Q POP Shop and Mini Gallery

DARWIN: New Artwork from Chris Sasaki & Joey Chou..March 10, 2012

2012-02-25T21:51:00.001-08:00

DARWIN: New work from Chris Sasaki & Joey Chou March 10, 2012

Here at Q Pop we are busily preparing for our next show. It's our first duo show....featuring 2 of the animation industry's rising stars.

Chris Sasaki is a designer currently working at Pixar.

Joey Chou is a designer currently working at Nickelodeon.

Both artists feature a sophisticated color sense and a dynamic shape language that bring a vivid and playful quality to the stories they invoke.

In this show, they will both explore the themes of the british naturist Charles Darwin.

Check out both of these fantastic artist's previous work as well as some previews of the show here:

Chris Sasaki:

http://sakiteriyaki.blogspot.com/

Joey Chou:

http://joeyart.blogspot.com/

The show will go from March 10- 25

Opening reception will be March 10 from 7PM-10PM
Both artists will be in attendance.

Dj's Clay Morrow and Albert Lozano will be spinning some amazing tunes....

and the Takoyaki Tanota truck will be dishing out some octopus balls...woohooo

KAMEN RIDER vs SUPER SENTAI exhibition preview...

2011-10-27T21:11:00.000-07:00

Artwork is starting to pour in now...some very cool pieces as usual..it's always so exciting when it arrives..I feel like a child at christmas.

This show promises to be our biggest yet.

Live music from "Eyeshine" will start at 7PM.

Our regular collaborators Tune in Tokyo will be djing some awesome "hero" music inside.

Food Trucks Crepes Bonaparte and Takoyaki Tanota will be serving up good eats so please come hungry!!

Co-sponsors Anime Jungle will be hosting a henshin costume contest! We want to see all the most creative costumes you guys can come up with. Posing will also be judged.

You can register for the show at www.animejungle.net.

But even if you don't want to be in the show...you can please come in costume. YES!!

Here's a little preview of some of the works that have arrived.

If you are interested in purchasing you can inquire by phone or email to us.

Info at www.qpopshop.com

Kevin Dart

Ben Newman

Riki Takaoka

Scott Morse

Misha

Yumiko Kayukawa

Luca Tieri

Yoko Nomura

Hine Mizushima

Naoshi

Seo Kim

Rich Pellegrino

Lorelay Bove

Crowded Teeth

Amelie Flechais

Steve Lambe

Graham Annable

Jorsh Pena

Leo Espinosa

Paul Shih

Anukun Hamala

Touma

Fawn Veerasunthorn

Higinia Garay

Sid Jung

Andrew Erekson

Marty M. Ito

Yukinao Takashima

Pakoto

Luke Chueh

Denny Khurniawan

Corey Lewis

KUMAO!!!! Mothball bear in the shop!! New from Japan

2011-10-15T22:49:00.000-07:00

The japanese company Mushuuda makes odorless mothball-like insect repellents for your closets or drawers in Japan. Recently though, they have been producing a series of quirky and charming commercials featuring a funny looking bear named Kumao, who has a hole eaten in his "costume" and some of his stuffing is coming out.

In one of the commercials he goes to the zoo and notices the polar bear also has some stuffing popping out. It turns out the polar bear is Kumao's brother in a polar bear suit.

The commercials are becoming very popular and the characters are now being produced in a variety of products. Bags, pouches, stationary, figures..

We have a very limited amount of items featuring Kumao so get them while supplies last!!

Check out the cool commercials here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucbfwcChGGI&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlWC3CS4ShY&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3KdLHOEETE&feature=related

Event Coming Up on Nov-5th!!

2011-10-12T04:33:00.000-07:00

Here's the new poster for the event...designed by co-owner Chris Mitchell..Please share it around everyone. Post it to Sentai / Kamen Rider forums..whatever...Help get the word out..

Kamen Rider/Super Sentai Tribute Show

2011-09-03T19:22:00.000-07:00

On Nov. 5...Come join us in celebrating the 40th anniversary of the creation of Kamen Rider!! And also the 35th anniversary of the creation of the Super Sentai series..the genesis of what would become The Power Rangers!

