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Creating the Anti-Comic Con: An Interview with Toy Pizza's Jesse DeStasio
322 Plays6 months ago
This ain't no "Toy and Pizza" Con anymore! Friend of the pod Jesse DeStasio of Toy Pizza returns to update us on his latest projects, GLYOS developments, and of course, his upcoming Toy Pizza Expo on June 16th in Beacon, New York!
Follow Toy Pizza on Instagram @toypizza and visit https://toypizza.com to buy Knights of the Slice and to subscribe to Jesse's Patreon!
Don't miss the inaugural Toy Pizza Expo on Sunday, June 16th at The Yard in Beacon, New York!
Follow us @aic_podcast on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube
Intro and other voices by Joe Azzari
https://www.instagram.com/voicesbyjoe/
Theme Music is "Game Boy Horror" by the Zombie Dandies
Proudly part of the Non-Productive Network
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Banter
00:00:03
Speaker
Are you ready, kids? Get your parents' permission, check your mailbox, and grab your shopping cart. It's time for the Adventures in Collecting podcast. I'm Eric. And I'm Dave. Welcome to Adventures in Collecting, where we talk toy news, culture, and halls, along with our journeys as collectors. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Adventures in Collecting.
00:00:33
Speaker
Hi, Eric. Hi, Eric. Whoa. Throwing that one. I keep mixing it up. I don't want to, I don't want anybody to think that they're on an old episode. Whoa. That one like actually caught me off guard. Cause like everyone that's listening will have just heard the hot. Oh no, we don't, we actually don't do that anymore. When our intro was, hi, Eric. Hi, Dave. Yeah. Remember that like way back, like early days, usually with a, with a long pause in between. Yeah. Yeah. We should, we should go, we should go back to that.
00:01:01
Speaker
One day, just like randomly throw in the original intro. The next episode with like a zero, like two zeros at the end or whatever. Yeah, maybe we're coming up on that soon. Well, we'll get to that. Um, so Dave, uh, I would like you to tell me a word that rhymes with steed and tell me what to do with it.
00:01:29
Speaker
Oh, bury the lead. Don't bury the lead. Got him. Got him. I was like, are you making sourdough? Like, what are we doing? I was like, is this like we're getting to the pizza reference? Like, is that where we're... Oh, no, no, no, no, no, not yet. I thought that's what you were...
00:01:45
Speaker
But that's a great segue, Dave.
Guest Introduction: Jesse Destasio
00:01:47
Speaker
Yeah. Ahead of his annual Glios and music celebration, we're thrilled to welcome the wizard behind the Knights of the Slice, Card Slicers, and of course, Zedstar7. Back to the show. You know him as Toy Pizza, but we affectionately just call him Jesse. Welcome back to the pod, Jesse Destasio.
00:02:09
Speaker
Thank you. A pleasure to be here with, uh, New Jersey's finest. I would, I would put you guys up there with, uh, Michael of Jersey. He's a sandwich procurer. Do you know of him? Yes. So the three of you together.
00:02:26
Speaker
It's a trifecta of Jersey excellence. And now you're probably telling me, oh, we've moved. We don't live there anymore. No, we are still in New Jersey. It's funny because I'm not, I am now happy to know that I'm not the only person that calls him like New Jersey Michael. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of, you know, Michael of New Jersey. There's a lot of, he deserves an esteemed moniker. So I think we put respect on his name whenever we can.
00:02:53
Speaker
We do and his way is phenomenal. Michael's way. Michael's way is a hell of a way to enjoy a classy sandwich. Shouts to Michael. If it's good enough for Danny DeVito, I'm okay with it. Nothing quite says New Jersey.
00:03:15
Speaker
like Danny DeVito hocking a sub like that. Yeah, it's just how you know, it's good. Yeah. Yeah. It's just missing like, you know, a Springsteen song in the background or something.
Nostalgia and Star Wars Episode I Discussion
00:03:26
Speaker
So before we hop into all of the, uh, the, the wonderful toy pizza goodness, uh, it's been a while since you've been on the show. Uh, so, uh, what are, what are you collecting these days and what are some of your recent pickups? Um,
00:03:43
Speaker
So in terms of what I'm collecting, I would say not much, right? Um, I have gone through this very odd episode one rabbit hole, which I think all of us are doing, uh, because it is, it's the 25th anniversary. And, uh, you know, episode one was 25 years, roughly after the first star Wars film came out. And I think it's back in the cultural zeitgeist.
00:04:11
Speaker
Because that was kind of the end of history at that very moment, right? Yeah. You had, you know, there's the, the famous charlatan, Francis Fukuyama, who declared, you know, around the same time,
00:04:30
Speaker
This is the end of history. Liberal democracy has won. We've solved all of the world's problems. And from this point on, at the end of the 20th century, we will just kind of gradually continue to become a perfected species with the basic parameters that we've achieved here at the end of, you know, 1999, roughly. And, you know, I think that was
00:04:59
Speaker
Absolutely incorrect. Demonstratively an incorrect assumption. But I do think of, you know, the turn of the century as being really a schism in world culture in many ways.
00:05:15
Speaker
Yeah, and also our our lives having sort of grown up during this period and the monstrosity that is being alive Currently in this moment the daily web horror. Yeah Yeah, and you know, I think episode one is kind of the last worldwide cultural moment Western world, you know, obviously there's parts of the globe that couldn't give a shit about Star Wars, but I
00:05:39
Speaker
for the the general english-speaking western world this was the last time there was a monoculture for anything and i'll give you an example 1999 was also the year the matrix came out right yeah huge film did big box office fantastic film still holds up it's you know it's it's great it's a piece of cinema uh but i remember seeing the matrix and going to work the next day and being like oh my god you guys have to go see the matrix and everyone was like i don't know what that is i'd never heard of that i like
00:06:09
Speaker
It was a bit of a sleeper hit. Comparatively, every single person I worked with at that restaurant, whether they were in their 60s or 18 and a hostess, everyone had an opinion on episode one, had gone to see it, was planning to go see it, hated it, loved it. Like whatever the case may be, it was a unifying cultural moment.
