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Monsters, Myths, and Manufacturing: An Interview with Super7 Founder Brian Flynn
961 Plays2 years ago
This week we're excited to sit down with Super7 Founder Brian Flynn! Since 2001 Super7 has been bringing toys to life with a keen pop cultural awareness, producing everything from Japanese SOFUBI and Kenner-inspirated ReAction figures from just about every property you can think of, to super-articulated 7" Ultimates covering the likes of TMNT, Thundercats, wrestling, Ghost, and more. Hear from Brian as he answers our questions (and yours) about the brand's history, creative process, pricing, and more!
Follow Brian and Super7 on Instagram @brianflynn and @super7 and visit https://super7.com for more.
Preorder the latest Super7 releases from Entertainment Earth w/ free shipping over $39. Save 10% on all in-stock items w/ code AICPOD.
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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
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Transcript
Zencaster Platform Praise and Crowdfunding
00:00:02
Speaker
You've heard us talk about how much we love Zencaster. We've told you about how awesome their podcasting platform is, how easy it is to host, record, and publish adventures in collecting with their all-in-one web app. Well, now they're
Introduction to Adventures in Collecting
00:00:17
Speaker
giving you, our listeners, the opportunity to support us and the nearly 30,000 other podcasts powered by Zencaster. That's right. Now you can invest in the podcasts you love
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Speaker
through Zencaster's crowdfunding campaign. For as little as $100, join a community of other investors who seek to help Zencaster and independent podcasters like us succeed. If you're interested in investing in Zencaster, go to wefunder.com slash zencaster or click the link in our episode description below to claim your slice of the future of podcasting.
00:00:54
Speaker
That's WiiFunder.com forward slash z-e-n-c-a-s-t-r. Toyobobs and dads. Adventures in collecting is about toys, but it might not be for your children. Especially if you don't like words like f*** or s***.
00:01:26
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.
00:02:06
Speaker
Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Adventures in Collecting. Hi. Dave, we are back. Episode 102. I don't know how long I'm going to keep saying the number of the episode at the beginning of the episode. It's just still exciting to me that we hit triple notes, so that's fun. But in a long history of the show, Dave, we have a guest.
00:02:36
Speaker
Yeah.
Guest Introduction: Brian Flynn of Super7
00:02:37
Speaker
Um, Eric's not going to bury the lead. No, no, no, no, I am not. Uh, so since 2001 super seven has been producing collectibles that embody the aesthetics and energy of its founder, Brian Flynn from original creations like mummy boy and the worst to products from popular licenses like Disney, GI Joe and the Ninja turtles and more super seven continues to grow its iconic reaction line, modern ultimates line.
00:03:03
Speaker
and, uh, and a slew of other things that they're constantly producing. So joining us this week on the pod, we are super excited to welcome super seven founder and owner. Brian Flynn,
Brian's Collecting Journey and Network
00:03:13
Speaker
Brian, welcome to everybody. How are you doing? We're good, man. How about you? Uh,
00:03:21
Speaker
I am doing fine. I am, uh, let's see. I did the race to pick up kids, race to take them home, race to pick up a snack, to eat it here before getting on the podcast. So hopefully I don't, you don't get too much of the post-dinner, you know, just coming along. Oh, we're, we're all too familiar with those. So yeah, as, as life finds a way as two, as two dudes who suffer from acid reflux, we all were.
00:03:50
Speaker
or there with you with the, with the errors. Well, yeah, for sure. Before we, before we jump into, uh, into the show itself, you know, as this is a pod about a collecting, tell us a little bit about, uh, what you collect and some of your recent pickups.
00:04:06
Speaker
What do I collect? That gets real tricky because it sort of gets to a certain point at a certain age, like what don't you collect if you're a collector? And it's always about the parameters you're trying to force upon yourself. And then when you put the parameters on this one thing, then you start collecting something that has nothing to do with it because that's not inside the parameters.
00:04:28
Speaker
It's tricky. If we talk about specific collecting, we're not going to do the way back machine and talk about baseball cards and stuff like that, comic books when you're a kid. These days, I started trying to refine and recollect my action figures in
00:04:49
Speaker
summer of 1991 being that that was right when AFN and all those things started coming out like right after that. So it you know you could finish your whole line of Star Wars for two bucks a pop or a dollar figure in a year or two without too much trouble. So collecting all the action figures wasn't that much that difficult.
00:05:13
Speaker
And then it was, I had a couple of the five-inch Shogun Warriors as a kid, and I knew kids that had the big Shogun Warriors. So then it was trying to find the Shogun Warriors. And 1991 was also when Bondi started making Godzilla figures again.
00:05:30
Speaker
Popi had made them, Bulmark made them, Marison and Bulmark, then Popi, then Yamakatsu, but it wasn't until 91. And when I saw the Japanese Godzilla vinyl figures, I was like, oh shit, this is the Godzilla I always wanted. And that sort of opened a whole window into a whole nother kind of toy collecting, which was Japanese vinyl toy collecting. And that sent me down that path because I'd kind of completed
00:05:56
Speaker
you know, regular action figures. It was like Clash of the Titans, have it. Black Hole, have it. Because you could find it and it was cheap. I mean, you could still walk into Walmarts and Toys R Us' and find stuff sitting on shelves at that point. And then along the way, you know, I collected punk rock records ever since I was got into punk when I was 14 and never got rid of any of that. So I had those, collect skateboards, I collect Golden Age, mostly pre-code horror and sci-fi comics.
00:06:26
Speaker
Uh, good Lord, there's a million other little things, but that's, that's an overview. I don't know. Well, it's, it's always fun. You're, you know, you're a good follow on Instagram for many reasons, but, but one of the things that I know I love when, you know, I'm on our account is, uh, when you do post those punk records, because some of them are just like, like some of those, uh, those 45s and the seven inches that you post are awesome. They're super cool.
00:06:52
Speaker
In that weird zone where you get with a lot of collecting, you do it for long enough, the only things left are the preposterous things that you never assume you'll be able to own. If you've been doing it long enough and you've been nice long enough, when the people that do own those preposterous things decide to let them go, they usually choose the homes that they go to.
00:07:21
Speaker
you get offered things that you would never be able to track down or afford on your own. And these last couple years, there's been a few of those where I'm just like, I can't believe I own one of these. And it's because other people that had them were like, okay, I'm going to get rid of it. And I'm talking to two or three different people and who has
00:07:47
Speaker
the wherewithal to put together a deal to make it worthwhile, not necessarily top dollar, but just finding the right home for it. Like
Super7 Collaborations with Punk Bands
00:07:57
Speaker
all this stuff, the high end gets hard to justify. So you can't, unless you're those independent, wealthy kind of folks, you just have to kind of, the network will bring it to you. And for so much of that, it's like, I have enough. If I don't ever get another record, I'll be fine.
00:08:17
Speaker
I'm more than happy with what I have. And I think that sort of allows the opportunity for some of that other stuff to show up, where if I was hunting for it and dying for it and driving people crazy, I'd probably never get it. I feel like that's the case no matter what, when you're looking for anything. It's like, does this fit into, am I below the ceiling for this? And, you know, did I just kind of back into it in a way?
00:08:42
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, but at the same time, like I, if you're really deep on anything and like you're talking to like the heavy guys that are really deep into it too, like I, I don't know what either of you to collect obviously personally. So maybe give me one thing. All right. Let's, let's do Hasbro WWF figures just for an entire. I said, now you're going to make me look stupid as I'm trying to remember them all. Cause I'm going to go back to all the LGN or something
Challenges in Expanding Toy Lines
00:09:08
Speaker
like that. LGN that works too. Do LGN. Yeah.
00:09:12
Speaker
And someone's now going to also make fun of me for not knowing every version. I remember when those figures were coming out and everything, it was all about the dusty roads with the yellow with the black spots. That was the figure to have. Same thing. Like I said, I don't know those prices well enough. But if that was still the one to have,
00:09:37
Speaker
and it's still proportionally much more expensive than the rest, then usually if you've got, and you're talking to your friends that collect that stuff and they've got it, you might not have it, and you've known these guys for 10, 12, 20 years, when they go to get rid of it, they're not putting it on eBay. They're coming back to that circle of friends that they have that also love this stuff and say,
00:10:01
Speaker
It's time for me to get rid of it for any number of other reasons. I'm paying for my kid's college. We're going to add on to the house. The IRS has got me. I'm living on the streets, whatever it may be. But then they piece and parcel it out to their friends. It doesn't ever come out publicly. And so for most of those collections, those pieces at the end come out of that friend network that you have, not because you've got a paycheck.
