Tom Whalen's Art Is Awesome

Thanks to his Autumn Society update yesterday, I discovered a ton of awesome art by a guy named Tom Whalen who goes by the name *strongstuff on Deviant Art. He posted this latest Voltron poster and then links to his awesome Green Lantern Corps, Silverhawks and Iron Man Corps commissions. Check them out!






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Casting Internets

Check out these rad interpretations of Michael Myers and Freddy from Methane Studios. I've said it before and I'll say it again, if I could draw, this is the kind of stuff I would create. (via Super Punch)


There's gonna be a new Excitebike game from WiiWare called Excitebike: World Ralley. I haven't really gotten into the downloadable game fun and I rarely play my Wii, but the combination of this and the upcoming A Boy And His Blob might pull me right back in. (via /Gamer)

Topless Robot's 10 Most Embarrassingly Collectible Star Wars Toys of the '90s is both informative and sad. I was all over the Star Wars toys when they were coming out, but I don't think I ever paid more than whatever Target was charging. I've still got a nice collection in a shoebox in my closet.

/Film is telling me that Steve Carr, the guy who directed Paul Blart Mall Cop, will be directing the Short Circuit remake. I'm very curious to see how this movie turns out. I loved Short Circuit as a kid and remember watching Short Circuit 2 in the theater (there was a Nightmare On Elm Street title card that popped up and made my friend hide behind the seat in front of him). Not being one of these "How dare they remake my childhood movies!!!" people, I'm excited.
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Casting Internets

First and foremost, go over to Topless Robot and check out my list of the 12 Weirdest Horror Movie Theme Songs!!!

Now that I'm done hyping myself, here's a couple cool things my friends are up to. Ben got a brand new Nova sketch of him standing triumphantly over Iron Man.


Also, head over to The Source to get a look at Titans/Power Girl/R.E.B.E.L.S. editor (and another former Wizardite and friend) Brian Cunningham to get a look at his office. I've always loved these insider looks ever since Wizard did One Of The Damned way back in the day. Check out this awesome DC calendar from 1986 he has on his wall!


Now onto people I'm not friends with. Why would you do this to your kid? (via Awkward Family Photos)


I wish I was friends with He-Man. Check out this Holy Taco guest column written be He-Man in defense of, well, He-Man.

Finally, this is amazing:

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Casting Internets

Have I mentioned how much I like Covered recently? Just check out Anthony Vukojevich's version of Neal Adams' DC 100 Page Super Spectacular #6. Awesome stuff.

Over on Enemy of Peanuts, Jim pays tribute to the greatest mustache in comics Dum Dum Dugan while also trying to raise money for the fight against prostate and testicular cancer. If you've got some, give some!

I've expressed my excitement for Sylvester Stallone's The Expendables before and am nearly distraught that some people have seen the leaked trailer and now it's gone. Bummer.

Collider has this new poster for the next and last season of Lost. Can't wait!


These Mini Mutts look awesome. (via Vinyl Pulse)


Weezer has apparently made a deal with iTunes to offer their new record Raditude along with a bunch of extras and exclusives for a $20 subscription. Doesn't sound like a bad deal if you're curious what one of the most frustrating bands of all time has in store. I'm undecided. (via PopCandy)

A lot of people are upset about Marge Simpson being in Playboy. I don't care one way or the other, but I do appreciate Holy Taco's series of Rejected Playboy Cartoon Cover Girls. Mrs. Beakley here is my favorite.


Also, sometimes things are just plain old funny.

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Casting Internets

Hey gang, things have been a bit slow around here today because I'm working on some freelance and a longer Halloween Scene based on Simon Oliver's Exterminators, so look for that before midnight. In the meantime, I found some fun links today.

My buddy Jim McCann has a new comic coming out called The Return Of The Dapper Men with artist Janet Lee from Archaia. If you're friends with Jim on Facebook this is old news as he's been posting the crap out of it lately :) (via CBR)


In other comics news, James Robinson will be returning to Starman with Starman #81, part of a skip week event that ties into Blackest Night and resurrects canceled books. According to this story on CBR, Robinson says Jack Knight won't be in it, but look for the supporting characters both dead and alive to make appearances. Here's hoping they can get Tony Harris or Peter Snejbjerg to work on the art.