00:06:30
Speaker
compared to something like The Matrix, which also came out the same year, probably has aged a hell of a lot better. But at the time when that came out, it was still kind of a unknown underground thing. So, you know, I've been sort of like, dare I say nostalgic and thinking back about this film and this kind of freeze frame of time where, you know, we were probably in our late teens, early
00:06:59
Speaker
20s, things like that. Um, and, uh, I think that was it. I think that was the goodbye kiss to the world as it had been since probably, you know, the post World War II era. And, uh, does that make Jar Jar any more tolerable? No. Um, Misa think he knows well, yeah, still a lot of, a lot of problems there. Yeah. It's still not a well-written movie, but, um, you know, seeing it on the big screen was
00:07:29
Speaker
Uh, interesting. Um, so yeah, I, I've been kind of like, I, I avoided almost everything episode one. Product wise when it came out, I think I had a dark ball and then I was just not interested in the various senators and, uh, political action figures they had, but I, I've since gone back and, um,
00:07:51
Speaker
You know, there was really the end of an era and there are some really fantastic figures. I think design wise, visually, there's so much to love about that film. There just wasn't a story. There wasn't good characters to kind of back it up. So that's what I've been collecting. That's where my mind's at. You know, I welcome your retorts.
00:08:13
Speaker
No, I mean I fire when ready literally the most the most recent toy that I got in the mail was something I ordered on May 4th took a while to ship but I ordered the droid factory TC 14 from episode one so that that nice roamed out carrying a very suspect looking bottle it's a it's a
00:08:36
Speaker
Protocol dildo salesman. Yes. Yes. Yes, exactly It is is now proudly displayed in my my little my little Star Wars area over there Yeah, but yeah, no, I mean I look back on that film honestly like I
00:08:54
Speaker
We've talked about this on the show actually the especially those those red cards You know like those those Darth Maul cards and like even before that on that those green power the force cards like the preview figures when you could get like Mace Windu and you could get
00:09:09
Speaker
Who didn't have a purple lightsaber as you know in the figure you had a blue one and you had the the battle droid on the staff and like there were all these really really great like you said amazing designs like great great looking figures. And I think I was the right age in 1999 were like I didn't care.
00:09:31
Speaker
about the quality of the film. I was just like, Oh my God, I'm seeing a new Star Wars movie, you know, in theaters. This is what it must've been like. Um, yeah, but yeah, rather fondly. I was 18. So the magic didn't wear off till episode two for me. Yeah. So, but yeah. Um, yeah. And it's interesting. Um, this has sort of spurred me to do my own alternative episode one.
Creating Alternative Comics with Community
00:09:59
Speaker
mini comic. And now it is, uh, uh, I think I've done like four chapters and now it's become a sort of group project within the Patreon where another patron is going to take over for the next chapter. And then we're going to keep passing it around and kind of play a game of telephone and just rewrite episode one, you know, as if it had like a good story and sort of good characters and things like that. Sorry, I'm being attacked by a cat at the moment. That's okay.
00:10:29
Speaker
Yeah, no worries. We get lots of animal friends on the show, usually showing up in people's laps, people's shoulders. Yeah. I think we've talked about this on the pod too, where the greatest kind of post-mortem for episode one was when the DVD came out and it had that
00:10:50
Speaker
feature length documentary about the making of episode one. And you see the moment where like hubris really hit George Lucas when he points at the storyboard at Jar Jar and goes, this is the make or break point. The movie's either going to be great or not right here. I would say that documentary is one of the best film behind the scenes documentary ever made. It's currently on YouTube in its entirety and it is a fantastic watch.
00:11:18
Speaker
You know, I think they're pretty honest about what was the driving force and the motivation behind it. It was selling ILM as a all digital solution for filmmaking. And this was a test balloon and everything kind of was secondary to that. Interestingly enough, if you continue on with those documentaries and you watch the episode two and episode three,
00:11:42
Speaker
Um, they become really a chore to get through because there's so much less practical stuff to look at. It literally becomes, you're looking at animators, tweaking splines and things like that in the episode two and three documentaries as they fully shift. Um, to digital and you know, initially episode one was going to be an entirely digital, uh, film and they had to sort of backtrack and, uh,
00:12:11
Speaker
start ordering, I know I said film already, but I guess they had to order celluloid or whatever the right term is. And the digital cameras were just not up to snuff to film the entire movie. I think certainly by episode three, but possibly by episode two, they had the technology advance where they could shoot everything digitally. But that's also part of
00:12:38
Speaker
the cultural legacy here. This was on the forefront of the digital versus film conversation. And it's a really powerful sort of watermark for these things. Yeah. And regardless of how you feel about the overall film, I mean, it is beautiful. It is a gorgeously shot film. It just is. And I mean, that's one of those things where
00:13:08
Speaker
to your point, like it or not, it's a hallmark for that very reason. So last year, getting back to the toys, getting back to the Knights of the Slice, we're getting into them. Last year you debuted a new, more articulated body for the Knights of the Slice. What's it been like designing on the new body? Yeah, so we got to sort of, I think,
00:13:39
Speaker
Let's see, three years ago, we did the first teaser image and the prototype for the Gauss armor, which was our foray into not really super articulated, but a more articulated body type four nights of the slice. And by last year we had, uh, you know, actual figures of the Gauss armor that we could share with everybody. And that went over really well. Um, and I think we're going to talk a little bit about Sia daggers and cray.
00:14:09
Speaker
which is the current figure that we're kind of uh undertaking um but it's been uh endlessly more complicated and expensive to do these figures but i but i think more rewarding in many ways and i think it has brought in a an entirely new audience i think that um you know previously before the goss armor the premise in front of a potential customer was
00:14:39
Speaker
Why are these figures so expensive and they don't have elbows and knees? That could be what somebody would say upon seeing one of my creations. I think now the premise is, hey, these figures are just as expensive as everything else that's in the mass market stores and there's a bunch more articulation and there's
00:15:04
Speaker
There's this amazing Glios compatibility, thanks to the Glios system, and I can swap parts. And I think it's starting to, you know, become a little more enticing of a, uh, you know, of an offering to, uh, people that are out there that maybe have not collected a Glios figure ever are not familiar with Oh, no design. Um, so, you know, I, I think it was a very hard one battle.
00:15:34
Speaker
with Gauss armor,
Toy Pizza's Nostalgic Film-Inspired Figures
00:15:35
Speaker
I think Cray and the Sea of Daggers is proving to be equally challenging, but I think ultimately these are worth the struggle and you know, I think it has sort of elevated my game and elevated what I'm putting out there into the universe. So, you know, I'm quite happy and I'm quite excited for the next iteration.
00:15:58
Speaker
Well, speaking of, of what you're doing with the, the goss armor, um, you recently added some figures that, uh, look like they are right out of dystopian, uh, Detroit. Uh, tell us about the, uh, the two new releases. Yes. Uh, these are legally distinct original creations. If they remind anybody of certain films, uh, you know, that's a complete coincidence, I assure you. Uh, but we have introduced the robo send.
00:16:28
Speaker
and his superior officer, Policia. And, uh, these are shot in a really beautiful metallic blue. And, um, unrelated to these two figures, the first rated R movie I ever saw was a film called Robocop. And, uh, I was seven years old at the time and my older brother took me to see it and kind of lied to my parents about what it was about. And, uh, when I came home from the theater, I had bitten a hole in the collar of my shirt from all the
00:16:58
Speaker
very dramatic, very Dutch things I had witnessed on screen. Um, but I was hooked. It was, I mean, that it, that's like, you know, just, it's like a type of drug to see Verrehoven at his peak on screen at such a formidable age. Um, it made, you know, I was, I was instantly like obsessed with this idea and this character.
00:17:27
Speaker
So many years later in an unrelated fashion, I happen to have these two figures offered in my store. And again, any connections that anybody draws between them is purely coincidental.
00:17:40
Speaker
So I'm gonna put Dave on the spot here because he has my... So first of all, I saw the movie at a very young age too because Dave being my very cool older brother let me watch things that I wasn't supposed to watch. You say I saw it at a slightly... It's probably why I am the way I am today. But Dave actually has my favorite Robocop story. He got to see something very special when he was out in California.
00:18:09
Speaker
Add a particular film archive. When you're at you when you're at usc. I was that when i saw first of the directors cut before it was out yeah it was on it was a criteria like laser disc yeah yeah before it was more like widely yeah yeah why is your criteria laser disc. And i remember when you came home and you're like you're never gonna believe.
00:18:33
Speaker
Cause this is before cell phones and everything. So like, you know, we were, uh, you know, not in touch for a little bit. And, uh, he was out in California for all this time. And the one thing he couldn't wait to tell me about was the director's cut of Robocop and how extremely more violent it was. If you ever seen a man explode, well you can. Well, you can, you can see a man, a man fly too. Yeah.
00:19:03
Speaker
But, uh, but yeah, I mean, I, I loved and I Kenner, right? I think Kenner was the company that was making the Robocop toys back in the day. Yes. Um, yeah, those toys are awesome. Glow and glow in the dark Robocop is among one of my favorite things. I think I ever had like the armor shield on his forearm. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And then the caps in the back. Yep. Oh, that's right. I forgot about that. And you could actually have the cap, the rolls of caps.
00:19:29
Speaker
Right. I forgot about that. Yeah. I just remember we were, there was a moment where we were, we were very obsessed with getting, uh, gunfire in the hands of kids, like simulated gunfire. You know, we had the toy biz punisher, you had cops and crooks, you know, all those figures had caps, robocop. We were really like honing in on getting children used to the sound of gunfire within the home. I don't know why, but you know, it seemed to be an imperative.
00:19:57
Speaker
You could go to the dollar store and you can get a cap gun a bunch of caps and candy cigarettes or you could get like the Rambo like Machine gun where when you pull the trigger it just sound like a lawnmower trying to turn over. Yeah. Yeah the the Laramie Automatic oozies and stuff that I think got a couple people Suicided by cop. Yes. Yes. Yeah
00:20:25
Speaker
You live in, or I was gonna say you live and you learn, but I guess you don't always live, but you always learn. Something like that. Yeah, teachable moment. There, go with that. Yeah, so we teased talking about Sea of Daggers. So late last year, the latest crowdfunding campaign wrapped up. Any update on when the supporters will start to see those figures?
00:20:52
Speaker
Uh, you know, I'm always hesitant to kind of give a, a shift date because those will almost always move. I think our campaign promised December of this year. I think we're going to beat that by quite a bit. Um, as far as where we are with production tooling has begun. Uh, we're probably about, I would say a week or two weeks into the tooling process, which is generally about four to six weeks, depending on complexity.
00:21:20
Speaker
So, um, I have plans to return to China, which I haven't been to since a pandemic. And I'm either going to go and review the first test shots or wait a little bit and review the paint samples, which might be a little bit more useful of my time because there'll be, you know, multiple skews to kind of, uh, give input on, and that's probably a better sort of bang for my buck. Uh, so.
00:21:49
Speaker
You know, we're, we're in the end zone. I would say within probably two months time, uh, I will have a pretty good idea of what the final product is going to look like. And then it's just kind of a matter of waiting for the assembly line to kind of complete everything and paint everything. And, um, I would say.
00:22:12
Speaker
If we're being optimistic, I can probably start fulfilling late summer, early fall. So, you know, pretty, pretty ahead of our initial projection. Um, but again, I always get very hesitant to, you know, who knows anything can happen as, as we've learned in these past four or five years. So yes. Yeah, sure. Now this campaign, you, you.
00:22:35
Speaker
ran this crowdfunding campaign a little bit differently than some of the things you have in the past, you know, utilizing kind of your, your own website as the hub, as opposed to using, you know, one of kind of the predetermined, um, you know, platforms. What, what was it like, you know, doing it that way? Uh, you know, it's always, you kind of have to, you gotta do the math and see what a platform offers you, you know,
00:23:02
Speaker
We've had success on Kickstarter. We've had a couple of failures on Kickstarter. Um, and for their services, they do take a pretty significant chunk of, uh, your earnings. So, uh, we did the card slicers campaign, which I think we will probably talk about in a little bit and we fully funded and then some, however, there was a exceptionally low.
00:23:30
Speaker
portion of new customers. There was little to no organic discovery with on the Kickstarter platform, which was not the case for our first campaign or any of the subsequent campaigns we did on Kickstarter. Typically, there's a lot of organic discovery and you're going to walk away with maybe 25% new email addresses that you never had before. People who found your work because of doing it on Kickstarter. When we got to the Card Sizer campaign, which
00:24:00
Speaker
The gaming category at Kickstarter is much bigger than toys is, and there's a much wider customer base to tap into. And they spend a lot more time and focus on gaming campaigns as opposed to something more niche like action figures. Um, to get so little organic discovery and so little new customers on the platform and then to have to pay out a
00:24:28
Speaker
large percentage of that earning to Kickstarter for that privilege. Uh, it didn't make sense. Yeah. So my calculation was okay. 98% of the backers of this campaign were already customers of mine that I already had the email addresses of that would probably back any play I did, uh, is Kickstarter worth the five, 10, 20% fee that they take. I don't know what it is off the top of my head. Um,
00:24:59
Speaker
And I kind of decided, no, it's not. If the campaign is going to raise, let's say, $60,000 and Kickstarter is going to take 10% of that, that's a big chunk of money that I could use in the tooling process. I could add additional accessories. I could have additional features, additional heads.
00:25:29
Speaker
I'm forced to parse things out in this manner. Any money that flows out the door, there has to be a significant reason for that or a significant long-term goal that that's going to achieve. When it came to chopping the pie up for something that was not serving up any
00:25:53
Speaker
any new discovery. It didn't make sense. That's not to say I don't like what Kickstarter does. I don't think it's a viable platform. I have a lot of respect for them. They have recognized their union. They're playing by the rules. I think it's a totally suitable and a totally potent platform
00:26:17
Speaker
when it's firing in all cylinders. But I think for me and being such a niche audience, it makes less and less sense. I would also say there is probably a phenomenon with there being so many more creators on that platform, it is harder to get discovery. That may not be a fault of Kickstarter. That's kind of just the nature of it expanding to be such a big global influence.
00:26:43
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And we've, we've kind of heard similar things, um, from, from, you know, repeat Kickstarter, uh, you know, campaign runners. So I've kind of noticed it too, where it's like, it'll feed you. Oh, you like you back to this. Well, here's this person's new thing. And it's like, okay, well, I'm not going to learn of anything else from this, but I will definitely like, you know, the repeat business thing is, is definitely true.
00:27:10
Speaker
I think also we're at a moment of contraction within the hobby and maybe possibly in one that that will sort of change the way the hobby is moving forward. Um, I think that the, the pandemic and the slowdown and the stimulus money, and for the first time Americans having the opportunity to kind of like be home and be still and like think about things they like and
00:27:38
Speaker
order things online, um, that understandably inflated this hobby. Oh yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think now, and obviously like every toy company rushed to meet that demand, uh, raise prices, some understandably so others just taking advantage of the situation. And I think now if you look at, you know, all the quarterly earnings came out, everybody's down. Hasbro was like,
00:28:08
Speaker
I was down 21% or something insane like that. Like, uh, we're at this contraction point and, um, you know, I, I see a lot of people getting out of the hobby. I see a lot of people selling off their collections, but I've been in the industry for over 20 years. I started, um, you know, I think the year I started like Palisades went out of business and art asylum, uh, you know,
00:28:37
Speaker
We came into some troubles and all these mid-tier companies that used to exist just were gone within the first couple of years of me coming into the industry. So being in a shrinking universe is nothing new to me and it's certainly stuff I've seen. There's an ebb and flow to this hobby and to this marketplace, but this seems like a truly sharp
00:29:03
Speaker
contrast and I don't know that everybody is every company is going to be Coming out on the other side of this. I think it you know, there's gonna be some some casualties to it yes, it's interesting and you know, I heard I forget where I saw the conversation but Somebody made a really good point man. I really wish I could credit this person because it's totally not my idea but
00:29:28
Speaker
I think one of the things too that, you know, and I'd be curious to see what you think about this, like the idea of kind of scarcity coming back into play in the hobby, right? Cause like right now we're at the point where like,
00:29:41
Speaker
If you want something, you can get it. There's no real scarcity on a new release. Things don't sell out in two seconds anymore. And if they do, they're readily available when they actually do come to stores. Yeah, the only limit is on things that are like, we're only making 1,000 of these. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But in terms of like, we all remember when it was difficult, pre-pandemic, to find some things. If something was,
00:30:09
Speaker
Was really hot like a particular figure you know item and it sold out it sold out and that was it you know your your only hope was the aftermarket and everything became hot yes, but I'm thinking you know and and again the you know the the concept that like you know
00:30:28
Speaker
You see the stock piles of things going to Ollie's and going to the liquidation stores and everything because volumes are up and then those toys are getting sold off. What's the retail move? Are retailers going to start to order less? Are they going to start to make more?
