ToyCyte: Toy Culture Collected

Upper Playground Releases Volume II: 10 Years of Artistic Endeavors

Upper Playground always has these great free catalogs in their shops that are cut more like paperback novels than anything Lillian Vernon.  I’ve been saving them because it’s handy to have the artist bios/statements and view each designer’s range and watch how they (and the company) have evolved. To commemorate its upcoming 10-Year Anniversary, Upper [...]

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Doktor A x G1988 x Mattel Hot Wheels at SDCC 08

Gallery 1988 will be repping at SDCC 08 with Mattel at the Hot Wheels Booth (#3445). They’ll be displaying many of the customized vans and a few pieces of art from their partnered show “TOYS” which opened in April 2008 (some pics here). Together with Mattel, G1988 has lined up three limited print releases [...]

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San Diego Comic-Con Exclusives Part 3

Every year, fanboys and fangirls of varying stripes descend on San Diego for Comic-Con. Although the event has extensive programming, there’s one activity that unites the collectors with the cosplayers, the MMP gamers with the manga readers, the superheroes with the steampunks: the pursuit of SDCC’s exclusive toys. ToyCyte will be publishing a weekly bulletin of [...]

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STRANGEco SDCC ‘08 Craola and MARS-1

STRANGEco has finally given us a visual complement to Greg “Craola” Simkins‘ large-scale original figure hints, which date back to last October in a Fecal Face interview and last January in a Vinyl Pulse interview (both good reads). Greg’s previous releases (a walrus for Upper Playground and the standard and chase Scurvy Nevil for the [...]

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Craola (not Paul) is the Walrus

Upper Playground, Ningyoushi Toys, and Greg “Craola” Simkins have teamed up for another colorway of their vinyl Walrus. The first Walrus, wearing a smart blue argyle vest, promptly sold out all 500 pieces. They have now introduced the Orange Edition which is limited to 350 pieces. Each Orange Edition comes with a limited, off-set print [...]

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