EPISODE 1: Flightless Harold & Bats, Oh My!
I live in a world of horror, monsters and robot love, so what better way to share this with you by combing all these into one column, and give you some insight into the world of collecting I love. On with the show shall we?
World War Robot is a graphic novel illustrated and written by artist Ashley Wood. Harold, also referred to endearingly to as Harold the f#@4TARD in the graphic novel, is an experimental division robot and allegedly one of the early robot designs. He is known for being extremely faulty. Harold is the only robot to feature the unique design of tank treads for mobility. Ashley had designed her own Harold line of figures which was released by 3A Toys.
Amanda Visell's bio reads as follows "Visell grew up with a crazy love for vintage Disney. Mousketeers, war era cartoons, a different time. She spent her teens in the Pacific Northwest" (hey, our Publisher is from there!). "She moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in visual development for animation, eventually becoming a designer and sculptor on stop motion segments for shows like The Simpsons and the feature film Elf. Since 2005 she has exhibited her work, lectured, and taught workshops at galleries and museums internationally (not just Canada). She has partnered with brands to develop product lines based on her artwork including Disneyland and Kidrobot. In 2007 she formed her own design brand, Switcheroo with notable artist Michelle Valigura. She currently lives in LA with chickens and dogs, she did not go to college."
If you happen to take a look at other pieces Amanda has done you can see they all have a homage to Disney, they all have a great cartoonish feel to them. Amanda Visell's reinterpretation of “Harold” — titled “Flightless Harold & Bats” is a hand sculpted, hand painted , resin piece that stands roughly 8" tall. This Harold is escorted by not one, but two baby Blue bats, not a little girl as to fall in line with the novel. We approached Visell for a quote, but like most artists she said she's "taking a break from wordinessness." It's always best when the work stands on its own merit anyway, so we respect that.
Harold is only available here on February 16th for a 24 hour period at $300/set.