THE WHITE RIDER: A TOLKIEN INSPIRED BOOTLEG WIZARD BOOTLEG ACTION FIGURE AND REALITY SHOW FAIL DO-OVER SHOW AT GHOST ROBOT IN WILLIAMSBURG BROOKLYN
2-26-2015 at 346 Grand street 7:30-10:30
Beats by The Crystal Pharoah + Live D&D by 20 Sided store + Grand Quarterly Zine release and the premiere of a short film (about the fucking Sucklord) by Joey Garfield
The Sucklord's TOLKIEN fandom is legendary. In the year 1978 the young Supervillain's two great obsessions were STAR WARS (duh) and The RALPH BAKSHI Lord of the Rings animated film. This would continue well into his so called "Adulthood" as he became a creative professional and attempted to "express himself" through things like music and "Art." In the year 2011, The Sucklord had the opportunity to appear on a television program called WORK of ART: The Next Great Artist. This was a reality competition show in the same format as TOP CHEF and PROJECT RUNWAY, except in this case, the contestants were not chefs or fashion designers. They were "fine artists." The first challenge on this program was to re-interpret a piece of "Kitchy" artwork, selected by the artists from a collection of works provided by the show's producers. From a roomful of porcelain garden gnomes and Dogs-playing-poker type things, the Sucklord selected this:
Clearly this was "right up his alley." A bootleg black velvet painting of Gandalf, ripped off from the movie poster image by Frank Frazetta from the Ralph Bakshi adaptation. It was The Suckord's task to recreate this and make it "Better." This turned out to be an impossible task because 1) It's already perfect 2) the Sucklord doesn't have any real talent and 3) there was only like 1 day to do it, and making a toy takes a long time. Needless to say, he tried, and after all this frantic effort, he came up with this:
God it's awful! It looks like something a 10 year old Sucklord would have made. Instead of hamming it up for the cameras, he should have just did what he does normally and made a cool blister-carded action figure set. Instead he went for a diorama using a "sculpt" that he pulled out his ass in a few hours then cast in resin. It just objectively sucks, and not in the intentional "Suckadelic" way. It put him in the episode's elimination critique and almost got him kicked off. It was only an endorsement from the show's guest judge Mary Ellen Mark (a Saint!) and the fact that the pretty French boy made an even worse piece and caught the bullet. The Sucklord would remain on the show for five more episodes, making terrible artwork all the way.
Things went the way they did, and after it was all over, the the "shouldda, couldda, woulddas" kicked in and for years, the Sucklord walked around with an idea of what he should have made to not be so terrible, or at least do something closer to his real work. This idea just sat there in his mind for several years until a happy meal Gandalf figure showed up in a toy box donated by a fan. An offer to do a pop up store with an exclusive figure also arrived at the same time. Not having any real idea what to do for the figure prompted the Sucklord to finally decide it was time to revisit this old failure. Not only was the source material already in his possession, it was yet another opportunity to milk his fading TV fame for publicity one final time. The chance to bolster his nerd cred was also a factor, seeing how all that sex, drugs, and hip hop was making him look too cool for his fans to tolerate. So, here is what the revised attempt looks like:
Probably a bit of an improvement, at least it's consistent with everything else The Sucklord has made. In addition to these items, there is also the extended line of figures:
The set includes all the Wizards from Tolkien's mythology plus SAURON. The other guys are: Radagast the Brown, Gandalf the Grey, Gandalf the White, Saruman the White, Pallando the Blue, and Alatar the Blue. Never heard of the Blue wizards? That's because they are only mentioned in passing in the books and films, having wandered off into the East when the 5 wizards came to Middle Earth to contest the will of Sauron in the beginning of the Third age. They never returned and it is unknown what they did or if they were successful or if they even are still alive. It's one of the most fascinating untold stories in all of Tolkien's writings. (in the Sucklord's opinion)
You can watch the episode of WORK of ART where this all goes down here: