I was looking on the website of TimeWarp Toys.com, a vintage toy store in the Catskills. The website is something to behold for several reasons but their stock is something else. Check out these beautiful designs and objects.
Toys
I saw this online the other day, posted by Sadat from King Spider Toys who made a handful of bootleg Ninja Tune figures for fun and used some of my artwork as a backing card. Bootleg toys have been a thing almost as long as the toy market has come back into fashion over 20 years back. The earliest ones I remember were The Sucklord bootleg Star Wars figures like a neon pink Boba Fett. Now there’s a book about the movement and it features a ton of bootleg figures that would never and some say, should never, legally exist. The Bootleg Bible is available from Blue Monday Press and is a hilarious collection the likes of which you’ll never own.
An email from the mysterious ‘Rolito’ arrived one day in 2003 with an offer of being one of 6 designers to customise a new line of toys he was making. Each toy had a tiny body and a large, dome-shaped head inside of which was another, smaller, stash box. I was intrigued as I’ve been a fan of the vinyl toy ‘thing’ since Michael Lau came out with his Crazy Children around 2000 and the thought of having my own one was something that appealed greatly. The other thing that appealed was that Rolito had a crazy website based around a load of characters he had created that inhabited Rolitoland. There was little or no explanation about these creatures but the attention to detail and graphic ideas were more than enough to hook me in.
The brief was open and I decided to adapt my Ninja logo around the toy using various different existing graphics and logos to make a ‘RolitoTune Ninjaboy’. The process for getting the graphics onto the toy were slightly limited so I wasn’t able to do some of the things I wanted to. I suggested we include a 3″ CD in the package with a selection of Ninja music to add to the promotional aspect of the toy so that people who didn’t know where it came from would be introduced to the label via the disc. One of the beauties of the Rolito packaging is that it dismantles without having to tear, cut or unstick anything, this meant that the empty vacuum packing would ultimately become the ‘sleeve’ that would house the CD.
There were only 450 made, Ninja got around 150 I think and sold the lot within a weekend over the net, some of which have since appeared on eBay for up to £99. I also contributed a short soundtrack to an animation on his website that showed the shipment getting stuck at the French customs – a scenario that actually happened.
I saw this on Facebook the other day, reposted by Andrew Divine, and had to investigate further. ‘Kaiser’ George Miller sculpts these marionettes of rock n roll legends, Ursula Cleary makes their clothes, Chris Taylor illustrates the cards and box art and ‘Kaiser’ Johnny Maben prints it all. So far they’ve made Xmas cards, prints and bubble gum cards which you buy here. Here’s hoping one day they get round to doing Kraftwerk…
Follow K.G.M. on Instagram
Opening this week in London, Thurston Moore and Savage Pencil appear to be doing something interesting…
Never shy of releasing music by his UNKLE project in ever boundary-pushing formats, James Lavelle has outdone himself with three 45s from his latest album, ‘The Road Part 1’. Available in July at the San Deigo Comic Convention, the collaboration with West Coast-based toy company Super7 has yielded the craziest 7″ packaging yet.
For $50 you get a clear vinyl w. splatter single with dinked middle and Futura 2000 camo label featuring a track from the album and instrumental on the flip. Not only that but there’s also a Pointman figure with moveable head, arms and legs that fits into a clear plastic stand that doubles as a middle for the 45 and comes engraved with the UNKLE logo. These are housed inside a huge plastic clamshell Pointman ‘head’ that could double as a mask if you cut some eyes out of it.
There are three different tracks available in different colours: blue, green and pink with corresponding shells, splatter effect and figure colourways. I was lucky enough to get a green one via Daniel Barassi, 45 collector and infamous modifier of the Fisher Price kid’s turntable into a fully functional portable player, who was at SDCC and collared all three versions himself when I gave him the heads up before sending mine over to the UK.
You can now order these online via the Super7 website but non-US buyers beware – the postage is an absolute killer and only the rich or the mega-fans are going to want to stretch that far. Aside from the postage and the possibility of also incurring customs charges on top there are some drawbacks. Firstly – the size, the clam shell is huge and doesn’t sit upright without support. Secondly, both the 45 and the dink are in there super tight, I thought I was going to break the single getting it out. The toy is nicely moulded but compared to the original Ben Drury-sculpted Pointmen from back in the 90s they’re not quite as special – but for the money and what you’re getting they’re just fine.
I was slightly dismayed to find that the A side of my 7″ seems to have been cut slightly off-centre so the needle really has to track the groove back and forth and you get a wavering effect on the strings in the track which really rendered it unplayable unfortunately. I have no way of knowing if they’re all like this but the B side seemed a lot more stable if not entirely movement-free. As an object of desire for the price it’s certainly worth it if you can get round the postage costs in some way but maybe next time vacuum-packing the figure and centre to the front of a thick card 7″ sleeve (like the Rave Wars 45s) would be a better solution.