We'll be posting soon with details of the show..

Kevin Dart's Looks That Kill Book Release and Art Show [July 16]

2011-07-16T03:51:00.000-07:00

Don't let carmageddon scare you!!

Book release and art show for Kevin Dart's new Yuki 7 book, LOOKS THAT KILL, written by Elizabeth Ito.

July 16-Aug 6, 2011

Opening reception and signing July 16

7PM-11:30PM

Q POP shop and mini gallery
128 Astronaut E S Onizuka St
Los Angeles CA 90012
Little Tokyo!!

Artists will be in attendance.

COSTUME CONTEST: Come dressed as your own Gadget Girl character for a chance to win one of several prizes in the costume contest!

Cupcakes from BIGMANBAKES!!!

Featuring new works from Kevin Dart

and these featured artists:

Lorelay Bove
Megan Brain
Vera Brosgol
Emily Carroll
Joey Chou
Meg Hunt
Denny Khurniawan
Kristen Lester
Mathew Lyons
Josh Parpan
Justin Parpan
Shannon Tindle
Chris Turnham

DJ Carey Yost spinning tunes of espionage

The Ham Ba Ga Show ( JUNE 25)

2011-06-14T19:37:00.000-07:00

Our next event is coming up everyone. It's on Saturday, June 25, 2011. 7PM-11 PM.

It's going to be an orgy of art, food and music.

Please don't miss it!!

New work from over 30 artists!! Including but never limited to: Junko Mizuno, Kevin Dart, Elizabeth Ito, Mari Inukai, Yoko Nomura, Pakoto, Robert Ryan Cory, Casey Alexander, Dan Krall, Justin Thompson, Hideyuki Tanaka, Patricio Oliver, Luca Tieri, Glenn Harmon, Andrew Erekson, Nagi Koyama, Jeff Ranjo, Amelie Flechais, Pete Oswald, Jeni Yang, Mayumi Tanaka, Martin Hsu, Pico Pico, Victoria Ying, Riki Takaoka, Nana Aoyama, Jeff Turley, Clio Chiang, Becky Dreistadt, Michelle Romo(Crowded Teeth), Andy Gonsalves, Sean Gallaway, Patrick Awa, Brian Kesinger, Hellen Jo, Kali Fontecchio, Tara Whitaker, Tara Billinger,Nico Colaleo, Leo Matsuda, Fawn Veerasunthorn, Joe Pitt, and more!!

Tune in Tokyo will be on hand spinning some excellent tunes...of course. Greg, Del and the gang never disappoint.

And the Pie N' Burger truck will be here to satisfy all your hamburger needs. You heard right. THAT Pie N' Burger. Definitely come hungry!!! Did I mention pie...YUM!!

We'll also have new shipments from Swimmer and Sex Pot Revenge....so be prepared.

We'll also have a limited edition T-shirt designed by Junko Mizuno specifically for the show. Come early to make sure you get the size you want. Supply is limited. We'll post pics of it soon..It pretty much rocks which is a given when Junko is involved.

Hope to see you all soon!!

Donating...

2011-04-30T05:00:00.000-07:00

Q Pop would like to express it's gratitude to everyone who helped or donated artwork for our fundraiser to help Japan. It was such a big success for us.

Our shop has only been open for about 6 months....and we're definitely a small shop...but we managed to raise $9000 total for the evening...Amazing!!!

I also want to stress that we are NOT bragging....this is not our intent for posting the amount. We just wanted everyone to know where their money is actually going ..so I have documented the writing and sending of the check.

After a very long deliberation period, we finally decided to donate to Give2Asia. Located in San Francisco, they funnel the funds to Japanese NPO's currently working and giving aid in Japan. It does NOT go to Red Cross who has come under some scrutiny after their notorious delays and overhead costs.

The capper to all this ...is that we may double this amount soon!!! We'll keep you posted!!

5-4-2011 So it's true. We've officially DOUBLED our donation amount. Thanks to Lauren Faust and her My Little Pony original artwork that she donated...we've brought the total up to about $20,000!!! Thanks again sooo much to those that donated and bought pieces.

Q Pop Help Japan Fundraiser

2011-04-30T04:04:00.000-07:00

Less than a week after the 9.0 magnitude earthquake hit Japan, Q Pop held it's fundraiser/art auction in conjunction with our friends at Tune In Tokyo.

It was a great evening of amazing artwork donated from over 100 artists(including but not limited to: Chris Reccardi, Elizabeth Ito, Junko Mizuno, Irene Yuen, Nagi Koyama, Yoskay Yamamoto, Mari Inukai, Patrick Awa, Lynne Naylor, Michelle Romo, Jeni Yang, Bob Logan, Casey Alexander, Kali Fontecchio, Lou Romano, Lauren Faust, Craig Mccracken, Justin Thompson, Dan Krall, Phil Rynda, Brianne Drouhard, Becky Dreistadt, Paul and L. Rudish, Alex Kirwan, Jeff Ranjo, and many others!!) and great music spun by dj's Greg Hignight, Del Martin , Tora, Ally and Leet!! There was also some really moving live music performances from Dig Jelly and Stephanie Yanez. And good food donated by It's Thai and NAGI!!. Artwork and other donated products will continue to be sold in the store to raise money for the victims of the tsunamis and earthquakes in Japan after the auction so please come by and buy something and help out!!

Opening Art

2011-04-07T16:13:00.000-07:00

Sorry again for the delay in posts. I'm going to try to get good about posting regularly. In the last post I mentioned the Grand Opening Party and how much fun it was....but I didn't really get to show much of the art that was in the show. We were so lucky to have the participation of some of the most amazing artists from the gallery world and the animation world. Some of the pieces are still available online in our webstore..please check them out here:

http://qpopshop.com/main/?page_id=15

Here's a little sampling ..

One of the most influential japanese artists in the past decade, Junko Mizuno, created this piece and infused it with symbolism from our shop.... Sweet Gouache painting from New Zealand illustrator Becky Dreistadt ...love the tiny deer...cute!!

Very cool diorama illustration from Bob Logan....Dreamworks animation artist who has worked on the Simpsons and Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs!!...

Excellent pen and ink art from Casey Alexander, emmy nominated story artist on Spongebob Squarepants....

Incredible painting by internationally known Hiroyuki Matsuura, creator of the Windy Bunny doll....

The amazing Kevin Dart(he did the mural in our shop!!)...creator of Yuki 7 did this wonderful digital piece..

A fantastically cute piece from Victoria Ying(she worked on Tangled)The uber talented Elizabeth Ito( she painted the mural on our outside wall)
Shibuya Girls Pop artist Eimi..absolutely one of my favorites..never afraid to use the pink!!
Japanese artists Naoshi...another favorite..it's made out of sand!! seriously....and we have more of her cards and goods in stock ......

and we had many more in the show..over 50 in fact!!!

including Shibuya Girls Pop artists: Shinjuko, Hiroshi Mori, Nana Aoyama , Kaiyo Tamaishi, Ra'yka, Nico, Keiko Ogawa, Anne Imai, Sayaka Iwashimizu, Yuki Takahashi, Marrontic

as well as featured artists Mari Inukai, Phil Rynda, Hideyuki Tanaka ( creator of Super Milk Chan), Minifanfan, Chris Ure, Andrew Erekson, Valerie Nunez, Paul Rudish, L. Rudish, Warren Leonhardt, Anna Chambers, Mayumi Tanaka, Anders Arhoj, Aurore Damant, Cody Cameron, Yoko Nomura, Jeff Ranjo, Robert Ryan Cory, Nagi Koyama, Shin Imanaka, Luca Tieri, Chris Sasaki, Michael Yamada, Doug Gautier, Pete Oswald, Irene Yuen, Riki Takaoka, Dave Bleich,

and Justin Thompson!!! whew!!

Thanks to all of them for creating food for imagination!! and helping us celebrate our opening..

Grand Opening Party

2011-02-17T12:46:00.000-08:00

Thanks to all that came and made Q POP's Grand Opening such an amazing success!!

We were so happy that so many of you came out to show your support.

