Cosmic Evil Creates King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard ‘People Vulture’ Action Playset

You’d be hard-pressed to find another band exhibiting more range, more consistency, or is more exciting right now than King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard. Next month the Melbourne outfit will release their 26th studio album since 2012, not including the 16 or so live records they’ve put out within that time frame. Following another pair of studio efforts released last year — the synth-based, The Silver Cord, and the apocalyptic doom/thrash metal LP, PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation — Flight b741 is promising to be the most collaborative effort by the 6-piece yet, and sees them returning to more blues rock-oriented territory. 2022 marked the second time the band released 5 albums in a single year, with 4 of them dropping in a single month. While it blew minds when they managed that feat in 2017, it is now the sort of thing we’ve come to expect from them. In both cases, they not only pushed out a ton of material within a relatively small window, but did so by yielding a collection of titles that were decidedly very different from one another. Recording only one album in 2024 might seem a little light for these guys, but 2 things are guaranteed. The first is that you never know what’s on deck, because they’ve been known to dump a lot of stuff out with little notice. The other is that any perceived gaps in activity from the band will likely be filled with some sort of activity by the fan base.

King Gizzard has built their legacy and popularity off of two very distinct components that seem almost contradictory, yet are vital to one another. On one hand, the band is 100% in control of their own image and output, yet they also treat their work like an open source of material that others are welcome to take, alter, and remix. Everything the Australian group does is self-contained, requiring minimal outside involvement. Not only do they record their own albums and run their own label, but their art and visuals are created in-house. Artist Jason Galea is as prolific and adventurous as his musical counterparts. For the Flight b741 artwork, he sculpted 8 tiny pigs which he photographed piloting a hand-made wooden plane. For the cover of The Silver Cord, he shot a portrait of the band surrounded by synths like you might see on the back of a Herbie Hancock record. Meanwhile, Petro Dragonic featured his incredibly detailed painting of a dragon that looks like it was pulled straight from a vintage fantasy novel. Galea‘s show posters are also highly sought after and his shirt designs are some of the most dynamic around. KGATLW‘s visual and musical elements are all controlled by their camp, allowing them to explore any territory they choose, at will, and remain in a constant state of evolution with little to no outside interference. I have tremendous respect for how the group has built its dedicated fanbase off this foundation of creating their world without compromise and simply welcoming like-minded folks in to experience it. These fans are then inspired, if not encouraged, to create their own complimentary offshoot community using the Gizz as their jumping off point and inspiration.

One hustler/creative out there making the most of the opportunity is Cosmic Evil Toys. An artist/toy maker based in Wichita, KS, his website claims that, “Dr. Cos McEvil III started making toys in 1886 by the light of the blood moon. Union lepers create our toys from scratch in basements filled with preserves. Cocaine.” Gizz has created work ranging from Spaghetti Western to psych-prog, and with it comes an endless variety of visual elements, concepts, and lore. Cosmic Evil doesn’t only make King Gizzard-related work, but he has created multiple different sets of action figures honoring the band members in different eras and themes. These are the sort of articulated 3 3/4 inch kitbash-style figures that come on custom backing cards. Being as they are handmade in limited quantities, they can be a little on the pricier end, but these are art pieces more than anything. Cosmic Evil has been killing it in this lane for a while now, but his latest piece is easily his most ambitious. This time the toymaker is taking inspiration from the 2016 video for the song “People Vultures,” off of King Gizzard‘s psychedelic space-rock masterpiece, Nonagon Infinity.

Co-directed by Galea and Danny Cohen, the video sees the Aussies embedded into the torso of a vulture-like kaiju, instruments grasped in their protruding hands. Replicating the aesthetic of a Power Rangers episode, the massive beast battles various martial art-wielding attackers in masks and bodysuits, ultimately blasting and disintegrating them with electric jams and laser eyes. Nonagon Infinity was created in an era when the band still had their second drummer, Eric Moore, making the lineup 7 deep. The oversized bird monster was the reflective embodiment of them as such a formidable multi-limbed unit.

To honor one of their most engaging videos, Cosmic Evil decided to take on the challenge of not only sculpting the vulture, but creating all 7 of the individual band members so that they were removable and able to be clicked back into its body. Taking it a step further, he created a custom box and a figure for one of their adversaries in the video: Big Fig Wasp.

We’ve been following the teasers and work-in-progress updates on his Instagram account, but the final result is even better than we could have anticipated. It’s exciting to see Cosmic Evil truly push and outdo themselves with this one, even if the price point and accessibility are WAY beyond our reach.

Only three copies of this full People Vulture play set are known to exist. One is going to be part of the upcoming Mint on Card art exhibition at the This Is Not A Toy Store retail outlet/gallery in Melbourne next month. The other 2 copies were placed in the Cosmic Evil store where they quickly sold out, before we ever even knew they were in there. We weren’t swinging that $649 pricetag either way, but this thing looks amazing and clearly required a TON of time, effort, and ingenuity. It’s a work of art and they have our complete respect.

Check out the impressive set of product images after the following description taken from the Cosmic Evil shop.

People Vulture Action Playset y’all! This is a 12″ toy sculpture… designed, created and hand painted by me, Gizz super fan Dr. Cos McEvil III. This is a work of f*cking art. Large resin sculpture based on the People Vulture from King Gizzard’s Epic (and now classic) music video. Includes EIGHT exclusive Gizz figs made specifically for this playset, including Eric, Big Fig Wasp, a cloaked Stu and more. Ships in a custom printed display box.

First edition of /3

This is not a toy. This is art.