Muttpop

New Address

2008-05-12T14:45:00.000-07:00

We've moved HERE.

Last Blogger Post...(if all goes well!)

2008-02-05T17:18:00.000-08:00

We have put our final touches to the "new & improved" version of our Muttpop Website. Our plan is to have one website that emcompasses all aspects of Muttpop including our blog, product news, and an online store. I'm sure there'll be some tweaks once it goes live...but our plan is to make that our new place for blog entries. So, if all goes according to plan, this will be my last post on Blogger.

Blogger, you have been a very dear friend. Thanks for the good times, man! To check out the latest on Muttpop (including our new blog) GO HERE.

Here's a peak at the front page of our new website (which goes live tomorrow):

Sarah Silverman On Jimmy Kimmel Live

2008-02-03T21:24:00.000-08:00

Wow. She still has it.

I've been bummed...SUPER bummed with the first few episodes of the second season of the Sarah Silverman Show. There was only 1 bit in the entire season that was funny (the gay roommates high on medicinal marijuana schtick) that compared to the many moments of brilliance of the first season. The rest of it was utter crap.

I thought her "magic" was lost...but then she did this wonderful guest appearance on her long-time boyfriend's Talk Show. To truly appreciate her "song"...I've included Kimmel's nice recap of his "Matt Damon Joke". With or without it I think you'll appreciate her response.

The Matt Damon Joke:

Sarah's Appearance:

I Love Being A Laker Fan!

2008-02-02T16:18:00.000-08:00

Now with the recent trade for Pau Gasol, it's safe to say that the Lakers have all the pieces to become one of the NBA's elite teams. It's exciting to see that we have so many excellent players whose skills and talents are both complimentary to each other and fit the triangle system Phil Jackson's offense is built around.

If Andrew Bynum comes back healthy this year, I expect no less than a trip to the Western Conference Finals (and a decent shot at making the Finals). I have a feeling that Kobe Bryant's goal is to get 4 more Championships (1 more than Jordan). We still need to win the first one...but if the Lakers can keep these guys together and healthy I think now's as good of a time as ever to make this insurmountable task a reality.

With a young team, a powerhouse of a starting lineup, and a deep talented bench...we're good to compete. I just hope we can find a way to have less injuries!

4-peat baby (yeah, that's crazy talk right now, but a fan can dream!).

Don't Forget On Monday...

2008-02-01T18:27:00.001-08:00

February 1st is payday...so you guys don't have ANY excuses! ;-)

Major Minor's Majestic March

2008-01-31T18:53:00.000-08:00

Man, that title is a mouthful! Major Minor's Majestic March is a new game for the Nintendo Wii from the same guys that created Parappa The Rapper and Um Jammer Lammy for the Playstation. Parappa is significant for introducing gamers to music based games...so for all of you "Guitar Hero" fans give thanks and praise to Parappa the Rapper. It is also highly regarded for it's funky character design...which looks a lot like the "house" style of character design that has developed in the Designer Toy Industry.

I'm a little sad to see that the characters are a bit more generic than characters from the Parappa universe...but it's impossible to pass judgement without seeing what the game is like. Supposedly you will use the Wiimote as a baton that will lead a musical band of instrument-wielding animals. It's still in the very early stages of development so I don't expect and game screens or gameplay videos for a few months.

It's exciting to see game developer Masaya Matsuura and artist Rodney Alan Greenblat working together. Their previous collaborations have been magical. As Parappa the Rapper was known for saying, "You Gotta Believe!".

Turnarounds for the revealed characters and more information on the game can be found at the WIRED BLOG.

New Muttpop Site: February 6th, 2008

2008-01-30T15:32:00.000-08:00

Exactly a week from today, we will debut our new Muttpop site. It'll be nice to finally have one site that features our regular blog postings, product information and development news, and an online store featuring some of our products. Be sure to share your thoughts on our "new and improved" site once it's live.

2008-01-30T15:15:00.000-08:00

Online only.

The Zombies That Ate The World Animated Short

2008-01-29T12:25:00.000-08:00

Aside from working on Muttpop Inc. with myself and writing the various comic book series in the Lucha Libre Comic Anthology, Jerry also writes a Horror/Comedy comic book series called "The Zombies That Ate The World" with cartoonist extraordinaire Guy Davis (best known for his work on Hellboy's B.P.R.D. and The Marquis). The comic book series was published in the US released Metal Hurlant Comic Magazine until Metal Hurlant's cancellation. It has also been released in graphic albums in France.