00:30:46
Speaker
your make your tighter decisions and things will become more scarce and that will you have the hunt. For lack of a better word will force people out of the hobby because they either can can't do it don't have time to do it like what is the course correction look like yeah i'm curious to see what would you think about that. Well i agree with all that but i would say. Like we're also at a we're in a crisis moment in terms of ip.
00:31:13
Speaker
right of intellectual property because there is no new intellectual property. Uh, we, we are at this sort of terminal phase where even nostalgia is kind of running dry for most people. You know, you, you have a film franchise like Marvel films that is, look, they're still making billions of dollars, but is it well regarded in the same way it was five years ago, 10 years ago? No, not even close. Um,
00:31:43
Speaker
I think that we have forgotten or we have lost the ability to cultivate smaller ideas, smaller creators, as everything gets swallowed into this monolith of global capital. The only thing to do is say, what about Thundercats?
00:32:08
Speaker
We'll just relaunch everything. We're also at this suffocating moment in the source of what makes toys, the intellectual property, where there's not a whole hell of a lot that's actually exciting out there.
00:32:28
Speaker
I just saw there's a new Hulkbuster Iron Man. Looks great. Looks like one of the best Iron Man figures ever made. I happen to have a dozen Iron Man figures. I don't need any more Iron Man figures. I think there is a real choice that collectors have to make at a certain point. Do I need another one of this same character? Do I need another one of this or that?
00:32:57
Speaker
There is no course correction for that because we have kind of kneecapped Hollywood's ability to sort of cultivate any new ideas or new IP. We've been solely obsessed with relaunching and rebooting and continuing on the stuff that we grew up with to what I think is a terminal point. The only silver lining I see is that there are still independent creators out there that are making stuff.
00:33:27
Speaker
With today's technology, you can support those creators directly, you know, through Patreon, through coffee, through what, you know, their, their e-commerce, their storefronts. But it's hard to find those creators. It's hard to know where to see new ideas because they're not going to get coverage. They're not going to, you know, uh, they're not getting shared by the algorithm. And I think a lot of these ideas are why I've
00:33:53
Speaker
focus so much of my life to the idea of the toy pizza expo, what used to be called the toy pizza con. You know, the impetus there is to get
00:34:04
Speaker
Independent creators into the same room to sort of draw an audience in and get people that would never encounter this stuff in their day-to-day lives Get something exciting and new and fresh in front of them and let them hand five dollars to the actual person that made this thing this this character this custom this Comic book like that is the the sort of component that's missing in our society you know the world of Hasbro or Mattel livestream
00:34:33
Speaker
that leads you directly to a pre-order page that's going to ship an item two days via Amazon to your door. It's convenient, but it's not really pushing any new ideas or anything culturally satisfying. So I think if I can achieve anything, I can at least kind of pull together the people that I think are making interesting independent ideas and hopefully get a little bit of a spotlight on that.
00:35:00
Speaker
And now, a word from our sponsors. This segment is brought to you by our friends at Chubsy Wubsy Toys. A traditional mom and pop toy store in Little Falls, New Jersey, Chubsy Wubsy Toys brings you the best new toys from the brands you love without the hassle of pounding the pavement searching for them at larger retail stores.
00:35:25
Speaker
Visit them in person at their brand new home at 101 Newark Pompton Turnpike Suite 1 in Little Falls, New Jersey, or online at ChubsyWubsy.com. That's C-H-U-B-Z-Z-Y-W-U-B-Z-Z-Y.com. And tell them Adventures in Collecting sent you. And now, back to the show.
00:35:53
Speaker
Well, speaking of, of new ideas before we get even more into, um, toy pizza expo, we mentioned it a little bit before, but, uh, you also spun kind of the toy pizza brand, if you will, into the other world of card slicers. And it was a successful campaign and you know, that the cards are gorgeous. You know, we, we have a bunch of them, uh, between Dave and I, um, one, one pack of which you handed to me directly at New York Comic Con. So thank you for that.
00:36:20
Speaker
But, um, uh, w what's, what's on the horizon for, for card slicers. So card slicers, I found works best in a live environment, right? Like when there are people playing it, people start crowding around and start rooting for someone to win. And everybody's watching the dice rolls. Like we're in a casino and, uh, it's really something that like,
00:36:46
Speaker
needs a live setting to be fully comprehended and appreciated. I've cut down the amount of shows I set up at to just one just toy pizza expo. So I've not had as much of a tour schedule as I have in previous years where I could sort of get out in front of people and share card slicers and show the gameplay and stuff. Convincing somebody that how to play a game through
00:37:15
Speaker
videos or streams or things like that. It's not an ideal setting. It works for, you know, if you, if it's your only option. But I think when you have the excitement of a grudge match going on and you have a tournament going on and like,
00:37:33
Speaker
This guy needs to roll a six and then the games over and he's got the dice in his hand. Like that is what I think the most exciting and impressive part of the card slicers game is. So, uh, because I haven't been going to shows and setting up and things like that, I've decided to kind of hold everything for toy pizza expo. We're going to do another tournament game, uh, this year. Uh, but.
00:37:59
Speaker
There have been pretty consistently cards offered through my Patreon in various pre-orders and things like that. And then also, you know, I have the action figure of the millennia club, which sends out a parcel every two months or so. And there's usually always a card slicers.
