Rick Genest Doppelganers in DREDD?

Arresting Judge: Judge Francisco
Changes/Reduced: RETUN ON BENCH WARRANT
Plea: 2 = CONTEST    Finding: 412 = INSANITY
Sentence: 71 months(s) isocube, no parole
Probation: 3YRS    Appealed: Y = YES, Rejected

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I believe that’s the lead singer of Sküllböï

I was initially pleasantly surprised to see that in the new Dredd movie, Zombie (Rick Genest) seems to play the part of a Peyote Kings gang member, although it’s a brief part because he is almost immediately murdered by the rival Ma-ma gang. Every rigger, gaffer, muffin wrangler, and fluffer is listed in the credits, but for some reason they decided Rico wasn’t worth including among them. Then I realized an odd thing (and maybe someone more familiar with the Dredd franchise has an explanation) — there is more than one person in the movie wearing his skullface tattoos. At first I thought it was a reflection in a mirror, but no, it’s a doppelganger (different hair, and one has stretched ears and the other thin hoops) — and then I realized that the mugshot above likely isn’t Rick either, judging by the throat tattoo. And then I started to become convinced that none of the characters are actually Rick!!!

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Like I said, Rick doesn’t appear to be listed in the Dredd credits. I can’t find any mention of him appearing in Dredd anywhere online, and while I’m willing to accept that my google-fu can be weak at times, I find it highly dubious that Rick would make a major appearance in a movie as big as Dredd and not mention it on his blog or facebook page. But ripping off his character rights seems like a shocking oversight for a major film to make… Isn’t it? I think it’s important to note that this isn’t “coincidental”… It’s not as if it’s just someone tattooed like a skeleton. Many specific details of his tattoos have been copied — for example, the spiderweb on his right ear — in a way that makes it obvious they’re exploiting the theft of his character and likeness, and ensures almost everyone will believe it is him.

Here are some side-by-side comparisons… what do you think? Am I imagining this?

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But then I reminded myself that it’s pretty common to see people “draw inspiration” from Zombie’s tattoos and mimic him in various mediums. It’s no big deal if someone makes a YouTube video of themselves in makeup looking like him, but it becomes a problem when a movie rips off the character that Rick has created without getting his consent first — and this is just what happened in the first episode of the first season of the show American Horror Story. One of the characters in the show appears with Rick’s tattoos done so precisely that it’s obvious that it’s been directly copied and he’s the first thing that comes to mind when you see the image. Here’s a pair of screencaps of the episode:

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They might have gotten away with this if Rico was still a Montreal gutterpunk, but now that he’s ascended into one of the glitterati he had his lawyer slap them silly and Fox settled out of court for what I assume is more money than Rick had made in his entire life up to the point he was first unleashed on the world with that glib “you call yourself a misfits fan” ModBlog post back in 2006. Perhaps that is what’s happening right now — an ongoing legal matter would certainly explain the complete lack of mention of this online. Ah, the wages of fame.

Well, if anyone knows the truth as to what’s up with ol’Skullboy’s presence in Dredd, please let me know. Either way, Rico really is one of my favorite rags to riches stories — what a wonderful unexpected adventure his tattoos are bringing him.

Zombie Boy doll – A Q&A with Robert Tonner

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On the heels of Rob’s previous article about the Zombie Boy doll released at this year’s San Diego ComicCon, Robert Tonner, founder of The Tonner Doll Company Inc. graciously answered a few questions for BME.


BME: First, I wanted to thank you for taking the time to answer a few questions to share with the readers of BME.com and ModBlog. This is such a unique doll. Where did you first hear about (or see) Rick Genest and what inspired you to create a doll in his likeness?
Robert: Hard to say…I think I became aware of Rick sometime around the Mugler ad campaign and then the Lady Gaga video. I thought the ads were powerful—here you have a beautiful classic tux worn by a guy who was totally tattooed. The images were incredible. I didn’t think when I first saw them that the tattoos on the model were real—it wasn’t until later that I found out that they were. I saw an article about Rick and the campaign.
I have to say I’m from a totally different generation (I remember my mother saying that I should never get a tattoo because I’d never be able to work at a bank!) and although the extent of Rick’s tattoo’s was, to me, a little shocking, I really saw what he’s done as something of a work of art. And art should rattle you.

BME: What was Rick’s reaction when you approached him about making this doll?
Robert: Actually, I’ve never spoken to Rick! I sent him an email and his agent/lawyer got back to me. Seems that Rick thought it was a great idea.

BME: Zombie Boy is unlike other dolls we have seen from Tonner. Did you have any concerns about how this doll would be received?
Robert: I didn’t really worry too much about the reaction of our collectors. I think our group is pretty sophisticated and while they may not want the doll, I’m pretty sure they could see the artistry in what we tried to do. The figure is unlike a lot of what we put out in some ways, but I always felt that we’ve pushed the envelope of collectible dolls and figures.

BME: What process goes into creating a doll with this kind of detail, particularly in duplicating Rick’s tattoos and what can you tell us about the doll itself?
Robert: We used a doll body that we had in stock but we had a head sculpted to Rick’s likeness. I work with one of the best portrait sculptors working today and with Rick’s input I think we got a great likeness and we were able to do it all with photos. We then had Rick’s tats produced in decal (a painstaking process) form and that along with a lot of hand painting created the look. We worked with Rick and his agent on the outfit and the box.

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BME: Sneak previews of the doll were published online and the doll itself was an exclusive release at the 2012 San Diego Comic Con. What has the response been from Tonner collectors and those in attendance at the convention?
Robert: I can tell you that no one was on the fence about the figure! Most people loved what we were trying to do and there were a few negative comments but that all comes with the territory. All in all, it was really well received. At Comic Con (where Rick did a personal appearance for us to promote the doll) we sold out of the figures that we had there. It was very positive.

BME: The body modification community has certainly taken notice of this doll, sparking interest from those who might not necessarily be doll collectors. How likely is it that we may see more Tonner dolls with body modifications in the future?
Robert: Actually, Zombie Boy was not our first. We did a line of dolls called “Sinister Circus” and we had a lot of body modification going on. I do see us doing more—if it can be beautiful and well done.

I’d just like to thank Robert Tonner for taking the time to answer a few questions for us and to Joanne who has been so friendly and helpful in setting up this Q&A. Check out some more detailed photos of the doll below.

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If you didn’t make it to SDCC, that’s ok! You still have a chance to get your very own Zombie Boy doll as they are set to go on sale Thursday, July 26. You can pick up your own for $159.99 from the Tonner Doll Company. Dolls ship worldwide and each comes with a Certificate of Authenticity signed by Rick Genest.

Times are a changin’

To think, it was only 6 years ago that the world first met Rick Genest.  Looking back at his first couple of ModBlog appearances, you can see back then people thought that his dramatic facial tattoos were either incredible, or incredibly stupid.  Here are some choice quotes.

Is it just me or does he look like a full of acne, russian looking nerd?  I mean, thats a great work by the artist, but common..  that guy just looks ugly “whearing” this.

Well, everyone’s gotta be unique somehow. While it might be fine to say “Fuck society” society will fuck you back. Big balls? I guess.

I don’t care what kind of crap I get for saying this but I think this is a really dumb tattoo. I know everyone can do what they want with their body but everyone is also intitled to their own opinion, and mine is negative towards this. When I first saw the photos, before reading anything I hoped so much that this was just a cool halloween mask someone painted on. To my dismay it is a tattoo. No doubt the tattoo is done pretty well but come on! It just plain looks stupid. I sincerely hope this individual knows what he has done to himself and is ready for a life time of negative feedback in many different forms. Yes, he may have support from the body modification community but he most certainly will not have support anywhere in the outside world and I am afraid for what his future looks like. . Hopefully it is more positive and safe than what I am suspecting.

And my personal favorite…

wat a moron, his whole life is ruined

Well, it’s 2012, and we all know that Rick has gone on to great success within the world of fashion.  In fact, he’s become so successful he now has his own action figure!

