Elvis Premium Format | Artist: Mat Falls | Edition Size: 500

Dont be cruel, to a heart that’s true…

It’s difficult to sugarcoat the cold reception to Sideshow’s first go at The King of Rock and Roll. The unfavorable initial impression (amongst the hardcore collectors) is one it’s struggled to recover from. This all has certainly made me quite keen to give this some proper face time.

As seems to be part and parcel with the license, Sideshow is representing the stages of his life in chronological snapshots starting with ‘young Elvis’, circa 1956. The line has already since been furthered with a 68 Comeback Special premium format, and one assumes a Vegas-era piece to be in the works.

To start, I firmly believe the separate editions should’ve been nixed. The piece makes more sense and is compositionally better with the exclusive guitar. At least they offered a discount for the regular edition ($280 vs. $300), but the split hardly seem to do Sideshow or the collectors any real favors.

The mixed-media checklist: All of the clothing, barring the socks and shoes, are made of fabric, leaving most else sculpted. The blazer fits somewhat awkwardly and is fairly snug to the body, so there isn’t much leeway for primping. I do dislike when a mixed-media element is tacked on purely for the sake of doing so- I can point to a few premium formats that were not best served by this mentality. Here, though I don’t think the fit of the production piece is spectacular, the color and luster of the fabric bring something to the table which isn’t possible to replicate on a painted sculpture. Hard to argue against.

The mic stand comes attached to the left hand separate from the body, and the wire which wraps around is ‘real’ wire, as opposed to sculpted. The top of the mic head can be swiveled, though it never stays upright due to tension or gravity.

The pose is just what you’d expect of an early-era Elvis, one which few would have trouble recognizing even as a basic silhouette. Still, there’s no illusion that people buy statues, famous person statues, on the strength of any pose alone. The portrait is where the bread’s buttered, and here’s my observations on Mat Fall’s take on Elvis.

There’s something not quite right about the eyes, but it’s not easy to pinpoint. Certainly, the upper lids from some angles suffer from a puffiness exacerbated no doubt, by the fact that his lashes could not be rightly represented short of a Princess Leia PF style implementation. For better or worse here, it was not. Think Sideshow ever seriously considered it?

Do your best Elvis. Chances are you, or any would-be impersonator, would begin with a lip snarl and a “thank ya verrah much“. Yet this oft-imitated (and abused) trait is barely present here, if at all. His smile also comes off toothy as his choppers are far too delineated, with gum traveling to the bottom of the teeth in a few instances and painted as such.

I believe it’s a combination of all of these things that contributed to people’s complaints of his ‘goofy’ expression. Still, Mat has managed to do some very things very well here- like capture the unorthodox shape of Elvis’ face for example. The cheeks look spot on. The portrait is plenty Presley in the quarter-profile angles.

What it comes to, in subjectively terms, is that Sideshow’s Elvis is too ‘aw-shucks’ and wholesome, and lacking the certain sexiness and sense of danger that the man projected, particularly during his rise, when America shielded the precious virgin eyes of its youth from the man’s ‘perverted’ shakes and gyrations. In striving for the broadest possible appeal, Sideshow’s Elvis Presley plays it safe its idealized vision.

That’s all right, mama—- is it alright with you?

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