Mantra!
Designer vinyls, boutique vinyls, whatever you call them, they’re really not my thing. But then I met Mantra.
Mantra is the clumsy, but well-meaning monster brainchild of cartoonist Jim Woodring, and he was born when Japanese gallery Presspop approached Jim to do a vinyl figure. “They asked for designs, I sent them a few,” he told me. “They chose Mantra. I drew him from four angles and did color schemes. The sculpture [by Presspop’s artisan Kondou] looks exactly like the drawings. I was floored when I saw it.”
This isn’t the first time Jim Woodring’s work has been realized in plastic. Six of his designs were part of Sony’s Time Capsule series, which made various artists’ creations available in gashapon toy form. Nonetheless, he was still impressed by the painstaking attention to detail during the creation process. “Presspop and Kondou were very conscientious about getting everything just right. There was considerable last-minute cogitation about what color the orifice between his tentacles should be.”
I asked Jim where the design came from. “I don’t know. The idea was to make a figure that could stand among the well-known Japanese movie monster toys. He came out a little clean and pretty for that, though.” Kaiju fans might see him as what Gezora would look like if he attacked the Yellow Submarine.
“I really like the thing and am thrilled to see this poor creature brought into existence like this,” but Jim admits, “God only knows what people who contemplate him see.”
Like most collector-oriented vinyl figures, Mantra comes bagged with an header card based on Jim’s paintings. He’s 22 cm tall, the same size as a standard Bullmark, and is available in both “cool” and “warm” color variations. The vinyl isn’t as thick as an M-1 Go figure, but the paint job is very impressive.
Mantra is available directly from Presspop, and sells for 6800 yen plus 2400 yen shipping for one or two figures. Buyers outside Japan who want to adopt Mantra should contact Presspop via the email address on their web site, and they accept international postal money orders.
Jim hints that there may be more Woodring-themed creations coming down the pike, so keep your eyes peeled.
Links
Jim Woodring: http://www.jimwoodring.com/
Mantra figure: http://www.jimwoodring.com/misc/mantra.html
Mantra art: http://www.jimwoodring.com/strangerpages/getback.html
Presspop: http://www.presspop.com/
Mantra page: http://www.presspop.com/author/jim/MANTARA.html
