Electromsters

Chris Johnson - fridge magnet - laminated cut out color xerox - 7 x 8 in

     

     I was attending the Central Canada Comic Convention here in Winnipeg a number of years ago. I had an artist table there selling my own stuff. It's hard to get away from your own table to look around at all the other artists and dealers, but you just have to spend a chunk of time looking around even though you might be missing out on sales of your own merchandise. You just never know what you may find.

     A couple rows away from me was this young fellow with his art all out on display. It was laminated and cut to shape as huge fridge magnets. This was the first time he was showing his work. I fell in love with it and I wanted some. I had a hard time deciding as there was so much. Not too many people were biting on his stuff. It's a comic convention and people are there for Batman I suppose.  The convention was two days and I bought these two pieces on Saturday. I wanted to go back and buy some more but I got really busy near the end of the day, then had to pack up. I'll get some on Sunday I thought, but the artist did not come back to set up. I guess he thought it was not worth while for him to be there.

     I occasionally do web searches to see if I can find anything about this guy, but so far I've come up with ziltch. At least I got his name.  

    

Chris Johnson - fridge magnet - laminated cut out color xerox - 6.5 x 9 in

Micro Dot Monsters

     This is about the size of a little salt or pepper packet that you might get when ordering take-out. Inside are 18 quarter inch plastic disks with transparent images of monsters. But why, you ask? Because I wanted some. Now you can have some too! $5 a pack post paid. Micro Dot Robots coming soon.

Front and back of package design. 2 in x 1.5 in

This is neatly tucked inside every pack. ( front and back shown)

You can send away for a display strip to hold all your Micro Dot Monsters.

A variety of 4 different package covers.

Britains Green Aliens

     These are a couple of my favorite alien guys. The spaceman is ok too. He came along in the same baggie and they all have to share the same gun. In 1981 the company Britains in England launched an ambitious series of space war related items including many vehicles and assemblies that could be modified and changed by plugging and unplugging pieces together. My space guy seems to have a very unlikely head that I think belongs to an indian perhaps. Not that you can't have indians in space but seeing that Britains put out many many different sets of figures , someone was taking a few liberties with these plug and play guys.

     These images below are from the net and the images above are mine. I only have the three figures. 

Monster Magic Action

    I have'em but I still can't believe'em! Wow, these things are nuts. From the 60's some time after 1963, maybe mid 60's? There is about 24 monster cards. I don't have them all so I can't say for sure. Having to place the plastic lenticular lens over each of the cards separately to watch the monsters blast, shake or eat the little people is so weird. Seeing the cards without the lens and movement is even weirder due to the areas that are supposed to be in motion and it's as if someone had rubbed out the color  in spots.  

     A copy of a display sign where you bought the cards and lenses separately I am going to assume. Sometime before 1963, before the 8-card pack above for 39 cents and before the variety 4-card pack below for 10 cents. In 1963  the company traded hands from Abby Finishing Corp in Brooklyn NY, to Knight Toy & Novelty in Freeport NY which was headed by a Bill Falk.

 

Cosmic Creatures - They Need You

     Every now and then I like to sculpt things. I had some gold and silver metallic Sculpty sitting around for years and the color reminded me of these 2 inch plastic figures I used to get out of Shreddies cereal (made by Nabisco......which used to be National Biscuit Company)  in the seventies. So I thought of making some blobby creatures with my minimal skill level. Six is all I got done. They sat hidden away for a couple years until I made a box package to put them in.

 

     This is a box package I made for them that I designed and silk screened myself in 2008. Each box contains one original figure and a whole set of six 'trading' cards of all the Cosmic Creatures with their powers. There are six of these packages that each have one original sculpted figure. There are no reproductions. I have 3 out of the 6 to sell. Or I could sell you a empty box or I could sell you a set of the trading cards because I printed a lot more of those. 

    

  

Zethra - A tree spirit with command of air.

Gana - Can transform to liquid anything

Datoid - Can speak to all inanimate objects

One - He is the One - $150 with box and cards

Komodan - A time master - $100 with box and cards - 

This one is slightly damaged which I fixed. 

Enata - Whips up black holes - $150 with box and cards

I felted da Dzama monsterd scareded me!

     I was a craft sale last week and there was an elderly couple that were both making felted animals of all shapes and sizes. I fell in love with this sasquatch guy and just had to have'm. Then later when I saw their business card I realized that they were the parents of the famed Winnipeg artist Marcel Dzama, whom I've been a fan of since he started to make art at the University of Manitoba. (I'm sure he was making art before that). So I told them about the story how I had an opportunity to get a work of his for really cheap at the beginning of his career from a gallery art fundraiser but then at the last moment opted to get a fabric sewn alien robot instead from another artist, and now I am getting a fabric creature from them. The Marcel Dzama art would have been worth a small fortune right now. I guess I was telling them that I really like these artistic one of a kind figures. Oh, and they do commissions. Jeanette & Maurice.  zama48@shaw.ca 

 

     Last year there was a craft sale right across from my studio and I saw this little guy and fell in love with it. (I'm a grown man for goodness sakes!) It also happens to be felted wool. Made by a gal named Meg at iHeartArts, not sure if she is still around anymore. He sits amongst the pens and pencils in a wide-mouthed frog container by my computer.

TRIPHANTS

These two DAS Pronto clay figures were made a long long time ago. That's no excuse really as I was still an adult and should know better. Sorry to say that my skills have not improved at all since as you will see later when I post my fimo-sculpty Cosmic Creatures . I do love these guys though. I call them Triphants, as they are kinda horsey-elephant animals with 3 legs. The clay was terrible to work with I found, especially if parts of your model had to hold any weight while it was drying. A skeleton of some kind would have been the way to go, but since I had no idea what I was going to sculpt, there was no way to put one in after. The left one is from 1981 and stands about 6 inches tall. The right one is from 1988 and served as a sentinel in a cosmic doorway between two worlds of another sculptural piece of that time.  

Below we have a recent ink drawing I did of Anguirus.

   

ARRUK ON FLAPJACKS

The Four Armed Terror  by Scott Redding  -  8.5 x 11 injet print

I attended the Central Canada Comic Con here in Winnipeg this past weekend. I met a lot of great artists and ended up with a couple of fun pieces of artwork. 

The Four Armed Terror I just found out is from a story in Jimmy Olsen #137 illustrated by Jack Kirby. I gotta look for this one. Arruk!

The printing process for the Flapjack Monster is one I had never heard of before. It was big in Japan for the past 25 years but has dwindled and found a new home in the DIY folks here. It's called Gocco and is a cross between screen printing and rubber stamping. Great for small prints and cards I gather. Oh and the artist is no other than one half of Grumble Toys who make cute vinyl monsters. Check out the link below. 

  

Flapjack Monster by Chris Bryan - 8.5 x 11 Gocco print -  No.8 of 24

MASH-UPS

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

I can't throw anything out, so the vine which was attached to the tomato I bought, was left on the kitchen table to dry. Then I noticed what perfect arms and legs it had. "I've got the perfect head for you, little guy, but where was it?" It took six months before I came across it. (I don't look for things anymore at the studio, I just have to come across it again.) As the vine dried up more its shape changed and the lovely green changed to brown so I painted him up nice and green again. Don't get scared. 

 

Here is the Mars-1 figure that I was saying I did not like so much because it seemed that the head was missing. There was a stump but no head.  Then I so happened to find a cowboy guy with no head....and their colors were so perfect for each other. More exciting than the Cowboys and Aliens film, wouldn't'cha say?