The difference

Discussion in 'Americans and Other Western Gaijin' started by brianflynn, Dec 18, 2008.

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  1. Roger

    Roger Vintage

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    The difference
    We live in an age where an Iggy Pop song about heroin addiction is being used in commercials for cruise lines, banks, and antacids. Aren't we way past the point of being shocked by stuff like this?
     
    Roger, Dec 20, 2008
    #51
  2. m3kcomp

    m3kcomp Side Dealer

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    I don't think anyone is shocked by this, just appalled...

    alex is totally right. I personally never wore any kind of uniform...but have lived my life (since I was a kid because of my aunt's influence) much like a "punk." still, I have never wanted to identify myself as such nor felt that way other than on subconscious level. I think that punk is just one of the many shorthanded ways of describing life lived on one's own terms...and not just by fashion or music taste. I hate crusty punks and I hate these toys...the symbols used in these toys are not only ridiculous, but insulting to people's intelligence.

    I think the ice cube man toy blows as well, sorry Brian...
     
    m3kcomp, Dec 20, 2008
    #52
  3. MicromanZone

    MicromanZone Addicted

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    The difference
    I'll say this. Frostie Beats would be great if he didn't have a boom-box and a mic but had just something else going for him. I mean he's a damned cube, so why not create something more create for him to do. Like be a mini-transforming ice cube or have him stuck inside something else.

    But those Kid Robotica punk dolls are bizarre. Who is the real market for that? The I.T. guy down the hall who likes to sing "Anarchy in the U.K." at the karaoke bar after work? He has that balancing on his windowsill to remind him that he's still "punk" while installing SP3 on some accounting guy's laptop. It makes no sense. Hip hop kids who are getting into punk ever since indie rock styles started crossing over into urban street fashion?

    I'm glad I grew up in the 1980s when merch and related paraphernalia weren't as pervasive. And you truly had to seek stuff out. The "poseur " side of things come from how easy it is for anyone to affect a look and implied culture nowadays. Faux authenticity mixed into weird things. Like this.

    That's why I like cool old Japanese toys. They didn't lie about what they were and they were great. I mean a robot gorilla with missiles launching out of his chest is awesome and creative. Taking your "brand" doll and just painting it "punk" is a tad sad.
     
    MicromanZone, Dec 20, 2008
    #53
  4. Pogue

    Pogue Die-Cast

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    The difference
    Brian, so I guess you don't want these for Christmas?
     
    Pogue, Dec 20, 2008
    #54
  5. bannedindc

    bannedindc S7 Royalty

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    The difference
    EDITED.

    apples and oranges.Once again. Inspiration vs imitation. that is my argument and opinion. thats all it is as well. Quit getting your panties in such a bunch, Ho.
     
    bannedindc, Dec 20, 2008
    #55
  6. liquidsky

    liquidsky Vintage

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    The difference
    May I suggest an alternative gift?
    Spawn/McFarlane...

    [​IMG]
     
    liquidsky, Dec 20, 2008
    #56
  7. silver_lining_man

    silver_lining_man Mini Boss

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    The difference
    it's kinda ironic that you brought up mcfarlane, since a lot of his career was 'post-poned' due to lawsuits against created characters that were considered imitations without consent, and he claimed they were just inspirations...
     
    silver_lining_man, Dec 20, 2008
    #57
  8. coasterbear

    coasterbear Toy Prince

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    The difference
    Do you know they didn't?

    The KR Simpsons figures are officially licensed...
     
    coasterbear, Dec 20, 2008
    #58
  9. Anti Social Andy

    Anti Social Andy Die-Cast

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    . . . and they're still sucky . . . :( Even the BK giveaways from a couple of years back are better!
     
    Anti Social Andy, Dec 20, 2008
    #59
  10. antknee

    antknee Toy Prince

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    The difference
    I think it's safe to say that KR probably did not pay any type of licensing fee or get permission, as these would probably fall under parody, legally speaking. Are they lame? Yes. Do I give a shit about them? No. To get upset about them would be silly, as Black Flag and DK are not exactly the most underground bands ever. While I love both of them, I'm not exactly hearbroken if Greg Ginn and the non-Jello members of DK never see a dime off of these. If there are people out there that actually like the music and like the figures, good for them. Honestly, I even think the Gorilla Biscuits figure is lame, but that's another issue.
     
    antknee, Dec 20, 2008
    #60
  11. BloodDrinker6969

    BloodDrinker6969 Die-Cast

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    The difference
    "This aint a costume, its a way of life!"
    [​IMG]
     
    BloodDrinker6969, Dec 20, 2008
    #61
  12. bannedindc

    bannedindc S7 Royalty

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    Such a great movie.
     
    bannedindc, Dec 20, 2008
    #62
  13. bannedindc

    bannedindc S7 Royalty

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    blasphemy! toy of the year!
     
    bannedindc, Dec 20, 2008
    #63
  14. akum6n

    akum6n Vintage

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    The difference
    After reading this topic over the past few days, I am curious as to why there is emphasis on the lack of permission by the artists 'parodied' by KR in these toys. To me, it seems that once you cut through all of the personal feelings toward the subject matter and KR, this is not far off from what many of the Japanese vinyl toy companies are doing right now. Not to beat a dead horse, but did Gargamel get permission to recreate Miura Toy (Tetran, Beralgon) and Yonezawa (Rokuron) designs (to name a few)? As far as I know, those were original characters and toys. What about the Kamen Thunder figures by Wombat Toys, or the new Bemon sculpt? It feels like a game of semantics to argue that those toys were somehow 'inspired' by other toys, rather than admit that the artists basically copied a drawing, toy or design that they admired in the past.

