This crazy creature was sited on February 18th causing reckless joy and cuteness in Chinatown, NY. I knew that New York resident, Lunchbox brother-at-arms and crazy-creature extraordinaire, Ryan Sias, would know something about something like this, so I immediately dialed him up on the Boxphone.

Hey Ryan, word on the street, the streets of Chinatown that is, was that a Kimblyesque character was running around blasting explosions of confetti during the Chinese New Year celebrations, do you know anything about that?

Aha… yeah, that’s what I did a few weekends ago! It was crazy and fun, and I made a video of it all.

Is this character a totally new creation of yours, or has it appeared in the Kimbly world before?

It’s just some random design… it has nothing to do with the Chinese New Year except for the fact he’s fun and looks like he’s ready to party! At one point I was going to make him look more “Chinese,” but then I felt that was wrong. I was already crashing there party, I didn’t want to copy their style also.

What was your motivation?

The reason I did this was I’ve been wanting to do more “art stuff”, getting out and doing art in the world instead of in my room drawing.

A lot of people don’t know, but I used to do a lot of puppet work. I’ve performed in HUGE concert halls and had month long shows at zoos and stuff… so this is nothing new to me… but all that was done before I was “online.”

But back to this current thing…

I had gone to the fireworks street party last year and had an amazing time, so this year I wanted to go back, but I wanted to help make it more fun and crazy. With the confetti fireworks going off all over the place and other people in costume, it was like going to another world… so I figured my weird costume thing would fit right in.

Were you worried about them getting mad at you?

Haha… yeah , I was a little worried… the Chinese new year is their BIG holiday… that and the fact I’m not Chinese… I didn’t know how they’d react. So I was nervous at first, but then once I put it on, everyone seemed to love it. so I relaxed and had fun!

What’s it’s name?

At the moment it doesn’t have a name… I call it the “Chinatown Guy.” I know that name is lame… I need to work on that! Got any suggestions?

Fred, I think Fred could work. I don’t know though, if we give him a name then we’ll get all attached to him.

Will he be showing up in any Kimbly comics?

Probably not.. it’s more a “Real” life thing.

What was the most memorable moment of that day?

Well, shooting off the fireworks was pretty awesome… and the meeting the clown was super weird… oh and I danced with this woman who had a little dragon puppet… it was all cool, but those were the top three.

Will we be seeing more of the “Chinatown Guy?”

Maybe… he’s sitting in my kitchen right now. I might bring him to some street parties this summer or something… or he might end up being too tied to Chinatown in my mind to do anything more with him.

It was a fun art experiment thing… I’m working on another one right now… called “Leaf Guy”, hopefully it can be posted in a month or so.

But it was all cool… make sure you watch the video. It’s wacky stuff!

You are wacky stuff Ryan, thanks for sharing!

Here’s the video of the event, and go here for pictures.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 1st, 2007 at 10:51 am and is filed under Silent Kimbly. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.