Your Free Door Prize: PYGMON GROWTH CHART

Hello friends.
It’s been a very long time. It’s good to see you. I hope you’re holding up well in this world-wide wildness. 

I come to you bearing a gift: a Pygmon metric growth chart. This beautiful bit of ephemera was included as a fold-out insert in a Japanese children’s magazine in the early 70s. (The artist behind the wonderful painted image is, sadly, unknown to me.) Several years ago, after some long searching, I obtained a copy in good condition, and engaged the services of a professional archivist to make a top-quality scan of the image at full size. 

At last, I offer this chart as a (huge) .psd file for your downloading pleasure here.

My sincere wish is that many of you will download it and have it printed to scale on some sturdy paper or cardstock, to actually be used for its intended purpose by your own family, or a family you know and love and would like to gift it to. (Or several families! Makes a great baby shower gift!) In this way, we will carry the magic of Garamon, Pygmon, and Ultra-kaiju in general, into the future.

IMAGINATION! CREATION! GROWTH! MONSTERS! FOR THE CHILDREN!

Peace!!

Gary & Semi-Ningen ParaBabies by the DaiOni

Wonderful shots of these little Marmit fireplugs by the TheDaiOni:

Once again, friends & fiends, it's been too long; there are some truly incredible Gara-things to post about, and I plan on playing catch-up this week... please stay tuned!

Pygmon coin

***NOT LEGAL TENDER; may not be used to purchase sofubi.

Hartter Garamon

Sean Hartter's burly, simian take on Gary; be sure to check out his reimagined cereal boxes and movie posters, too. 

Built-up, unpainted VOLKS Garamon

This resin model kit, one of the many interesting versions of Garamon from VOLKS, is up now on YJA.

A fixer-upper to be sure, but at 2000 yen, it could be worth the investment, if you have the scraping/puttying/gluing/painting gumption.

Garamon Pizza Bat...

...was available from Liver Diet, but is now gonersville.

New Atragon G-K "Set 01A" companion kit to ガラモン release

Not content to release one of the finest resin Gara-masterpieces ever poured, Miyazaki-san at Atragon G-K has completed work on "Set 01A", a sold-separately companion kit to his (very) soon-to-be-released Garamon kit (new header pic is one of his awesome promo shots).

Here's a look at the kit, which features a Garadama base with nameplate, a chunk of tilsonite, alternate appendages, and some... I'm not sure... bonus (?) spikes...

And the box art... for Set 01A:

... and the figure kit itself:

Both kits limited to 100 copies; pre-order closes on 3/20!

CAEx ガラモン

Years ago, Corey A. Edwards bought a Marmit Darkron from me.

Within a few weeks, I began to suffer a seller’s remorse so severe that I got in touch to say that if he ever wanted to part with the toy, he should hit me up first, as I would snatch it back in a heartbeat.  Thereafter, I made a steady annoyance of myself, checking in with him about it every few months, until one day he caved and sold big D back to me. In the box I received, along with the toy, was a hilarious little note “from Darkron”, expressing his distress over my selling him to the “… bad man, who displayed me with much cheaper, inferior vinyls!”

Corey is also a big Garamon fan, has great toy-taste in general, and takes amazing photos.  Here is one of his Garatastic shots, but you really must peruse all of his other offerings.

Gary. Godzi. Trucks.

A photoplay adventure.

ATRAGON G-K ガラモン FINISHED

While the run-up to GARAMANIACAL was in full swing and all the posts here were centered on it, Miyazaki-san at ATRAGON G-K finished his fantastic new Garamon kit. 

As expected, the final retail version is wholly awesome...

On the table at WonderFestival 2012 Winter:



Three interchangeable jaws, held in place with a neodymium magnet?
Of course...



As well, two pair of Garappendages, also featuring magnetic attachment:

I'm guessing the bin on the shelf underneath Garamon in this pic is full of the sold-separately acrylic eyes:

Many congratulations to Miyazaki on this spectacular work... keep it up, my friend!
I really hope I can grab one of these kits, at some point!

B&W digi-Gary

From here.

GARAMANIACAL opening wrap-up

Hello Gara-Fiends,

Well, it's about damn time, right?

Sorry for the lag... The opening night of GARAMANIACAL was an absolute blast and a total success!  Really, it could not have gone better; all the work looked AMAZING together, running a wonderful gamut of mediums and styles; there truly is something for everyone in this show.  I am so deeply humbled and full of gratitude for the artists that came along on this weird ride, and so proud of what we've brought to life!  I can say sincerely that they're all superb people, and it was great to connect and communicate with each of them as we ran up to show time; I truly hope we will have some more opportunities to collaborate in the future.

