Channel Frederator Blog

The always entertaining website Dark Roasted Blend is home to a two-part series about fright-inducing playgrounds from around the world. Cartoon characters—most of them unidentifiable—are featured. Russia predominates in this area of kid-centric creepiness.

Nightmare Playgrounds: Part One.

Nightmare Playgrounds: Part Two.

After the jump, some All American playgrounds that are just a wee bit disturbing.

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I admit to being a bit late to the waffle party, but I just discovered the wonderful world of cartoon waffle testimonials. It all started with the above video, made by Nathan Mazur to go along with the song “Do You Like Waffles?” by Parry Gripp of the band Nerf Herder. (The song is from his solo album For Those About To Shop, We Salute You.) This is the “official” animated video for the delicious ode to round morning goodness.

But then fans started making their own videos, starring famous cartoon characters. After the jump, links to a whole bunch of manic breakfast lovers including Sonic, Pucca, and Naruto.

And please don’t be tempted to drown me in maple syrup (the real stuff!) if you dream about this song.

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Here’s some of the loot I got from the great Mocca Art Festival this year in NYC.

First off, here’s the cover to the mini I printed up to hand out to people. I guess I was inspired by Stephen Levinson’s gun-toting, wise ass Skunk, Prikk. The comic was called, Box Assassin Hitman: Box of Danger!!!
People seemed delighted to be given a free mini about a cardboard robot who can transform into a box and is a deadly hitman assassin. [Read more…]

This past Wednesday I attended a panel discussion entitled, Cross Cultural Traffic: Toying with Brands, Borders and Bootlegs.

It was hosted by The Korea Society and was a lively talk on and about Korean Toys, their origins, how they interrelate with Japanese, American, and their own Korean Pop Cultures.

The panel consisted of Eric Nakamura (publisher of Giant Robot Magazine), Joshua Bernard (editor of CollectionDX.com), and The Korea Society’s Seho Kim (creative director).

I think Eric summed it up best on his GR blog:

“The robots and such brought out a generation of creatives. Imagine a filmmaker like Joon Ho Bong, who made the Host. Did he watch monster films as a kid? Did he play with toys? Of course he must have. The geeks who collected toys are now in power at creative places, and look at what they’ve brought forward? A new world of creative minds.”

Of course, I eagerly took down notes and snapped a few pics. Enjoy!

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