Many years ago, there was some interest in developing "Zombies" into an animated feature or television series. In an effort to garner interest in the project, a short animated film was made based on the first chapter of the story (as written by Jerry and drawn by Guy Davis).

The short does a decent job of capturing the inventive nature of Jerry's concept...but I don't feel it does a very good job of capturing the frantic energy of Davis' beautiful style and illustrations.

Either way, it's pretty cool to see Jerry and Guy's work translated to another medium! One of these days, we should think about doing some "Zombie" figures! :-)

Evil Has Never Been This Smooth

2008-01-28T15:35:00.000-08:00

The answer to "Break The Code":

Professor Layton & The Curious Village

2008-01-25T17:11:00.000-08:00

Here's another game I'm really excited about: Professor Layton & The Curious Village. I love, love, LOVE the art style! The character designs and environments look amazing. I also dig the music...it's too bad the voice acting and fake British accents are so poorly done.

The concept is a great one. It's a neat little murder mystery that's primarily a text adventure game with some nice full animation bits and a bunch of logic puzzles that are somehow linked to uncovering various clues.

The logic games remind me of the simple puzzle games my Uncle would challenge me with involving a bunch of matchsticks. Their transition to a DS Stylus screen are very natural and clever.

More than anything, though, is I'm in love with that wonderful visual style. There's so much more to Japanese character design and it's nice to see the developers behind "Professor Layton" are willing to embrace and explore new ways of visual design that harken back to classic Japanese animation.

Eminem Wake Up Show Freestyle

2008-01-24T17:24:00.000-08:00

Man, I miss the young and hungry Eminem. I recently pulled out the good old VHS to watch my "The Best Of The Wake Up Show With Sway & King Tech). One of the highlights is seeing Eminem tearing it up with his two freestyles. The guy really brought something new and natural with his serial-killer imagery and off-kilter delivery. The passion and cleverness he came with was so refreshing and exciting.

When revisiting the tape I noticed that he had quite the crowd experiencing his amazing skill. If you look carefully you can see Mos Def, Talib Kweli, and Pharoahe Monch listening to his cypher. Rumor has it that Dr. Dre signed Eminem to Aftermath upon hearing this very bit from the Wake Up Show.

666 Collection

2008-01-23T15:54:00.000-08:00

I love these guys. A fine example of Kozik at his finest.

Break The Code.

2008-01-22T16:37:00.000-08:00

Let's see if you can figure this one out:

He Looks Like... Blog

2008-01-21T17:22:00.000-08:00

Every weekend, me and a few of my buddies go to a local gym to play a few hours of basketball. I'm happy to say that we've been able to keep it up for almost 2 years now...but I'm embarrassed to admit that it's the only physical activity that I've been able to religiously follow. As a result, my basketball game is the best it's been but I'm in sub-par physical shape.

Over the course of those two years, we have met and become friends with a few of the "regulars" (people you regularly see playing basketball). Some of them are a little nutty (like that short, hairy, balding 50 year-old dude who hangs out around the 3-point line and launches the ugliest shot you've ever seen...but somehow manages to make a decent amount of them and yell at the top of his lungs, "IN YOUR FACE!!!") and others are pretty cool.

"Asian Girl W/ The Jumper" is one of the cool cats. But what I DIDN'T know is she happens to write one of the funniest blogs I've seen in some time. It's called "He Looks Like" and it's her made up story of what people in various pictures "look like". She's been at if for many years now...and the cool thing is people chime in with their own interpretation of the picture.

Here's a selection of some of the pictures....as you can see they are rich with material to riff off of. Check out the blog (make sure you go through the archives) HERE.

The Machine Girl Trailer

2008-01-19T13:09:00.000-08:00

I have no clue about this movie...but this trailer has ALMOST everything I considered "cool" as a 13-year-old. I think the only thing that's missing are giant robots.

Check it out:

AOD13's Muttpop Collection

2008-01-18T17:34:00.000-08:00

Now that is impressive! AOD13 has managed to put together a COMPLETE Muttpop Collection. I am very impressed and flattered. Thank you so much for the support and dedication.

More pics of AOD13's collection are found in his DISCUSSION BOARD POST (look for AOD13).

AOD13 gave me the heads up to his collection post on the Kidrobot forum. There's a lot of nice collections in that discussion. One of my favorites is the complete Biskup Helper Collection (I LOVE that Glow Helper!).

Bionic Commando Rearmed

2008-01-17T15:13:00.000-08:00

Damn Xbox Live Arcade! I'm trying really hard to not buy myself an Xbox 360. I have enough games to play with my huge library of unfinished Playstation2, Gamecube, and Wii games...but there are just so many exciting new games coming out for the Xbox360. And I'm not even talking about their regular game library.

