OSEES x Tetsunori Tawaraya Release Wax Face Exclusive “Mr. Donuts” Vinyl Figures

For at least the last decade-and-a-half, OSEES has remained one of the most visceral and engaging live bands to not rely on backdrops, props, or visual aids to generate their spectacle. Fueled by high-energy frontman John Dwyer shredding and contorting his frame to whip up cyclones of pure garage rock psychedelia, the band is a force in and of themselves, regardless of shifts in lineup or the minor adjustments in name that come along with them (Orinoka Crash Suite, OCS, Orange County Sound, The Ohsees, The Oh Sees, Thee Oh Sees, Oh Sees, etc). As for the physical products they generate, the Los Angeles outfit maintains an incredibly strong aesthetic, collaborating with like-minded visual artists to conjure it up.

Back in 2013, Dwyer released a book of his own film photography, but for their album covers the artists that collaborate with him seem to be allowed the freedom to do what they do best. In the past, Dwyer has tapped Lexington, Kentucky artist/musician, Robert Beatty for multiple OSEES covers and side projects like Damaged Bug, while Dylan McConnell aka Tiny Little Hammers has tackled covers for OSEES as well as for Dwyer‘s more recent collaborative free-form kraut-jazz exploration projects. Plenty of variation has been presented over the years, but one recurring throughline is that a lot of the visual contributions wouldn’t seem out of place on the covers of sci-fi and fantasy novels. That’s why it makes such perfect sense that Matt Stawicki, an artist who’s made a name for himself illustrating that very thing, is the man behind the cover of 2018‘s Smote Reverser LP.

More and more artists seem to be working with the group, something that has been reflected in an influx of really exciting merch as of late. Aside from the customary event poster, each individual tour stop seems to include unique, often related, merch by that date’s poster artist and/or others, ranging from shirts to tote bags. There’s been a whole lot of gore and tripped-out day-glo space-punk chaos with a healthy dose of skulls and mutants mixed in as they pull in noteworthy collaborators like Chad Keith, Will Sweeney, Skinner, and even Brian Chippendale of Lightning Bolt. One welcome return has come from Tetsunori Tawaraya, Japanese artist and frontman for noise punk band, 2Up, whose prolific history creating sci-fi/experimental graphic novels translates effortlessly into his recent series of OSEES t-shirt designs. All of this official merch has been coming from a London/Los Angeles-based company named WAX FACE that will also operate as the exclusive retailer for a brand new vinyl figure of Tawaraya‘s “Mr Donuts” character which transitioned from comic book form to being prominently featured on his cover for the Thee Oh Sees album, Mutilator Defeated At Last (2015.)

The first thing that stands out about Wax Face is that they took their name from a song on the 2012 Thee Oh Sees EP, Putrifiers II. They also have 2 different logos: one is a clear homage to the Shaw Brothers with a “WF” inside of a shield, while the other consists of the company name spelled out in the same font as the 1979 cult film about New York City street gangs, The Warriors. That alone racks up points with us pretty quickly. Due to their name, the fact that they’re constantly posting about OSEES and have become the official provider of merch for both the band and John Dwyer‘s label, Castle Face, I was initially trying to figure out if they were simply another venture for Dwyer or even an extension of Castle Face. In fact, when you go to the website, the only homescreen tabs available at all are “Home,” “OSEES,” “Castle Face,” and “About Us.” According to the “about us” section, the company “started as a toy company in collaboration with Unbox Industries, making resin figures of Iggy Pop and John Dwyer of the Osees.” They formed in 2019 and I distinctly remember receiving press releases about both the Iggy and Dwyer figures, but it appears that, by the following year, they had already pivoted into “creating exclusive merchandise for artists such as Osees, Warren Ellis (Dirty Three & Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds), Brigid Dawson, Frankie and The Witch Fingers, comedian Stewart Lee and Photographer Glen E. Friedman.” This latest MR Donuts project is simply a return to their roots with Unbox Industries still manufacturing the figures and shipping all orders out of Hong Kong.

Mr Donuts comes in 2 different colorways, “yellow/red” and “blue/purple,” with each variant being limited to only 70 pieces each. The physical size of yellow/red figures is listed as 20cm, which converts to a little under 8-inches (7.87 to be more specific). Meanwhile, the listing for the blue/purple has them at “9.5inch / 23.13cm tall.” How accurate that difference is, I’m not 100% sure, as there are definitely a few inconsistencies — their social media posts state that there are actually 75 copies of each colorway. Both colorways appear to be, more or less, the same height, and I suspect the second number to be closer to reality.

Incidentally, this new announcement comes today on John Dwyer‘s 49th birthday and I love how the man has still never shown andy signs of slowing down or veering away from exploring new territory while expanding his legacy. Mutilator Defeated At Last is credited as the project’s 16th album and that came out 8 years ago. OSEES haven’t stopped releasing records since then and, if that wasn’t prolific enough, this doesn’t even take into account all of the music that Dwyer has put out with other projects both prior to and currently outside of OSEES.

You can check out some product images of the Mr Donuts figures below. These will run you $130 + shipping. Again, these are a Wax Face exclusives, so if you feel so inclined, you can pick them up HERE.

We already know that this isn’t the first time that Dwyer or Wax Face has worked with Unbox Industries to release a figure, but it’s also not the first time that Tetsunori Tawaraya, himself, has worked with the company. Beyond a series of blind-box figures that they collaborated on, this isn’t even the very first time that this particular character has been released by Unbox. Back in 2015, news first leaked that Tawaraya and Unbox Industries were working on what would most likely be a rendering of “Mr. Rotten Donuts,” as he was referred to at the time. In March of the following year, advanced images of an all-blue version began appearing on toy blogs, as well as Tesunori‘s website with the promise of “later this year.” In reality, it would be more than another full year before Mr. Rotten Donuts would reach the public in June of 2017. Listed as approximately 10-inches, at the time, the same molds were clearly used as the ones for this brand-new drop. That original release also came in 2 different variants: an original grayscale version of the spiky-headed original, that most closely replicates the album cover, and a pink/green “unmasked” variant that mirrors that of the new blue/purple. You might get lucky and track down one of those “rotten” originals, but they’re definitely hard to come by. If you’re thinking about this new drop, be warned that there’s a pretty good chance that these new “fresh” figures will become similarly difficult to track down, in no time.