Tag Archives: toys

Pop Culture, Toys and Collectibles

Holy Bat-Signal! Mattel Unveils a Batman: Hush Rooftop Diorama at NYCC

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batman hush rooftop diorama
All Photos Courtesy of Mattel

Batman fans, get ready to give your display shelves a serious upgrade! Mattel brought a little Gotham City drama to New York Comic Con with the debut of its new DC Premium Batman: Hush Rooftop Bat-Signal Diorama Set, a collectible inspired by one of the Dark Knight’s most celebrated comic book storylines.

Available for preorder at Mattel Creations for $100, this isn’t your average action figure. It’s practically a miniature Batman movie set, complete with a Gotham rooftop, a removable gargoyle, a working Bat-Signal, and even a water-based fog effect to give the scene that suitably gloomy Gotham atmosphere.

Continue reading Holy Bat-Signal! Mattel Unveils a Batman: Hush Rooftop Diorama at NYCC →

Pop Culture, Toys and Collectibles

Pink Thing of The Day: Bubble Gum Batman Variant

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batman bubblegum variant by joe ledbetter photo by gail worley
Photo By Gail

Batman has gone through countless incarnations over the years, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen the Caped Crusader looking quite this pink. This very cool Bubble Gum Batman is a special color variant of the DC Artists Alley Batman designed by artist and toy designer Joe Ledbetter. The figure was created by DC Collectibles in collaboration with Toy Tokyo as an exclusive for New York Comic Con 2019 (though I photographed this at NYCC in 2023, so there must have been at least one leftover). Ledbetter himself announced the release on his website, noting that only 500 pieces were produced and that the figure stands approximately 6.5 inches tall. Continue reading Pink Thing of The Day: Bubble Gum Batman Variant →

Design and Innovation

Eye On Design: Teddy Bear From the Film A.I. Artificial Intelligence

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teddy bear toy prop from ai movie photo by gail worley
Photo By Gail

Stan Winston Studio created this complex animatronic for Steven Spielberg‘s A.I. Artificial Intelligence (USA, 2001), a haunting story of a robotic child longing to be a real boy. Teddy, a loyal sidekick to David (played by Hayley Joel Osment) and likewise a robot has fifty points of motion and required at least five people to operate. In comparison, Winston Studios enormous T-Rex animatronic for the 1993 Jurassic Park has 10 fewer points of motion than this tiny bear. Computer graphics and Jack Angel‘s voice acting enhanced Teddy‘s convincing performance. The toy’s unending devotion starkly contrast with the actions of the humans in the film, who all abandon David.

Photographed in The Academy Museum in Hollywood.

Arts and Culture

Modern Art Monday Presents: Knight Horrors by Aaron Bohrod

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knight horrors by aaron bohrod photo by gail worley
Photo By Gail

Knight Horrors looks like some sort of surreal still life extracted from  a child’s  fever dream — and the longer you look, the stranger it gets.  A tiny armored knight on horseback  occupies the center of the scene, surrounded by an outrageous assortment of creatures and characters: a grinning finger puppet-style monster perched on the helmet of a Roman soldier, a grimacing gremlin, a colorful parrot, a rat, a flamingo, a skull and assorted other fantastical beings. It’s part cabinet of curiosities, part nightmare, and part seriously weird family portrait.

Painted in 1985 by American artist Aaron Bohrod, Knight Horrors is an oil painting on gesso panel measuring just 12 by 16 inches. The title itself seems to contain a little visual joke: Knight Horrors sounds suspiciously like “night terrors,” which makes the painting feel like a parade of creatures that have escaped from somebody’s particularly bizarre dream. Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: Knight Horrors by Aaron Bohrod →

Pop Culture, Toys and Collectibles

Pink Thing Of The Day: Kirby Soft Vinyl Figures

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kirby soft vinyl toys photo by gail worley
Photo By Gail

There’s really no way to look at these two adorable pink Kirbys and not smile. Spotted at Anime NYC, these soft vinyl figures from the Kirby Super Star Soft Vinyl Collection feature everyone’s favorite round little hero in a couple of classic poses, complete with those enormous blue eyes and signature red shoes.

I may not have the skills — or patience — to cosplay as Kirby, but I can definitely appreciate a pair of tiny pink versions of the guy.