Beyond being such a stunning assemblage of great talent & great works, and beyond Jim and Nicole @ FOE being fantastic people to work with, we were helped by the weirdly mild temperature last Friday night, and the fact that the opening fell on one of Northampton's monthly Friday Art Walk events.  Downtown was packed, as was GARAMANIACAL!  People seemed very into the event and the art, and we kept a good crowd turnover going right 'til the end.  You could really see many non-initiates having and enjoying their first look at this very particular realm of art and culture.

We had a great in-house band (assembled and led by Dan Hornworm) which totally fit with the night, providing everything from creepadelic noise-scapes to menacing, King Crimson-esque grooves.

My first outing as Garamike was, overall, a SMASHING good time!  I had a great time in the suit and hopefully provided all those I came into contact with a memorable experience.  I wasn't able to get the feet and tail done in time for the show, but did have the head and hands.  When I first arrived in town in full gear, Jim took us over to his friend's vintage shop, Roz's Place, where the owner, Tim, had Garamike try on several different evening-wear options.  I settled on a brown polyester suit that must've been the height of fashion in Manila in 1976, and went really well with my Gara-colors.  Then I stalked around town for a bit, moving as only a mechanical meteorite monster can (sort of a jerky, high-stepping march), alternately bugging and entrancing passers-by, invading various galleries and businesses, and croaking about the show to anyone who would listen.  It was fun to "find the character" as I went along, and I think I still have much to discover about Garamike.

Finally entered the gallery around 7:00, to a general hush and some dropped-jaw stares... and proceeded to make much Gara-merriment for the rest of the opening!

I have to say that 6 hours... is a bit too long... to be in the suit.  In addition to being buried under rubber for all that time (the thick silicone of the mask covers/clings to my entire head and shoulders, then the weighty headpiece on top of that), the paint on the headpiece (actually thinned and pigmented rubber cement) had not fully cured yet, so I was breathing some significant fumes all night.  By about 8:45, I looked at my dear Nicole and said, "I think I need to get out of this... RIGHT NOW."  One serious sweat-mopping and face-scrubbing later, I felt a little less strange.  I then had a bottle of Schlitz; I didn't even know Schlitz was still being made...

All that said, I am VERY excited to pursue all of my various plans for this suit/persona, and look forward to getting back in costume soon!  Stay tuned!  

Some quick notes on the show:

-Everything that is still for sale is up in FOE's webshop.  Pieces purchased online will ship in March, after the show's run.

-Grody Shogun exclusives for this show are a bit delayed, but stay tuned for the announcement on them.

-PRINTS! The pieces by Jim Groman, Michael Skattum, Street Grapes and Jason Edmiston are all available or soon-to-be-available as prints.  I picked up a Skattum and an Edmiston, both incredible, and I'm on the list for the others... as you can be, too.  The Groman Garaball print will be released by FOE in partnership with Manifesto Press and Jim Groman.  It will be letter-pressed, signed and numbered, and a portion of the proceeds from each will go to the MSPCC.  Don't miss it!  Pre-order is open now for a limited time!

-We've raised a nice chunk of funds for the organization already ($175 since the show opened) between coloring contest entry fees and the sale of entries.  If you would still like to contribute art, please feel free to do so at any point during the rest of the show run- your pieces will be hung for sale in the gallery to benefit the MSPCC!  Also, a portion of the sale proceeds from the work of the following artists will be donated to the organization:
Toybot Studios/Kirkland Jue
Josh Herbolsheimer
Robert DeCastro
Prometheum5/Ben Mininberg
Leecifer (Golden-Taloned Garamon only)
Gorilla Mouth/Troy Stith

-Aaaaand finally... the coloring contest winners were:
Patrick Taylor (Yamanaya Garamon & Semi-Ningen set)
Atom Gray (Buta No Hana Garamon)
Scott Decoteau (M1-GO Semi-Ningen)
Christopher Gendron (GARAMANIACAL one-off Grody pair, Ojisan & Karakuri)

CONGRATS, dudes!

Again, thanks so much to all of you Gara-fans for being such amazing supporters of the show and the Garamike project!
Enjoy the pics and videos below!

Sincerely Yours In Garamon,
Michael