Some incredible TMNT portrait art by Dave Rapoza

The subject pretty much says it all.  This guy has been cranking out Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle portraits for a gallery showing in Philadelphia.  If you hurry you can buy some pretty epic prints from his website.  He is only making 25 prints of each character and considering how swank these are you will want to order them fast. If someone wanted to order me a Metalhead or Baxter Stockman for my birthday, I would love them forever.

The gallery page is here.

The artists page with ordering info is here.

The glory is below.

UI design

Here is a recent UI menu screen I put together.  Enjoy!

ManTech

I spent months trying to figure out what line an action figure of mine belonged to.  It was a favorite from childhood, but I don't think the line was very popular considering other than my cousin I never knew anyone who had any of them.

Anywho.  It was ManTech.

Yup, this bald dude is known as LaserTech.  Their creative department wasn't apparently all that creative.  There was a short lived comic book line tied to these guys, and each figure came with a miniature comic that is somewhere in my mothers basement.

EDIT: Here is the commercial for Mantech!

In other toy news, I have spent a lot of time on the hunt for the perfect vintage smell/texture slime.  Its an elusive creature for unknown reasons.  I will post an update as soon as my last candidate comes in.

Smore-puft

An incredible bit of sculpture, I want one.

Icollector sale of things I want but never would need.

Once every couple of months I torture myself with thoughts of what I would do with an unlimited bank account and a large display room.  This month has a ridiculous treasure trove of screen gems up for auction.

Road worthy Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Cryptkeeper on his throne.

Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back Storyboard pages.

Tron Identity Disk

Tron Gladiator Costume

Full scale shuttlecraft from Star Trek Enterprise

This one seems like a bad idea to keep in your house.  The golden Calf from the Ten Commandments.

Chamberlin Skessis head from Dark Crystal.

Gozer costume from the first Ghostbusters

Watcher from Big Trouble in Little China.

Hoverboard

Reanimation Syringe kit from Puppet Master.

Chain Saw victim from 2004 Dawn of the Dead.

Complete Raphael costume from TMNT Secret of the Ooze.

Gremlin Puppet.

Robocop Costume.

Star Trek TNG Phaser.

Plus it looks like Tim Burton and the Walking Dead special effects teams cleaned out their closets and put in lots of stop mstion puppets and zombie makeups.  If you have the free time or the cash (most of the things I wanted started bidding at three grand) then check it out.
Icollector Auction Page

LA Literature festival

One of the cool things I have discovered about life in LA is the constant number of events going on.

Today I went to the LA Times Literature Festival being hosted on the USC campus. There were several hundred authors in attendance, such as the guy who is currently writing the Madeline series, RL Stine, Ted Danson and Jamie Lee Curtis to name a few.

She will eat your children.

My main goal was to meet RL Stine, as his writing was one of my primary influences during my middle school years (although our school was enough behind the times it had no middle school, just elementary to jr. high).  I had all of the first 50 books of the Goosebumps series, as well as several Fear Street and other such spin off books.  Welcome to the Dead House is still a favorite of mine.

 It featured a town of zombie like ghosts and a kid all on her own.  I blame this book for my early fear and later fascination with the walking dead.  Then there was The Dead Next Door (notice a naming trend?) which was another favorite, featuring a nice reversal of expectations.

After an hour in line I got my book signed and shook hands with Mr. Stine.  I had to buy one of his newer books since all of my Goosebumps collection is sitting on a shelf back in Missouri, but it featured the evil ventriloquist dummy, Slappy, from the original Goosebumps line so it wasn't a terrible secondary option.

Definitely worth the wait.

There were several cool booths with a lot of authors and artists I need to look up when I get the chance.  One of the more interesting booths was inhabited by the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.  They had several comic books and prints that could be purchased with a donation to the fund.  There was a nifty autographed Lauren K Hamilton print from the comic adaptation of her first Anita Blake novel and several signed Scott Pilgrim books, but the one that got my cash was a Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes graphic novel signed by the great Neil Gaiman.

One day I am gonna shake that mans hand.

In closing, Geek Nation, I give you this glorious window decal sighted outside the Golden Apple comic store.

Mattel SDC comic con Exclusives announced!

These comic con exclusives are always a big factor in my want to attend the San Diego comic con.  This year Matty has outdone themselves with some swank ghostbusters and heman special figures.  Check em out in the link below.

http://www.mattycollector.com/store/matty/ContentTheme/pbPage.2011_SDCC-Products