couldnt have been there." All I know is I gravitated right to the Bib Fortuna figure aka Jabba the Hutt's right hand man. He had these cool tentacle looking things coming off his head and just looked like a complete badass...in my little Fundip addled brain I imagined he was probably some sort of bounty hunter who knocked people out with his staff and howled over their corpses. My brother decided to play it safe with a Jedi Luke, and I probably bragged and bragged how I made the better decision with my action figure choice and would be vindicated when the movie came out. And came out it did. I think I saw Return of the Jedi about three times that summer. Twice with my parents and a third time with my grandma. The time with my grandma is a whole other story. Let's just suffice to say I spent the moments after walking out of the theater with my grandma trying to convince her that she NEEDED to take me to Children's Palace IMMEDIATELY and buy me a Wicket the ewok action figure. No if ands or butts. She was very skilled in negotiations and I ended up losing that particular battle.

But back to Bib Fortuna. The guy for weeks I thought was going to be one of the most bad ass bounty hunter characters in the movies ended up being a creepy pointy tooth droid molester. Moral of the story : don't judge an action figure by it's packaging.

The Art of the In-Sect at 4frnt

The Labor of Grief - Works by Summer Rose Fig

For our second show at 4frnt we will be featuring the work of Summer Rose Fig.

Blogger, it's like we never talk anymore.

Ha, sorry I've been AWOL and havent been updating my blog as much as I should , but I've been up to my eyeballs in commercial work (that of course Im not allowed to show yet or ever)....anyway, I've managed to work on a few things here and there....first off, I'm proud to announce that Jeff Richards, Mike Guidone, and I have regained the C2 workspace on front street where we've put on shows in the past. I've been needing a much larger environment to work in and it'll be nice to talk to people other then myself for a change....right now we are planning out our first show scheduled to happen around Halloween so stay tuned for updates...

Also, I contributed a custom to the Reconstructing Misfortune show at Munky King on the 8th of October....there's a whole slew of artists I'm proud to be in the company of including Frank Kozik, Andrew Bell, Ferg, Chris Ryniac, TADO, Brian Morris, Luke Chueh, Daniel Danger, MAD, MCA, Jason Siu, Motobot, Little Friends, JPK, Beast Bros, Abe Lincoln Jr and more.....

Here's more info

Reconstructing Misfortune

And last but not least, I worked on a Giant Peach / 594 Apparel collaboration ad that's running in the newest issue of Juxtapoz, so go pick it up.....

Goad + King Reggie IV +Skull King

Head on over to Horrorwood and you can download my papercraft character King Reggie IV along with designs by fellow GPers Luke Drozd and Adam Swinbourne. Just make sure you use safety scissors and try not to eat the paste.

Skull King Art Customs

Melvins poster for sale

The poster I did for the Melvins June 29th performance is now available for sale...

Melvins

Back on the poster wagon

Here's a couple new posters I've worked on and eventually will go on sale......

Melvins poster from their upcoming tour.

Tour poster for The Story Changes.