Clutter magazine. This is the first magazine to focus on the designer toy phenomenon. You can get all the latest gossip on the underground toy movement and polish up your designer toy trivia. Eat it fast and spew up toy facts. Nude magazine. This is a British-based magazine that comes out every quarter. It deals in art and design at the fringes of society. It’s a cross between a comic, a catalogue, and a magazine. Don’t be fooled by the title. It’s not porn.
Juxtapoz magazine. All the latest arts and culture newz. From the underground to the occult. Vinyl Abuse. http://www.vinylabuse.com This is a good online magazine exploring the world of Urban Vinyl and Street Plush. It’s stuffed full of news and reviews.
Vortigern’s Machine and the Great Sage of Wisdom, by James Jarvis and Russell Waterman. Get to know James Jarvis with this one. And get into his quirky characters. Get it. Oh, you simply must. MTV Overground Book #3 Toys, Jim Crawford. This is another good reference book for the underground toy movement. If you’re collecting toys or just wisdom, get this one.
Plastic Culture: How Japanese Toys Conquered the World, by Woodrow Phoenix. As you can probably tell by the title, this book mainly deals with the influence of Japan on the designer toy culture. There’s lots of stylish photography and lots of analysis. Stick it on your coffee table, you bourgeois scum. Dot Dot Dash!: Designer Toys, Action Figures and Character Art, by Hendrik Hellige. Another weighty tome on the designer toy movement. Lots of pictures. Lots of facts. I slipped a disk reading this one.
And just to prove that we’re not the only sickoes out there, have a look at Peggy Atherton’s art. She incorporates real roadkill into her art and sculpture. But unlike our Squash-plush, she imbues her subjects with a dignified, ethereal quality. http://www.wmin.ac.uk/mad/page-1022 |
Throw out all your tatty old Shakespeare and Dickens novels, and stick some real substance onto your shelves. There’s lots of books on the designer toy movement out there, and the following is just a soupcon of what’s on offer.
Hi Fructose magazine. The front cover designs on this magazine, I think, are what mark it out. I really liked the freaky Alice in Wonderland cover. It covers quirky art and design in all the ways it manifests itself: in vinyl, plush, canvas and toilet roll.
Full vinyl, The Subversive Art of Designer Toys. Ivan Vartanian. This is a great (if slightly pretentious) tome on the designer toy movement. It gathers together 400 leading figures in the plastic and plush underground. Great reference book. And lots of pretty pictures to look at. 
I am plastic: The Designer Toy Explosion, by Paul Budnitz. Paul Budnitz is the Kidrobot founder, so he should know his stuff. It’s a comprehensive romp through the designer toy movement. I’m wet.
Mist Book with Silver Kubrick. Mist is a French graffiti artist. So this is an in-depth documentation of his work, from his early days right up to his prototype sketches of Orus. Mmm.