00:10:31
Speaker
So that was the analogy I was trying to make. And I think that I took that car and drove it right off the cliff into the canyon. Not at all. Actually, I know we got something very similar to happen to me recently, not like something that was super, super, super rare, you know, upper echelon, but something that has been out of production for a little while now and goes for on the aftermarket, you know, a
00:10:53
Speaker
pretty hefty price. It's a Dragon Ball Z, SH figure, arts figure, Vegeta. And one of my friends was downsizing his collection, was like, don't pay aftermarket for that. And we worked out a deal together and it was great. And he knows that it's in a happy home.
00:11:15
Speaker
some of the best parts about all of this. You have to be realistic that there is money involved, but it's not just about the money. It's about the friends and the relationships you have. I hate to say collecting scene, but if we all come out of the punk rock scene or whatever, the scene, but it's still part of the scene. It's a friend group that supports each other.
00:11:38
Speaker
and doesn't take advantage of each other, but also helps each other out. So it's like, oh, this is normally supposed to be 600. I bought it when it was new for 65, you know, 350 cool. Like I still made out like a bandit. You got it for a steal. We're great. And you're like, yeah. So I feel like so going backwards to the original thing with
Differences Between Reaction and Ultimate Figures
00:11:57
Speaker
all this stuff, when it's like those records you're talking about, when it's like, same thing, my copy of the Necro sex drive, which they only pressed 100 of and not all 100 survived, you know, it's,
00:12:08
Speaker
First Touch and Go record, first Necro's record, it's a great record, plus it's one of the rarest records ever made in punk. And it's like, I didn't get it because I was able to buy it. I got it because a friend that had it since it came out, when they were finally deciding to get rid of some of their records, were like, I know you need this one.
00:12:29
Speaker
So, you know, we talk about punk rock and Super 7 has always had those DIY punk roots. What's it like to have grown now to work with legendary bands, legendary punk bands, as well as bands in other genres? You know, it's been a surprisingly easy thing. When we first started, I was very... I didn't know if anyone would care,
Pricing Strategy for Super7 Figures
00:12:52
Speaker
but it started off actually with friends of mine, so with Gorilla Biscuits.
00:12:58
Speaker
So for anyone that is listening that's not familiar with gorilla biscuits, you can already laugh at their name. It's okay. So we'll get that part out in the open. Uh, they are a New York hardcore slash straight edge band that came out in the late eighties. Um, and that was like the band of my peer group, if you will. Um, so when I got into punk and hardcore around,
00:13:24
Speaker
83, 84-ish, you know, everyone was from the generation before me. So if you want to talk about punk rock generations, you can talk about the transitionary proto years of 77 to 79, but American punk rock really doesn't come into bloom. Starting in 71, the hardcore about the same time by 80. So 79 to 85, you sort of have generation one. Then 85 to 89 slash 90 is generation two.
00:13:54
Speaker
But even for those that got into it in 83, 84, 85, 86, you're still mostly hearing Generation 1 bands. And the Generation 2 stuff really hasn't kicked up. And it really didn't start kicking up until, you know, I would say 86, 87, that those bands in Generation 2 really started.
00:14:12
Speaker
changing the scene into their own image. And of that, the New York straight-edge scene was very much sort of where I came out of. And I say that as with an asterisk, being that I was growing up back and forth between Texas and Florida. And then in the summertime, I would go to New York and see my friend Chris Janasek, who lived just outside New York City in Nassau, and we'd take the train into the city.
00:14:41
Speaker
Those were all those early rev bands and stuff, like as that stuff was coming out, as the demo tapes were coming out, or we would get those. My friends up there would tape WNYU off the radio and mail me the tapes. So when those records came out, they very much felt like our friends, even though I technically didn't
Producing Japanese Vinyl Toys
00:15:02
Speaker
know them at that time. That was our peer group. They were our age and they were doing this and they were coming from the same point of view that we were. And it felt very familial.
00:15:12
Speaker
And then so when grill biscuits came through Florida in 89 on the Start Today Tour, I met them there. They stayed for a week in Florida with Trevor Silmser from Awake and just went all over. They were like, whatever, we're in Florida. We're going to take a vacation, you know, go to the beach and stuff.
00:15:35
Speaker
And so I met them there. And then years and years later, when we were making final figures at Super Seven, I just thought it would be really cool. And I was like, you know, they're the cover, the drawing of the gorilla on the seven inch is almost in the exact same proportions as the fight figures that we're making in conjunction with Secret Base in Japan.
00:15:59
Speaker
Once again, if you're not familiar with the fight figure
Significance of Packaging Design
00:16:02
Speaker
scene, you can Google up secret base and then put in the skull brain, the skull bee, the ghost fighter, robot fighter, some of those that I designed for them, the skull wing, the puss head design. And Gorilla Biscuits fit right into that. So I just, I knew that Civ had collected toys in the past because
00:16:25
Speaker
In the late 80s, if you wanted to get good rev stuff, you could trade them GI Joe figures for toys. They had a flyer that came in some of the early seven inches and said, this is the toys we're looking for, GI Joe, Batman, Superman stuff. You could actually trade for limited pressings of record with toys. On a flyer, I just emailed them.
00:16:51
Speaker
Uh, cause we had mutual friends and I said, Hey, this is who I am. This is where I come from. We've met in these points in the past. You know, you're not going to remember me, but you know, this is what we've met in the past. And he was like, Oh, this sounds fun. This sounds cool.
00:17:06
Speaker
I'm into it. And it wasn't any more complicated than that. And then once we started talking and talking on the phone, it was the same thing. Although we met briefly in passing many, many years ago, as an adult, as we start talking, it's like, okay, we're from the same timeframe, the same scene, and we think about things the same way, like, oh, I know you, even though I don't know you. And so it was very, very quick and easy.
00:17:34
Speaker
And then, you know, I didn't know if it was going to work or not. You know, you're talking about Japanese vinyl is expensive to make for clarification. We're not talking about records here. We're talking about toys, Japanese vinyl toys. Um, and you know, I didn't know what would happen on the collector side once we started making it, because I knew what the Japanese toy collector would be like, Oh yeah, cool. $50 for a figure.
Q&A with Fans on New Releases
00:17:56
Speaker
That's normal. And you know, this is, you know, we're talking 13, 14 years ago, you know,
00:18:03
Speaker
Uh, but for the punk rock guy, like, you know, it's having a heart attack. Uh, but it actually sold really well. And once it started going, people really got into it. And that sort of kind of gave us the confidence to start. Well, if grill biscuits worked, who else could work? And we just.
00:18:24
Speaker
We didn't overthink it. We just said, what do we think would be neat or fun to do? Let's throw that against the wall and see if it sticks. And for the most part, everybody's been kind of excited about it. And I mean, that's the basic premise of Super 7 as a whole, was just to make this, if we made the stuff we wanted as collectors, there's probably people that grew up on the same stuff that wanted the same stuff.
00:18:45
Speaker
But you never 100% know, especially when you're like, okay, I know Godzilla and I know what they'll buy from that. And I know what they're going to buy from Thundercats and I know what they're going to buy from GI Joe. Now I'm going to make, you know, agnostic front. There's still enough people going to show up to this party to make it worth our time, you know, kind of thing. So it really got me and it's still, it's one of my, so I'm a, I'm a huge descendants fan.
00:19:15
Speaker
Um, and like, when you guys initially teased that Milo was coming, I actually like, it's one of those things where I guess the saying is I didn't know I needed a figure of that until you told me that you were making a figure of that.
00:19:33
Speaker
That's kind of actually how a lot of it, we think about it too. It's like, make the invisible. It's like, because there's so much stuff where people, if I say, oh, what do you want from GI Joe? People just start check listing what's already been made and going, well, you can make a variation of this and you can make a variation of this. It's like, I'm a little less interested in that and more interested in what's the thing you haven't even considered.
