We just finished stapling header cards to the Kozik Emperor of the Golden Throne El Pandas. I'm really happy with how these puppies turned out.

The Holidays are all about reconnecting with friend and family, new and old. The same holds true this Holiday Season with the Muttpop Crew.

Muttpop has worked with Monster5 on many wonderful figures (including Tequila, El Panda, Red Demon, and Mini Gobi). But we never had the fortune to meet with him. That has finally changed.

Gobi's currently in Japan spending time with his Baby's Mama's family. Monster5 was kind enough to grab a few drinks with the Beast. Jerry and I wish we could have been there!

Happy Holidays from everyone what Muttpop. I'll be irregularly checking in for the remainder of the week. But we have plenty of exciting stuff brewing to share with you very soon!

If there's one way I can tell I'm getting old, it's in my taste of videogames. While the majority of American gamers fiddle with plastic musical instruments or try to find out how many bloody headshots they can get, my games of preference are the 2D kind... preferably the ones made in Japan.

The latest game I've spent a decent amount of time with is Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia on the Nintendo DS. It's got a lot of things right from old-school gaming (challenge) and new school gaming (dual weapon gaming) but unfortunately embraces clunkier qualities (elusive fetch quests) as well.

Of all the 8-bit era Japanese videogame companies, Konami was the most exploitative. What we now regard as rich Konami intellectual properties were obvious attempts at combining popular elements from the more popular Hollywood films. Contra? Commando meets Alien. Metal Gear? John Conner from Terminator Versus the ED-209 from Robocop.

Castlevania was Konami's attempt to make a game inspired by classic Hollywood Creature films. It was a brilliant idea. There were TONS of creatures and monsters from American horror films to reinterpret pixel by pixel.

The latest entry Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, has tons of wonderfully ugly creatures. It also has one of the most beautiful protaganists in a videogame: Shanoa. I love her design. Her eyes are both cold and sexy. Her tattoos and clothing give her a bit of edge while still maintaining some sense of elegance. There's a great sense of balance to the character's look (largely due to the amazing character artist; any idea who it is?). It's just too bad that there is absolutely no personality given to her in the game's story.

Most Castlevania games involve a huge castle to explore (hence the name). This time around, the game has Shanoa going to villages, cathedrals, lighthouses; a variety of locales that changes up the scene a bit. It's a nice change, but travelling from place to place can be a bit confusing when you haven't played the game for a while. Also, midway through the game, you have to rescue every villager held hostage in previously visited areas without any hints or suggestions of where they are located. Since unexplored hidden rooms are not shown, it ends up being a aimless game of trial-and-error. I wasted a good hour trying to find missing villagers and would have given up altogether if it weren't for a few FAQ references online.

Once I was back on track, things were back to being fun... but I feel a good game shouldn't have to rely on outside assistance to make it enjoyable.

All in all, I recommend fans of traditional 2D games to try out Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia. Try not to get too frustrated, though, when you have to refer to an FAQ to get through the darned thing.

CASTLEVANIA: ORDER OF ECLESSIA TRAILER:

Long time Muttpop fan and fellow artist Item had the wacky idea to photoshop our Lucha Libre figure heads to clothing catalog model bodies. The results are pretty weird and nifty. I also like what he did with the Jabba the Hut pig guard. I've included all 3 of his Muttpop riffs and the pig guard for your viewing pleasure. Thanks for the love, Item!

Those SNL guys should just focus on doing spoof pop songs because whenever they do one, it ends up being amazing. I love the random 2 second Justin Timberlake appearance. A shout out to Mista Hippo over at Get Downnn for reminding me about this. When it originally aired, my wife forced me to watch it ten times.