How y'all doing, guys?? Hopefully, this'll be a quick update...but you know how wordy I get! ;) There've been a couple cool events that I've sorta neglected to cover. First off, we had the East Coast Chogokin Summit last month, and as usual, it was hot! Now, just a few words about it--mainly because a LOT of folks have been asking about the nature of the event and why there weren't any public announcements (or much post-event coverage, for that matter). Well, I mentioned this a bit before with Super Robots Giant Monsters, but we essentially wanted to split the Summit into two distinct things. With all the public fanfare, the Summit was quickly becoming unwieldy and just not appropriate for hosting at an individual's home...so SRGM would function as the big, public "con", where everybody was invited. The Summit would then be free to go back to being what it was originally intended for: a smaller get-together of locals and other long-time pillars of the toy community, hosted in someone's home in order to share their toy collection. I think we really accomplished that goal. As far as I'm aware, there was no "announcement" of the Summit on facebook or any other social media outlets, so the crowd was much more intimate this year. But that's a great thing because we actually had time to get to know newer members of the community and pull in other locals and not leave 'em out to dry. Now, the big question, of course, is whether or not there'll be a second SRGM! I haven't heard anything...but my fingers are crossed!
Another local event that may have flown under folks' radar was another paint class at Monster Kolor Studios in Middleboro, MA. This time around, our kaiju pal, Mark Nagata's latest standard-sized kaiju Eyezon was the canvas for these painters' imagination! As usual, I was there just to heckle--er, hang out--but participating were toy-makers, toy-collectors, robot fans, kaiju fans, packaging designers, and tattoo artists. Some new faces, some old friends...all positive folks looking for a fun, creative, static-free event.
Yo, for real, don't sleep on classes at Monster Kolor! You don't often get the opportunity in the toy game to meet up with good people in person and actually enjoy yourself. We all know how online social media are anything but that [Yes, I've broken down and taken over the "Sanjeev Teh Jerk" joke account Fray-Fray created for me. But don't think for a moment I'm accepting your friend request!! :P I'm in this crap only for the groups!]. And cons have become an utter nightmare of narcissistic cosplayers and big-media coverage pushing out independent comic, toy, art, and video dealers. The writing's on the wall: times are changing and the hobby's in decline. But as the larger corporate aspects of "geek" pop culture start to eat themselves, local events like these classes--or even small-scale cons like SRGM--are an oasis for heads still in the game for right reasons. If you're down, if you have the love, I encourage you to support local events like these. If not, it's all good--we're gonna keep moving forward regardless.
Which brings me to the main point of this post! To kick off an actual production run of Powered Bio Suits (tentatively scheduled for Halloween), I have a one-off for sale at UGLY Gallery in New Bedford, MA! This show is being put on by local artist and long-time toy-maker, MCA, and Dead Presidents/Monster Kolor, himself, Matt Walker...and from what I understand, this is the first toy-related show for the guys at UGLY! They're psyched about it, the venue is flavor, should be a live one, yo. So come check us out at the reception on October 25th.
The one-off PBS (type C) I'm entering into the show has been done up in "reverse jungle" colors--an homage to the original Nitto model kit series, which offered the Diaclone Powered Suit in a number of killer real-type color schemes--and it's likely going to be the ONLY one I'll ever do like this:
Sorry--the Micronaut in the suit actually belongs to Walker, and is not for sale with the suit. We just stuffed him in there for these pics.
And finally, production packaging will be available with this guy!
Not feeling the real-type steez? It's cool--very soon after the end of the Evil Ugly Monster Show, I'll be making a handful of traditionally-colored Powered Bio Suits available. They'll have the standard grey bodies, with red and blue armor parts. Stay tuned to my instagram or the MicroFans fb group for the most up-to-date announcements. Who knows--I may even update this blog in time for the drop! ;)
