Trash Mutant Interviews (TMI): RichtBeyonce, Kanye, Goku, Richt. What do these guys have in common? Well, the former three are legends in their own right, so iconic they have no need for surnames or introductions.
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TRASH MUTANT: The first time I came across Spider-Mandem was through the custom doll you made for the Streets of Beige exhibition, Kill Your Shelf, at last year’s Toy Con. How did the idea come about? Were you deep into a Youtube k-hole of Fire in the Booth clips when you had a vision of roadman Spidey? RICHT: I spend most evenings drawing in my sketchbook. If I’m lacking inspiration my go to thing is to draw Spidey’s mask. I think as a piece of design it’s just perfect. Shout out to Ditko! One day I popped a five panel cap on him and wrote SPIDER-MANDEM. This was at least 2 years before I made the figure. I was stuck for something to do for the Kill Your Shelf exhibition and decided to try it. I had never done anything with it before because I thought it was so dumb. The timing was right and I have no doubt it only really caught people’s imagination now because the mainstream is finally accepting grime. How did you go about creating the original Spider-Mandem figure? The original one is a 10” Spider-Man from the Titan range. I bought £30 worth of Action Man clothes and accessories and sculpted five panel from milliput. I flipped an existing box for a Hulk figure and painted it. The original sketch from 2013 and the OG Kill Your Shelf Spider-Mandem toy. Click on each to enlarge.
Spider-Mandem has played a big part in putting Trap Toys on the map outside of the toy community. There has been mainstream coverage - Vice/Noisey, The Observer, to name a few - of their work, with Spider-Mandem frequently referenced. So how did the collaboration with Trap Toys happen? You’re friends with Tony and Adam (Trap Toys’ creators), right? Well I can’t take credit for that, those boys know what they’re doing. They are far more plugged into that scene than me. I met Tony a few years ago. He dropped me an email because he wanted to make a toy for a fanzine I made, Nobody Likes Leonardo. He was super enthusiastic and we made a bootleg TMNT figure with the guys from Goodleg Toys. Shortly after that happened Trap Toys was born. Poor Leonardo, man. What’s the Turtle’s beef with him in the zine? Not so much their beef as mine. I hate him. I made a fanzine before that was called Nobody Likes Cyclops. Same thing. Bossy pricks. Just let Wolverine and Jean get it on already. The figure is great, too. Is that the same He-Man body cast used for the Eazy-He bootleg? I think the body is a bootleg wrestler. Goodleg hooked it all up. It was the first time I had ventured into the murky waters of toys. He kept sending me variations of knock off Turtle heads on weird wrestler bodies. I loved it. That’s what dreams are made of. Or at least my dreams, anyway. Going back to Spidey, what was the process like from conception to production? How much involvement, aside from the design, did you have in getting this incarnation of Spider-Mandem into the hands of fans? After making the first 10” figure for the Kill Your Shelf exhibition I realised it was blowing up and I should probably do something. Tony wanted to do a run. The design of the toy itself was done, we kept it super simple. I designed the packaging and then left it to the boys [Adam and Tony] to finish. Me and Tony went back and forth on how he should be painted, what he would wear, the ankle tag and how to pull off the mask design.
Tony then made the sculpt, Adam cast them before giving them back to Tony to be painted and packaged. I was gonna make some special editions like the original, but buying Action Man clothes on ebay is a ball ache. Action Man collectors… Jeeeez! If anyone wants to hook me up with loads of Action Man clothes, I will do some special 10” editions. Action Man collectors: you heard the man! Have you seen any cool Spider-Mandem fan art since the toy’s release? Haha, yeah I have! I have a folder of images of people that copy my artwork. Have had for years. I love it. Spidermandem stuff is different though, as I don’t feel the same ownership over it. Essentially, it’s fan art of fan art. Makes my head hurt. Someone made a bootleg Spidermandem t-shirt. A bootleg of a bootleg. Fucking Inception. Leo sure would be baffled by this one. Kind of like fan art of Fifty Shades of Grey, but, you know, creating something based off a non-lame thing. I thought the Man Don’t Care video you shared on your Instagram, with the Spider-Mandem fan art in the background, was pretty sweet. You’re also a big toy collector, too. What kind of toys do you collect? I’m into old Marvel stuff. I am currently thinning out and getting rid of all the stuff I don’t love. I like weird stuff, bootleg stuff and anything to do with Halloween or death or skulls. The 90’s Toy Biz Marvel stuff is perfection. The packaging is amazing. I’m not into new stuff or vinyl art toys - except Kaws, I have a truly shite bootleg kaws figure. I think it’s better than the official one because it’s so shit. One of my finest achievements is “Hulks on Hulks on Hulks”. From the Richt collection. Click on each to enlarge.