00:38:21
Speaker
Sort of including that. The other thing is, you know, again, looking at campaign numbers for the card size or campaign. That's almost exclusively made up of people that are already my patrons. So I don't know how much outreach, uh, I need to concern myself with versus just keeping that core alpha customer group happy and keep the cards flowing to them. You know, it's, um, I'm still learning this as I go. So.
00:38:51
Speaker
Well, always looking forward to the designs on those new cards. Yeah, for sure. They're always good looking. Thank you. Thank you. So as of, geez, Saturday, right? That was the livestream on Secret Galaxy. You recently revealed an exclusive piece with Dan Larson of Secret Galaxy. Tell us more about that collaboration.
00:39:19
Speaker
That was a crazy live stream. I cannot believe that event happened while we were streaming. That was on. I mean, it's unreal. Everybody go watch the playback because I think that's like a boy. That's a, that's in a top 10 blooper reel right there. It's an, it is an all timer as they truly is. Um, yeah. Uh, you know, this is one of the many things, one of the many points that sort of,
00:39:49
Speaker
Uh, intersecting at toy pizza expo and, and, uh, you know, Dan and I have been talking for a very long time. I love toy galaxy. And I think, you know, in many ways, toy galaxy sort of perfected the toy pizza formula and Dan and Greg were able to. Endure and succeed in an environment that we couldn't have, you know, or we didn't want to, or maybe a little bit of both. Um, so I've always looked at toy galaxy as like, yeah, if, if I, it
00:40:17
Speaker
You know, in an alternate universe, that would have been what I think toy pizza would have done. Um, life had other ideas about that, but, uh, I, you know, I think it's a fantastic program and Dan, much like myself has scores and scores of drawings from when he was a kid of costume characters and superheroes. And much like many of the nights and the slice characters are, you know, based on drawings I had when I was a kid.
00:40:47
Speaker
So too are we bringing that reality to Dan and his galaxy of creation. So very super excited that we were able to do that. I'm also very pleased that timing is allowing for this figure to debut at TPE. It was really a question for a little while if it was going to arrive in time.
00:41:10
Speaker
But I think pretty confidently it will be there on June 16th. It's just great. It couldn't happen to a nicer guy. Dan gets it. He's a natural at toy design. He asks the right questions. He puts in a lot of time and a lot of work.
00:41:29
Speaker
And it's great, I hope we get to continue making his childhood characters. Yeah, it's super cool. We're huge fans as well. And he is just one of the nicest people ever. Yeah, just an absolutely great human being. Great, super tall human being. Yes, very tall man. Shouts to Dan.
00:41:51
Speaker
I did witness him push down a senior citizen at Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut because he knocked her over, her cup of coins spilled everywhere, and he said, that's a hot machine, that's my machine. But other than that, he's been generally pretty nice when he's sober. So yeah, I agree 100% when he's not coming down, great guy.
00:42:22
Speaker
Well, we've mentioned it several times.
Excitement for the Upcoming Toy Pizza Expo
00:42:24
Speaker
Uh, your annual event, the, the event formerly known as a toy pizza con now toy pizza expo, uh, it's moved. It has a new venue changed the name. Uh, what led to all of these, uh, these exciting changes and, uh, and what's going to set this expo apart from the previous, uh, toy pizza cons. Great question. So, you know,
00:42:49
Speaker
con convention that elicits certain visions in our head, right? You think of Javits Center, you think of San Diego Comic Con, you think of old hot dogs on the roller, an overpriced Sprite, a $12 bottle of water, no artist alley. A Ryobi booth. Yeah, a Ryobi booth.
00:43:19
Speaker
You know, yeah. Um, you know, bathroom, just in shambles and, and a line outside the bathroom. Um, I wanted to create the anti-comic con. And I think over the past couple of years, we've done that, but having the name con is still a bit of baggage, right? What I.
00:43:42
Speaker
hope this show is morphed into is something like the World's Fair, where all these different nations are coming together with all these wonderful ideas and technologies. We outgrew our really wonderful hosts at Happy Valley. We did the past two shows there. I know, I think somebody was on a cruise last year, but generally you guys do attend. It's a wonderful vintage arcade,
00:44:11
Speaker
great outdoor area, but you know, we bring a crowd and it gets pretty crowded, pretty hot. And we just outgrew happy Valley. We, it was far too much foot traffic to kind of, uh, do it right. I, I famously past two years have been setting up my booth, the entire show, like trying to just find a couple seconds to like unpack boxes and things like that. It was just untenable. Uh, so I started looking around.
00:44:41
Speaker
beacon and other venues and I went to a event at the yard and I was like this place is perfect. You may remember
00:44:52
Speaker
Uh, last year we sort of did the show and then we had the after party at Quinn's a bar down the road and my band played and stuff like that. That was two different locations, separate gear needed for both locations setups required for both locations. Just way too much, too much to do. I needed to find a single location. I needed a location that could handle over a hundred people. Um, and the yard was just absolutely perfect for it. Uh,
00:45:22
Speaker
I sat down with the people that run the place and I said, I want to make the anti-comicon and I want to, I want to, I want to have local artists and I want to have independent artists. I don't want any corporations involved. I don't want any, you know, Ryobi sponsorships. Like I, I just want to bring this community together of people that don't get a spotlight, people that don't get foot traffic that can't get an artist alley table at Javits, like, you know,
00:45:51
Speaker
And they idea click with them and they've been really wonderful and generous, uh, with helping us kind of bring this to fruition. So I guess, you know, it's going to be bigger. It's going to be better this year. The performance area that the yard has upstairs is one of the best places to see live music. You know, they're, they're just such a professional outfit and, um,
00:46:20
Speaker
It's going to blow people away. It's going to seem unrecognizable from the past couple of years. And I think, you know, in many, many different positive ways. That's awesome. I'm assuming, will there be any other bands outside of Z-Star 7 or is that that's the only musical act for the expo this year? So we're kind of spinning plates with
00:46:49
Speaker
you know we have we have a really wonderful podcast wf when i think they're they're the funniest people on the internet and they're doing the first ever live show uh... we have a question as to whether or not we had a second show for them or if we
00:47:04
Speaker
Figure something else out. Um, so it's kind of an open question at this point, but I think Generally, you know my bands that's our seven will close out the show. That's kind of the after party After uh, you know things start to wind down Um, we will probably be joined on stage by various uh musicians and collaborators and things like that um, but yeah, it's It's tough to there are certainly bands. I would love to have play there
00:47:33
Speaker
and have spoken to, but I think our day is gonna be fully packed as it is. So a bit of an open question at this moment. Yeah, very cool. Although I am gonna miss the toy and pizza conference sign. Yes, that's the other thing. I would love our convention name to be correct. Our sign, one of these years, might happen this year.
