KARIMBAH

July sees the release of my Masked Karimbah 2-piece vinyl toy set, direct from the THB universe via Kid Robot. We will be debuting this at the San Diego Comics Convention; my only appearance this year will be on Saturday for Kid Robot.

From the official press release:

"Cast in Pope’s signature manga-meets-fine-art style, this two-figure action piece includes an original 16-page comic and a secret vinyl throw-in."

Toy design is a ton of work with lots of follow-through, but it is also extremely interesting. We wanted to do a line of THB toys, but decided if we do that, it'd be better to wait until the THB series launches, in order to not further confuse people. I took in a number of other ideas, from the relatively mundane to the wildly surreal (Karimbah is in the latter category), and we all preferred the Karimbah-- who is technically a THB character (he's a character on a kid's show in the THB universe). From there we did months of design work, including lots of back-and-forths with the sculptor and the factory, based on the dozens of design model sheets I drew up. There were lots of details and problems we needed to get right in the prototype stages, as is to be expected. I also did an original comics story, which appears in an exclusive "Masked Karimbah" comic book, found inside the box... and the box design itself. Kid Robot says it is the most complicated and challenging toy design they've tackled yet (Karimbah's dog is the size of an actual little Boston Terrier).

I consider vinyl-- along with the 2089 clothing line debuting this fall from DKNY Jeans-- to be new canvases for comics. There is no nihilism in pushing the frontiers of comics, no budgets but our imaginations, no reason to stop trying. As Akira Kurosawa said, "It is wonderful to create."

SUITING UP

Sam Hiti

FRANCIS BACON AT SIXTY

His room is not so much untidy as beyond any notion of tidiness or untidiness; an equinoctial tide of printed matter, much of it illustrated, washes against the walls. There are two jumbo sofas, both covered in spinach-green velvet, a bed the shape of an elephant's foot, a large Boulle chest of drawers that might have come from a French provincial town-house, a mirror cracked in several places and a plain wooden table that would suit a dinner party of eight or ten. The books are there for use, not for looks, and the electric light hangs unshaded from the ceiling. The telephone usually functions only in an outgoing direction, for Bacon inclines toward Degas' definition of the telephone as a tyrant that would have us drop everything and come running. As far as humanly possible he has disembarrassed himself of possessions and of everything else that could inhibit the drives of instinct. He uses money as an instrument of liberty, not as an instrument of power-- and by "liberty" he means the freedom to go or not go anywhere, at any time, in any company.

--From "Francis Bacon At Sixty", by John Russell. Art In America, January 1970.