This Friday, October 16th is Neon Monster's 2nd Anniversary! 

To celebrate we are hosting a signing with ELEPHANTMEN creators RIchard Starkings and Moritat, Reuben Rude will creating a painting that we will raffle off to one lucky Neon Monster fan, and to top it off we are having a 15% off 1-day only in-store SALE!!!  

Please join us for COMICS, DJ'S, FOOD and ART from 3-8 pm this Friday, October 16th at Neon Monster!!!!

901 Castro St, San Francisco, CA 94114 - 415.206.9644

Public voting for Shopwars has officially begun. The winner gets to tag something good. If you want to see Reuben Rude paint Mitch on a wall somewhere as much as we do, please please please click here and vote for him!

Last Friday's Shopwars was presented by San Francisco's Delicious Drips and 1AM SF as a way to showcase local toy customizers and raise money for Project Open Hand. At the opening event, a cup of beer came with a ticket on which to vote-scrawl your pick for the winner. Under normal circumstances, choosing a favorite among an array of great figures is tough. When the contestants are your friends, it's even tougher. Of course, we're partial to Mitch, our character as realized by local artist, Reuben Rude. It may be immodest to compliment one's own work, but since we didn't paint it, we can brag on Reuben all we want. The piece was super clean! Even Mitch's crucial nodes made it into 3D. We were stoked to see a red dot next to Mitch's tag, and hope he went to a good home. If you want to see Mitch painted somewhere public, vote for him here!

There were several other show-stealers. Dril One's Toyer for Dragatomi took the canvas to another level and included a real working torpedo. It's always nice chatting with Dril, Joanne and Ray--and if they hadn't snapped up the piece, we might have. The guys from Infectious kept it old school with their Captain Kangaroo concept. The detail on the anatomy was terrific, and you get to keep the record. Ryan Holt's "Qeef" was an ingenius idea. We love wordplay and packaging. Representing the event's organizers, Dli$h and Lily Black transformed their Qees: one bright, the other dark, but both ineligible for the win.

All of the pieces are currently up at the gallery, though most--all were priced to sell at $100--have been sold. Anna from 1AM said the event was a great success and a nice segue into their 1-year anniversary next month. She also mentioned the potential for a Shopwars 2 next year. Lots of great local talent to be seen here. Hoping for even more involvement from shops and artists in 2010. See all the figures from Shopwars 2009 below.

SHOPWARS!

Although the East Bay Express recently referred to Richmond's own Attaboy as a "grizzled ex-graffiti artist," the mural currently adorning the exterior wall of San Francisco's 1:AM Gallery is his first act of "street art." Inside, Atta has transformed the space into a dark Seussian fantasy, complete with a Gooberry tree that would certainly please the Doctor. It's always interesting to see what artists can do with different materials, and Antidote showed that acrylic suits Attaboy (and vice versa). In an interview on 1:AM's blog, Atta described working with plastic:

Lately, I’m happiest while drawing with a knife. Spray painting plastic. It’s a ridiculous medium, and I think I’m the only one doing it, at least in this way. People think my lines are printed vinyl or paint, but no! It’s stenciled meticulously, each and every line was two cuts and each piece is a thousand cuts. You kinda have to see them in person. It’s like urban stain glass.

It's hard to take photos of urban stained glass without turning the artwork into a succession of reflections of yours truly, but I did my best (scroll down to next post for spoilers). Besides, you should stop by the gallery and see it for yourself anyway. You'll find multiple rooms with multiple mediums including acrylic, resin, plush, colored pencil drawings and a sculptural installation. There's a lot to take in, and the more you look, the more you see. For instance, I found myself staring a while at Girl Parts. Oh, but what else is new? Check it out through September 5th.