While everyone anticpates when the latest Grand Theft Auto comes out...I'm drooling over all the downloadable titles on the Xbox360. Yeah, Halo3 and Bioshock look pretty cool...but I'm an old school gamer bred on Capcom, Konami, and Nintendo...so its way more exciting to find out they're releasing an HD version of Street Fighter 2 than to find out what's going on with the Unreal or Valve programming teams.

I've been casually following the news about the new Bionic Commando 3D game but it's not my thing. Bionic Commando will always be regarded as a classic...but seeing some white guy with dreadlocks swinging around with that metal/hip-hop/Disney-Tarzan look doesn't feel very true to the 8-bit original.

Today, though, IGN debuted a preview of the XBLA Bionic Commando remake...which is something I could DEFINITELY get into.

Dr. Destruction Original Official Release

2008-01-16T16:24:00.000-08:00

A solicitation for Dr. Destruction Original has just been sent by our distributor (DKE Toys) to retailers. Dr. Destruction Original should start arriving at your favorite Designer Toy Store in the next coming weeks.

In celebration of the release, here's a gorgeous picture Jerry took. The menacing vibe he captured was inspired by Super7's latest Book.

Lakers & Andrew Bynum

2008-01-15T18:16:00.001-08:00

As mentioned in previous posts, I'm all about basketball. Love playing the game. I even coached a team back in high school with Mista Hippo...and I love watching the Lakers.

I know it's easy to hate the Lakers and Kobe Bryant...but, man, for a while there (while Center Andrew Bynum was healthy) the Lakers were playing some deadly basketball. I was shocked and saddened to see Bynum get injured in the Grizzlies game this past Sunday. But, fortunately, he's supposed to be back in 2 months.

The Lakers have a LOT to work on while Bynum recovers from his knee injury. Even if they won against the Sonics this past Monday, they did not look good. Defense was super weak without the presence of the shot blocking Bynum...and you could tell that Lamar Odom and Derek Fisher felt awkward adapting to their new responsibilities without Bynum.

I'm a bit worried about the next few weeks. Lakers have a nasty schedule with games against the Suns, Spurs, and Cavs all coming up. Call me crazy, but I strongly feel that if the Lakers are able to be #1 in their Division (which is tough because of the Suns), they're guaranteed to make it to the Western Conference Finals (assuming Bynum will be at 90-100% by Playoff time).

My dream? Lakers Vs. Celtics Finals. I know it's a bit ridiculous to dream of...but it's not as far off as everyone thinks!

Here's an old but classic clip from last year. Bynum Vs. Shaq. Bynum's grown significantly as a center since then but, to me, this is when Bynum really became a MAN! :-)

First Look: Moko Sculpt

2008-01-14T16:14:00.000-08:00

Vinyl Pulse has an exclusive look at Moko from the upcoming Tcho! Mini-Figure line. The entire line has really come together during the last few round of sculpts. Moko is definitely one of our favorites (actually, all the sculpts are amazing!)...which is fitting since Moko comes from Ohm's Bao Battle comic and Ohm also happens to be the designer of the entire figure line.

At first we were haven't a bit of difficulty getting the right shape for the mask. The sculptors, Lester and Erick Sosa, were impeded by the idea that the mask should be a separate piece from the head. It was a nice idea, but the result was the mask felt far too detached and detracted from the overall shape of the figure. Once we decided to sculpt the mask as part of the head, the sculpting process was a very smooth one.

A small addition that made a world of difference was making the eyes raised. Originally we were going for just an outline of the eye. But, based on the wonderful suggestion by Ohm, we decided to create a raised relief for facial details on all the figures. It was a brilliant suggestion that made all the figures that much better.

Check our more pics of Moko HERE.

Mini El Gladiator

2008-01-12T16:06:00.000-08:00

Here are some nice pics of a rough El Gladiator Mini-Figure. It was sculpted by William of Sosa Studios (our favorite sculptors) as a test to prove his sculpting ability. We've been wanting to do a Luchadores5 Mini-Figure line for some time. Seeing this quick little rough makes us want to begin it even more!

This is NOT a final figure sculpt. In fact, William did this sculpt for free using only 1 quick sketch of a Super Deformed El Gladiator. Considering the lack of resources, William did an amazing job!

This figure is super small (as is suggested by it's size next to Jerry's immaculate hands! ;-) ). When we finally begin production on a Luchadores5 Mini-Figure line, I think we'll do something a bit bigger and more to scale with the Mini Tcho Line: probably around 3 inches (10cm).

