The Gara-fashion-conscious... what do they wear?

I have been inundated with such queries since the blog began- tens of thousands* of new converts to Garamania, wondering how they can best represent in the street- how they can fly the colors, as it were.

Well, let's do a brief survey of some of the recent commercially available options...

I think this shirt was an M-78 Shop release, and came in three different colors. This is the best of the bunch, a long-gone purple exclusive for Atmos.

Next, a relatively new one from Bandai, with art by Yoshito Sugawara:

I want to love this one; really, I think it would rule the roost...but for the inclusion of not one, not two, but four lines of charmless, titular/copyright-related text right next to Gary's head.
Wtf?!?

Now, look, I'm just an unfrozen Garamon collector... the mysterious decisions of t-shirt designers frighten and confuse me... but I DO know that this was a mistake... akin to the ruining of a great joke by poor delivery.

""GARAMON" is GARADAMA monster."

Ooooof......

Hell, the whole block of text could've been kept, moved to a sleeve or the back, and the end product would've been worlds better.

Here's what I'm sayin':

Right??

Anyway... let's look at a similar but superior design. Here's M-78's exclusive (and recently sold out) Pygmon shirt, produced for the 40th Ultra-anniversary in 2006:

This is a great shirt. I wish it came in another color besides white (say, pink or tan or a very light green), but that's a minor nitpick. I also wish they'd re-release it, as I slept on it for too long and missed out.

Finally... take a look (though it's a bit hard to see, I know) at Takashi Miike's outfit on the set of Ultraman Max, in this pic taken from August Ragone's ultra-essential Eiji Tsuburaya: Master Of Monsters:

Miike in a Garamaniac stylee!

I have actually seen this shirt come up for auction on YJA a couple of times. The design is kinda cool, in a lazy way: basically, it's a shot of a built-up Kaiyodo Garamon kit.

Now, to take it further, into the realm of accessories... you're really too cool for school if you finish things off with this smart pendant:

...or this handsome watch:

*Okay, six.**

**Okay, none.

Cardass.

What did you just call me?

Take it away, astromonster:

"I think this came as a bonus from an ebay seller in Japan when I ordered a recent book. The collaged group is the backing card, the separate images are peelable stickers. Plus an extry-big closeup for you. The figures appear to be CGI constructs--like the images on the recent Ultraman "Cardass" series.
Cardass.
I just had to write that again."

Yokota rocks

Going through the files, I just came across this pic of the sculpt for the 55cm Eye Scream Garamon (grabbed many moons ago from Temma Sakamoto).

I know I've said it before, but clay-pusher extraordinaire Ken Yokota really outdid himself on this one. I have wanted to interview Yokota for some time, but several leads I followed dead-ended; if anyone out there can help me in this, please give a shout...thanks!

The latest dispatch from our Chicago desk

Alex sent these new scans over, and he sez:

"Ultra Q 5 DaiKaiju TouJou! (Ultra Q 5 Great Monsters Debut!)

Kodama Manga Series Ultra Q

©1965 (this is not a typo)

Kodama Fonosheet Comic--greatly resembling Asahi Sonorama's Sonosheet releases. These days a licensee has an exclusive on the form as well as the content--it would no longer be possible for two different companies to release a flexi-disc comics of the same property.

This is the usual 16-pager, covers included. I haven't scanned it all--just the Gara-pages. Art is anonymous, likely a studio job, but very much in the style of Jiro (Eight Man) Kuwata."

Oh, and I had a great New Jersey vacation...and arrived home to find a fantastically well-kept copy of Ultra Q Graffiti in my mailbox! Thanks again, Mewsugoi!

In zee dark

I did a little pre-vacay cleaning and re-arrangement of the entire crew the other day. Migrated a whole bunch o' the boys from the shelves back into the Gara-Case (a highly-modded Detolf); it's a nice little mob scene in there, once again. I also picked up a great, powerful hand-held blacklight at Spencer's recently for $10...decided to take some psychedelightful snaps for you...enjoy:

Gara-custom eye candy for a(nother) rainy Wednesday

The Bert Gatchalian touch on a red blank Bullmark repro:

This is the preview shot Bert sent to me; this guy is currently winging his way east, and more shots of him will be featured in a future Nerdstrom Collection post.

I stumbled across these pics this morn- custom work by yours truly on a Marmit Para-Baby Garamon:




I did this one a few years ago; as far as I know, it still resides in the collection of Carl Kent-Smith.

Sushi time!

My newfound "cuz" and fellow Garamaniac Bill Nordstrom (whose alter ego may or may not be NORDBOT- all I can tell you is, I've never seen 'em both in the same place at the same time...) and his lovely wife Mika put together this GREAT lil' photocomic- thanks, kids!

CLICK 'EM: