Good Taste Gone Bad, the “Art” of Mitch O’Connell, 1993
Big Bad Wolf nodder, sculpted by Mitch for DSK Designs, 2003
Part of the reason for self-publishing two books of my art, Good Taste Gone Bad and Pwease Wuv Me (besides being full of myself) was to send it out to art directors. I thought it might have a better chance of making its way onto a bookshelf and referred to in years to come when looking to assign work as opposed to a flyer that could easily be tossed in the trash. I also did big mailings of ’em both to magazines and newspapers in hopes of getting articles written about how wonderful I am (it worked, though I would have preferred that the description “genius” was used more often.) A book seems to makes you legitimate. ILLO: Everyone seems to be getting in on the “designer toy” movement, and you’ve mentioned creating a few sketches for a toy company on your website. I own a limited edition bobble-head sculpture you designed, and I love it... I thought it would make a great design for a vinyl toy. Are you considering doing any more projects like that in the future, or creating any designer toys in vinyl or plastic? M.O’C: It would be great to do more of it (it would be hard to do less, since you mentioned my one product so far!) If any toy companies want to work with me I’m only an email away—info@mitchoconnell.com! The bobble head figure you mentioned was a limited edition (only 50 pieces) which I sculpted. It was produced by David Krys of DSK Designs. David and I personally handpainted them. For Flapjacks “Symptoms” line of toys, it wasn’t a case of “Mitch, we love what you do, make us some distinctively ‘M.O’C’ toys!” They already had something in mind, so I was trying to figure out what they wanted and give it to ’em. Way into the project I found out that another artist, Erik Davison, who’s done this stuff before, was also hard at work on the same job. He emailed me his pencils and Pwease Wuv Me!, 1998
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