00:19:54
Speaker
from GI Joe, like the PSA figures when we made the PSA. Yeah. Or, or what's the one that you guys just announced the MP, right? The, the Joe MP is coming. Like it's just, it's, it really is like, like, especially with the, the, the music stuff, like, like, okay, like there's, there's, you know, some of the properties you work, like you work with ghost and like they, if, if you were going to say, you know, the top two currently active, most toyetic bands, it would probably be ghost and like,
00:20:23
Speaker
kiss because they're still kicking around. But the fact that like Milo and like the thing, the stuff, the figures that you did with, uh, with, with rancid, the, the, the Lars figure skeleton skeleton and like the, and the Wolf, it's just so clever to see not only those figures get, you know, come off of an album cover, but also seeing them in 3d.
00:20:49
Speaker
Like, you know, I would, I would have never pictured what Milo would look like in 3d, you know, like, it's just, it's, he's a pencil drawing, but like, it's so, it's just so surreal. I'm in his little cup of coffee. Love it. Yeah. That one. That one's surprisingly, we tried for years. It took a lot of convincing because, you know, rightly so. Lots of these bands don't want to be viewed as
00:21:13
Speaker
selling out they don't want to be viewed as forcing unnecessary merchandise on their customers so they get very leery of things that are not sort of like in the stable like oh you want to make a sticker you want to make a t-shirt and you want to make a poster like make a record like once you get past that it starts to get yeah I don't know how are people gonna react to that
00:21:38
Speaker
And so it took a good bit of convincing, you know, I would say that Chris Sherry, who does a lot of the, not a lot these days, does all of the descendants artwork. Chris had a lot to do with it. He helped really push that through and kind of helped get everybody on board for, took a couple years of talking to people to really get them on board. And then translating that into 3D, I think the head part was a little tricky, you know, but
00:22:09
Speaker
The body was actually pretty easy to put together. He had been drawn full body a few times by Chris and Bill and Milo had some specific thoughts about making sure the pants were high water enough that he looked like a nerd. And just sort of figuring out how that head turned into a 3D item took a little bit of work, but once it got going and once they saw it, and it's not
00:22:35
Speaker
Unusual to them for most of these bands once they see the fans reaction to the toys and they see how much like when they're doing a Signing or something and how many of them show up with the toys and they're so excited about the toys Then they're like, oh now I get it like maybe I didn't get it because I didn't play with that or I
00:22:55
Speaker
I don't understand why I should be a toy. But once they see how much the fans are excited about it, then we get the email like a week later, like, what else are we going to make? And it's like, all right, all right, let's go. We're going to do glow in the dark hypercafium spasinate. That's what we're going to do next. Yes, yes. That said, this is the last of the Milo's because after this, it's kind of like, where else do you really go? Ultimate Milo.
00:23:25
Speaker
He comes with real tears. Comes with real coffee actually. Although this one is the one I'm most excited about because that's the, they came around to a record shop in New Jersey and that's when I met them. So I have that album signed. And I do too because you got that. Because I went. That was my birthday gift. Because we've met before. So we've talked about, you know, reaction, you know,
00:23:52
Speaker
quite a bit and we just talked about just mentioned ultimates, but when you're looking at not just necessarily bands, but really any of the brands, any of the kind of licenses you work with, what makes something qualify to be a reaction figure or an ultimate figure? How is that decision made? Are there certain qualities that you look for? I think the first quality is just, will this translate well into plastic?
00:24:20
Speaker
Not every cool killer drawing would turn out to be a cool piece of plastic. Maybe that's a gross oversimplification of it, but there's a lot of things where... Let me back up. A thing that I use inside here is like, Van Gogh's Starry Night is an epic painting, but it's a shitty coffee mug.
00:24:49
Speaker
There's an appropriateness of the content to the medium that you're trying to express it in. Not everything is meant to be in every format.
00:25:01
Speaker
So when we're talking about stuff, it's like, how does that translate to toy? Is it playable? Does it make sense? Does it, you know, there's plenty of people listening. They'll be like, well, fucking reaction figures you can't play with. They only have five POA. And it's like, if you're my age, five POA is so much better than 12 POA. Like five POA is by far and above my favorite articulation and like,
00:25:28
Speaker
We can all debate, but that's why we make ultimates. You don't have to yuck my yum. Let me have my five POA. Me and my boys over here like that, and then I'll make it an ultimate over here for you with all the articulation and the bells and whistles, and you can have that. But a lot of it is just appropriateness. It doesn't make sense when you see it like that. And there's some things that work really well translated into 3D, and there's some things that just
00:25:58
Speaker
They just don't, I don't know, I don't know how to explain it better than that, other than that works really great in another format, but maybe not as a toy. And sort of see the same thing with statues. That'll make a great statue, but it doesn't, once you try to break that into articulation, figure out how it moves, it's not gonna work anymore, it's gonna look awful.
00:26:25
Speaker
Now, are there certain things? So like, you know, to that point, we've seen things like, you know, the fiend, like Eddie. Um, um, they live, they live Kiwi Herman, right? We've seen a bunch of these characters in reaction form. Is there, is there sometimes kind of like a limitation to the, the use of the license? Like, you know, these are just going to be reaction figures or like, do you make a reaction figure and go, wow, this,
00:26:52
Speaker
you know, really, you know, surprised us how well it sold. Like we should consider doing an ultimate Peewee Herman or Eddie figure. There's, there's two sides to it. So one, yes, there's, there's very clearly that we get sometimes where something we make that we're not expecting just goes bananas. Like all of a sudden you're like, whoa, I was not expecting that. Then, then the follow-up question very much is, all right, well, if that worked in reaction, I wonder if people will want it in ultimates.
00:27:22
Speaker
With Ultimates, there's usually a couple scenario that we use to sort of determine what makes more sense in Ultimates. Sometimes it's the age of the franchise. So if it's a much younger franchise like Power Rangers, that customer is more akin to knowing
00:27:46
Speaker
I'm stepping on my words again trying to figure out the right way to say it but you know they're more in the mindset and the playability factor from what they had as expecting something that would obviously some of the figures that they had weren't ultimate level but that they've moved on into that going backwards into things like
00:28:09
Speaker
reaction for Power Rangers is much more of a regression for that collector of that age. Some of them like the stylistic simplicity of it and the affordability of it, but newer and newer licenses lend themselves more and more towards ultimates. The other thing is the reality is when you're talking about ultimates,
00:28:38
Speaker
there's a stark difference in units we have to sell to cover over the cost to get these things made. So we can get away with a lot of stuff in the reaction scale that selling that same quantity at the ultimate scale would be disastrous.
00:28:57
Speaker
Um, and I say this all the time and no one believes me and no one listening will believe me again. But trust me, we make far less of this stuff than you think we do. And you all can sit here and do the math and talk about this and that. And you'll come up with your numbers. I can guarantee you they're all high and wrong. And I phrase it this way, not negatively, which is.
00:29:21
Speaker
you know a bunch of people that collect and you talk to them all online and you meet up with them maybe on the weekends or you see them at Target as soon as doors open at seven in the morning doing your mall walk real quick back to the toy section to see what got restocked. The reality is the rest of your life, everyone you work with, everyone you meet, your relatives, except in your case, none of these people collect toys or care.
00:29:51
Speaker
And 99.9% of the people you will meet in your life do not care. So while your view that this collector market is huge and massive and everywhere and they're making millions of these things is wholly wrong. So going back to that, it's like when something gets upgraded to an ultimate,
00:30:18
Speaker
We've got to have a lot of confidence that we can hit certain manufacturing thresholds that we don't have to hit if it's a reaction figure. And at the same time, or we go into it knowing that there's going to be at least two or three releases of it. Trying not to give away any secrets, of course. But obviously, the Czarface Ultimate came out.
00:30:47
Speaker
And we're going to do that. There's, there's a good chance you're going to get, you know, as our face noir in the future, you know, because people are going to want that, but that we're sort of hedging our bets that between the two colorways, then we'll have enough of the units because we won't have enough just with a single release. And that's still a very like, you know, I,
00:31:13
Speaker
We hear it all the time. We see it all the time in comments and everything, you know, reuse and repaints, but like at the end of the day, you know, going back to like Japanese final toys, like different color ways. And, you know, like that's part of the way that it works. Like that's, that's exciting to me. I think there's other people that view it as, you know, there's a backup like that. If you're talking about Godzilla collectors, like there are Godzilla collectors that love
00:31:43
Speaker
the bull mark Godzilla. Like me. I love it. It's so wow. The style and the way it's sculpted is amazing. And there's a whole bunch of people will be like, that's not even fucking Godzilla. Look anything like him. And you know, and they get really excited when they can see every scale sculpted. They they get into
00:32:06
Speaker
You see it really with robot guys especially. There's guys that are like, I like robots because they're fun and fantastical. The majority of robot guys are, I am analytical by nature and I appreciate the technicality in these robots. The more stages of transformation, the more
00:32:30
Speaker
accurate the smokestack is on the back, the more I'm excited about it versus a guy that's like, I want this robot to look crazy so I imagine it flying over and smashing a building. They're two different mindsets and two different collectors. Going backwards to colorways is
00:32:49
Speaker
There's people like me that come out of variant hunting on vintage figures. When you go to Japan, when I really got into Japanese vinyl, when they made this stuff for kids, the vinyl figures, there was never any concept that was supposed to be accurate. They were like, what's going to catch a kid's eye? So they sculpted all the characters kind of cute.
00:33:14
Speaker
and they made them in bright colors. And if they ran out of a color one day, they just use whatever they had the next day. So you can find tons of paint variants on vintage vinyls, tons of them, and they're not
00:33:29
Speaker
artificially manufacturing things to make you buy two. It's just like, oh, we ran out of blue. Use green. Oh, we ran out of green. I don't know. Use red. Okay, we got green back in stock. We'll go back to green. I mean, there's no rhyme or reason to any of it other than they just use what was available and they made them brightly colored for kids.
00:33:52
Speaker
For me, it was super cool to have this lineup of figures and they're all in varying shades and just whacked out colors. Like Hetera, the smog monster from Godzilla, is gray slash charcoal. The toy is bright yellow and the variant is pink. That's it. Yeah. Like, fuck yeah.
00:34:17
Speaker
You want to give me a pink hetero with metallic green spray and red highlights with black accents? I'll take that all day. That's so cool. So for me, coming back to making action figures, I really like making variants and paint spins because
00:34:41
Speaker
It's fun to me to have a shelf full of these things. But there's a lot of people that you can harken all the way back to like when MacFarlane figures were hitting the stands and they'd be like, oh, they made a paint variant on this one. They're just trying to get me make it, buy it twice. And they're angry about it because they want to check off the list and be done.
00:35:01
Speaker
And I can understand that. But I keep trying to tell them, like, you buy the normal one. These are the ones you don't have to worry about. Like, I'm making these for a different collector. It doesn't mean you're incomplete if you don't have the glitter one or the glow in the dark version. But if you're a guy that loves that stuff, you do want them all.
00:35:22
Speaker
That's why I love that when you guys did the blind box reaction xenomorphs because it was like I literally don't care what's in this like I don't care what color I get because it's just going to be a fun like I ended up with the red one with the translucent red head.
00:35:39
Speaker
But like, how badass is that translucent red alien? It's so cool. And you would never get that any other way. And that's the part of me that gets excited about when we made glitter aliens. I mean, blood splattered aliens like fuck. Yeah. Give them to me. I think we made like 19 colorways of the alien over time. Yeah. There's a there's a there's the clear orange glitter one. How cool is that?
00:36:05
Speaker
And that reminds me more of like the, the aliens arcade game or like the, you know, any of the old toys anyway. So like, yeah, why not? They made orange ones back in the day, like make them whatever color.
00:36:19
Speaker
Yeah. And I think that that's that fine line for a lot of people. There's people that are really like, this is fun and I like this and I buy the ones that I like. And then there's a lot of people that, a lot of types of collectors where they're just very much like, if I'm going to buy the line, then I need to have everything. And then you're just forcing me to buy stuff that I don't want. And it's like, I'm not trying to force you to buy anything actually. I'm hoping you'll buy stuff.
00:36:48
Speaker
but I'm not trying to force you into anything. I'm just trying to make these toys as fun as humanly possible. And it's okay to not buy everything, which is hard for all of us to do. Yeah. To do. So speaking of one of the more fun properties you guys have, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have been a massive hit. And we recently saw an update on the Thundercats Thunder Tank. Yep, it's on the water.
00:37:16
Speaker
Should be coming into the warehouse, actually. Oh, cool. Sweet. It's been a while since we've heard anything about the party van. How is that coming along? Uh, party van, AKA turtle wagon, AKA turtle van, AKA, everybody calls it something different. Um, it's coming along well. Um, one of the things that we ran into with, you know, we got it done, it was tooled and
00:37:43
Speaker
It's the same thickness as all of our other vehicles, the walls, which usually, you know, they're really, really heavy. I don't know if you guys have held snake mountain or not or anything. I've only seen it in person. I haven't gotten, I did not get to handle it. Well, when you get to handle the thunder tank is ridiculously heavy. And so the wall thickness is just as thick on turtle van, but what we ran into was with turtle van,
00:38:12
Speaker
You've got the windshield. Then you have the operable doors. Then you have all the windows down the back. So actually then there's not that many points of connection between the roof and the body of the van. So even though we've got these really thick walls, there's still some torsion to it, meaning it turns and it can twist a little bit and it doesn't feel, doesn't have that heft the same way that, um,
00:38:41
Speaker
the Thunder Tank has. So we actually went in and started going back and retooling all the sidewalls inside the van to make them even thicker than normal so that when you get it, it has that same solidity that even though it is exactly the same mathematically,
00:39:00
Speaker
because of how thin those runners are between the windows and the door frame and stuff like that, that it feels the same, even though it's technically not the same. It's very close. We've got updated test shots back from the new molds. It's very close, but I would say it's not going to ship until just after Chinese New Year.
00:39:28
Speaker
OK, like normally it would be ready to go already. I mean, I mean, if you've seen other videos, we've had test shots forever, but we had to go back and remill all the mold. So if you imagine they come together and there's a space this big, we're milling them out to have a space this big. But then we have to change all the connections to every other part that it attaches to. So it's a pain in the ass, but I'm doing it for you.
00:39:59
Speaker
Cause that's the thing. It's like, if you, if you get it in your hands, especially because the thunder tank is so massive, if you get it in your hands and it doesn't live up to what you had in your brain, uh, you know, I'm like, you'll never order from us again. If you feel let down at that price, it's gotta be like, holy fuck. And especially, you know, like today, right? You know, expectations, I feel like are,
00:40:26
Speaker
are very high. There's lots of expectations. Yes. Yeah, for sure. Whether realistic or not, there are lots of expectations, and there are even more opinions about those expectations. Opinions. We all got them. Yeah. But as long as we remember that they're ours and not everyone's, then we're okay. Yes. Yeah. And now, a word from our sponsors.
00:41:01
Speaker
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Speaker
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00:42:07
Speaker
Face it, shaker bottles suck. Your shakes always come out clumpy and they're a pain to clean. You're right, Dave. That's why I decided to ditch my shaker bottle for good and get myself a BlendJet 2 portable blender. It makes perfectly blended shakes in just 20 seconds.
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Speaker
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Speaker
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00:43:13
Speaker
Go to blendjet.com and grab yours today. And be sure to use the promo code AIC12 to get 12% off your order and free two day shipping. So Eric, I ran to the store today and I was doing that power walking thing to the toy aisle. The guy next to me was too. And guess what happened?
00:43:42
Speaker
You were both headed for the same figure, weren't you? Yup, but I got there first. Now that's a close shave. You know what else is? A nice trim thanks to this show's sponsor, Manscaped.
00:43:55
Speaker
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Speaker
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00:45:28
Speaker
Um, so, you know, speaking of stuff that I've, I've absolutely loved. Um, we've seen legends like Andre the giant modern stars from new Japan pro wrestling, the major wrestling figure podcast and the good brothers, um, put up by super seven. What's the future of pro wrestling in the ultimate's end in reaction? Um, in ultimate's, um, working on some stuff with Matt and Brian.
00:45:54
Speaker
There's a couple other things that we want to do. Ultimates and wrestling have been tricky. I think in general, if you look at the wrestling collecting market right now, there is so much stuff being made by so many companies.