And finally, in science news that may become apocryphal, there's a theory that the Large Hadron Collider is having so many problems because the future is trying to stop scientists from looking at one of the fundamental particles of existence because we're not supposed to see it. Crazy right? And you thought mini black holes were the only potential problems with this thing. (via io9)

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The Legion Looks Lovely

Anyone else see this jam piece that the WildStorm gang did for Paul Levitz? They posted it on Gelatometti for the rest of us to ogle.



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Rom Spaceknight #2

Inspired by the uber-talented folks over at Covered, I figured I'd try my hand at re-drawing a cover. I dipped into The Box and pulled out Rom Spaceknight #2 from January 1980 and decided to give it a go because it wasn't super complicated. The original cover is by Al Milgrom (I'm assuming it's all, there's no credits along with the rest of the credits and the word "Milgrom" is written just above the UPC).


I thought about going ahead and coloring the whole thing, but I didn't want to screw it up. Maybe I'll print it out and color it or something. Anyway, as you can see, my lazer blasts are off from the original and the lazer hits because I kind of forgot about how that would work when I went through and drew over the pencils with a Sharpie. It was a lot of fun going through and doing the "inking" with the Sharpie. Oh, also, my cat spilled a beer on my notebook during the penciling stages. I was working on it, then went to do something in the other room to come back to see my beer tipped over and my notebook wet. Luckily there wasn't too much damage, nothing was lost and I was able to finish the project.
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Casting Internets

Whoops, meant to publish this yesterday.

Dean over at Springfield Punx has started up another week of Simpson-esque versions of the characters from Lost. I love these theme weeks he does. Here's today's entry, Claire. Check SP this week for all his updates.


Also, did you know that Ohio is the only state in the Union that has an offical rock song? That's what I learned from Music Legends Revealed #22 today. Now, don't get me wrong, I learned in 7th grade that "Hang On Sloopy" was the official rock song of my fair state, BUT I just assumed every state had one. So take that Washington, Michigan, New York, New Jersey and Texas with your rich musical heritage! HA!



I just discovered a site called Holy Taco with a post called 25 Awesome Stained Glass Windows. Most look like Photoshop work--good work, but fakes nonetheless--except for this Batman one. Check out the post for the full list which includes Gene Simmons, Kermit The Frog and Optimus Prime.

I pretty much completely agree with Tom Bondurant's Grump Old Fan post called "The new Justice League, working against the clock." It's nice to read another JLA fan
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Casting Internets

After going to Wal-Mart to buy printer ink, which they didn't have, I figured I'd send you some excellent links that I found around the net so far today. By the way, why the hell is the Wal-Mart parking lot ALWAYS full? It was 11:30AM on a Friday and I could barely find a parking space.

My buddy Kiel tackles the Jack Kirby's-family-suing-Marvel case. I'm not quite sure I understand it, or how exactly I fall on this case (it's called "work for hire" for a reason and I don't want to see these characters ripped from there homes, but they should also be compensated fairly). Read and form your own opinions.

Check out Jim's Enemy of Peanuts to see a video interview he did with the Panels On Pages guys. Kinda makes me wish I would have made a slightly bigger splash on the Wizard message boards. Which is a roundabout way to say I will do an interview with anyone about anything. Holla atcha boy. Or whatever.

/Film got an exclusive look at Disney's poster for its first animated musical in years The Princess And The Frog. Good for them! I'm not a huge fan of the animated musicals, but Em is and I'm sure we'll be seeing this bad boy in the theatres. Plus, that's a rad poster.


Ben posted this picture of him, Rickey, Dave and I literally laughing in the face of danger. Em and I have a version of this picture where I don't look like a complete weirdo hanging in our hallway. Check out The Cool Kids Table for more pics.


