[Andrew Writing] - Philly Designer Art Toy Festival (and more)
Hello from the North Georgia mountains!
It’s been about a year since my last email blast. At this point, I should probably stop promising "regular updates" and just admit my newsletter schedule has all the predictability of our Expedition Sasquatch podcast releases. But hey, when I do finally write, I make it count!
The last year has been wildly eventful. We had a tree fall through our house in April, rendering our house unlivable for several months. We’re back in it now and we’re getting things done again!
Most of you have probably seen snippets on Mastodon, Instagram, or my blog, but here's the full rundown:
Toys: From Childhood Dreams to Injection Molds
I’ve been making toys since I was a kid—mashing up broken action figures with air-dry clay and calling it "art." But this past year, we leveled up: after six months of trial, error, and melted plastic, we’re now producing fully injection-molded, jointed action figures right here in Ellijay, Georgia, for ourselves and as a service to others.
Our toys are made from a fairly new kind of plastic called PAL. PAL is produced here in Georgia, and is easy to recycle, non-toxic, and paintable. We’re the first folks to use it for injection molded toys, and I couldn’t be happier with the results. We blend the PAL with ~20% HDPE sourced from milk jugs and other direct post consumer recycling.
This weekend at the Designer Toy Art Festival in Philadelphia (August 9-10), we’re debuting:
Spacehawk: A 3.75" tribute to Basil Wolverton’s 1940s cosmic space hero.
The Sky Pirates Crew: Jacques the rogue, Bart the mechanic, and Leyla the sharpshooter (Meet Jacques)
Monstrous Minis: Squishy, creepy, and perfect for pocket-sized rebellion
And yes, we’ll have copies of the Expedition Sasquatch Gameboy Color game too (because of course we will). Whatever stock is remaining will end up on the Mountain Town Toys site before the end of the year.
Stories to Fuel the Revolution
The toys wouldn’t exist without the stories that inspired them:
The Mysterious Air Pirates #1: My dime novel homage to the 1915 film Filibus (watch it here), starring a genderqueer sky pirate and their crew of anti-capitalist outlaws. Preview the first 9 pages.
Mountain Town Comics #1-4: Reprints of golden age heroes, including Spacehawk and Microface.
Other News from the Mountain
New Ellijay Television is now on cable! Tune in for weird, wonderful programming, including Expedition Sasquatch and Kenkyuu Sentai Podcast Rangers. Watch here or read about our cable launch.
Hemlock Bazaar is thriving! Come visit us in Ellijay for books, records, and soon, our new toys (also coming to Ellijay Antiques and The Electric Crocodile in Chattanooga around August 15).
This isn’t just about toys or stories. It’s about revolutionary joy: the idea that play can be rebellious, that small batches beat soulless mass production, and that creativity thrives outside corporate control.
So if you’re in Philly this weekend, come say hi at the Designer Toy Art Fest. If not, keep an eye on our shops (or my notoriously irregular updates).
P.S. Yes, I swear I’ll send another email before 2026. Probably. Maybe.