00:48:01
Speaker
Every year I added a picture of that to the slideshow. At least it didn't say toy and or pizza. Yeah, I think I can only assume the second year they were having a laugh. But yeah, that's okay. So we talked about, you know, old traditions, new traditions, one of the big traditions, though, of toy pizza expo, what is now toy pizza expo,
00:48:28
Speaker
Our new exclusive figures, are there any exclusives that we can talk about for this year's con or for this year's expo? Yeah, aside from what we've already mentioned.
00:48:41
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. As usual, I will have a bundle of exclusives available. Members of my Patreon will get the opportunity to pre-order these, and then whatever is left over will be brought to the show. And if anything's left over from that, they will go up on the web store probably the week after. But what I've found that works is a bundle of figures that's roughly about $200, $195 around there.
00:49:10
Speaker
As you guys know, you know, like when you get a parcel for me, it's jam packed. There is tons of stuff, like, you know, part of, part of the experience of nights of size. And I think really Glios in general is you get a lot of bang for your buck and you get a lot of cross compatibility, a lot of accessories, a lot of like different looks and builds that you can do right out of the box. So this year's exclusive bundle is going to blow people away.
00:49:39
Speaker
Uh, there are new pieces that are debuting that have never been seen before that I'm not going to sort of showcase ahead of time. Um, so there's, there's going to be genuine surprise for people that attend the show or that are members of the Patreon or that, you know, procure themselves. Um, these exclusives, um, I'm, you know, to give a little teaser, there will be a goss armor that is part of this bundle. I think everybody.
00:50:08
Speaker
wants more goss and I have a really great one lined up. Um, and for those that kind of follow the lore of nights of the slice, which is a daunting task, there is, you know, 10 years worth of like comics and postcards and you could, you know, videos, um, there, there are several sort of characters and plot points that get wrapped up.
00:50:32
Speaker
with this bundle that will be very meaningful to those that kind of drink the Kool-Aid on a regular basis. Very cool. Well, yeah. And I can say what the two years ago was perfect diver. Oh yeah. That's correct. Yes. That's still, that's still my favorite. Honestly, mine too. I love that figure. I love, yeah, that's so great. It's a hard one to beat for sure. Yeah. I like, I like putting the different pieces on it. Like the, I think right now I'm trying to see if I,
00:51:02
Speaker
Which which piece I have on his helmet. I think I have the little like o-ring Sticking out of there a little eye bolt or whatever you call it sticking Yeah, and I just remember to like and Eric being like, you know, you could pay me back. I'll get you one, too And I'm like, okay. Yeah. Yeah Well, you know, I'll go a bit further with the spoilers here and say that there is Part of the new parts that people will encounter is a modification to diver
00:51:31
Speaker
So there's going to be a brand new sort of look and repertoire of parts that will go along with your favorite figure. So exciting.
00:51:42
Speaker
So from traditions on, uh, you know, on the toy pizza experience out in the world, the expo, um, two traditions here on this show. Uh, as you know, all of our guests, we, we have a final question that we ask all of them as a returning guests. Uh, we have prepared an alternate, uh, final question for you. So Dave, would you like to fulfill your role as this podcasts, James Lipton and ask.
00:52:12
Speaker
Our alternate final question. Why, yes, I would. So, Jesse, as you've already answered our final question that we ask all of our guests, we've prepared a new final question. Your new final question is, if you could incorporate any band or musician into Knights of the Slice, who would it be and what would their character be?
00:52:36
Speaker
Um, I, am I allowed to say Z star seven? I'm not. Am I, I mean, it's already been incorporated. It's already been incorporated. So, um, I would say, you know, a look, I, you know, I was a teen in the nineties. So, uh, nothing will ever be cooler than nine inch nails to me. And I think that still holds up right on, you know, um, I would put radio head at, at a second there, but you know,
00:53:04
Speaker
Um, I, you could do Trent throughout the ages. There's, there's a, there's a great toy line that could be built just by all his different look. You do the perfect drug. Actually, you know, my, my character, Craig Drake from sea of daggers, uh, a good portion of his influence and look and things like that was Trent Reznor in the perfect drug, a lost highway era.
00:53:27
Speaker
So, um, I guess maybe it already exists in some respects. Um, but yeah, I would say like, and look, there's not a hell of a lot of bands that are still relevant and producing stuff at the level Trent Reznor still is. You could argue possibly Radiohead and Tommy York, but I think.