And finally, Rob over at Topless Robot posted this video of the dude from the zombie game Dead Rising facing off against guys from Gatchaman and Power Rangers in the upcoming Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom game. Not sure what all those words mean, but you can THROW ZOMBIES AS A FIGHTING MOVE. So, it's gonna be pretty amazing.



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Flea Market Shenanigans

Boy, did I have a red neck weekend. Em's parents were in town and they're always down for some yard sailing and flea market attending so we attended two separate ones AND a demolition derby. Stay tuned for tons of demo derby pics tomorrow, but right now, I want to share some experiences and pictures with you from the flea market we went to on Saturday morning at the Stormville Airport. Technically it was a giant garage sell, which means it's just regular people selling their junk and boy was there a lot of junk. Since I've recently found myself sans full time job, Em and I decided to spend little to know money and I think we only spent about $5, but it was a ton of fun and I even got some rad stuff.

As always we got there pretty early, but I think that was a benefit because you never know who might buy the Michael Jackson bust. Anyway, more on that later. Right now, check out these really weird celebrity paintings. You can see Alias' Jennifer Garner in this particular photo and there were about a dozen others, some I actually recognized, others, now way, even though they had the actor's name on some of them. Scarlett Johansson's was pretty terrible.

It was a good show for paintings actually as you can see in these next two pics. Right after passing the table with the above weird celebrity paintings we got near this van with several larger painting leaning up against it. You can see a painting on the far left which I think is called Little Boy Blue or some such. As a side note, this is what a lot of the various lots look like, with a van, car, table or blanket holding all of the junk people want to get rid of. But what really caught my attention was that painting to the right, can you see it?

How about a better look? Yeah, there you go. It just looks like an old ass lady crawling towards a creepy sunset in a desert with a rock or two and one flower. I really like the sparseness of it. You can tell the artist was really reaching into his inner depths. Oh, wait, actually I love the bat shit craziness of this thing. If I had my way, it would be hanging in my place right now, but, well I don't and it's not, so hopefully someone else picked it up or I can grab it when I finally get my man cave.

I took this picture because I thought this guy who was wearing orange crocs and riding around on a Razor scooter looked lame. But, I also captured a pretty awesome moment in the background where the old woman who had just finished demonstrating how to play the accordion her and her husband were selling. It was a pretty rad performance, which is what stopped me at their table in the first place. Oh and that bass amp in the bottom right hand corner that I was too chicken to ask about. I couldn't find the damn booth again to ask later, so I suck. I currently don't have a bass amp in NY because the one I have back in Ohio is way too big.

Well, here's my favorite thing from the whole day (and that includes the demolition derby). As you can see it's a Michael Jackson bust with a bunch of chips taken out of it and a Pee Wee Herman doll next to it. I think they were charging $30 or 40 for MJ. That's another thing I would have purchased, you know, if it was just $5, but whatever. I'm sure someone made off with it and I envy them. It kind of looks like MJ is whispering sweet nothings or kill lists into Pee Wee's ears, doesn't it?

As you know, I'm a big horror fan. As a kid, I remember going into different stores and seeing these really intricate and disgusting rubber Halloween masks that would scare the crap out of me (like, WAY scarier than the ones in AWESOME Halloween 3). As a result I still get pretty jazzed anytime I see masks. The ones at this space weren't that cool, but they look pretty creepy all laid out on a blanket like this, don't they?

This is just a shot of one of the aisles. There's basically two really long aisles with rows on each side, a few food booths (carny food, mostly), porta potties and tons of people bumping into each other with their carts. The place used to be an old airfield, so there's a lot of space. If you're in the not-upstate New York area, you should definitely check it out. Also, of note, I tried to take most of these pics on the sly, but this one was clearly seen by the lady who looks like she's trying to dodge my picture like it's a bullet being fired at Neo in the Matrix.

Here you have a Daewoo VCR. I took this picture solely for Rickey, who drives a car made by Daewoo, a company that makes just about everything else in the world. As you can see they do VCRs, my inlaws' microwave and a back hoe I used to see tearing scrap metal apart on my train ride into the city. I don't think I've ever seen another Daewoo automobile, but I'm sure when it starts breaking down, my inlaws will be happy to scrap their microwave to help him out.

