CLUTTER x Daniel Johnston “Hope” Edition Jeremiah The Innocent Vinyl Sculpture

There will only ever be one Daniel Johnston, but while his work may be too unique to ever truly duplicate, there is a raw, genuine honesty embedded in it that is as universal as humanity itself. It’s been 4 years since the musician / “outsider artist” passed away, but his legacy has never wavered and the demand for his work is as great as ever. One of my favorite products to come out since his passing is a vinyl figure of Johnston‘s character, “Jeremiah The Innocent,” best known for gracing his 1983 tape, Hi, How Are You: The Unfinished Album. Well… the truth is that Jeremiah is probably “best known” from Kurt Cobain famously wearing a t-shirt with the album art on it, leading to endless others discovering Johnston and his work for the first time. That said, no matter how you slice it, the drawing and character have become iconic and, perhaps more identifiable than its creator or the music that he crafted in many instances.

Rendered in a black & white colorway to honor that of the original drawing, the 3-dimensional vinyl incarnation of Jeremiah was produced in collaboration with publisher/gallery/toy manufacturer, Clutter. At the time of the release, the company explained that they had,  “re-sculpted and re-imagined this popular character in vinyl, adding elements such as the Twig (or Sprout) of Hope to keep the figure as true to the art as possible.” And as we observed in our original post announcing it back then, “the ability to remove the figure from its stand is a great feature, while the way they have designed it overall offers a more immersive scene than that of a simple object.” Connected to the stump base was a word bubble reading “Hi, How Are You?” in Daniel’s handwriting. I wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about that detail at first, but I bought one and I really love that feature now. I see it every day in my home and it genuinely makes me happy. The box that it arrived in was also a keeper, as it was covered in Johnston‘s illustrations. I’ve never regretted picking mine up, especially now that it’s sold out from Clutter and there are currently copies listed for as much as $400 on eBay. The great news for those who missed out is that, at the time of the drop, Clutter made it clear that new variants would arrive in the future. Today the first of those variants has been revealed.

Referred to as the “HOPE edition,” there are some slight differences in this new variant from the original “Hi, How Are You?” version. The most noticeable change is obviously the colorway with the green Jeremiah and the brown stump base. Then there is the “HOPE” word bubble, a clear indicator of where the name of this edition stems from.  The one other difference is the image of Daniel‘s Jeremiah “Yippee!” drawing printed on the back of the figure — the original release had the standard illustration from the album cover in that place. Aside from these changes, the mold for the toy remains the same with the figure standing 9.5-inches tall (on the base) and 10-inches wide.

You can check out more product images below:

Daniel Johnston-related products and reissues continue to roll out and there always seems to be a select group of people — most often, newer fans — who seem to feel the need to speak up in protest by claiming that they know what Daniel “wouldn’t have wanted.” I guess there’s no way to verify exactly what Daniel would or would not have wanted 100%, but I’d wager that the people better informed to make an educated guess about that would be his loved ones and not some random fan on the internet who just discovered him last week. Fortunately, his loved ones are the very people handling these affairs. I understand the concern, because Kurt Cobain probably wouldn’t be over the moon about Nirvana shirts filling up Target and ROSS locations, and I’m not sure whether or not Keith Herring or Jean-Michel Basquiat would want their paintings on Bearbricks and every possible piece of generic streetwear they could ever possibly be printed on, but I feel like there’s probably a good case to be made that Daniel wouldn’t be arguing the production of something like this. The most straightforward evidence is that At Arms LTD already released a numbered “Jeremiah The Innocent” vinyl “collectable [sic] toy frog,” while he was still alive, establishing a precedent for this. Plus, Daniel loved this type of shit and was incredibly happy to see his illustrative work rendered in 3D. During our interview, he mentioned having a shoe production deal with Converse that got scrapped and even being asked to submit some drawings of Iron Man for potential use by Marvel — they didn’t use them. When I later tracked down and sent him sample copies of those very Converse, he was ecstatic; you can now see those well-worn shoes pop up in Johnston exhibitions. Last year, DC Comics did a comic release where they used Daniel‘s work as limited edition alternate cover art. As a man who would have spent all of his money on comic books if nobody had stopped him, this is the sort of thing that would be blowing his mind, right now. I’ve spoken to some of those making these decisions behind the scenes and, if anything, they are working to continue to make his dreams come true and honor him even after his passing. It’s easy to want to believe that he’s being exploited, but these people love him. Brand new MF DOOM fans scream about the same garbage in comment sections, while his widow and family who are tasked with protecting his legacy are receiving financial stability from goods with his likeness, so a lot of this vocal minority just needs to be ignored.

What I know is that Daniel‘s family members are the ones who stood by him, made sure that he was actually compensated for his work, and then made sure that income went toward his needs and living expenses. His brother Dick worked as his manager and traveled with Daniel. He’s the one that set up our interview almost 15 years ago and he looked out for and loved his brother. I believe that I once read that his sister was instrumental with getting Daniel paid for his art, because, otherwise, he would have been content just trading his pieces for comic and soda money. Also involved wiith these vinyl reissues and product releases is Don Goede aka Jack Medicine, his Hyperjinks Tricycle bandmate and former manager that traveled with Daniel, prior to Dick ever taking on that role. Don once reached out to me about contributing to an updated edition of the book, Hi, How Are You?: The Life, Art, & Music Of Daniel Johnston, which he put together with Tarssa Yazdani, wife of artist and the third member of Hyperjinks Tricycle, Ron English. Unfortunately, that next edition never came to fruition, but it was explained to me at the time that any “profit” generated from those book sales always went back into production costs and to Daniel‘s personal living expenses. These days, there is a lot of focus on supporting and advocating for mental health issues. I mention all of this just to say that, if you love this new Jeremiah figure, and you love Daniel Johnston, you should feel good about picking it up and celebrating his life. I believe that he would actually be honored and appreciate it.

The Hope edition of the Jeremiah The Innocent Frog vinyl sculpture drops tomorrow, Friday, October 20th at 9am Pacifc time over on the Clutter website.

As for anyone still looking for the black-and-white edition, it looks like they might still be in stock over at Daniel‘s website HiHowAreYou.com.