bears gone bad!

Beware! This plastic toy devours little kids! :-o Mori Chack's Be@rbrick (left) is an adaptation of his original Gloomy Bear (below right, eating its owner, Pitty), complete with sharp claws and fresh blood dripping down its mouth. Because Gloomy is a wild bear, he cannot be tamed like a pet dog. In time, his savage instincts are unleashed and he starts to bite the hands that feed him.

The designer toy culture is decidedly an adult market, hence, the popularity of toys of a dark nature: little pirate girls like Jurevicius' Scarygirl, Kozik's cigarette-smoking rabbits, Fowler's Monsterism town folks, Dalek's axe-wielding Ice-Bot, and Horvath's Uglydolls.

When gruesome teddy bears replace the sweet, button-eyed ones we slept with as kids, we know we've not only grown up, we've also grown different: we've learned to walk on the dark side of life, begun to enjoy the thrill of violence, and found a way to see the beauty of ugly.