Here's one of those pictures that I didn't really get all that well because I didn't want it to be super obvious that I was taking a picture of this guy's creepy stuffed polar bear. I'm REALLY hoping it's just a toy or something, but decide for yourself, that's it on the far right of the image. I'm still not completely unconvinced this little dude wasn't in the background of Cliffhanger.

Like I said in the beginning I did spend some money at the flea market, $3 to be exact. I spent $1 on these three original Masters of the Universe figures (that's He-Man to you less nerdy folks). I was pretty jazzed to see them. Here you've got Grizzlor, Hordak and Jitsu. I was especially excited because these figures are complete except for their weapons, which is no big deal. And yeah, Grizz is actually furry, like a troll doll, but radder. He also looks like he's ready to bust a move at any point and there's nothing you can do about it.

And here's my final purchase, Critters 1, 2, and 4 on tape. I was always fascinated by the boxes to 1 and 2 when I was a kid wandering through the video store. I love the art and will probably be drawing my version of the cover to 1 in the next couple days. I'm also hoping that I might find my elusive mini monster movie. Oh, and also, the fourth one is in SPACE! It worked for leprechaun, why not Critters?

Lastly, I want to let you fine readers know that a woman with a booth is the reason you won't be hearing the hot beats that have been pounding in my skull lately. I went to buy a Yamaha drum machine that would have probably driven me crazy because it sounded old and tin-y, but whatever, I pulled out my $5 to hand to her and the woman said no and put the drum machine back behind the table. Bullshit, right? I think so. So, what I'm really asking is if anyone has a drum machine or keyboard I can have. Holla!

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Casting Internets

I was hard at work today on my first freelance assignment for Marvel.com, an interview with comic fan and Chicago Bear Lance Briggs (I'll keep you posted when it goes live), so I didn't post as much during the day today. I'm also working on an X-Men piece that turned out to be a lot longer than I expected so I'll probably break it up into pieces, but I didn't want to draw attention to a few things I saw today.

Topless Robot's got a great list of the 17 Coolest G.I. Joe and Cobra Animal Sidekicks. I have way too many of these in my collection.

/Film has a story about a robot boxing movie. I'm sure it's no Robot Jox, but I love this image they ran with it.


There's also a CGI Night of the Living dead movie called NOTLD: Origins that Romero has nothing to do with. It's also being said it'll be in 3D. I'm in! (via /Film)

Rickey's got another awesome Swayze tribute piece up, this one's from Point Break.


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Casting Internets

First off, I just wanted to thank everyone for coming to the site, as of today I've gotten 5,007 hits since the site launched in April. I hope you guys are enjoying this as much as I am. I was planning on updating the site away from the basic Blogger template, but since I'm no longer employed, that will have to wait. Do keep an eye out for a brand new logo coming your way soon and a few other original art do-dads.

A lot's been going on and I'm still playing catch up, but I wanted to link to a few things I've seen on the net lately.

First off, check out Rickey's awesome Patrick Swayze tribute. He's planning on doing a different Swayze drawing every day for the rest of this month and I can't think of a better tribute to a dude we both loved.


In lighter news, the Brickehousebunny21/Topless Robot/WHOSE RESPONSIBLE THIS shenanigans got kicked up a notch today as Brickehousebunny21 threatened Rob with "Everyone here is in trouble now..." Do yourself a favor and read the full post and if you have no idea what I'm talking about, you can get all the info you need from this post I did yesterday.

In Wires Science news, a couple of college students built a camera that took pictures of the edge of space for under $150. Kinda makes me wish I had a knack for science. Also, here's a picture of a girl in zero gravity sporting a Supergirl costume. I didn't really readthe article, but that's a rad pic.


Over on Enemy of Peanuts, Jim posted some pictures from All Points West, looks like it would have been a lot of fun and I'm super jealous of him for getting to see Jay-Z live even if he was replacing the Beastie Boys. I gotta see Hova one of these days.