00:46:15
Speaker
It's gone from being like the golden days to almost like flash flood of wrestling product. Like I said, there's so much stuff out there that I think that we're just going to pace ourselves and take it easy. I'm not trying to compete with jazzwares or Mattel. I don't want to be competing with everybody. We just want to make some cool, fun stuff.
00:46:42
Speaker
if all these other companies are also trying to make a million things at once, there's only so many dollars to go around. So we're just gonna be picky and choosy and do a few things here and a few things there. There's a lot of stuff we've talked about doing that we just need to kind of final on. Wave 3 of NJPW never came out.
00:47:09
Speaker
But all those guys, you know, we've talked to three of the four guys and they're interested in doing it outside of NJPW. It just means it can't come with a bullet club shirt because they were all it was all bullet club stuff. So that stuff could still happen. Tama Tonga, Tonga Loa, you know, you know, Matt and Brian are super fun. We've got some some fun stuff. Matt's got the most ridiculous idea for a costume ever. It's amazing.
00:47:39
Speaker
This is not surprising. That sounds about right. He came up with this idea for this costume, and I was just like, I got to hand it to you, Matt. I was really ready to be like, yeah, I mean, I guess we'll do that. And I was like, this is really awesome. We can't get to it till here. Can you shelve it till then? He was like, I got to think about that.
00:48:01
Speaker
You know, but, uh, he has this costume idea where even for me, I was just like that, that one, that one's some next level. That one's the next level. And I'm sure he, you know, he, he's keeping a TTD, uh, you know, busy with all those designs too, with all those costume designs.
00:48:21
Speaker
Man, it's it's crazy and then they're the nicest guys. They're the nicest guys I don't know if you guys have we've actually had Matt on the show before so yeah Yeah, he really is super nice guy. Yeah. Yeah contrary to his current image Hey, he's not a heel. He's not a heel He's just Matt. He's the deathmatch king. He is the deathmatch king Now it there and you know
00:48:51
Speaker
That's part of it, too, is we want to keep making stuff with the people that we're friends with. And we're friends with Matt and Brian now, so why would we not try to continue to make stuff with them? You asked about reaction in wrestling.
00:49:04
Speaker
And we've had a long, long, long, years long running internal debate here on whether or not the wrestling collector would buy reaction figures of wrestling simply because there is no historical precedent for it and most of the people collecting wrestling started collecting wrestling with Mattel.
00:49:28
Speaker
And so they are used to a certain size and a certain level of articulation. Would a wrestling collector still be interested in a three and three quarter figure of their favorite wrestling stars or not? And we go back and forth because obviously we're biased internally. So we think everybody will like a three and three quarter of anything. But I, you know, I really sort of.
00:49:53
Speaker
Toad the line that I don't think that the wrestling, I think there will be a small group of wrestling collectors, but for the most part, the wrestling collectors would be that's neat. Don't need it. See, I think, and we've actually talked about this very tough. Yeah. We've talked about this before too, but I think we're at this point and it might be our age, but
00:50:15
Speaker
There's so much crossover. And, and again, like, like I was saying before with the Milo figure, like I didn't know I needed that figure until I saw that it existed. And then the same thing with, when, when you guys put out the Andre the giant one, it was like, huh, wait a second. Wrestling figure and the style of like a Kenner, Star Wars figure. This is kind of awesome. And then you get it and he's got the beer can and everything. And you're like, all right, you know, to the Instagram and you start looking and you're looking at some of these customs that people are doing.
00:50:45
Speaker
And there's like a stone called Steve Austin custom kind of figure that somebody was making. It's like, wow, this thing is really cool. And then there were the lucha ones, which is like a whole other. Well, the lucha ones, I felt like we were like five years too early to the party with that one. Yep. 100%. 100%.
00:51:06
Speaker
And the thing, when we did those, I was like, we gotta get Mill, and we gotta get Santo, and we gotta get Blue Demon, and they were like...
00:51:15
Speaker
No one believes that you're real. No one believes that you're going to send the checks, which we did. But the problem that we ran into is that, you know, we had like that small group of diehard guys that immediately got it, but it never really moved up even to like a third place, you know, kind of thing. And, you know, for me, it was like, we got to have them in the suits. Come on. They got to be outside of the ring. That's the best part. Like he's fucking walking with his wife out to dinner and he's in a suit with the mask on.
00:51:45
Speaker
This is the most banana this is the part that took lucha libre to the next level was them outside the ring. Unfortunately everybody else in the grandmother does not feel that way the same way about it that i do. Where it's like i wanna see you know blue demon in a turtle neck like.
00:52:03
Speaker
Yeah, see, that's that's where you're getting into the Santo movies, too. Yeah. And the art art just it would. Yeah, no, it was it was a phenomenal line that I like is that I think we were five years too early. And I think I think everybody missed it and no one saw it.
00:52:21
Speaker
And I think that's part of the part of the reason why like rates. So you have, you have your, your LJN format, you have your, your retro Hasbro WWF format, and then kind of from there you start to get into the more modern things. And I think because there isn't a precedent for it, but there is such a precedent for everything else being like, everything is getting retroized. Like.
00:52:46
Speaker
You know, Indiana Jones is coming back and, you know, they're doing the retro figures. We're getting retro Star Wars figures of new characters. Like, there is a retro line for just about everything in that format. And if you think about it, like, Eric's age has grown up, grew up on Jax. That's five points of articulation. Yeah. But it's also a slightly different scale.
00:53:14
Speaker
Yeah, it's just big. But I mean, the majority of the figures that I collected, you know, as a kid, were those three and three quarter to four inch tall counter figures, you know, whether it was Batman, whether it was Star Wars, you know, like, that's the bulk of my my collection. Yeah. Star Wars. When I think about the reaction level of wrestling and I oversimplify it, I go, if if
00:53:40
Speaker
Because reaction, based on our production numbers, they're expensive, comparatively speaking. I was like, is that guy walking in, and I'm making a grand assumption that it would even make it to the peg, which was probably not. But if it was on shelf at Walmart, is that guy coming in there to buy wrestling?
00:54:01
Speaker
Mattel figures. Is that guy going to buy my figure at $20 when he can buy this other figure at $19.99? That's twice the size with twice the articulation.
00:54:14
Speaker
While I think it's cool, I've been very gun shy about the fact that I don't think that that guy's gonna cross over in any meaningful way. I think there'll be a small group of people that absolutely love it because they grew up on it. But I've been very pessimistic, I don't know, that we could get enough people to cross over to really make it worth our time.
00:54:35
Speaker
I don't want to be about dollars but it's about not losing your ass you know i think it's about the right talent. No there there was there was there was talking one point of some crazy options and i was just like. How much of a guarantee are they gonna want.
00:54:58
Speaker
to get that. Get what you want from the 80s. I don't think we can sell the number it would take to get us to the royalty threshold that would be required to do it.
00:55:16
Speaker
Well, I mean, you guys you guys are, you know, seem to be cranking out those those Major League sports figures. You know, and I mean, some of those guys must command quite a. No, that's all with the leagues, though. That's all. Yeah, it's all league. That was true. That's the union. Yeah, that wouldn't be on an individual license. It's from the union and you have to make a certain amount of players and then the money gets divided evenly across all players. So there's no no. That's that's the only way I'm getting LeBron. Are you kidding?
00:55:48
Speaker
I'm not signing a licensing deal for LeBron. So speaking of LeBron, the LeBron of New Jersey.
00:56:00
Speaker
The Lebron of New Jersey. Glenn Lebron of New Jersey, punk rock. Glenn Danzig. Yes. As two guys who grew up in New Jersey listening to punk rock and listening to The Misfits, you and I got a chance to chat a little bit about it at New York Comic Con this past year.
00:56:22
Speaker
You mentioned that there was some more stuff coming from the misfits Can can you tell us a little bit more about it? Do you have any any more updates you can share? Yes, and I can share some things but I can't be specific because just all of them will not want it talked about until the product is ready to show But we do have a whole
00:56:47
Speaker
a bunch of new sculpts and new characters. I say new characters, meaning new individuals.