Still, seeing this sculpt in person makes it easy to dream about how beautiful a line of such figures will be!

Molly Wax/Vinyl Cast Tests

2008-01-10T15:44:00.000-08:00

Here are the first pics we've received from our factory of the Molly Vinyl Prototype. This version of the figure is made from the Master Mold to get a sense of how the original sculpt transferred over to the silicone molding process.

I'm guessing a bit here, because my contact in China did not give me any details...but I believe the maroon legs are still done in wax. I requested that the Muttpop logo be engraved in the bottom of the right foot...so they haven't made a new silicone mold with this correction.

Also, I requested that they give Molly's head a ball joint (similar to Red Demon) to ensure that the figure has maximum head poseability.Thus far, I'm pretty happy with how Molly is turning out.

Jerry just put the final touches on the box design which is amazing (I love ALL of Jerry's box designs). We were initially bummed because we thought we had to follow the Oban Star Racer product guidelines for the box...but after submitting our rough, the President of Sav! The World said that we should unleash that Muttpop magic on a revised design. We did and the final box is sharp and snazzy.

We'll share that with you later!

Blu Ray Wins.

2008-01-09T16:53:00.000-08:00

I'm going to change things up a bit and do a few posts today. Lots of fun news discovered and I figured instead of holding off on it and make the blog irrelevant to the latest news, I'll do small bits about each of them.

These next few days should be pretty exciting on the Video Game front since CES is happening in Las Vegas. The PS3 is getting a nice resurgence due to the appararent Blu Ray/HD DVD coup by Paramount. It looks like the next generation of Video Media will be Blu Ray.

This is a huge breakthrough for Sony. A lot of companies don't like to support Sony media because they are such a huge multi-media corporation. Beta, Mini-Disc, UMD, Memory Cards...Sony's lost practically all media format wars for the last 30 years. Forcing the Blu Ray format on the PS3 can attribute to it's initial high cost and slow start as a next gen system...but it's looking like its all finally paying off.

This shouldn't affect the XBox 360...but it validates PS3 as a long term contender. Even with all this talk of the Wii console sales and the crazy amounts of software the 360 manages to sell...Sony stays competitive by being an affordable next gen HD video player.

I STILL need an HD TV...so it doesn't have any affect on me...but it's fun to see how it all unravels. In fact, my buddies make fun of my 19" Magnavox Tube! Hey, it's better than the 13" VHS/TV combo we were using for a couple years. The Magnavox EVEN has an S-Video input! :-)

Soul Calibur 4 with Darth and Yoda?!

2008-01-09T15:21:00.000-08:00

All these fighting game posts makes me look like a fighting game fanatic. I'm not. Beyond the Street Fighter games the only other fighter I've spent any decent amount of time with is Soul Calibur (on the Dreamcast). I bought Soul Calibur 2 (for the GameCube) when it was selling for $20...but sold it after a few months.

Fighting games are all about friendly competition and, unfortunately, gaming these days isn't the social experience it was for me during my school days (maybe I'm too old for games?).

Anyways, it's just been revealed by 1up.com (the sister site to EGM magazine) that Soul Calibur 4 will feature both Darth Vader and Yoda. It's a smart marketing move (way smarter than having McFarlane's Spawn on Xbox's Soul Calibur 2). Star Wars is an international pop cultural staple. Lightsabers fit well with Soul Calibur's weapon based theme. Star Wars fans will FINALLY have a decent fighting game.

But I'm a bit bummed at what the Star Wars franchise has become. Star Wars makes me feel like an old geezer because I'd like to remember the series as just Episodes 4-6 with a few Kenner toys. Nothing Star Wars since those films really amounts to anything exciting to me (although I really dug the Playskool toys...)...but it's truly amazing how the new movies (as bad as they may have been) have done an amazing job of keeping Star Wars relevant for new generations' of children.

I taught a comic class to Jr. High kids in Whittier this past semester and I was AMAZED at how many 12-13 year olds were OBSESSED with Star Wars.

Anyways, I'm not entirely sure that Darth and Yoda really fit in Soul Calibur...but I'm sure it'll sell like crack. It looks pretty decent...even if I'm sad to see that Yoda will probably have that ridiculous frog in a pinball machine fighting style he displayed in Episode 2. I've always imagined Yoda, a master of the Jedi arts, having a very economical fighting style. Something efficient and deadly...just like a Samurai...but that's just me griping again! :-)