    The real issues to me seem to be that (1) these toys attempt to cheapen a culture that many on this board have deep connections with; and (2) KR toys have become cheap, mass-produced parodies of cultural stereotypes. These are really just like Bratz or Lego Exoforce- just they happen to hit a nerve with this particular community. Why then draw the line based on the legal/moral platform of permission?

    If anything, this is a cultural disservice to toy and music lovers alike, but I wouldn't take it deeper than that.
     
    akum6n, Dec 21, 2008
    #64
  15. liquidsky

    liquidsky Vintage

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    The difference
    I'm not shocked or appalled or anything by the new Kidrobot figures. Whatever.
    There's so much garbage out there, both in the East and West.

    The toy line, the Kidrobot figure itself, is at 16 versions now and all they do is give it another theme and resell it: A reaper, a gunslinger, a crook, a troublemaker with a crowbar, a samurai, a graffiti tagger etc and now a punk. It's just another costume for a weak figure that they continue to market as the company mascot.

    So I don't view it as KR as paying homage to their punk rock heritage.

    If anything, KR might have a faux urban street image: the spray cans, boom boxes, the big sneakers, city stores, the "artists" that they line up etc etc. And the Kidrobot designs might be a way to market it as an outsider, outlaw, etc.

    I can't comment on the licensing issue as I don't know the exact details or legal issues involved.
    Interestingly, when I see Kidrobot, I see Ultraman with Pacman eyes...
     
    liquidsky, Dec 21, 2008
    #65
  16. coasterbear

    coasterbear Toy Prince

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    The difference
    I also have to ask...

    Did S7 pay Milton Bradley/Hasbro?
    http://super7store.com/store/detail.php?item_id=11150

    Lucasfilms?
    http://super7store.com/store/detail.php?item_id=11138
    http://super7store.com/store/detail.php?item_id=11247

    Disney?
    http://super7store.com/store/detail.php?item_id=12669
    http://super7store.com/store/detail.php?item_id=11178
    http://super7store.com/store/detail.php?item_id=12661

    The NBA?
    http://super7store.com/store/detail.php?item_id=11167

    Unless the answer to all of these is "yes" I think it's a bit hypocritical to claim the moral high ground here.
     
    coasterbear, Dec 21, 2008
    #66
  17. Greasebat

    Greasebat Side Dealer

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    The difference
    well put, although I am guilty of wearing the punk rock uniform for a number of years...!
     
    Greasebat, Dec 21, 2008
    #67
  18. melek_taus

    melek_taus Mini Boss

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    The difference
    I think the point of Brian's post was to express distaste for the manner in which the particular "punk" toys were done. That the toys seem, quite obviously, like something the bands would be unhappy with. Not that S7 gets permission for all their stuff.
    But it seems to me that S7 does get permission for a lot of the homages or "inspired by" stuff they do as covered in Brian's post.. Or they do it in a way that respects the originator of the work.
     
    melek_taus, Dec 21, 2008
    #68
  19. FuzzFace

    FuzzFace Fresh Meat

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    [​IMG]

    I hope nobody rapes this.
     
    FuzzFace, Dec 21, 2008
    #69
  20. Roger

    Roger Vintage

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    The difference
    Good points. I wonder if part of the double standard is rooted in the fact that bands are made up of real people and not fictional characters. Rip off the Herculoids, and it seems like a victimless crime, but rip off Bjork and now there's a human face on it. Interesting...
     
    Roger, Dec 21, 2008
    #70
  21. ---NT---

    ---NT--- Prototype

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    The difference
    Is there not a world of difference between corporations and individuals? An individual did not design Tron or Star Wars, a board game or a logo. (And the NBA and MLB both use essentially the same logo - in your scenario why should they pay the NBA instead of MLB?)
    I think it's been long established that spinning/spoofing corporate imagery is fair game - poaching an individual's intellectual property is not.
     
    ---NT---, Dec 21, 2008
    #71
  22. m3kcomp

    m3kcomp Side Dealer

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    a-fucking-men...

