Obsessed with becoming a comic artist, she studiously filled her sketchbooks, intent on developing her sense of character creation and panel-based storytelling. By the tender age of ten, this Japanese girl submitted original work to a girl’s comic magazine publisher, but the polite rejection she received didn’t discourage her. Spending years honing her craft, she turned to self-publishing black-and-white photocopied art zines, such as the one that any passerby might’ve encountered at Harajuku‘s 6% DOKIDOKI storefront in the mid-’90s. Adorned with two petite girls on its cover, one in bunny-like ears and the other in maid cosplay, this MINA Animal DX publication essentially serves as the first dot on the roadmap of Junko Mizuno‘s career. And as she evolved her visual iconography, Mizuno’s women transformed from costume-clad characters into powerful and often sexy archetypes, such as The Wrestler, The Nurse, and The Witch. Typically accompanied by surreal creatures like Egg Lady and Tooth Guy, the diverse cast of Mizuno’s art is embraced on her newest factory-produced Dunny design from Kidrobot, La Flamme.

Junko Mizuno’s La Flamme Dunny

Having previously created her Dunny designs as self-contained characters, Mizuno’s deviated from this pattern with La Flamme, for which she treated Kidrobot’s form as a three-dimensional canvas. Contained within its curvaceous shape is what the artist describes as a “fun party/ritual scene,” the central image depicting her Witch archetype with the sculpted addition of a pig-tailed disciple looming overhead. Their magical energy emerging as wreaths of transparent flames and a skull-adorned wand, this one-armed vinyl form is decorated with a multitude of Mizuno’s signature creatures on both the front and backside. Conceived more akin to a sculptural screenprint than a simple stand-alone piece, Mizuno’s La Flamme design debuted on Friday, October 11th of 2019 in the 1000-piece Green Edition and the 400-piece Black Edition, the latter being a Kidrobot.com exclusive version which is also known as the Dark and Metallic Edition. Returning at DesignerCon in the frigid-hued Ice Edition, this 250-piece variation powerfully emanates Mizuno’s art, her colorful decorations popping against its silvery skin.

Junko Mizuno’s La Flamme Dunny (Ice Edition) can be acquired from Kidrobot exclusively at 2019’s DesignerCon.

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