00:56:54
Speaker
Uh, in, in a new format. Um, so, uh, the obvious thing is, you know, Glenn himself, we've been working with Glenn for a number of years to get his figure, right. Um, deservedly. So he's very particular. That's why he's been successful. So getting it to the point where he was happy with it took some time and which is completely valid. And, uh, you know, we,
00:57:20
Speaker
working with Jerry, working with the rest of the Misfits team with Cafiera and everybody. And so there's some cool stuff in the works. And I think when it comes out, I think people will be very, very excited. That said, as people that have bought Ultimates from us know, it takes a year to make something. So we've got stuff in motion, but it won't come out till this fall.
00:57:49
Speaker
Some of those things you've been asking about for the last three or four years, they're finally going to show up. Oh, yeah. Nice. There's some obvious holes in this puzzle. I can clearly see the pieces that I need to make this image whole. It's like, yes, we are aware. Awesome.
00:58:17
Speaker
Um, so one of the biggest questions that most people have surrounding super seven is of course cost of figures. Yep. Um, especially on the made to order ultimate. Yep. Um, what, what goes into the pricing strategy and the made to order strategy to get these figures made and get them off the ground. I think, you know, once again, as we sort of touched on earlier, I think for everybody involved, you can, as, as the person that is actually doing this.
00:58:47
Speaker
Trust me when I say there are far less things made than you think are being made. So the biggest hurdle, quite honestly, is overcoming the cost of tooling. So that's the first part. The cost of tooling for these figures is high. There's a lot of parts. There are a lot of big pieces. And so you've got a lot of tooling.
00:59:16
Speaker
Like if we, we're gonna use some general numbers, if you will. If tooling costs $50,000 for a single figure, and the sculpt costs 5,000, the output to make the gypsum cost another 5,000, spray masks cost you another 5,000,
00:59:42
Speaker
That's $65,000, right? So if you only make 10,000 figures, which is actually a pretty big run. So let's cut that down, say it's 5,000 figures. That means before we get started, it's what, $11.50 just for tooling gypsum sculpt and paint masks. Then you've got to pay to actually make the plastic,
01:00:09
Speaker
Then you got to paint the plastic. Then you got to pay for the box, the package. Then you got to pay to put it on a boat, ship it all the way over here. So you start adding it all up. Like same thing, you know, these figures, you know, what if it costs $15, you know, factory doesn't want to make 5,000. They want to make 50,000. They want to take that Hasbro order. They don't want to take my order. So it might cost $15, $20 to make a figure.
01:00:37
Speaker
by the time you roll in packaging and everything else. So by the time it shows up, it's like they're expensive. Plus, as most people know, licensing, you have minimum guarantees, plus it's 15%. So if I'm selling it to you at 55, I am paying the licensor 775, 15% on top of what I've already, is that right? 775 or is it eight and a quarter?
01:01:07
Speaker
Oh, 550 plus 275. There we go. It's eight and a quarter. So eight and a quarter is going to the licensor. If it's, you know, 5,000 pieces minus $65,000 or whatever we said it was, that was 1150. So it, that's 1975 before we, before we talk about plastic, before we talk about packaging, before I talk about shipping.
01:01:32
Speaker
So when these figures start landing over here, we'll just say they start landing at $30 or $35 finished. You know, people are like, why are they 55 bucks? It's like, that's why they're 55 bucks. And because, you know, we're not making a gazillion of them. And I think that, you know,
01:01:54
Speaker
there will be people that says, well, then how come I can get a Star Wars figure on the peg right next to it, or a Hasbro figure for 1999? I'm like, because they sold, they made 200,000 of that figure, 100,000, because they're not just selling to you as an adult, they're selling to kids. Like if I was selling to kids, yeah, I might be, you know, I wouldn't be making 5,000 or something. I'd be making hundreds of thousands of
01:02:19
Speaker
Then all of a sudden, you go from that amortization of tooling, if I spent $65,000 in tooling, but I made 100,000 figures, it's 65 cents a figure. It just disappears. So that's the main thing is like, I'm selling to adult collectors and there are not that many of you.
01:02:49
Speaker
Um, the other thing is that we're making it literally dozens of us You know Everybody I know would buy this great how many I got 18 You know, um
01:03:05
Speaker
I think that's part of it. These are not apples to apples comparison, even for when I'm talking about something like GI Joe. The GI Joe reaction figure is probably the thing that we make the most quantity on. Even in then, it's only in, I think,
01:03:28
Speaker
900 targets across the country, even though there are, what, 2,000, 2,200 targets? Or 900? Interesting. I didn't know that. I figured they would have been at every target. Oh, no, no, no, no. There's stuff that only goes to 200 targets. There's stuff that goes to 400 targets. They have all sorts of strata and everything. So we're on the boys' action shelf in, like, 900 targets. And people will be like, yeah, you're in target. I'm like, 900 targets.
01:03:56
Speaker
And you go in there and it's, here's the four figures, Cobra, here's the four figures, Joe. That means target ordered 900 of each figure. Like it's not changing the dynamic of what we're doing immensely. You know, uh, so.
01:04:15
Speaker
I think there's just a core difference. And then not without talking about somebody will use another company as a comparison point to what we're doing. And I would say that then you get into some of the stuff that happens in volume, some of the stuff that happens in packaging, some of the stuff that comes in the amount of accessories and paint detailing, and the materials used. I mean, we go out of our way to use really ridiculous kinds of plastics in the joints.
01:04:45
Speaker
so that you know they don't freeze up or snap you know i don't know if you guys have had that before where you know it's plastic on plaques these are friction fits but we'll pay for a much more expensive different kind of plastic to use just in those joints that uh you know you have to do a separate dye lot to make sure it matches because none of the plastics are colored the same even with the same thing
01:05:14
Speaker
That slide happens better. And I don't want to in any way, shape or form be derogatory about anybody else because the other companies making stuff out there are making wonderful stuff and they're really great people. This is not a us versus them scenario. It's just that this is the way we make figures and it costs more to make it this way. If we did a few things differently, we could bring the price down.
01:05:44
Speaker
But if I'm going to pay this much, I might as well pay for the whole ball of wax and make it as perfect as I can. So when you get it, you're like, oh, man, this thing's awesome. You don't hear any reports. And this makes it sound like I'm talking shit about somebody I'm not. You don't hear any reports about our figures breaking. And if you do, I'm going to replace it because it shouldn't. That meant it was a factory area. They don't break. They don't do that.
01:06:14
Speaker
function because that's the way they're designed to work.
01:06:23
Speaker
It's a hard sort of weird line on pricing. And if we use a reaction as a perfect example, everybody's like, this shit should be $7.99 at Target. I'm like, fucking five POA Star Wars figures haven't been $7.99 at Target in 15 years. That's just what you remember the price. The lowest you're going to find is $12.99. Most of the time they're $13.99, sometimes $15.99.
01:06:51
Speaker
We're a couple dollars more than these people. We're not that much.
01:06:57
Speaker
But it's your memory of what this is. And then, you know, you get in the same thing like these are being made by people in China making pennies is like no one in China is making pennies because if everybody was making pennies in China, like all of us would be making millions and we're not like it's why people are trying to move out of China, not just because of the geopolitical reasons, but because it's too expensive to manufacture in China now.
01:07:23
Speaker
Like China is going, is gone through its industrial revolution. No one wants to work at a factory anymore. They want an office job. Like it's no different than Detroit did 50 years ago. Like
01:07:35
Speaker
And one of the things I have to say, your reputation precedes you of being transparent, transparency, and just appreciate the detail on the answer. Thank you. Look, everyone here, if I could sell those figures for $29.99, don't you think I would? I'd sell a shitload more of them. Make my life a whole lot easier.
01:08:01
Speaker
But I can't. This is what it costs for me to make it this way. And I understand that not everyone wants to agree with my choices or that it makes my figures too expensive for some people. Which I don't want to be snotty about it and I don't want to be rude. I want to be empathetic to that. But at the same time, I only get to make this figure once. So I want to make sure it lives up to my expectations.
01:08:29
Speaker
And unfortunately, my expectations are a little expensive. This next segment is our Q and A segment. So we let our followers know that you were coming on the podcast and collected some questions for you from our followers.
01:08:45
Speaker
Uh, if, if you are listening to this for the first time, uh, welcome to adventures in collecting, make sure you're following us on Instagram at AIC underscore podcast, uh, for your chance to ask a question when we do have a guest. So, uh, Dave, would you like to start Brian off with the first of our Q and a questions? Yes. Um, from one Dave to another best friend of the pod, Dave at creepy and Jay asks, when can we get some more mummy boy toys?