    (though Mr. Osterberg and Co. sort of did it to themselves when they released "The Wierdness")
     
    m3kcomp, Dec 21, 2008
    #72
  23. brianflynn

    brianflynn Post Pimp Staff Member

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    The difference
    To clarify my point a little further, I think the intent that bothers me. You want to make Kidpunk? Fine go do it, put safety pins and anarchy signs on it. No big deal. It is a free range target with no one attached to it. You want to parody the DK logo, you start to get iffy, but, I can let it go. Heck we have, but that is usually done out of love, and the intent is to give it a greater meaning - to add context and meaning by combining two disparate ideas, not to create the context by slathering it in someone else's idea. When they start adding in the record covers, and actually use the cover itself as well - very literally the cover, you are no longer really taking an existing element and recontextualizing it to give new meaning. Instead, you are just trying to change it enough to not have to pay the owner to use it. What can I steal this week?

    Real easy, most of these guys will take a check from you if you are genuine about what you want to do, and have a genuine product. If you want to make a DK toy, just go pay Alternative Tentacles to do so. If you want to make a Black Flag toy, call SST.

    So, to answer questions that we directed to me. Did we pay Danzing when we made the Initium Frankenfighter? No, we did not. That said, it is a white figure with blood splatter. Hiddy did that and called them "spirits". The point is, we were looking at a myriad of colorways. A blood splatter figure seemed to be a neat idea, and when coupled with an obscure reference to a samhain record allowed it to have a double meaning for those that got the reference. For those that did not get the reference, it was just another blood splattered toy. Do I need to pay Danzig, just because I covered a toy with blood splatter? I don't think so. Now, if I made a toys that had a likeness of Danzig or his logo, and I put his record cover on it, then yes, I probably should.

    There is a difference between homage and copy. An homage contains only an element of a reference in an outside context, and places it in an unexpected place as a tribute or reference. It does not take the whole, and does not represent the entire idea, just a fraction if it, placed within a separate idea. A copy take the majority of an idea, and reproduce it very directly, and with the intent of making someone think it is part of the original idea. That is what sets things apart.

    As far as the t-shirt links you reference. Yes, some of them are licensed, and some are not. Is battleship? No. Then again, I am taking a piece of it, a moment in the game and presenting it my way. It was actually part of a larger series I did at the beginning of the Iraq war (2002 I believe) that had a series of children's toys, representative of the different branches of the armed forces, There was a firecracker tank, a model plane, a plastic ]soldier and the battleship. All have little sayings on them that can be read in two ways. It was a subtle attempt to talk about the current political climate without being overt, and the culture we all grow up in, as well as play on the fact that essentially those being sent to war were children. We recently reprinted three of the four tees, as they are still relevant, and work as simple t-shirts even if you don't dive into the deeper meaning.

    The spaceships/robots/monster collages were originally from art shows of mine. I wanted to visually represent my childhood, and came up with the idea to make something similar to a Rorscach test. This way I could reference things as a visual list of stimulus I loved then (and still do) but you had to be just as much of a nerd as I was to identify the items, as only the outline was there, no details were left to clur you in. That shirt is an autobiography (you will see no star trek ships on that shirt, as an example) and is my personal take on that aspect of history. It is not meant to be, or is comprehensive. There are major spaceships left out (like the X-wing for example), yet obscure ships like the Blockade Runner are in there. (As a kid I had the die-cast Imperial ship that had the mini plastic Blockade Runner inside, and I thought this was just about the coolest thing I owned. Also, it was the intro to Star Wars, a scene that blew my mind at age 7. In my mind, and in my life, much more important than an X-Wing.)

    Lastly, "punk is about breaking the rules." Not sure where this comes from, it is sort of like saying "isn't skateboarding about being extreme?" The answer is no. This would be a media generalization that really has no relevance to punk, or anything else. Punk has nothing to do with breaking or following the rules, it has to do with how you view and relate to the world. You can be a punk librarian or scientist. Things can be called punk that don't even know what it is. Just as HMS said, his grandpa sounds pretty punk.
     
    brianflynn, Dec 21, 2008
    #73
  24. gatchabert

    gatchabert Prototype

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    I had this too!! It was pretty awesome but out of scale since the X-wing, Y-wing, Millennium Falcon, and Snowspeeder were all the same size...but that didn't bother us as kids :D
     
    gatchabert, Dec 22, 2008
    #74
  25. andy

    andy Mini Boss

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    The difference
    What bothers me about this discussion is not the "who licensed what" aspect but the perpetuation of the "us vs. them" mentality.

    It would be ridiculous at this point to say that all the sofubi coming out of CA or Tokyo stands in stark contrast to Kidrobot product. And vice versa. So I say encourage more crossover collecting, on both sides of the "aisle" (which is more of an imaginary "feel good" fiction than anything else).

    The neo-kaiju scene needs to grow, not shrink. So I say let people discuss Dunnnys or Munnys or whatever, and stop making them feel unwanted. Because too many people have left neo-kaiju recently (partly because it's so incredibly expensive for most people) and too many KR collectors have turned tail because they've been made to feel unwanted.

    With the world economy in the crapper and the yen at a two decade zenith, shouldn't we be going out of our way to grow the fold?
     
    andy, Dec 22, 2008
    #75
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