Resin the Barbarian - Part 11

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Night of the Living Dead with Al Matrone

July 10th, 2009

First published Feb. 16, 2006, at GJSentinel.com.

Back in my grade-school days, I’d sneak out after bedtime Friday nights to catch “Shock Theater” on late-night TV. I saw some wonderful horror movies, including a lot of the Hammer Studios stuff and some classics from the ’30s and ’40s, but it wasn’t until I viewed George A. Romero’s cheesy “Night of the Living Dead” that I knew just how much a movie could scare me. The first time I tried, I couldn’t sit through more than four scenes of that 1968 movie about cannibalistic zombies at a stretch. I’d turn off the TV, hide under my covers a few minutes…and then sneak back out for more.

The thrills started with the guy in the picture below, played by Bill Heinzman, who showed up early on while a timid woman’s irritating brother taunted, “They’re coming to get you, Barbra.”

Night of the Living Dead by GEOmetric Design

“Night of the Living Dead” is an upcoming offering by GEOmetric Design, a long-standing garage-kit company founded by George Stephenson (last I heard, he was serving as a trial judge in Minnesota, appointed by former Gov. Jesse Ventura) and now run by Al Matrone.

The zombie is a 1/8 scale resin kit sculpted by Joe Simon, should be ready around April and the price will probably be in the $100 neighborhood. Al was unable to give an exact figure because, he wrote in an e-mail, he was “thinking of adding another piece to the kit, like a piece of an eaten body part.”

Watch for information about the kit at the GEOmetric Web site, then order it from Al’sPhoenix Comics if you’re interested. He also welcomes people to give him a call at (570) 457-2691.

Here’s a little bit about what Al had to say in an e-mail exchange:

Me: What got you interested in producing garage kits?

Al: I was selling them as a product line. And I always liked models when I was a kid. I always liked the superheroes or science fiction line the best. So George was closing the company down and I had nothing to lose, so I asked him what he wanted for it. Then one thing led to another. At times I still find it hard to believe that I own it.

Me: Is producing garage-kits a money-making proposition, or a money-losing one?

Al: I make money, but I won’t give up my day job. I am making enough to keep doing more kits. If you want to become rich and famous then this is not the business, but it… Read the rest

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Nuked Supes by Mad Dog Resin

July 10th, 2009

First published Feb. 8, 2006, at GJSentinel.com.

Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s … a roasted Kryptonian!

Resin bust.

“Nuked Supes” is a 1/4 scale resin bust available from the friendly folks at Mad Dog Resin for $55 plus shipping. It was sculpted by Gabe Perna and inspired by a harrying sequence involving the Man of Steel and a Soviet warhead in Frank Miller’s 1980s epic comic miniseries “Batman: The Dark Knight.” “The Dark Knight” gave comics in general and Batman in particular a major popularity push and helped persuade Warner Bros. to make Michael Keaton’s first Batman movie in the late ’80s. The latest, best Bat-movie, “Batman Begins,” is heavily inspired by Miller’s work.

If you haven’t read “The Dark Knight,” it’s readily available in the graphic novel sections of many bookstores, through various Web sites such as Amazon and even on the shelves at theMesa County Public Library District’s central branch.

As with most garage kits, only a handful of copies of “Nuked Supes” will be made, and once they’re gone, they’re gone. In fact, a companion piece of the Dark Knight called “I Am the Law” came and went within a matter of weeks (I’m one of the lucky folks who got one). What you get when you buy Supes is an unbuilt kit in three pressure-cast pieces; the one pictured was painted by Dan Cope.

I’ve traded a few e-mails with Charlie of Mad Dog Resin; here’s some of what he had to say:

Me: Was “Nuked Supes” your concept or Gabe’s? What attracted you to the subject matter?

Charlie: I have been a fan of Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns” since it was published back in the mid-’80s. It really was unlike anything else being published at the time, and as a kid, it got me hooked on comics for years to come.

“Nuked Supes” comes from that book. There is a scene in the book where
Superman diverts a nuclear missile headed for the U.S.A. The bomb goes
off, and Superman gets … well … “Nuked”. The result is what you see, a crispy, zombie-looking Superman.

This was something I had wanted to do for a long time, and I thought
Gabe’s style fit this piece perfectly. There are very few Superman kits out there, and most of them are pretty standard … this was taking the traditional character, and doing something different with it, but still having it based on actual material from the comics.

If you are familiar… Read the rest

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Forbidden Zone’s Young Frankenstein

July 6th, 2009

First published Feb. 1, 2006, on the “Resin the Barbarian” blog at GJSentinel.com.

Growing up, the classic movie monsters were right up there with superheroes as my favorite things. I spent hours reading comics and magazines such as Famous Monsters, and I loved building model kits of my favorite characters.

I rediscovered the plastic-model hobby about four years ago, and shortly after that I found out about garage kits. Ever heard of them? Basically put, they’re model kits made of resin or vinyl, usually in very limited runs and often produced by people who simply enjoy the subject matter. The producers seldom make much money doing it, even though people like me barely think twice about overheating our credit cards when we find something new we like and know we really might miss out on if we don’t act soon.

Which leads me to this:

Forbidden Zone\'s Young Frankenstein.

Man, Gene Wilder could do no wrong in the 1970s, not in my eyes. In movie after movie, he was the person to watch. “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.” “Blazing Saddles.” “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask.” He was a hoot in all of them. But he was arguably at his best as Dr. “Fronkensteen” in Mel Brooks’ “Young Frankenstein.”

What you see above is the Young Frankenstein (Gene Wilder) Bust offered by the wonderful garage-kit companyForbidden Zone. It’s made of resin, 1/4 scale, sculpted by Howard Senft of Denver, and sells for $55 plus $6 U.S. shipping. The one in the picture above was painted by Steve Parke. The kit (unbuilt and unpainted) is available now but hasn’t made it to Forbidden Zone’s “merchandise” page. Check out “coming soon” to see more pictures and, if you’re interested, find out how to get in touch with Forbidden Zone by clicking on the “contact us” link.

My wife, Lisa, gave me two Forbidden Zone kits for Christmas: a Frankenstein Monster bust and Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man kit. They reached my home in great shape and the castings – by Earthbound Studios’ Mark Brokaw, who has a well-earned reputation as the best at what he does – were nearly flawless. Some garage kits can come with a lot of air bubble holes and flash in the resin that have to be cleaned up, but not these. Seeing them convinced me to go ahead and grab the recently introduced Young Frankenstein bust and it’s every bit I hoped for.

Let me finish up with a short e-mail Q&A with Mike Allen of Forbidden Zone:

Me: What… Read the rest

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