01:09:15
Speaker
Oh, that is a loaded, loaded, loaded question. All right, so hold on, I gotta limber up for this one. All right, everybody. Here we go. All right, so we started making toys in Japan, Japanese vinyl. For those of you listening that are not knee deep into the nerdy, nerdy well of Japanese vinyl, Japanese vinyl is very different from
01:09:43
Speaker
low temperature Chinese vinyl. Not saying that in a China versus Japan state, just in a manufacturing state. So the manufacturing state that Japanese vinyl is used and made in going back to the 60s is basically the exact same stuff almost that your vinyl records are made out of.
01:10:03
Speaker
where the stuff you would get in China is a much different sort of beast. So it's a really high temperature, high curing process that is very difficult to use. And the material goes bad in about four days after it's made. So you have to make material, use it immediately and get rid of it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. There's a host of things that I could go into about the quality of the material that if you hold them side by side, you'd be like, oh, okay, I get it.
01:10:32
Speaker
Long story short is, getting toys manufactured in Japan is also a very difficult thing to do, especially if you are not Japanese.
01:10:42
Speaker
So obviously, we are not Japanese, but we were the first Americans over making toys in Japan. Because we were nerds. We went and found the factories that made the marathon and bullmark figures. We found some of the old sculptors and did interviews with them and started working with Japanese companies, making figures for their companies and eventually making our own. So we work with
01:11:08
Speaker
the largest and original and best manufacturer in Japan. I can't use their name because somebody else says it's talking shit. Inasmuch, I can go to the factory. I can talk to them. I can tell them everything I want. It's all fine, but I still cannot place an order directly with the factory.
01:11:32
Speaker
I have to give my order to a Japanese intermediary and that Japanese intermediary can place the order with the factory because they do not accept foreign orders. Japan thinks highly of Japanese, so in as much
01:11:51
Speaker
You know, for many, many, many, many, many years, we made figures on a regular basis because it was not super invoked to do so, especially Japanese vinyl. It was expensive and everything else like that. In the last couple of years, several other manufacturers have really gotten back into making vinyl in Japan again, which means that my product
01:12:19
Speaker
gets bumped because I am not Japanese. Japanese customers come first. And because Japan works in such a pecking order referential way, I cannot move to another factory because those factories know that I work with this other factory. And to take a client from them would be rude and they would risk punishment by this bigger company. And that bigger company often outsources to them.
01:12:49
Speaker
So I am trapped. All my molds and tools are sitting at the best factory with the best craftsman in Japan, but I cannot get product out. I have had product ordered now for a couple of years that I have not been able to. Wow. So that is the reason why, I mean, I've got new sculpts that haven't come out that are sitting at the factory.
01:13:19
Speaker
But there's a reality to doing business in Japan, and that's one of them. That's why we ended up making the supersized mummy boy in China so that we could get a mummy boy back out there. We've had a lot of discussions back and forth about doing smaller scale in China, but
01:13:46
Speaker
It's been very, very difficult for me to acquiesce to that because I want to make the versions like I've made before. That's why you can't get clear vinyl out of China. You can only get clears out of Japan.
01:14:03
Speaker
It's like that means I can't make you know clear purple glitter and I can't do this and I can't do that and the Chinese factories don't want to make 200 at a time because that's the reality when you're talking about a vinyl figure that now what used to cost $50 is now $85 and $85 a pop you know there's only so many people willing to buy it $29.99 that's a whole different story but
01:14:30
Speaker
you know, then then all of a sudden you've got to be making in China volume. So there's a catch 22. So, uh, I would love to be making more mommy boys. Um, he's my baby. I'll miss him. You know, one of these days it'll sort itself out. You know, uh, I wish I had a better answer than, than that, but one of these days it'll sort itself out. Mommy boy, bat boy, all of them.
01:14:59
Speaker
All right. So our next question comes from at Tim pop kid. And Tim asks, is there any update on you Sagi, your Jimbo coming to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ultimate slide? Uh, as many people know, we, uh, we announced at one point you Sagi, your Jimbo. Um, we had a deal memo back and forth.
01:15:27
Speaker
with Stan Sakai and for whatever reason or another, I'm not sure what it was. It didn't get signed expeditiously. I think it got, I thought we thought it was done and it wasn't done. I was on a podcast with a guy and I said, you saw you Jimbo was coming and the next day we got a thing from Stan Sakai saying, hey, that was four months ago and you never signed the agreement. So there's nothing in place.
01:15:57
Speaker
and we're talking to somebody else now. And so we currently do not have... We have talked to Stan again, but because somebody else is making Usagi-Yojimbo right now in a similar style to ours, it doesn't really make sense to do right now. I think there could be a different point of view that we would do with it, but it doesn't make sense to be close to each other. So we're just waiting.
01:16:26
Speaker
So our last question here in Q&A comes from friend of the pod at Ryan Ting from the Marvel Legends team. Oh, good dude. Great dude. And this is the eternal question here. Figures on a blister card. If you could only have them one way, would you let them breathe or would you keep them mint on card?
01:16:52
Speaker
I would cut the blister off with an exacto knife so I could keep the card and the figure. Yes. Because you want to be able to move the arms. That was always the hardest part about collecting vintage carded figures. It was like, you know, I remember asking, God, you were talking about 2008 or so. I was on a thing and I asked at the I was a thing about the Super Shogun Stormtrooper. And after it was all said and done, I was like, if anybody has a
01:17:22
Speaker
Blue stars, let me know. I'm looking for one. I got a thing a couple days later that says, okay, I've got a carded one for sale. I was like, I don't want a carded one. I've got to be able to move the arms. I've got to be able to touch the skirt of this guy. It was a financial mistake not to buy the carded one.
01:17:50
Speaker
Yeah, I waited till I got a loose one later because I want to be able to touch the toy. Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm all, I'm all in on, on camp, let it breathe. And I actually do the same thing. I get, I get a little, I get a little a razor and I raise her off the bubble and I got a nice little stack of reaction cards.
01:18:12
Speaker
And that's the way it was when you were a kid, too. You kept the cards because they were as much as they were part of the experience, too. And I think that that's.
01:18:21
Speaker
That's part of the reason we spend so much time on the packaging, on our figures, is it is just as much of it as in the packaging as is in the toy. Just because I want you to open it doesn't mean that I'm going to be dismissive of the packaging. And I think that's what's lacking in most modern figures, is that the packaging is just style guide, they all look the same. It's like, fuck that, that sucks.
01:18:45
Speaker
like I want a picture of Boba Fett like putting the warning labels on fire and you know whatever so you know um so if I had to yeah that way I could keep the card backs and have the figures but uh obviously we put an immense amount of love and detail into the packaging so that
01:19:12
Speaker
You know half of the people out there attempted to keep one sealed and then open one, so i'm gonna put it i'm gonna piggyback on this question and i'm gonna ask another here. We have talked exclusively about the actual figures all episodes but we haven't really talked about about the the packaging design and.
01:19:34
Speaker
You guys both in the world of reaction and end in ultimates have some really unique packaging what's what's. What are some of the things that have gone into kind of obviously with with the the kenner inspired card backs for the reaction figures but really the ultimate with that unique sleeve and what goes into the packaging design.
01:19:55
Speaker
There's a couple things, so I realized that most people listening know that I make toys. But prior to this, hard to believe, I was a graphic designer. That was my job. I worked at Fossil Watches. I was employee number seven in their art department. And then I went to Nike for five years. I did LeBron's first logo.
01:20:24
Speaker
I did Major League Soccer inaugural logo, worked on a bunch of stuff, then I built Nike Towns. And then I opened my design studio in San Francisco. Super Seven was my hobby and my downtime. But the art of printing has always been one of those things that I've been super into.
01:20:51
Speaker
die cuts, foil stamps, everything else. What are those things that take this from being crappy to awesome? The thing that we always talk about within the design studio world, if you will, is it costs no more to print good design as it does to print crappy design. It's still ink on paper in that regard.
01:21:20
Speaker
Make sure it's beautiful. Make sure it makes sense. So within that, obviously, I have a lot of history within printing. So, you know, in high school I was in a print class. I worked at a print shop for a little while. I spent a lot of time really, you know, pre-computers knowing how to make things print, how to make things work.
