The first toys for Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland film are starting to be announced: Shown above is a Alice in Wonderland Mad Hatter Doll for Johnny Depp fans — although at $200 you’ll have to be a hardcore fan. More to my own aesthetic and financial liking are the Alice in Wonderland Mad Hatter and Cheshire Cat Kubricks below which are $19 for the pair. Sadly these goodies won’t be out for Christmas, but you can pre-order them for April 2010. Read more…
It’s amazing what you can discover on YouTube sometimes: The above commercial for NTT is from the year 2000 and features the J-Pop band SMAP as Gatchaman! Of course Gatchaman is known to use old school anime fans as Battle of the Planets which played a key role in introducing Americans to sci fi ninjas. There were four commercials in total and below is a fully animated spot which looks amazing: Read more…
It’s amazing to me to think that Akira is now over 20 years ago: So if you want to celebrate old school Neo-Tokyo the folks at Sideshow have produced a Kaneda’s Bike Die-Cast 1/6 Scale Replica. Although this is no average mecha replica as this model features LEDs which light up. In addition to the lights this set of wheels features sound effects, the headlights move up and down and you can remove the exterior panels: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 19, 2009 in Animation
What you’re looking at above is an example of the “good old days of anime” which weren’t so good. When it came out Captain Future wasn’t so bad in terms of quality, but the dubbing here is amateurish to say the least. This wasn’t so unusual in the early days of anime as small companies would blow everything they had to acquire the rights to a show — only to realize that they had little budget to do a proper dub. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 19, 2009 in Star Wars
I feel so bad for poor Garden Jawa being stuck in your backyard while his old buddies get to hang out on Tatooine cruising around in their humongous sandcrawler transports. Although you may want to think twice about placing the Jawa in your garden — it seems under those hoods they’re in fact rodent creatures, i.e. oversized rats! Although they’re damn cute: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 18, 2009 in Comic Books
The subject matter of Phonogram reminds me a great deal of the romance genre of comics from the 50s and 60s — except that it has a much harder realistic edge to it. Written by Kieron Gillen this plot of Phonogram 2: Singles Club #5 reminds me a great deal of The Smiths song How Soon is Now? as it opens with our hero visiting a night club and watching everyone else have a great time. And then when you add the Jamie McKelvie’s somber visual style of storytelling you get a very dark vision that you don’t see in most comic books: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 18, 2009 in Comic Books
There’s a warm quality to both the writing a visual style of Chris Giarrusso’s work that reminds me of a humerous fanzine strip shared between good friends. Part of what makes G-Man: Cape Crisis #4 work so well is that while most comic books split the writing and art responsibilities, in the great tradition of New Yorker cartoons Giarrusso is wearing both hats — so the drawing acts as a natural extention to the writing. Also because the drawing style is rough and scratchy you get a silly look which reminds me of an American version of a chan-styled manga: Read more…
I think The Simpsons are even better with Japanese voice acting, they somehow even seem sillier than usual! This advert is for C.C. Lemon a Japanese beverage that’s distributed by Kirin (I admit that I had hoped that it was a beer commercial!).
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 17, 2009 in Comic Books
I never took superheroes seriously — there’s just something so silly to me about a grown man running around town in his pajamas fighting evil. But I think that’s why I like Invincible #68 so much. The entire issue is silly, and better yet you’ve got the superhero engaged some very highly animated combat with a dinosaur. Featuring a story by Robert Kirkman and some entertaining artwork by Ryan Ottley and Fco Plascencia this issue will be out on November 18th, 2009: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 16, 2009 in Comic Books
I admit that I overlooked the first issue of Fall Out Toy Works because it’s based on the lyrics of Fall Out Boy. And why do I hate Fall Out Boy? Because in my humble opinion the only band in the universe that should have the name Fall in is THE Fall — the amazing post-punk project of Mark E. Smith. Well now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, I hate to admit it but this looks like a great book! I’m not an emo fan but Sami Basri, Sunny Gho and Imaginary Friends Studios have done a great job with the artwork which is a treat to the eyes: Read more…
