For a kid, the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas has to be the most excruciatingly slow time of year. It’s a never-ending wait to see what toys will be you under the tree come Christmas morning. When I was little, I would spend this time making wish lists and browsing through the toy pages of the store catalogs. I’d revise my list again and again in hopes of getting the perfect mix of loot.

Now as an adult, I remember those in-between days fondly. Like many things in life, I know that anticipation is equal to, if not greater than, the event itself. As a parent I also now realize how impractical my vast Christmas wish lists were. I wanted so many different things that a certain degree of disappointment was inevitable on Dec. 25. There were always things on those lists that were left unfulfilled.

Christopher Tupa remembers those days as well. The artist and toy collector has created a book of toys and collectibles he wanted as a child but was never able to receive. His free ebook can be downloaded from his website.
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Check out these awesome prints our friend Justin Gammon of the awesome site Weirdo Toys is contributing to the 3NES Exhibit at Bottleneck Gallery. I’ve been hearing a lot about the 3NES show and I wish I could be in Brooklyn this weekend to check it out, but Bottleneck will start their online sales Saturday, so I’m crossing my fingers I can snag Justin’s awesome prints.

Justin created three prints inspired by Mario, Zelda, and Metroid, and they’re all awesome. Make sure to head over to his site to check out his post that explains the process behind each one.

You can keep up with the show at Bottleneck’s website and Facebook page.

Protip: Signalnoise (aka James White) also has some bitchin’ art at this show.

Instagram has become one of the Internet’s most popular social networks. The photo-sharing service is also a tremendous platform for visual artists to show off their creations.

As a huge fan of comic art, I follow many notable illustrators on Instagram. (You find my inane photos under tmbr.) I love seeing updates from my favorites like Jake Parker, Skottie Young, Alex Deligiannis, and Joe Vriens. There is so much talent to be experienced I felt it necessary to highlight some of the lesser known artists.

To make this list, artists had to meet three important criteria:

1. They must regularly post their comic illustrations.
2. They must have an aptitude for drawing.
3. They must have less than 1,000 followers at the time of their inclusion.

These folks may not have the 10,000+ followers of Becky Cloonan or Bryan Lee O’Malley, but they have as much skill. Everyone of them is worth your Instagram attention.

Enjoy…
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As a huge Muppet geek, Tough Pigs is one of my favorite blogs on the interwebs and today they posted an amazing article. Recently they had the pleasure of interviewing Kathy Mullen, the puppeteer and voice behind Mokey Fraggle. I didn’t realize this, but Kathy is married to famous illustrator and frequent Henson collaborator Michael Frith and while they were interviewing Mullen they managed to snap a ton of pics of some rare Michael Frith art.

If you’re a Henson fan you need to go check this out, it’s full of awesome unused art, sketches, and ideas Frith had for pretty much all of Henson’s characters.

One of my favorite things about looking back at 80s/90s Turtlemania and collecting bits and pieces of TMNT memorabilia is the wide variety of art styles that were used in all the licensed stuff. Some products had horrible character art that made you wonder how it ever got made, while others had awesome art that I could (and sometimes do) frame and hang on my wall.

One of my favorite styles of TMNT licensing art is the half cartoon/half comics style, for lack of a better term. The Turtles don’t look as cartoony as some versions, the lines are usually a little thicker, and overall it looks more serious. The TMNT board game art is a perfect example. I have a few pieces of TMNT stuff that look like they’re all from the same artist, and I wish I could track down who illustrated it all. Some puzzles, children’s books, and stickers have the same style and I can’t get enough of it.
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