From Tonnerdoll.com..

Here is a peek at our 2012 SDCC Exclusive: Zombie Boy. If you don’t know Rick Genest visit his website rickgenest.com to find out more about him and like the Rick Genest Facebook fan page. Rick came into larger global awareness when Lady Gaga featured him and his tattoo styling in her “Born This Way” video (below). You can read his personal story here, on this website.

Not only is this doll – the hashtag #zombiedoll on twitter – a SDCC 2012 exclusive (our only SDCC 2012 exclusive and limited to 500 pieces), Rick himself will be at our booth 4149 for two signings on July Friday 13th, one at 11am and another at 3pm.

It’s pretty amazing the journey that Rick has gone though, and for those that found his tattoos to be amazing back then, be happy to know that you were right, and the naysayers were so incredibly wrong.

Oh, and if you happen to be in San Diego this weekend, pick one up for me.

ModBlog News of the Week: May 27th, 2011

This week’s news post is pretty small compared to the last news post.  However, there are a couple of stories this week that are pretty big, including a couple of follow-ups to stories that a lot of you have taken an interest in.

First up we’ve finally got an in-depth interview with Rick “Zombie Boy” Genest, the heavily modified Montrealler who has garnered a lot of attention over the past year.

Rick Genest, tattooed former squeegee kid, is posing for pictures and video on a patch of gravel by the tracks in Westmount. A young woman gets out of her car and runs over to congratulate him. She tells him she loves and admires what he has done.

Genest, also known as Zombie Boy, has become a local and international hero, a muse to fashion’s avant-garde, a role model for Lady Gaga. His claim to fame is his almost totally tattooed body, including a rendering of brains on his skull, the skeletal system on his body.

The past six months have been an incredible journey – Genest has walked the catwalks in Paris for Mugler, courtesy of creative director Nicola Formichetti; appeared in Lady Gaga’s Born This Way video; and travelled far, wide and often – New York, Paris, Milan, Budapest, Warsaw, Mexico City last weekend, with Rio and Copenhagen coming up on his agenda.

They cover a lot of ground in the interview, and there is a video portion as well, so if you’re a fan of Rick’s it’s definitely worth checking out.

More news to come, just hit the read more button to continue on…

Movie fans will be pleased to hear that The Hangover: Part 2 will still be debuting this weekend.  As you may recall, S. Victor Whitmill, the artist behind Mike Tyson’s facial tattoo requested an injunction to stop the film from being released on the grounds that the studio didn’t seek out his permission to use a likeness of the tattoo.  While the judge denied the motion for the injunction, she did leave the door open for Whitmill to peruse legal action against the studio.  The first time I brought this story up a lot of people chimed in, as this is probably one of the more high profile tattoo copyright cases to be presented.  ABC News and Tech Dirt both have stories up discussing how this could play out for both sides, and what it could mean for tattoo copyright in the future.

We just wrote about how the judge in the Hangover 2 Mike Tyson tattoo copyright case had said that she wouldn’t block the release of the movie, but would let the lawsuit proceed and indicated that the tattoo artist would likely prevail. I thought she just meant on proving the initial infringement, but other reports are saying that pretty clearly mocked Warner Bros.’ defenses, including fair use on the tattoo:

Judge Perry briefly discussed the defense’s claim of Fair Use, opining that there was no parody or transformative use, the entire tattoo in its original form was used (not in any parody form), the tattoo was not necessary to the basic plot of the movie, and that Warner Brothers used the tattoo substantially in its marketing of the movie.

This seems problematic for a bunch of reasons, but one part that troubles me (and we had some of this discussion in our comments) is whether or not the tattoo is parody. Frankly, I can’t see how it’s not parody. The reason that people claim that it’s not transformative or parody is that it’s an identical copy and thus isn’t parodying the original tattoo. But that seems entirely wrong. While it’s the tattoo itself that’s copyrighted, you have to look at the context of the tattoo — and in this case that includes the fact that it’s on Mike Tyson’s face. Putting it on Ed Helms’ character (in many ways the antithesis of Tyson’s character) is a clear parody of Tyson and his tattoo. I have trouble seeing how you could argue otherwise. If the point of the tattoo on Helms’ face wasn’t to parody the same tattoo on Tyson’s face, then what’s the joke here?

I’ll keep you updated as best I can whenever any new information is released.  As it stands now, both sides appear to have equal cases, so it’ll be up to a judge well versed in copyright law, as well as the wording of the contract that Tyson signed giving up the rights to the design.

Another story that received a lot of attention was that of Britney Campbell, the 8-year old whose mother was injecting Britney’s face with botox.  The injections, coupled with other treatments, like bikini waxes raised a number of concerns about Britney’s welfare.  Well it turns out those concerns didn’t go unanswered.  Shortly after bragging to the media about her questionable “beauty” techniques, Britney’s mom lost custody of her daughter when child protective services paid them a visit.

We first told you about the Campbells in March and “GMA” covered their story last week. In a sit-down interview, Spencer asked Britney questions worthy of a horrifying “Law & Order: SVU” episode: can you show me where you do it? Can you point on your face? Of the Botox, Britney remarked, “It hurt sometimes, but I get used to it,” and of the waxing, “It was super, super hard to deal with that…I just don’t think it’s ladylike to have hair on your legs,” however adding that she won’t do it again. At least not for a while.

Just one day later, the San Francisco Child Welfare Services started looking into it and Trent Rohrer of the San Francisco Human Services Agency told cameras, “It’s pretty unusual for a mom to be injecting an 8-year-old with Botox. Certainly, it’s grounds for an investigation.” The agency apparently got involved because there were too many unknowns, like Kerry’s training, where the Botox she used came from, and whether her daughter’s pediatrician was consulted.

I’m not sure which was the dumber move, doing that to her daughter, or going on every news outlet you could find and bragging about it.

Moving on, in one of the stupidest legislative moves I’ve ever seen, the city of Warsaw, IN is trying to make it illegal for tattoo studios to use the word “Tattoo” in their signage.

The city has barred two local tattoo shops from using the words tattoo, body piercing or body art in any exterior signage or advertisements.  Officials say the shops, Hank’s Tattoo and Take Action Tattoo, are not in compliance with a city ordinance. The ordinance says a tattoo shop can’t be within 400 feet of a residentially zoned district, school, church, city park, day care or public library.

But City Planner Jeremy Skinner said they were willing to make an exception. “The city planning department’s recommendation was to approve the special exception to allow Hank’s Tattoo at that location without any conditions,” Skinner said.  However the board did put in a condition. “The board felt that, because it was located next to that residential district that it was necessary to condition the language on the signage,” Skinner said, referring to the fact that Hank Hernandez’s shop is about 20 feet from a mobile home park.

You know, we should apply that law to every store.  From now on all businesses can not use any words to describe their business on the exterior of their stores.  I’m sure “word of mouth” is all anyone needs to do to advertise anymore.  Right?

Now this next story isn’t necessarily modification related, as it involves an accident, but given the nature of the accident, I think you’ll figure out why I chose to include it this week.

A New Zealand truck driver who fell on a compressed air hose that pierced his buttock has survived being blown up like a balloon.  The nozzle pierced his buttock and began pumping air into his body, which expanded dramatically.

He said that doctors had told him they were surprised that his skin had not burst, as the compressed air – pumping into his body at 100lb/sq in – had separated fat from muscle.  “I felt the air rush into my body and I felt like it was going to explode from my foot.”  “I was blowing up like a football… it felt like I had the bends, like in diving. I had no choice but just to lay there, blowing up like a balloon,” he told the local newspaper, the Whakatane Beacon.

He said his skin feels “like a pork roast”, hard and crackly on the outside but soft underneath.

With the number of gas-related inflations we see in the BME Hard galleries, this story should serve as a small warning to those thinking about partaking in that particular activity.  It is dangerous, and if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing, bad things can happen.

While we’re talking medical stories, a Chinese man was shocked to discover he had a new tattoo.

A patient refused to leave hospital in Yunnan Province after claiming medical staff tattooed his backside during surgery.

Sheng Xianhui, 34, of Kunming, claims two Chinese characters were tattooed on his right buttock by staff at a local stone disease hospital while removing his gall stones. The tattoo translates as “Stone Disease.”  The hospital denies the mark is a tattoo and says it could have been caused by an allergy to the hospital’s bed sheets.

The hospital has called police to try to evict Sheng who also asked them to investigate.  “I’m not leaving,” he said.   “I’m worried that if I go out for even half an hour, the hospital will claim I had the tattoo done outside.”

He says he knew nothing about the tattoo until his wife, Hu Juan, spotted it when he had a shower at the hospital.  “After the surgery, I felt my right buttock was painful. However I thought it was a normal reaction after the surgery,” he said.

Well, at least he didn’t wake up in a bathtub missing a kidney.

In today’s final story, a reader sent me to this blog where the author has published a remarkable paper on how tattooed women are treated differently in America.

When talking about tattoo culture in the United States, it has personally become difficult for me not to think about gender and its role in the culture.Why is it so astounding for society to witness a tattooed woman in this supposedly modern day and age? Then there are other instances of touching without permission – for instance, pregnant women’s stomachs – which are female centered. What is it about the female body in the public arena which presents the opportunity for the invasion of privacy and personal space? Is this only an occurrence for women who have somehow modified their bodies, naturally or artificially? Or is it a systematic problem, a demonstration of the way American society views women and their bodies?

I set out to explore this problem in two directions: First, I wanted to examine the history of tattooing in America and the involvement of women within that culture. Second, I wanted to conduct a survey which would determine if this experience was common for all women, all people, or just an event that occurred sporadically within my friends group. The first study launched an analysis of the role of the female body within modern American society while the second resulted in a very surprising outcome.

It’s a pretty lengthy read, so if you have time this weekend, find some time and take a look.  It’s really worth a look.

And that is it for this week’s news post.  As always, if you find a story you think should appear in the weekly news post, just click here to send me the link, or you can e-mail me directly.

Fingered by Skullboy

Veronika was kind (and drunk) enough to send in these recent photos of Skullboy (more on ModBlog.. 1, 2).

Rick reads and then gives his verdict on a recent magazine article about himself.

Oh and yes, he does smile in case you were wondering..

Skullboy and Veronika.

You can read Veronika’s BMEzine.com interview with Rick here.

See more in BME/Culture/People (Culture)

Zombie (“Skullboy”) Interview Posted

Edit/Update: After being offline for ages, here’s an archival link for the first-ever published interview with Rick Genest / Rico / Zombie Boy/ Skullboy.

Sorry about not getting this online earlier — it’s been a long day, which among other things, includes having a transport truck smash into me while I was driving with my daughter to an appointment! Ack!

Big thanks to Veronika for scoring (and doing) an interview with the infamousSkullboy“, more appropriately known as Montreal’s Zombie. Click through to check it out, and as always, come on back to comment.

PS. You may remember Veronika from her cat portrait neck tattoo as well as her half-sleeve — she’s no stranger to both being featured and creating features!

ModBlog culture influencing YouTube culture?

So ModBlog’s “Skullboy” as he’s come to be known out on the weeb, has tribute videos out about him on YouTube! I thought that was pretty cool, and just goes to show you how fascinated people are by what he’s done (note: the video’s best part is near the end, so don’t give up).

And a second video as well:

You call yourself a Misfits fan?

Damn!!!! I really think this is the most intense facial tattoo I’ve ever seen in terms of radically transforming a person’s interaction with the rest of the world… and speaking as someone with a facial tattoo, I definitely feel like this is going to be a shock to his system. Very, very intense; I’m seriously impressed at the size of his FTW balls… Turning your face into a death mask is, just… wow…

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Click for a closer view of these facial Misfits skull tattoos by Frank at Derm FX Tattoo in Montreal. Seriously, I wasn’t going to post today, but when we got this submission, I just had to share it. Wow.