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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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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Chocolate meets peanut butter. Lightning hits Frankenstein. Bonzo meets Page.

Every so often the universe conspires to bring together disparate awesome elements that combine into something so incredible that the brain’s pleasure centers hemorrhage with white, blinding joy. This video for Zombie Zombie’s “Driving This Road Until Death Sets You Free” is a deep soul tickle from God’s favorite finger. It’s an homage to John Carpenter’s “The Thing” — both the movie AND the soundtrack — reenacted with G.I. Joe figures. The song is rocking, repetitive and minimalist earworm, and the video, well … have a look for yourselves.

You can see a sharper, higher-res version here.

This would be one of the best scenes in Carpenter’s film, an absolute motherload of surprise, suspense, and incredible special effects.

It’s always cracked me up, the way that head skitters away like that. Happy Friday, friends.

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Continuing our love-fest for extraordinarily costumed people in ordinary settings, we bring you the Land of the Free series from UK-based portrait and documentary photographer Steve Schofield:

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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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The Japanese robots at the Kennedy Center’s “Robotopia Rising” exhibit are cute, cuddly ambassadors from a future packed with smiling, happy plastic slaves. Japan’s massive aging population is creating a need for robotic elder-care assistants, machines that can remind the aged to take medicine, turn them in bed, or alert working adult children to problems at home.

This makes perfect sense for a culture that worships its ancestors, loves technology and has evolved economically to the point where family can no longer afford to care for family personally. “Robotopia Rising” asserts that Japanese robots are made to emulate their pop culture, equal parts Astro Boy and Hello Kitty. Here in America, we just chuck our old folks into crooked homes and get back to making actual Terminators as quickly as possible.

“Robotopia Rising” is part of a larger exhibit at the Kennedy Center, “Japan: Culture + Hyperculture,” and it’s easily the most magnetic part. I didn’t see a lot of wide-eyed toddlers and balding geeks like me lingering breathlessly over the admittedly gorgeous lacquer sculptures in the hallway, or straining to touch the gorgeous textile artwork with trembling, sweaty fingers.

I’ve created a photo gallery from the show here … and as usual, there’s much, much more after the jump …

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My friend Eric called me up late the other night from somewhere outside of Barcade, panting breathlessly in the cold. “Dude, don’t go to bed yet,” he said. “I’m bringing something over for you.”

And what a something it was! In its heyday, he looked like this, functioning as an expensive karaoke toy.

More photos 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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