Meanwhile, over at The Cool Kids Table, Ben's been posting like crazy, whether it's about the original Suicide Squad run (a great book he turned me on to), the X-Men arcade game (in the top 3 up there with TMNT and The Simpsons) or going away presents that former and formerly former ToyFare staffers got (awesome custom toys), it's all goodness.

And finally, a note to the ladies, if you're going to kiss Captain Kirk, watch out for that last step, it's a doozey:

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Casting Internets

Again, thanks for all the kind words on the internets I've been hearing and reading online. In addition to the ones I mentioned the other day,Josh Wigler created the above glorious piece of original art featuring Jim Gibbons and myself. Kiel also gave us a shout out on Linko XXI over at the Cool Kids Table.

Speaking of Mr. Gibbons, his interpretation of "The Hills Are Alive With The Sound of Music" perfectly encapsulates what I wished that movie was actually about when I had to watch it over and over and over as a kid.


In other news, Curt over at Groovy Age of Horror finally saw the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I'm glad he liked it and completely agree with his assessment at the end that it really does depend on when you see a movie like this in your horror movie watching career. The sooner really is the better.

Chris Ward worked his magic on this awesome Dungeons and Dragons ad (pun not intended, but also not deleted):



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Casting Internets

Woah. Disney bought Marvel.

The trailer for The Tournament looks awesome. Like the /Film writer, it reminds me of Smokin' Acestoo, but hopefully it'll be good for the whole thing and not just the last 20-30 minutes.



I don't care what anyone else thinks, I'm psyched for a Bad Boys 3! (via /Film)

Ben remembers his going away presents from Wizard. Look at those handsome devils in the top left corner. I'm on the bottom left. Cooler by far, though is the Nova and Flash playing frisbee piece. You'll have to click through to check that out though. Plug!


Check out Topless Robot's 12 Least Appropriate Smurf Figures for Children.
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Casting Internets

Today would have been Jack Kirby's 92nd birthday had he not passed away in 1994 on my birthday (which was weird to say the least as a young comics fan). To celebrate his life Kirby-Vision presents several images of Kirby drawn by its many contributors. Above is my favorite by Uriel A. Duran.

Over at Topless Robot, Rob calls out the British (newspapers) for being filthy liars. Plus, he uses it as an excuse to run yet another sexy shot of Megan Fox. Double whammy!

On my way home from work yesterday I caught an interview with Quentin Tarantino on NPR's Fresh Air. You can find a transcript and podcast here. I'm waiting to listen to the whole thing for fear of even the most remote Inglourious Basters spoilers, which I'm hopefully going to see tonight.

Check out this awesome NASA patch that real astronauts actually wore. Wired dug this and some other pretty amazing ones here.


My buddy Jesse over at Maxim.com collected these 10 crazy Predator tattoos. It's both glorious and kind of stomach churning.

Fans of urban legends should definitely check out legendsrevealed.com where you'll get a triple dose of info with every click. Today's Photography Legends Revealed talks about naked photos from Ivy league schools, photoshopping in the 1800s and where a photo was staged or not. Fascinating.

Finally, I really hope you check out Awkward Family Photos on a regular basis. Here's a recent post called Monkey Love!


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Casting Internets

I saw this on Diggnation yesterday (actually had notes on a whole new Casting Internets for yesterday that somehow disappeared, go figure). It's a long clip because it's actually from the podcast (which I highly recommend), but you get to see a kid getting hit with a Mentos-fueled bottle of Diet Coke he tosses on a tennis court. It's amazing.



Justin's comic can now be ordered, so ask your retailed about ordering Hero House already! He also guest blogged over at Pop Candy today.

Bob Mitchell posted this bad boy. Not sure if it's something he did himself or just found. Either way, it's awesome. How is there not a "Disney characters as superheroes" art blog?


Jim's been doing a cartoon/comic/piece of art everyday. This time it's the Lost island. Jim's Lost island drawing:


Beer prices are going up? Sigh.

I both enjoyed Sean's post about All-Star Batman and Robin and completely agree with him (you can even see me doing so in the comments).

