On his blog, Pope introduced the character and figure:

We wanted to do a line of THB [Pope's long-running series set on Mars] toys, but decided if we do that, it'd be better to wait until the THB series launches, in order to not further confuse people. I took in a number of other ideas, from the relatively mundane to the wildly surreal (Karimbah is in the latter category), and we all preferred the Karimbah— who is technically a THB character (he's a character on a kid's show in the THB universe). From there we did months of design work, including lots of back-and-forths with the sculptor and the factory, based on the dozens of design model sheets I drew up. There were lots of details and problems we needed to get right in the prototype stages, as is to be expected. I also did an original comics story, which appears in an exclusive "Masked Karimbah" comic book, found inside the box... and the box design itself. Kid Robot says it is the most complicated and challenging toy design they've tackled yet (Karimbah's dog is the size of an actual little Boston Terrier).

Karimba [Pulphope]

Did he go albino somewhere along the way, or the did movie just feature his botoxed and tanned Hollywood cousin? Somehow, rendered in plastic, the thing just doesn't terrify like it did in the film. Maybe if it had a little Hud action figure (complete with camera) that it could terrorize, that might amp up the believability. But after seeing these images, we're going to hit the reset button. Maybe next time, Cloverfield... although we still want the Statue of Liberty head accessory. [Thanks David!]