Do you ever make something and then just sit there looking at it because it thrills you so damn much? Maybe you can’t stop eating your own cooking — or listening to a riff you just recorded. It doesn’t have to merit a footnote in the history of all that has ever been created, but it tickles you in just such a way?

That’s how I feel about this photo of King King attacking my office, below. I’ve got a McFarlane King Kong toy on my desk, and I just snapped it against the view of the skyline from my office window. Ran it through a couple apps on the phone, then finished it off in Photoshop, and we now have a visual representation of my whole thing: monster movies, screaming giant gorillas, low-res output and a lot of love.

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Spotted in SoHo:



Consider this an open call for people to illustrate that showdown. I’m talking anything from drawings on napkins to multi-million dollar blockbuster films. Make this happen, internet.

For additional inspiration, allow me to direct you to some awesome character illustrations by friend-of-a-friend Chris Bishop:



(more on Mr. Bishop’s Flickr page.)

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I spent most of the NYC ComicCon lurching in circles with my mouth half-open, hunting for a copy of Detective Comics # 587 and spending way too much money on plastic bullshit that reminds me of my childhood. The experience was spectacular.

I haven’t been to a comic book convention since 1991, in Virginia Beach — the whole enterprise was dusty, pasty and pungent. Not now, baby. Now that comics, computers and sci-fi are billion dollar businesses, nerds are out of the basement and blinking in the klieg lights. Pop culture’s always been a byproduct of marketing campaigns, but we are now in a golden age of hype and shiny bullshit.

Today’s thirtysomethings were the target audience back in the ’70s and ’80s when Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and other pop mythologies did the first Triple Lindy into the collective consciousness. Now we’re just old enough to have kids who get just as pumped about Star Wars as we did, and fetishizing fictional universes is a family affair.

Whenever alien archaeologists unearth whatever temples we leave behind, they’re gonna think that Spiderman was our God and stormtroopers were some kind of high priests. Frankly, I’m thrilled. Digging through comic boxes and buckets of chipped action figures gets me all stoked and unstuck in time and I get the same sense of wow, cool wonder that I got when my dad took me to see Star Wars for the first time.

But this thing was for everybody. Really, it was just like the Mermaid Parade except indoors and marginally less sexualized. The people-watching and the costumes were spectacular and totally worth the admission price.

This is my favorite photo from this weekend’s NYC ComicCon, but there’s a lot more after the jump:

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Jeff sent me a link to an awesome, fun, faux-vintage sci-fi short film a while back, and I mean to share it with y’all, but it slipped my mind… until I was flipping through a sketchbook and found this hastily scrawled list of cultural references that I saw while watching it for the first time:

She-Ra, Princess of Power. Lord of the Rings. American Apparel advertisements. The Neverending Story. Mario Bros. Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future. “The Clapper”. Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Space Invaders. Silverhawks. Batman. Thundercats. Tron.

These things, in no particular order, sprung to mind immediately for me. Some of them are obviously intentional, others perhaps unintentional but likely to be seen by anyone who grew up when I did and watched the same stuff. Still others were triggered by a small detail or action in the video that other folks might not notice or associate in the same way. Anyway, here it is!

ELA in Love At First Byte by PepperMelon:

ELA in Love at First Byte from Fernando Sarmiento on Vimeo.

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Speaking of otherworldly creatures, check out these Golden Age Mexican lobby cards:

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I went to this cool Japanese pop-culture exhibit at the Kennedy Center a while back – and as you might imagine, robots were all OVER the place. There were a bunch of really cool robot toys on display, and I photographed most of them for some kind of gallery presentation. I wanted to try out a few different Photoshop techniques to make these into something other than snaps some guy took in like, ten minutes.

I’m trying to simulate they might look if I were approaching them through a gray, misty dawn, like they were looming up out of a toy plastic nightmare or emerging from mountain mist to shoot everyone’s eyes out with pre-safety obsession missiles shot from spring cannons on their arms and back.

And I have no idea what these things are named … apart from Tranzor Z and Godzilla. If you know the names, go ahead and drop ‘em in the comments.

I’ve pulled out a few of my favorites here, after the jump …

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Usually the initials MF are used to neuter my favorite expletive — but I’m pretty into those letters when they refer to a gallery on the Lower East Side that’s either named after Martina and Frank or Monster Face. Last Saturday’s opening at the MF Gallery was no slouch, either … it was the MF Gallery’s fifth annual toy show, full of cuddly monsters and blood-stained plush from artists including Suckadelic, Jenny Harada, Diana Schoenbrun and MF Toys.

I got there early, got some pics and checked out. The place filled up like a subway car, and fast. Most of the stuff there was priced to move, and I liked a lot of the work.

More photos of favorites, after the jump.

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