Baby Tattooville

From October 3rd to 5th, the Mission Inn Hotel & Spa will host Baby Tattooville 2008, featuring the work of Joe Ledbetter, Shag, Brandi Milne, Glenn Barr, Ana Bagayan, Bob Dob, Amy Sol, Michael Whelan, Daniel Peacock and Dave Cooper. It's highly unlikely that anyone reading this will be able to snag tickets, as a) there are only 13 remaining, and b) tickets cost $2,000 apiece, but if you are lucky enough to get in, feel free to drop me a line and let me know how it was. The event is intended to be a "weekend-long event geared toward the art community", with only 50 tickets available, special collectible gifts, panels and presentations, and of course (at that price) accommodation.

(Baby Tattooville, incidentally, is organised by Baby Tattoo Press, who have published some incredibly cool, graphically stylish books for kids and adults alike, including Gris Grimly's Wicked Nursery Rhymes and Ragmar's Chromaphile, which is sadly out of print at the moment.)

Below are some highlights from Baby Tattooville 2007. Click the images for higher res.

(Detail) Gary Baseman's contribution to the 12-in-1 painting.

"Severed Possessed Head" Luke Chueh and Dave Bondi
Ltd edition of 100.

(Detail) Tara McPherson's contribution to the 12-in-1 painting.

"Spooketto", Ragnar

Soopa Coin-Up Bros.

(via infinitelives.net)
Now this is how you do a blank figure ripe for customisation. Erick Scarecrow molded the 7" Soopa Coin-Up Bros. sculpt and offered up a limited edition vinyl run for sale for the paltry sum of $30 through Esc-Toy (sadly no longer available through official channels, but UrbanRetro is selling the white edition for £22.99 while supplies last). The blank comes packaged with a hoard of stickers for the screen, marquee and cabinet.

The Soopa Show was held in April at Concrete Jungle in NYC and the pieces on display were impressive, to say the least. Click on any of the images below to bask in the glory of full-size.

"Archadic", Andrew Scribner

"Centipox", Brandy Anderson

"One-Armed Bandit", Bucky Lastard

"Battleship", Diego Paz

"Game Over", Doktor A

"Dug Rush", Dynomight NYC

"Toy Break", George Gaspar

"Soopa Koopa", Jared Deal

"Cock Blocker", Jude Buffum

"Chicano-Up Bros", Marka 27

"Bello Bello Beeeeh!", Massa Mas

"Soopa Boombu, The Vinyl Toy Killer", Matt Beers

"Keep Your Day Job", Steff Bomb

More photos over at Vinyl Toy Freaks and Esc-Toy's Flickr stream.

Miscellany.

. Tony Millionaire, comique artiste extraordinaire, has just released Der Strewwelmaakies, his third Maakies collection (and the followup to When We Were Maakies and The House at Maakies Corner.) If you've never opened your town's local independent-press news-rag and have thus deprived yourself of the chance to experience that which is Maakies, you could do worse than to pick up a copy. Unless you have an aversion to drunkenness, bodily excretions and the nautical life, that is.

. Electric Tiki is releasing a limited-edition 3-D sculpture (a full dimension higher than the two you are currently experiencing reading this!) of Ragnar's "The Maltese Chimp" - in four delicious flavours, no less. There's nothing like a drunk monkey harrassing a hot skeptical chick to liven up your work-station. You lily-liver.

. Displaying depths of hitherto-unknown hipness, "Weird" Al Yankovic has hired a number of very cool animators to create videos
for many of the original songs on his recently-released album, Straight Outta Lynwood: Bill Plimpton tackles "Don't Download This Song", John Kricfalusi and Katie Rice accomplish the astonishingly unlikely and "sex up" Weird Al in the video for "Close But No Cigar", and the kids behind Robot Chicken try their hand at "Weasel Stomping Day". All of these videos (and more!) are available on the DualDisc edition of the album currently for sale on Amazon, along with a Dolby 5.1 mix of the entire album. Sweet, sweet parody never looked, or sounded, better.