Madballs & Mishka & Meat Bun

After seeing Brooklyn clothing label Mishka’s plans for a New Era fitted cap with a glow in the dark eyeball, I got this itch to get my hands on some Madballs. As a kid, I’d had a few Madballs, including (at least) Dust Brain, Screamin’ Meamie and, most importantly, Oculus Orbus. Probably more. I went to Comic Con in San Diego earlier in the summer for my day job, arriving with one personal goal: to restart my Madball collection. It was the yardstick for a successful Comic Con – buy more childish shit I don’t need for a house with no more storage space – and was not unlike the measurement of success from some other nerd-con I went to that increased my M.U.S.C.L.E. collection by some 20 wrestlers.

Oddly enough, I wasn’t at Comic Con for more than an hour before I walked up to a trash bin next to some vinyl toy dealer that was packed with Madballs. Samples, I was told, for a re-release of the line coming sometime this fall. Jackpot? Not quite. While they were cheap, they’d been updated by some clueless marketing types who added a bit more “edge” to the original molds.  More drool, tacked on bugs, a blackwash, whatever the fuck could possibly make them worse.

I bought two. One, a (shittier) Horn Head remake, the other some new Madball which wasn’t actually that bad. No Oculus Orbus, though.

Anyway, the Mishka stuff that rekindled my Madball lust from the 80s is due out sometime this week/month. Essence in Japan already has the sweater and pics of the varsity jacket have popped up on the Hypebeast forums.

It’s 100 degrees in LA right now, so sweaters are about the furthest thing from my mind. I think I’ll stick with the Keep Watch New Era cap which happens to glow in the dark!!!

Side note: While looking for quality pictures of Madballs (there are none), I found out that Ocean Software made a Madballs game for the Amstrad CPC. Nerd alert!

We’re getting down to the wire and look forward to having our Fall stuff ready soon. Fingers crossed…