00:53:47
Speaker
Transability to also score films and that whole career he's had like unmatched you try to listen to uh, deaf leopard or kiss or You know any of these other legacy bands They kind of were locked in place at the moment. They were most famous and they never really evolved beyond that I think maybe like somebody like david bowie's probably an anomaly within that ilk but uh
00:54:17
Speaker
You know, I, I just think, you know, they're still killing it. I've seen them a bunch of times live. Every time is amazing. Yeah. They're still making relevant, different, dangerous music. Like, you know, I, I'm sure this sounds like, you know, when my brother would talk about hair metal bands to me and I'm just like, Oh my God, like it's over, man. Uh, but I still, I still stand by it. I think that's, uh,
00:54:46
Speaker
It doesn't get better than that. You're in good company because that's literally one of our favorite bands as well. My wife and I, that's our favorite band together. My fiance and I have gone out to Las Vegas to see them when we thought it was going to be the only US show and then went to Radio City when it wasn't. Yeah, we've seen them a bunch of times too. But if you haven't watched it yet, I think it's either
00:55:11
Speaker
On you it's on youtube it's either i forget which channel and it's either variety or or i thought it was either vanity or vanity fear might be vanity fair but him and atticus sat down for like twenty five almost thirty minutes going through. Kind of like the course of nine inch nails and the scores and they it was a very like transparent interview i haven't heard them talk like that together.
00:55:37
Speaker
kind of ever, honestly. Very good. If you haven't listened to it, anyone out there listening in the ether, if you are a Nine Inch Nails fan or Trent Reznor fan, I can't recommend it enough. Fabulous. Somebody should give him a Red Bull before he talks. He's a mellow down here. Yeah. Come on. I feel like a little bit of it is a persona, but it's probably him too.
00:56:05
Speaker
Have a sip of black tea, get a little caffeine going through your, your blood, you know, it's, and it's crazy too. Cause like, if you're talking to Rick Rubin, like be excited. Come on, man. Give me a little energy. If you've ever, you know, if you've, if you've not had the chance to see them live, the person sitting in a, on a uncomfortably on a stool being interviewed is like the complete polar opposite of the man screaming.
00:56:29
Speaker
lyrics to have like a hole at you on stage. Yeah. Couldn't, couldn't possibly be more different. Um, yeah. You know, Trent's another five, seven King. Absolutely. He's the, you know, the shorter of the rocker, like the more they bring, you know, Danzig's like five, three main or James Keenan, probably five, seven. Like there's something to it. Yeah. Tiny, but dangerous. Um, Tom York is six, five.
00:56:59
Speaker
Is he really? No, he's probably 5'7". I was gonna say, Russell Mail's tall though, and he still does the dance. Yeah, I mean, those guys got it. Talk about still relevant. I saw those guys in LA, they're filming for the documentary. Holy shit. Sparks, another band that has just continued to transform. We should be so lucky.
00:57:29
Speaker
Yeah, I know we talk about them every time we're, you know, in the same room, but like, Russell's still up there jumping up and down. Ron comes out and does the dance in between number one song. Yeah, like, yeah. And you know, he was really hoping that that mustache was going to come back in style and it never did not hasn't since the 30s, you know, never
00:57:54
Speaker
He's right or die though. That's that's that's it at this point. I mean he's he's fully committed So yeah, nothing but respect like so prolific. Yeah Well, Jesse, thank you so much for for spending some time with us this evening. But before we let you go, I'm remind our listeners remind Remind everyone out there. Where can they find you?
00:58:16
Speaker
on the internet and, um, when and where can they go to a toy pizza expo? Absolutely. So the best place, if any of this stuff is remotely interesting, um, I would say join patreon.com slash Jesse says, yo, you will get more of these wonderful unsolicited thoughts of mine. Uh, there's a weekly podcast, which you can submit questions to.
00:58:43
Speaker
I do a lot of music videos, a lot of toy videos, like a little bit of everything. It's a multimedia extravaganza. So patreon.com slash jessie distasio. Uh, you can also follow toy pizza on Instagram. I think we're just at toy pizza. Um, you can check out my band. If you like people that rip off nine inch nails wholesale.
00:59:07
Speaker
I just look up zed star seven it's on spotify it's on all streaming platforms. And then toy pizza expo is june sixteen in beacon new york at the yard if you go to toy pizza dot com you can. Get to our landing page and get all the details for that it's going to be a hell of a time and.
00:59:29
Speaker
While there are ticketed events throughout the day, it's free to attend. You can come into the courtyard, you can play card slicers, you can buy stuff from the vendors, free for everybody. That was another important thing that the yard really believed in doing. So there's not a lot of free stuff out there. It's going to be worth it, but this is one of them.
00:59:50
Speaker
Well, awesome. We'll make sure to put links to all of those things in the show notes. That way, if you're anything like me and your brain is equivalent to a goldfish, you don't have to remember any of that. You can just go to the show notes, click on all the links, do the whole follow, subscribe thing, and definitely make sure that if you are in the area or plan on being in the area,
01:00:14
Speaker
the weekend of June 16th. Definitely head out to Beacon, New York and the yard to check out Toy Pizza Expo. Jesse, thanks again for stopping by. My absolute pleasure, thank you. Dave, send us home. Toy Pizza Expo, everybody.
01:00:37
Speaker
Thank you, dear listener, for hanging out with us today.
Closing and Listener Engagement
01:00:40
Speaker
Subscribe, rate, and review us wherever you listen, and then tell your friends to do it. Thanks also to Joe Azari, the golden voice behind our intro. Our music is Game Boy Horror by the Zombie Dandies. Find more about them both on our show notes.
01:00:53
Speaker
Follow us on social media at AIC underscore podcast on Instagram and Twitter. Stop by and say hi. Show us your toy hauls and share your toy stories. Maybe we'll talk about it in a future episode.
01:01:17
Speaker
This has been a non-productive media presentation. Executive producer Frank Kablaui. This program and many others like it on the non-productive network is distributed under a Creative Commons attribution non-commercial no derivatives license. Please share it, but ask before trying to change it or sell it. For more information, visit non-productive.com.