COOP has been posting some kaiju style sketches on his flickr, along with a wave of vinyl figure photos... http://www.flickr.com/photos/coop666/ thought some of you might like checking it out...
the wave of vinyl is pretty cool. I think I spent more time looking at the toys and the cars than anything else.
His last show had ultraman references etc and I recall photos from a long time back of his toy collections...
The Chibira-kun Car is very cool: http://www.flickr.com/photos/coop666/22 ... t-1807767/ I need more vehicles: http://www.flickr.com/photos/coop666/22 ... t-1807767/ And I need more Rockbat characters: http://www.flickr.com/photos/coop666/43 ... t-1807767/ Stylin' http://www.flickr.com/photos/coop666/54 ... 188608114/
Love the Hideshi Hino figures. I've been trying to grab the ones I missed, but info on the line is pretty scant. Anyone know how many different characters/versions were released?
Not kaiju, a slight robotic digression... A while back (actually over 10 years, yikes!) I had a Mecha Makeover contest over at Toybox DX. This was Coop's submission, a "badass" re-imagining of Robocon (sorry for the small version, the original large one is gone): http://www.toyboxdx.com/ramblearchive/9 ... obocon.gif I believe Coop won, and his prize was one of these: http://toyboxdx.com/datafiles/data/doug ... 144-13.jpg Also, one of my faves from Coop: http://www.stickergiant.com/robocon_ecp051.html
I love watching that interview. I also had no idea that there was a Mandarake in Torrance at one point?
Yep, it was a bust. There was one in Santa Monica, too, and both were open concurrently for a short time. You could get new items there, and the occasional cool vintage item (like Jeeg vinyls) and I remember a very large part of the store was devoted to "adults only" manga, which probably wasn't a wise use of prime retail space. This was also around the time Mandarake was talking about doing an IPO.
Hey Coop - Welcome - although we've never met in person, I remember you from Mark Nagata's old message board. And I first got exposed to kaiju from Mike Z. at Day Old Antiques in Boston but by the time you did that show with him at the Middleastern, I'd already moved out of Beantown. The few pictures I've seen of your home, I LOVE the mix of kaiju, monsters, hot rods and mid-century modern furniture.