Nag Nag Nag: “Ugly is Awesome”?

If you’ve been married a while, “Nag” may make you think of your spouse. If you came from a goth/industrial background, “Nag Nag Nag” calls to mind the song by Cabaret Voltaire. If you collect rarified, weird-ass Japanese toys, the images below are your Nags.

I haven’t posted about Nag Nag Nag here before because the toys are so astoundingly ugly that I don’t particularly want to look at them (and I’m my blog’s Chief Demographic). If I stretch my mind, I can get the appeal of the Iggy Pop/Prodigy allusions of the two middle figures above. But as far as the folks who’ve told me they like these because they are “so rare” or “so well-made” or “ugly is awesome”…seriously? I don’t follow that ellipsis with judgment so much as with incredulity.  I’m trying to understand, I guess. Super7’s Brian Flynn once explained to me the history of Nag Nag Nag, and now that I think back, it seems not unlike a hipster trap.

The Nags above belong to Greg Mishka, who is both a collector and a collaborator on the twisted toy line. Mishka produced an alternate colorway of the Violent Siamese Caveman Nag in 2009, with header art by Lamour Supreme. To quote a comment on their blog post for the Siamese Caveman, its header art depicts: “Shitting a girl in half…that’s a new one.” The header for the forthcoming Nag Nag Nag x Mishka Boryoku Genjin (shown at the top of this post) is once again by Supreme. Ugly is awesome, maybe, but a bound woman being approached by a wrench-bearing mutant gynecologist? Not cool. I guess it figures that Mishka, a Brooklyn-HQ’d company known for its ironic T-shirts, is affiliated with this. Is the header art offensive? Does it even matter? I don’t have the answers, just the questions.

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