I can’t even begin to imagine the amount of time and work that went into making this thing, not to mention the legalities. Whatever the case, the end result is nothing short of spectacular!
As always, I’m a year late and a few hundred dollars short, but that doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to be bowled over by these insanely sweet Freddie Krueger Nikes.
Every few months, I visit the Dunkin Donuts website, just to see if a franchise has secretly popped up in the Los Angeles area, and I’m invariably disappointed by the empty results. Someday, I’ll pop in my zip code and see something like this:
Instead of this:
The latter image is especially disheartening because apparently the Baskin Robbins down the street ill gladly sell me a Dunkin Donuts gift card. I assume it’s usable for BR products as well as DD, but that still doesn’t make it terribly logical to sell DD cards to a bunch of customers who may never have been to a DD in their lives.
The other day, ebay was served notice by DC/ WB and in turn passed notice on to a gentleman who was running some Superman related auctions that were set up to benefit the cancer charity, Cadlelighters. Seems that the auction featured original pieces of art featuring the character (some by pretty big name artists, to boot), and someone in the DC/WB hierarchy got their knickers in a twist over it.
I messed up. I just got notice that two of the Superman related auctions have been removed from the site and the rest are probably next. I don’t know what to do now. I have to start canceling auctions and issuing refunds. That means all the fees and such I’m now responsible for which is money i just don’t have, and I have no idea if I’m still obligated to the middleman ebay uses for their charity auctions.
I’ve gone ahead and canceled the auctions still running that featured Warner Bros properties. I’m not sure what to do about the ones (like the ones that were canceled by DC) that are already completed. I’ll be talking to ebay, paypal, missionfish (the people that handle ebay’s charity donations) the artists and auction winners.
Up until this occurrence, DC - and the rest of the comic book publishers out there - have chosen to turn a blind eye to the majority of ebay auctions featuring drawings of their characters. Hell, Tom Derenick, one of DC’s current go-to guys actually got his name and work on the radar by becoming one of ebay’s first celebrity comic book illustrators. The only auctions that get shut down with any true regularity, and even then still manage to get from start to finish with no problems most of the time, are the porno superhero illos.
I’m pretty much expecting this bad publicity to cause DC/WB to either reconsider or throw some of their own money at the charity in order to try to make this bad press go away, but the damage is done. DC/WB have managed to come off as the overbearing, uncaring bullies. I understand completely the concept of protecting your characters, trademarks, etc., but I can’t imagine it would do any damage to your company if you were to provide some sort of out or provision allowing people to create and sell fan art, especially in the case of a charity benefit! Or am I delusional?
I’ve already pulled the auctions from round two of the fund raiser that featured Warner Bros properties. I am going to refund and return the art from the first round that featured DC characters so they cannot point at me and say “Look at the money you’ve made from our properties.”
Should things get straightened out with the WB and I get their permission, I can always relist the items later.
So yeah. Here’s hopin’ I don’t have to swallow the costs of the completed auctions with ebay’s charity middleman.*
*Edit, turns out I do. Yay.
If anyone out there is going to be on, around, or in NYC anytime from now until July 13, if you get a chance try to catch the massive Takashi Murakami exhibit over at the Brooklyn Museum of Art.
Some of the pieces (like the Louis Vitton store) don’t exactly work, but overall it’s deeply impressive and memorable to say the least — especially the stunning sculptures Second Mission Project ko2 Advanced (Human Type) and Inochi, and the overwhelming paintings Super Nova and Tan Tan Bo Puking, which I would argue is an honest-to-god masterpiece.
Unfortunately restrictions kept us from taking photos, but you can check out how Murakami’s gigantic Mr. Pointy sculpture was assembled, and you can also take a look at the swell Murakami site the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles has up. It’s where the exhibit was first shown a few months back and I believe features all the same work.
As always, the Japanese have the coolest stuff. This vintage “Army of Darkness” poster is just the latest Japanese piece of pop culture art that I covet. Everything about it screams “Awesome!” from the multimedia collage approach to Ash’s word balloon to the incredibly sweet literal interpretation of Bruce Campbell’s name as soup.
Much larger, uncropped poster image at PosterWire.
Fun list over up on Yahoo! Games (am I allowed to use that many prepositions in a row…?): the 10 Worst Game Sequels Ever.
And we’re not talking lackluster franchise installments like Final Fantasy VIII or Super Mario Sunshine. OH NO. These are games that physically killed franchises. Murdered them and drank blood from their shattered skulls. Let the bloodletting begin.
Por ejemplo:
Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly
The Little Purple Dragon That Could came out of nowhere to become one of the brightest stars in Sony’s galaxy, enjoying three successful outings on the original Playstation. But when ace developer Insomniac bailed out, Sony sold the rights to Universal, who very nearly slayed the good-hearted dragon by foisting this abysmal effort onto an unsuspecting public. Horrendous frame rate problems, laughable sound glitches, game-ending crash bugs and a nigh-incomprehensible plot ruined both Spyro’s PS2 debut and his chances at becoming a lifelong Sony mascot. Burned.
