This pic of Secret Base's Hiddy Kinoshita and a member of the Bounty Hunter staff was pulled from the BXH site. The "Bounthoven" sweatshirt that both gentlemen are wearing was made by Hikaru Iwanaga's fashion label and toy company, Bounty Hunter, a few season's ago, and here, you can see the source of inspiration in this Schroeder toy from 1966. Hikaru's gift for mining vintage American advertising, cartoon and punk culture never ceases to impress me. Awesome!

If you were into punk and hardcore and lived in the D.C.-Baltimore area in the '90s you likely know a bunch of the DJs on this flyer for DJ Stereo Faith's benefit. Steve is an ultra nice guy, and my family's thoughts and prayers are with him. See you tomorrow night in D.C.

Another year. Another San Diego Comic Con. While the chaos and crowds grow exponentially more intense, the people who make up the international toy scene continues to inspire me. Seeing my friends Mike Sutfin and his lovely wife, Tonya, Joel "Lamour Supreme" Orbeta and, of course, Chris Nelson (my partner on the Toypunks videos), was fully rad.

A special thanks to Lev and Lorne at Toy Tokyo in New York -- and to Pushead -- for the success of the first release of Mr. Sutfin's toy, Reckless's inaugural release. It feels very much like this is the beginning of something special, and spending time with the dedicated and talented people in the scene last week -- Kirkland from Toybot (without whom the release of the Mad Battle Man would not have gone nearly as well), Joe of Kaiju Chronicle, Le Merde, Gargamel, Martin Onitiveros, Bwana Spoons ... there really are too many to name -- reminded me of all of the best reasons that I started writing about, documenting, and now, producing figures for this world.

I leave you with a look at Lamour Supreme and S7's amazing Mongolion figure, a gift from him that exemplifies the tremendous creativity, level of handcraft, and brilliance that's so apparent in our "scene." Thank you, Joel!