I finally got time to pop into Orbital Comics and see their small but packed exhibition of 2000AD offshoots, tie-ins, cash-ins, memorabilia, music, magazines, toys and so much more. Not having an opening party because it would clash with the comic’s own 40th celebration a couple of weekends ago they’ve decided to have a closing party on Friday March 10th where there will be a podcast recording and music by yours truly among others.
I also just guested on the Big Mouth podcast pre-record, talking about the comic’s legacy which will be available online this coming Sunday. More details as I have it.
Santa brought this beauty on Xmas day, lots of fun to make and great attention to detail. On sale now from Lego
These go on sale today, we all know what they’re derivative of, how Ashley Wood is getting away with this without a license I don’t know but they look amazing.
Fishure
Daniel Barassi in LA has performed a miracle with a couple of old toy Fisher Price turntables… – rechristened the Fishure-Price check his site for more. This is strictly a labour of love, he’s not in the market to mod your kid’s toys 
It’s that time of year again, check these lovely images for some of the contents of the new SW Lego calendar – miniature building at it’s best.
“The 2016 edition of the LEGO Star Wars advent calendar features a theme focused around the ice planet, Hoth. Most of the builds and figures center around the integral battle at the Echo Base which kicks off The Empire Strikes Back. Snowtroopers and Hoth Rebel Troopers, along with select weapons and vehicles, are among the more prominent figures included, with another wintery-themed pieces such as a sleigh and exclusive white Chewbacca minifigure. The set is rounded it with pieces from Attack of the Clones and a couple from Return of the Jedi, including the Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker from Return of the Jedi, only the second time this character has been featured in a LEGO Star Wars advent calendar.”
More info and photos of the calendar contents here: (German language)
I’ve been seeing these crop up on the Unbox Industries Instagram account in a variety of forms and they’re available to buy now. From everyone’s favourite 70s French animated sci-fi film comes Tiva.
Possibly the most psychedelic Lego advert ever? Amazing brick Yellow Submarine complete with Beatles minifigures inc. Dr Hilary Boob, the Nowhere Man. Available November 1st for $60 – not sure the UK price yet but I will be acquiring one for, er… research purposes.
A collection of Lego control panels that I posted daily over the last week or so over on my Instagram for no reason other than I like them – stay on target!
Wishing I had the funds to get one of these bots, a 24″ TK Hunter by Ashley Wood, several years in production now but at $600’s it’s way out of reach. On sale on May 30th from 3A’s Bambaland store.
OK – massive nostalgia-fest post – who remembers these? You’d have to be well into your 40s and even though my brother and I had a couple of these figures, I had forgotten about them totally. But as soon as I saw a photo of one everything came rushing back, the weapons and attachments, the comic story on the box and the extra outfits to change Muton into different guises.
Made by toy company Deny’s Fisher in the mid 70s and apparently riffing off a Japanese toy design-wise, these were pre-Star Wars and 2000AD and the closest thing to a space toy I can remember outside of miniature scale models of Space 1999, Thunderbirds or Captain Scarlet vehicles. I had Cyborg with his water-squirting laser cannon and missile firing arm attachments. He was like a bigger version of the Time Traveller from Micronauts, all see-through body, robotic parts and ambiguous features. In reality it looked like someone had taken the standard Action Man body mold and cast it in transparent plastic, forgotten to give him any clothes and added robotic parts.
One of the ways the company got you to buy more products was to sell extra sets of attachments, namely feet or arm pieces, so that you could customise him for different play scenarios (remember them?). His enemy, Muton (my brother’s figure), had a similar set and their back story was rendered on the back of their respective boxes to give you a jumping off point to start play from.
My friend Jason Atomic put a photo of his Muton accessories on his Instagram recently and it triggered some long-buried memory in me that sent me off on a Google search to find how I knew these toys. I’ve cribbed several images from the excellent Plaid Stallions site which has more info about these figures so go and take a look if you want more. It seems there was a third figure which I never knew about, another villain named Android who could be transformed with similar extra sets of limbs and, right at the bottom, there’s what appears to be some sort of Argos-type catalogue featuring the toys plus the Six Million Dollar Man which puts it all into some sort of historical context.
Seeing as today has been turned into *ahem* ‘Force Friday’ by the powers that be here’s a Tie-Fighter from the new Hasbro Star Wars toy catalogue. Still iconic.
A Veterans for Peace UK film, directed by Price James, written by Darren Cullen, featuring Matt Berry. A serious message highlighted by a very clever film. Please read the battlefield casualties website.
From an old 1983 issue of Heavy Metal magazine
Now the circle is complete. Just in time for the launch of the first Star Wars 7 teaser trailer (you may have heard about that) comes the final installment of the Rave Wars trilogy. You should know the drill by now – 7″ vinyl, this time in Sith Lord black or Tatooine orange, packaged with a random character from the original series of SW figures (nothing after ’83). Two rave tracks with Star Wars themes, this time by Luke Vibert and Killa Productions. Available now from Balkan Vinyl – be quick, very limited!
