TeXt Marks The Spot

“It could’ve been writer’s block, but I had the opposite.” – Mike Leavitt

I know I keep saying this, but it really keeps being true: This is one of my favorite interviews. How is it that some people are just wastes of space and then you have gifted artists who are also thoughtful, intelligent and articulate people? Mike Leavitt definitely falls into the latter and has parlayed an undergraduate thesis project into a globe-trotting Art Army. In the interview, we talk about how individuals get drafted in among the ranks of Andy Warhol, Kaws and Joe Ledbetter; how Leavitt creates the figures; and The Art Army’s significance in a post-911 world. Good stuff (if I don’t say so myself)! Check it out here on ToyCyte.

Got a cool link back to this interview from Todd over at Joy Engine here!

This was originally going to be a series for a print magazine, which, unfortunately bit the dust shortly before going to press with the first installment. Ah, the fickle world of print. In retrospect, the series works better as a recurring blog post anyway. Each week, leading up to the 2008 San Diego Comic-Con, I chose 5 exclusive toys (some I’d previously reviewed in depth, some making their debut on the site) to highlight in a roundup. The idea was to keep the info in the roundup pretty lean and factual, leaving editorializing to the individual posts about the toys. I provided artist and company info, booth numbers, edition size and prices where available. Probably the most fun I had was creating the banners (see above), little Adobe PhotoShop gems containing as many as 20 layers. It brought me back to the year 2000, and my first job in California, masking toy images for a Japanese e-commerce portal. Some people like yoga or meditation, but give me a high-res image to mask and I’ll just chill on that.

The series begins with the text:

Every year, fanboys and fangirls of varying stripes descend on San Diego for Comic-Con. Although the event has extensive programming, there’s one activity that unites the collectors with the cosplayers, the MMP gamers with the manga readers, the superheroes with the steampunks: the pursuit of SDCC’s exclusive toys.

Designer toys are always among the highlights of SDCC. Imagine taking something that is already in limited supply by its very nature and then making a small portion of rare inventory available only to the members of an annual convention. Since most designers and distributors keep a tight lid on what they’re bringing, it’s impossible to say what surprises are in store for SDCC attendees. ToyCyte will be publishing a weekly bulletin of SDCC revelations.

Check ‘em out weekly by clicking on each banner above and below:

P.S. You can always read my latest toy reviews here.

I know what you’re thinking: What could I possibly have to do with CIDESCO, the world’s major international beauty therapy association headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland? Well, in the Kevin Bacon game of separation, I’m closer than you’d realize.

This was just a quickie project for Cengage Learning where I made a table out of the 108-page CIDESCO syllabus (”The prestigious CIDESCO Diploma is awarded to candidates who have passed the CIDESCO examinations and given proof of having gained at least 600 hours work experience in a beauty center/salon.”) and filled it in with page numbers corresponding to information in three Cengage esthetics and anatomy textbooks. This way, Cengage could ensure that students using its texts would have all the knowledge needed to pass the CIDESCO test.

As an aside, are you aware that in order to pass this test, beauty therapists (aka estheticians) not only have to know the obvious (hair, skin, nails, hygiene), but also chemistry, biology and physics? Can you identify the superficial lymph nodes of the face and neck? No? Well, maybe that lady who runs the footspa place in your local strip mall can. Respect!

I’m a huge fan of collaborative work. When I found out about this ambitious, international doodling project, I contacted Jan Willem Wennekes (aka Zeptonn) straight away. The book is terrific, and I wanted to cover it for ToyCyte. But since it didn’t explicitly relate to toys, I needed an angle. In a 1000+ word review, I found it midway in:

If the toys aren’t the focus here, they’re undoubtedly a point of unification. It was a bit like an easter egg hunt flipping pages to reveal Dunny, Munny and Qee figures on the globe-spanning desks of Alexander Devol (England), Hello, Brute (USA), Jan Avendano (Canada), Jon Burgerman (UK), Kronk (South Africa) and Pete Harrison (UK). Leendert Masselink (The Netherlands) keeps a Baby Treeson nearby. Mulheres Barbadas (Brazil) has an Icebot. And Onesidezero (UK) is never far away from a Teddy Trooper.

Click here to read the rest on ToyCyte.

* Two cool things: Grass Hut is selling this book in the U.S. and they included my review in their blog posting here. Thanks, Scrappers!