This is another one from yesterday, but Topless Robot's list of the 10 craziest Quantum Leap leaps is pretty rad. I distinctly remember seeing the end of the episode where he leaps into the supposed vampire and being REALLY confused.
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Casting Internets

According to Toy News International, I'll have a second chance to score a Masters of the Universe Classics Skeletor figure! Here's my second chance to get a Skeletor!

Wired says I'm screwed for multitasking. Maybe that's why my brain completely shuts down and I just sit staring at my desk for minutes at a time without being able to remember what I was furiously doing a second ago. Not good...


Kiel's Linko XIX post brought this amazing blog to my attention. It's a whole blog dedicated to people drawing in Jack Kriby's style called Kirby-Vision.

My buddy Alex of DC's The Source, runs down a bunch of comics sites "you should bookmark immediately" in a guest blog over at PopCandy. UnitedMonkee must have JUST missed the cut :)

And finally, a group of friends and I have been kicking around Weezer memories lately, which got me thinking about back in 2002 when Maladroit came out and I drove two hours home from Delaware, Ohio to Toledo to buy the record at midnight the day it came out at my beloved and now long gone Boogie Records. New-at-the-time Weezer bass player Scott Shriner was also from Toledo and it happened that his dad was at Boogie picking up his own copy of the record. Someone snapped a pic and sent it to Weezer.com and it just so happened that I was in it! Em's there too, though she does not care and I'm talking to my friend who got me into Weezer, but he didn't make the shot. I couldn't find the picture anywhere, so I sent an email to Karl at Weezer.com and before the day was through he sent it to me. Thanks Karl. Here's the pic (this is as big as it gets):


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Casting Internets

Gallery 1988 has a new show called Call of the Wild, you should definitely check it out. Here's a few of my favorites.



According to Toy News International, Hot Toys will be making Inglourious Basterds figures. I probably won't be able to afford, them, but they'll be super cool. Still haven't seen the movie, hopefully tomorrow night.

My buddy Alejandro pointed out this rad site to me called Squirrelizer. The idea is that you upload a photo and it puts a squirrel in it.

Seems like Jim had a much more localized version of My Epic Journey this morning.

In a weird twist of fate, I just read that 28 Weeks Later writer/director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo has been tapped for the Bioshock movie. I haven't played Bioshock, but it looks bonkers-crazy. Sounds like a good match. (via /Gamer)

Do yourself a favor and check out the wild and crazy website for Genius' Maneater Series of animals/mythical-creatures-eating-humans DVDs. First of all, marvel at the scariest looking swamp EVER. Then, as an added bonus, drag your mouse over the various carnivores for them to make a scary sound AND get details on the DVD.

Finally, check out Sean's Blackest Night review. He addresses a lot of the "pacing problems" that some people have with the series. Personally I agree and think that, even though this has been built to for a few years now, it's not against the law to have a bit of a slow burn story that will most likely reach epic proportions in the next issue or two. Plus, in a first in many years, I'm enjoying EVERYTHING related to this series, though I've only been looking at the pretty pictures in those Tales of the GLC issues.
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Casting Internets

Just as I finish one of these things, something awesome comes out that I just have to share. Moments after hitting the Publish Post button, /Film
killed me with this video of Snoop Dogg trying to answer a Watchmen movie question on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.

My buddy Jesse tipped me off to this amazing Twitter account called shitmydadsays. I don't generally read Twitter accounts (is that even what they call them?), but I think I'll be coming back for more pearls of wisdom from this crotchety man in his 70s. I think he's my new hero.

Hopefully my fellow horror fans are already familiar with Stacie Ponder's Final Girl blog. She just posted awesome movie poster friday - the LESBIAN VAMPIRE edition!
. She found some great posters like this one, my favorite of the batch.



There wasn't much real information, but according to a Toy News International post, Sideshow's going to be doing statues and dioramas based on the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. If they're even nearly as cool as NECA's figures, we're all in for treat.

In other toy-related news, Ian at The Autumn Society posted this awesome piece he did for the Cave Drawing Ink sketch contest this week. I wasn't familiar with CDI before, but I love the idea of doing weekly sketch contests on a single pop culture theme. These week's it's Joe!


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