China cries foul over Labubu counterfeits. That's rich.
It's hard to say what's more amusing about the meteoric rise of China's Labubu toys: the bizarre appearance of the dolls themselves or the fact that they've spawned knockoffs that are sometimes just as popular as the originals.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Wall Street Journal
23 minutes ago
- Wall Street Journal
‘Will Eisner' Review: The Spirited Life of a Comics Pioneer
They may not realize it, but the millions of readers who have made bestsellers out of Art Spiegelman's 'Maus' (1991), Daniel Clowes's 'Ghost World' (1997), Marjane Satrapi's 'Persepolis' (2003) and other graphic novels have Will Eisner to thank. A pioneering figure in the history of comic books, Eisner also served as the form's artistic conscience, a beloved writer-illustrator who explored personal themes within and then beyond the superhero genre. Yet as legendary as Eisner remains to comics aficionados and to the comics industry itself—there's a reason the medium's equivalent to the Oscars is called the Eisner Awards—he remains little known to the greater public while pioneers of the form such as Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster (the last two of 'Superman' fame) have received their due. Michael Schumacher's worthy 'Will Eisner: A Dreamer's Life in Comics' (2010) has been the sole full-length biography to date, but it's fitting that the artist generally acknowledged as the creator of the modern graphic novel now gets the graphic-novel treatment himself. And so we have Stephen Weiner and Dan Mazur's 'Will Eisner: A Comics Biography,' a smart and intimate account of a storied life delivered in comics form. One measure of the book's success is that it will send you out to read as much Eisner as you can get your hands on. Mr. Weiner's text and Mr. Mazur's artwork combine to tell an engaging story of a son of impoverished Jewish immigrant New Yorkers, struggling to make his name in a new medium that enjoyed little respect but possessed infinite possibilities. After apprenticeships at a newspaper and in pulp magazines, in 1936 he and a former boss, Jerry Iger, started a company that would supply comics to a variety of publishers. Eisner, in fact, wrote and drew all the material, using four different aliases. His first contribution to popular culture? A female Tarzan named Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. It wouldn't be his last. Eisner might best be described as a pragmatic idealist who balanced business savvy with creative boundary pushing. Messrs. Weiner and Mazur credit him with inventing the production-line approach to making comics that became an industry standard. Scripts are written, then visual work is divided among separate pencilers, inkers and so on. In 1940, Eisner also invented one of the signature characters of 20th-century comics: a witty, domino-masked private investigator named the Spirit, who presided over stories that the artist took far afield into comedy, stark drama and moral fables. One reason for Eisner's relatively low public profile today is that 'The Spirit' appeared not in a stand-alone comic book but rather a comic-book insert syndicated to newspapers from 1940 to 1952, thus missing the Marvel-propelled boom in superhero comics in the 1960s.
Forbes
23 minutes ago
- Forbes
Everything To Know About Megadeth's Farewell And Final Album
The thrash metal pioneers Megadeth, announced that their upcoming LP will not only be their final studio album, but it will also kickoff their global farewell tour. For nearly four decades, Megadeth has been one of the most influential and revered bands in the genre. As a part of thrash metal's 'Big Four' (alongside Metallica, Slayer, and Anthrax), Megadeth has played a monumental role in shaping the sound of heavy music. Depsite the band going through a myriad of lineups throughout its career, Megadeth has always been the brainchild of founder and lead songwriting Dave Mustaine. Like any band that has released 17 studio ablums, there are only so many album-tour cycles one can withstand before it's just time to hang up the hat, and what better way to do that than on their own terms. Megadeth Announce 'The End Is Near' In message sent out to Megadeth's fan mailing list, Megadeth's Dave Mustaine put out the following statement: 'There's so many musicians that have come to the end of their career, whether accidental or intentional. Most of them don't get to go out on their own terms on top and that's where I'm at in my life right now. I have traveled the world and have made millions upon millions of fans and the hardest part of all of this is saying goodbye to them. We can't wait for you to hear this album and see us on tour. If there was ever a perfect time for us to put out a new album, it's now. If there was ever a perfect time to tour the world, it's now. This is also a perfect time for us to tell you that it's our last studio album. We've made a lot of friends over the years and I hope to see all of you on our global farewell tour. Don't be mad, don't be sad, be happy for us all, come celebrate with me these next few years. We have done something together that's truly wonderful and will probably never happen again. We started a musical style, we started a revolution, we changed the guitar world and how it's played and we changed the world. The bands I played in have influenced the world. I love you all for it. Thank you for everything.' Megadeth's final LP has been in production since November 2024 and in June 2025 Mustaine reported that the album was nearing it's final stages in recording. However, unlike most of Megadeth's previous LPs, The End Is Near won't be releasing via Universal Music Group, but instead will be released via a partnership with Mustaine's label Tradecraft and Frontiers Label Group. With the album likely being already finished, Megadeth are probably eyeing an early 2026 release timeline. Right now the band is gearing up for an extensive fall EU tour supporting Disturbed which will conclude October 28th. With that in mind, it doesn't seem plausible for Megadeth to drop the album in 2025, as they'll ideally want to kick off their headlining farewell tour and support the LP simultaneously. Furthermore, Megadeth has announced pre-orders for the album will be begin 42 days from now, which likely means it's releasing in early 2026. As Dave Mustaine states, Megadeth's final album-tour cycle will be over the course of multiple years. It appears this will in fact be Megadeth's final album and tour, but as other thrash metal icons have demonstrated, specifically Slayer with their mis-leading farewell in 2018-2019, a farewell tour isn't always indicative of retirement.