This is a particularly crucial question that has the potential to divide many Londoners. What postcode is Spider-Mandem repping? I feel like it would be silly of me to answer that. “Spidermandem is for the children”. Fair enough. Wouldn’t want to start any unnecessary postcode wars. Good thinking. If Marvel contacted you tomorrow and were like: “Fam, we want you to write/draw a Spider-Mandem one-shot”, where would you start? What would happen in the comic? I imagined David Cameron being the Big Bad… I would get someone else to do it. I know a couple of comic book artists who are amazingly good. So I would beg them to do it. I love drawing but drawing comics is a different level. I’m so fussy, so I know I would hate drawing it and it not being perfect. Unless Kirby drew it, I’m not interested. Nothing would happen in the comic, literally nothing. Him talking shit with sirens going off all round town. He might go to the park for a zoot. I really wanna make some little animations of him doing nothing. Picture this scenario: your house is being sucked into another dimension. You don’t know how much time you have before being transported to a different part of the universe, so all thinking needs to be quick and (sadly) practically. The pressure is on. What 3 toys do you save? Which three are my favourite? The ones I made! Leonardo with Goodleg and Streets of Beige. Trick or Treat toys with Ricky and 45rpm and Spidermandem with Trap. I still can’t believe I have fallen into this nonsense. Aside from inadvertently creating the easiest cosplay ever, you’re an illustrator. What kind of artwork do you create and have you been working on any exciting projects recently? As usual a lot of stuff I’m not meant to talk about. I end up doing stuff that has a launch date 6 months later. By the time it drops you’re over it or you forgot. Things like Spider-Mandem aren’t work for me, they are the byproduct of this job choice that ends up taking over. I love having such a varied job. Hopping from painting, exhibitions, installations, design work and weird bootleg bullshit. Also someone has already told me they are doing it as cosplay. I’m excited. If you wanna see what else I do go check out my insta @richtpaint. What does the future hold for everyone’s favourite roadman crawler? Possible new garms or other merch that people need to cop? Or maybe a diorama that Spidey can cotch in, playing Fifa with Harry Osborne, surrounded by empty Domino’s pizza boxes and stubbed out half smoked spliffs? I don’t wanna keep bashing people round the head with it. There will probably be more figures through Trap at some point. Maybe we can do a variant. I have done two shirt releases and a print. They have all sold so well. I am genuinely surprised at how popular knock off Spider-Man products are. (Thanks if you bought some of my market stall tat!) I’m very wary of doing more, but if I get super skint before Christmas I might. Go check the store spidermandem.bigcartel.com. Can we expect more Trap Toys x Richt team-ups in the future? Giving the people what they want and all that... Every now and again we will have a pint and they look through my sketchbooks so you never know. They made me a vampire dildo for our Halloween exhibition, Trick or Treat last year. Myself and 45RPM put it on with HangFire every year in Bristol. Last year we made a Halloween sex shop. Tony put the head on the dildo backwards. Everyone knows the vampire’s face should be on the same side as his balls. Fucking amateur hour. Of course. That’s just balls and dick logic. But you’re lucky, man. I wish I had friends who would make me a Dracula dildo. Thanks for chatting to us, Richt! ____________________________________________
Make sure to check out Richt on his Instagram and Twitter, and drop by the Spider-Mandem store and get yourself something pretty. Got any comments? Leave them below!
Tagged: collectibles & merch, TM Interviews. |
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