Hebru Brantley x MINDstyle – Fly Boy 18″ at SDCC

Ever since MINDstyle released the 18” Fly Boy vinyl art toy from Hebru Brantley at the Shanghai Toy Show in April, collectors have been looking for a stateside opportunity to add this impressive piece to their shelves.  The wait is over.  The large format Fly Boy will be available for $350 at SDCC from the Pop Life booth [#4845].

If you’re wondering about the origins of Fly Boy, there’s a really nice artist statement about the character after the jump.

Flyboy came out of characters of color within popular culture. I hate saying “popular culture,” but it’s really popular culture. I mean you look at cartoons. You’ve got animated sponges and ducks and birds and whatever, and it’s very rare to see a popular character within any medium that is African-American, Latino, even Asian.

What I wanted to do was create that, but in a space of high art and be able to have some historical context to that character. So I looked at the Tuskegee Airmen, who were fighter pilots in World War II. They flew successful missions and they never lost a person. But at that time black folks were treated far less than equal. For me, it was important to have that historical context to a character, not to just have one for the sake of needing one or wanting one.

As far as it being a kid, it wasn’t necessarily a plan from the outset to create a childlike character; when I create, a lot of times I don’t see kids. I really don’t. I just see them as people. There’s a sense of innocence there, but there’s also a sense of all the other things we go through. What a kid might go through on a playground in certain ways might parallel what a guy goes through in a boardroom in a job day to day.

“It’s very rare to see a popular character that is African-American, Latino, or Asian. I wanted to create that, but in a space of high art and with some historical context.” —Hebru Brantley