It was a really fun experience and crazy too!! Since it was our first event and exhibition, we were definitely learning as we went. Often times totally winging it...haha..

Festivities started at 7 and the people started to pile in almost immediately.

The Flying Pig Truck was outside , small finger foods were set up from It's Thai, and plenty of beer from Kirin was on hand..

Sounds smooth..but as of 6:45..we didn't even have all the artwork up!!!

AAAAA...craziness..

Thank the maker, our good friends Paul and Leana Rudish came to the rescue and helped hang the show. We managed to get the last pieces up just as people started to trickle in. whew...

But...wait, we forgot tags...or we forgot .....lol..

Irene Yuen to the rescue next...talk about serious multi tasking skills...and what a great photographer too!!! Without us asking, she just jumped in feet first and manned the register...while Nagi helmed the bar...throwing out Calpico, Kirin, and nigori sake to thirsty customers..

By about 8 PM, the place was packed and the line to the register started to wrap around the Q table. People picked up cool new Sex Pot, Algonquins, Super Lovers, and Swimmer items...

It was really just an overwhelmingly positive response and we were so happy to see everyone.

All the walls were adorned with amazing art from over 40 artists from around the world.

Justin Thompson, production designer on the film Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs, and also the designer of Q Pop's interior..as well as one of the contributing artists in the show...stopped by to show his support.

Other artists including Kevin Dart, Elizabeth Ito, Chris Turnham, Jeff Ranjo, Denise Koyama, Paul Rudish, Leana Rudish, Riki Takaoka, Cody Cameron, Robertryan Cory, Kali Fontecchio, Victoria Ying, Miles Thompson, Mari Inukai, Phil Rynda, Dave Bleich, Casey Alexander, Valerie Nunez, Doug Gauthier, Mayumi Tanaka, Glenn Harmon, Sean D'Anconia and Bob Logan, were on hand to talk to people about their work.

Some celebrities also showed up, like regular customer Josie Stevens and her husband Steve...

It was quite a fun and diverse mix of people ...from sexy rockstars to dirty scientists, cute lolitas to the wrinkly elderly...

Q Pop welcomed them all!!

We are already planning our next event, which will take place sometime in May, so please mark your calenders!! Let's try to make the turnout even bigger for the next one!!! Hope to see you all there!!

GRAND OPENING EVENT!!!!

2011-01-06T20:13:00.000-08:00

It's finally happening...the Grand Opening event. Please come and help us celebrate..look at some great artwork..and shop for fun stuff!!

Opening reception is on Jan 29 7pm-11Pm

There will be refreshments and artists in attendance!!

YAY!!!!

AWW..

2010-12-16T23:51:00.001-08:00

We got some shout out from our friends over at Sweet Streets...They really are sweet after all!! HA

http://sweetstreetsla.blogspot.com/2010/12/inside-q-pop.html

Super cool time lapse....

2010-11-26T02:24:00.000-08:00

My friends Kevin Dart, Elizabeth Ito, and Chris Turnham painted some very amazing murals at the shop. Elizabeth painted the one outside..and Kevin and Chris painted the interior one. The finished pieces are so excellent, please come to the shop just to check them out if nothing else.( Of course, it's nice if you support the shop as well).

Here's a very cool video that Kevin made showing the creation of the murals:

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/11/23/time-lapse-of-mural.html

Also, please note that we carry many products from these incredible artists...and they make great holiday gifts..hint hint..haha

Q Pop is OPEN!!!

2010-11-18T11:33:00.000-08:00

Ok...I haven't been updating this blog like I thought I should...but I've been opening a shop..and it's a little crazy!! Q Pop officially opened it's doors on the afternoon of November 12!!Those of you who have stopped by already..Thanks so much for your support. Everyone else, I hope that you will be able to come and see us soon!

The ride getting to this point has been a very exciting one. Insane actually..haha. I thought I might explain a bit about the process. First of all,

it's not like Miki and I had been planning this for years. We had sort of casually mentioned how cool it would be to have a shop/gallery but that's about as far as the talk would go. But a few months ago, Miki and I returned from a vacation trip to Thailand and Japan. Whenever we go, we are always so inspired by all the creative energy over there..this trip was no exception and we returned with a yearning do do something. That something would be Q Pop.