Digital Trends
2 hours ago
- Digital Trends
The Switch 2's power and popularity are a double-edged sword for the industry
If I were a betting man, I would've put down everything I had on the Nintendo Switch 2 being a smash hit. It doesn't take an industry analyst to make that call so I don't give myself too much credit, but seeing it break all these early sales numbers has still been a bit of a shock. While I personally wish that Nintendo had done a bit more to make this console launch feel more special, it was clearly the safe move to make as direct an upgrade as possible over the wildly popular Switch to ride that wave. Last generation, third parties were far more hesitant to support the Switch right out of the gate. Nintendo was at its lowest point in history, coming off the debacle that was the Wii U, so it made sense to take a more wait-and-see approach to Nintendo's next console. Once it became clear that this little hybrid system had struck gold, we started seeing all these 'impossible' ports hitting the console to capitalize. We're already seeing that the industry at large — with the notable exceptions of Xbox and PlayStation — doesn't intend to make the same mistake twice. But that may have rippling consequences for everyone, not just Switch 2 players. Adjusting the bar Game development is complicated. If there's one thing that must be stressed upfront, it's that. I don't pretend to know the intricacies and discussions that happen behind the scenes, and fully recognize that development and porting processes are different from studio to studio and game to game. This article is mainly me ruminating on different ways I predict the Switch 2's success could impact games moving forward. Recommended Videos What set off this entire thought process for me was wondering how different the rest of this generation will look compared to the last when more studios will opt to develop their games with the Switch 2 hardware in mind. There were plenty of games that came out cross-platform right away on Switch and PS5, but a wide swath either started on Switch and later came to other platforms or vice versa. From what I understand, and how it appears from the outside, porting a game is a very different process than developing it from the ground up with that platform in mind. If more teams are looking to get in on the runaway success that is the Switch 2, then it would make sense to launch on that platform simultaneously with the others if possible. It might seem like a purely negative situation for devs to build games with weaker hardware in mind, but I disagree. In fact, I think we saw just the opposite for the majority of the PS5 generation thus far. Much to the chagrin of a certain segment of the fanbase, most of PlayStation's first party games have been available on PS4 and PS5, including God of War: Ragnarok and Horizon: Forbidden West. I have no proof to back this up, but I think that it is because these games were developed with the PS4 in mind that they played so smoothly on PS5. The latter had the option to run at 4K 30 or a dynamic 1800p at 60, while the former had similar settings plus a 120Hz mode. I'm clearly cherry-picking here since Sony's first party teams clearly have a deeper knowledge of the hardware, plus don't have to worry about porting to completely different systems. Add in other variables like game engines, budgets, and time, and this is by no means a sure thing. All I mean to show is that there is evidence to suggest that a lower-powered SKU can have a positive impact on games also available on stronger systems. There's also the dream of the Switch 2 being the universal console handheld. We've seen plenty of other handhelds enter the space since the first Switch, with Xbox partnering with ROG to release one later this year and rumors of a PlayStation handheld coinciding with the PS6 also on the table, but the market is still niche for everyone but Nintendo. If everyone jumps aboard the Switch 2 train, it could become the default portable system for everything but exclusives, which are already on their way to going extinct. I promised that there was a negative to all this by calling it a double-edged sword, so it's time to take off my optimistic goggles for a minute. The easiest stone to throw at my prior argument is that teams could treat the Switch 2 similarly to the Switch 1 and worry about crunching down their game after the fact to fit on the hardware. As impressive as some ports like Doom, The Witcher 3, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance are to even exist on the Switch, they came at the cost of some massive concessions. There are even worse examples like Mortal Kombat 1 that really drive this point home. Besides just looking and playing worse than its console counterparts, we've also seen Switch games lack features compared to the other versions. In Civilization VII, for example, the Switch version could only play with four players in the Antiquity & Exploration Ages, or six in the Modern Age, as opposed to other platforms supporting five and eight players respectively. Scope and mechanical concessions are much harder pills to swallow compared to graphics of frame rates because the game is, objectively, lesser than the other versions. That is another possibility we could see taken with the Switch 2. So, which way will the dominoes end up falling? I think the only safe assumption I can make here is that we will see plenty of examples of both scenarios. It all comes down to the individual teams and dozens of factors we players may never be privy to on how development shakes out. I only hope that we see more end up on the positive side of things than the negative.
