We are proud to announce the release of Curster’s Yeti. Yeti is a freestanding plush with articulated arms and is 9.5″ (24cm) in height. They are made from ultra soft faux fur with four face options available. Each Yeti retails for $25.00. This will be our first manufactured toy and will be limited to 375 pieces per face. We worked closely with ESC-Toy Ltd. who handled the production for us.

Four types are available: “The Smirker,” “The Happy,” “The Worrier” and “The Whistler.”

Click here for more info.

Less than a week after two men in the United States claimed they had found the remains of a half-man, half-ape Bigfoot, which actually turned out to be a rubber gorilla suit, a team of Japanese climbers began trekking on Wednesday to a mountain in Nepal hoping to find the Yeti, or abominable snowman.

Seven climbers, supported by sherpas and carrying cameras and telescopes, will spend 50 days on the lower reaches of the 7,661-metre (25,134-ft) Dhaulagiri IV to try and collect evidence of the beast’s existence, team leader Yoshiteru Takahashi said.

Link to full Reuters India article

Above is the cover of issue #1 of “Yeti vs. Vampire,” a four-issue miniseries coming in October. It’s written and inked by Miles Gunter and Kelsey Shannon, and will be published by Antarctic Press.

According to Gunter,

Yeti vs Vampire is the story of Monda, a vampire fashion designer who sets out to capture the Yeti and use its exotic fur to create a line of ultra chic fur coats for her upcoming runway show in Milan.

Sounds like the vampire’s gonna get her USRDA of ass-handed-to-her.

More details available here.

Parts two and three after the jump.

AP Photo/Saurabh Das

ABC News has posted an AP story about how growing modernization, outside influences and tourism are threatening the yeti’s place in Bhutan’s national identity:

In a remote Himalayan kingdom that held out against the modern world for as long as it could, the old man remembers a time when the yeti was a normal part of life.

“The creature has always been out there, and it’s out there still,” says Sonam Dorji, 77, sitting on the pockmarked wooden floor of his small farmhouse. It’s a cold Himalayan morning, and he warms himself beside a wood stove. The smell of burning pine fills the room. “If you travel the ancient trails, even today, there’s a good chance you’ll meet him.”

His son-in-law, listening to the old man’s stories, laughs dismissively from across the room.

Link to full story

He is 8ft tall and has a roar that could start an avalanche.

Despite this, the yeti has always managed to remain abominably elusive.

But yesterday, claims that the legendary beast really does exist took a giant step forward.

Scientists have used microscopes to analyse of strands of hair found caught on some rocks in jungle near the India-Bangladesh border.

We’ll see, I guess… But the most interesting thing about this article (to me, at least) comes in the little factoid run-down at the bottom:

Actor James Stewart reportedly smuggled remains of a yeti by concealing it in his luggage when he flew from India to London in 1959

I’m gonna do some digging on that. That’s just too weird not to.

Update: Here I was all proud about finally doing a post that didn’t involve Cryptomundo or Loren Coleman in any way… Then I started researching the bit about Jimmy Stewart.

From Wikipedia:

 The Pangboche Hand is an artifact stolen from a Buddhist monastery in Pangboche, Nepal. Supporters contend that the hand is from a Yeti, while critics argue it is a fraud, based upon a probable misunderstanding of the history of the sacred relic.

…

 Byrne smuggled the bones from Nepal into India, after which actor James Stewart allegedly smuggled the hand out of the country in his luggage. Cryptozoologist Loren Coleman rediscovered this story while writing Tom Slick’s biography in the 1980s. Coleman confirmed details of the incidents with written materials in the Slick archives, interviews with Byrne, and correspondence with Stewart. Byrne later confirmed the Pangboche hand story via a letter from Stewart that Byrne published in a general book on Nepalese wildlife.

If he weren’t so awesome, my feelings about Loren Coleman would be roughly akin to how Indiana Jones feels about Belloq.