Often referred to as the ‘father of punk comics’ Gary Panter is one of the most influential cartoonists of his generation. In addition to his punk comics, Gary’s illustration work has appeared in Rolling Stone, Time, and Entertainment Weekly to name a few and his set-design for Pee Wee’s Playhouse earned him three Emmys.
While he’s created numerous characters, Jimbo is a clear standout. This post-nuclear punk-rock character with Neanderthal like characters first appeared in the punk-rock Slash magazine and later in the comics magazine RAW. Jimbo has proved highly influential, serving as the partial basis of Matt Groening’s prankster, Bart Simpson.
Roughly 30 years after Jimbo’s first published adventures, Jimbo is set to drop as vinyl figure from Dark Horse in December ’07. Sculpted by Yoe! Studio, Jimbo is 9.5" of anatomically correct vinyl and comes with a tattered cloth t-shirt and tartan loin cloth. Limited to 750 pieces, Jimbo ships with a 32-page comic-book style making-of book and will retail for $49.99. A signed and numbered edition with special packaging and extras (75 pieces) will drop at the same time as the standard edition.
We’ve had a chance to look at the included making-of book and in a word, it’s awesome. In the intro Gary mentions that Jimbo is "The Real thing. COLORED VINYL" and talks about his desire to follow in the footsteps of Japanese monster toys from the 1970’s. Heavily influenced by Kaiju, Jimbo’s color scheme is based off of a Hedora figure. His focus on "getting it just wrong" really captures his approach to art with his "ratty line" style. The book features Gary’s hand-drawn turn around sketches with notations, beautifully scrawled color guides, package sketches, sculpting progress shots and more. As far as we know, no one’s ever included a similar making-of book with a vinyl art toy.
Look for a "close up" feature of the Jimbo vinyl in a week or so.