The idea was simple..create a venue for artists to showcase their handmade stuff...to create our own stuff..and to have other cool shit that even if it's not handmade..at least is artfully made.

Ideas are great..but execution is the hard part. The first thing we needed to do was find a space. Where to open? This ended up being more difficult than we thought.

Mostly because of price. Rents arestill ridiculously high in Los Angeles, which would explain why half of Melrose is empty. We thought about Sawtelle, because of other cool shops like Giant Robot but it was also just as expensive. We finally decided on Little Tokyo. Seeing so many japanese people leaving the area..we thought we could return some of the "japaneseness" to this historic part of town. Plus, they have good ramen here. We were lucky enough to find a cool japanese landlord.. Mr. Fujimoto, who has been running a business for more than 30

years.

The space we got was a former bike shop called Routes.

It was...let's just say..the space needed some work. It was pretty ugly. For the task at hand

I decided to ask my incredibly talented friend Justin Thompson to design the interior space. You can read about his process and see his preliminary sketches here:

www.squeakypen.blogspot.com

Having the designs finished..we needed someone to realize the entire thing..That person would be Tommy Wattanakran.

This guy was like superman...seriously..

I can't even stress to you how much this guy did for us.

He built ALL our custom furniture by himself(with assistant Miki).

With his crew, they finished construction in about 2 months.

Originally, we had the retarded idea that we could finish in 2 weeks...yeah right. What were we thinking? Making some of the custom furniture on a budget was sooo time consuming.

It's one thing if you have a laser cutter and a $20 million budget..umm...but we didnt..So it was all Tommy with his saw.

The results are awesome!! I was sooo unbeliveably amazed by how it all came together.

I have to also mention the HUGE amount of help we got from our friends.. Nagi was at the shop until 6 am helping set up the inventory

...My mom was here every day helping out..The Ito family bringing snacks and drinks and helping to boost the moral.

And last but not least, since this place is supposed to be a place where artists convene..we needed some art in it . And we wanted BIG art. For this we got our uber talented friends Elizabeth Ito

and Kevin Dart to paint murals. Elizabeth painted the outside wall

and Kevin tackled the inside wall(with the aid of another superhero Chris Turnham).

The finished pieces are so impressive.

Our first week of business has been very fun and stressed and good. Better than expected but still not where it needs to be for us to actually survive. So we're counting on all our friends and fans to spread the good word and help us get more people at the shop. We really want to keep it going for a long time so that we can celebrate cool artwork and fun stuff!! Come on down and check it out!!

RED!!!

2010-10-12T03:30:00.000-07:00

Thanks everyone...for giving us your opinions!! We really appreciate it. After reading everyone's choices and also thinking about what we like...we've decide on RED!! You definitely won't miss it while walking by...hahah...

Exterior color possibilities

2010-09-27T18:07:00.000-07:00

Very rough ideas...Windows graphics are not yet designed...edge color detail not explored fully....patterns and textures not explored...these are flat color ideas only which are probably easier to maintain..

Here are the color possibilities for the exterior of the shop..Which one do you like?

When is it opening?

2010-09-23T21:05:00.000-07:00

Well, being the first real post on the official blog for the Q Pop shop and gallery..the first question many have been asking is, "When is the shop opening?" Well, that is a good question indeed, and honestly I wish I could say when.haha..Unfortunately, though, starting a shop is a very crazy business, and there are so many things to take care of and variables that are uncontrollable, it's just impossible to figure out an exact schedule. One of the problems was just that the design of the shop is just too ambitious to build in 2 weeks time..Yes, you heard right! Originally we had a lotted only 2 weeks of our prep schedule on construction. I don't really have to say that this was pretty darn mental on our part. So now we are approaching 1 month(which is still a ridiculously short amount of time). And if everything goes as planned, the shop will be open around the 1st of October. YAY!! The way it's looking, it will be worth the wait.

Shop Blog

2010-09-22T18:38:00.001-07:00

This is the first blog post from the shop..stay tuned for more info!