01:21:49
Speaker
What works on press what doesn't what are those techniques? I mean quite honestly as much as anybody on here will if you Research that you would learn this but it's not obvious to everybody that foil stamping is actually cheaper than printing So foil stamping you foil stamp something people go There's a fancy shit right here. You know, this is that good shit, you know, it's that foil stamp shit You like that Maria card back? I
01:22:16
Speaker
Like that Maria card back from Metropolis. But the addition of foil to that card is actually cheaper than running it through the press a second time to get a fifth color. No shit. Because you don't do print time. There's no press time.
01:22:34
Speaker
The money in getting something printed is getting the printer up and running. The time it takes, the amount of paper and waste that it takes to get the printer up to speed, warmed up, all the ink densities correct, and getting the paper through, by the time you're ready to actually print, you'll spend six, eight hours getting it ready to print, getting all the colors balanced and looking right. You'll spend five minutes printing the actual thing.
01:23:05
Speaker
Done. That giant machine, getting that up and running, that's the expensive part. The actual printing ink on the paper is nothing. When you're talking about foil stamp, it's literally, you can look it up online, it's literally these old machines and no one listening can see my hands doing. And it's literally just this old machine with a foil ribbon. You put the paper in, it clamps it shut. And foil stamps it on with heat.
01:23:33
Speaker
And then you take out the paper, move it in. There's no machine work to get it up and running. Once you pay for the die plate, that's it. Choo, choo, choo. Nothing more. So adding foils, adding die cuts, those kind of things, yes, it is an additional cost. But as an add-in cost, it's not exponentially higher.
01:23:57
Speaker
We go into all those projects like yes there's a basic six by nine card back that this is the format that we use but then anytime we diverge from sort of what is going on peg it's like now all of a sudden we can bring in die cuts we can bring in foils we can bring in paper stock changes we can
01:24:18
Speaker
All those things to really heighten the experience of it all make it feel special and then just secondly like The packaging is part of the emotional experience. I mean that's really part of it like when you See that figure on the peg as you turn You know turn into the aisle if you will Like what you're seeing is the package the package is the first thing that makes your heart go flutter before you see the toy so
01:24:47
Speaker
Half of my job is to make your heart go flutter. Like, oh my God, look at this packaging. Oh my God, it's exactly how I imagined it would be. Yeah, that's my job. Well, I love the feeling of, you know, you're not finding ultimates at a store yet. But, you know, when you get them in the mail, when you open that initial box and then you get the, because I actually just,
01:25:17
Speaker
Again, people can't see it, but I just, I just opened my Mickey and, uh, I was, I was impressed with the, I love the packaging, the, the, like the Fantasia starry night situation going on step. It's a, it's a, it's a good experience. It's a good unboxing experience Lord. The first time I opened that original Andre ultimate.
01:25:37
Speaker
I was like, it was like, I was like, this is I immediately put everything back together. I was like, this. Yeah. Well, but that same thing, like you're like, oh, it's cool box. That's really funny. You slide it off and it's the die cut ropes around him in direct proportion for where he's standing and everything. You're like, oh, they thought about that. That's fun. That's cool. Like this makes me this makes me happy.
01:26:04
Speaker
Or the belts on Matt's figure. And Brian's figure, the belts.
01:26:09
Speaker
I can't remember if that was one of my design team's idea or if that was Matt and Brian's idea. It may have been Matt and Brian's idea, to be honest. They were like, can we put the belt on it? And I was like, yeah, actually, yes, we can. That would be awesome. So it's like, it's the belt over the slip cover, over the box. So like, if you're like, here's the box that shows up in the mail, then there's the shipper box, then there's the plastic bag, then there's the belt, then there's the sleeve, then there's the box, then there's the tray, then there's the figure.
01:26:40
Speaker
It might actually be almost wasteful. And then there's the figures. What's that? And then their figures have figures in there. Yes, and their figures have figures. It's like a powers of 10 thing. It is. Well, that brings us to the end of our Q&A section. Chad being insulted that only three people bothered to ask questions. No, we got more than three, but we pre-vetted them.
Brian's Favorite Action Figures
01:27:07
Speaker
We picked the best. All the rest of them were, you know,
01:27:10
Speaker
you know, can you give me a refund? When are you gonna come up when we jump off a bridge? Well, no, we get we get and we've said this before on the show, but most of the questions we get are like, when are we getting this character? When are when are we getting this? When does that come out of which I cannot answer any of those questions? Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So so so rather than
01:27:33
Speaker
than putting you in a position where you get to say, I can't answer that. We just skip those. We just, we just, we brush those aside. So, uh, before we let you go though, it is, it is, uh, it is time for our final question. So Dave, customary. Yes. Would you like to fulfill your role as this podcasts James Lipton and ask our final question? Why? Yes, I would. Um,
01:28:02
Speaker
So Brian, what is your favorite and or strangest piece in your collection? It could be one of each or it could be both. Favorite piece in my collection, I would have to define then kinds of collections. So like there's a different thing in action figures than there is in Japanese toys than there is in records, whatever else.
01:28:32
Speaker
If we're talking about classic vintage action figures, my favorite piece is Farm Boy Luke, because as a kid, I just loved that figure. I have a special affinity for Farm Boy Luke, Death Star Droid, Gonk Droid, and X-Wing Luke.
01:28:56
Speaker
Those four, as a kid, I had and I just thought they were the coolest.
01:29:06
Speaker
And Farm Boy Luke was all, you know, everybody else has Boba Fett or Stormtroopers or Darth Vader, but Farm Boy Luke, for whatever reason, that figure of the two. And I think it's because while I love the orange jumpsuit one there, I can't really tell it's Luke. So that was my Luke. I saw Star Wars once as a kid and it just melted my brain.
01:29:30
Speaker
I was convinced I was going to grow up to be Luke Skywalker. It wasn't so much a projection issue of just that that's the figure.
01:29:43
Speaker
You know, as we talk about figures now, like all the little that sculpted so well, all the little sort of drapes and pleats in the outfit itself, and then all the banding sort of on his boots and everything. It's a beautifully done figure, beautifully done figure. Some would argue that it doesn't look like him, but it didn't need to look like him. It captured the essence of who Luke was. And so,
01:30:13
Speaker
Those are my favorite from emotionally in the action figure collecting side. But then it's hard because then I contrast that immediately with the greatest figures ever made in action figures, which are the Tomy Tron figures. Those translucent Tomy Tron figures. Jolly Rancher Tron figures.
01:30:43
Speaker
They are the greatest action figures ever made on planet earth, hands down. No one can tell me what different. They are ungodly and I think that those are the most, they're just perfect. They're perfect in sculpt, they're perfect in manufacturing, the translucency and consistency across
01:31:08
Speaker
Thicknesses and variables. It's just they're just next level and they're they're astounding and that movie was Just as important to me as Star Wars It would be really cool if there was a company that had like a license with Disney that made like three and three-quarter inch retro style figures That's it would just be cool It would be cool
01:31:37
Speaker
One of my all time favorite movies. It's there for me too. It's number one is Star Wars. Number two is Tron Empire, you know, it's three or four or five, six somewhere. Jedi's fucking he walks. Who cares? You know, no, those Tron figures are really special. They're there. They're they're very, very special.
01:32:00
Speaker
The manufacturing involved in them that you don't understand as a kid, but is just next level and yeah, they're astounding.
Love for Japanese Toys and Impact on Collecting
01:32:10
Speaker
So that's action figures. And then if I have a Holy Grail within that, it's the Canadian Cardback Walking R2D2. One of these days I'll get one of those. I didn't think about it in the last Hakes auction.
01:32:27
Speaker
Which was good for everyone involved. Because I should not own that. But Canadian Windup R2D2 is just, that card back is so awkward and amazing that it's fucking incredible.
01:32:43
Speaker
I'm going to keep going. So when we talk about Japanese toys, my favorite two are the the marathon slash bull mark standard size Godzilla. It is the Alpha and Omega for me for collecting Japanese toys. I think it's still the greatest thing ever. If you're a Japanese purist from Japan, you're like, yeah, Toho kind of sucks wearing the Ultraman and he came first anyways. I don't really care. But that figure, I mean,
01:33:11
Speaker
We made a giant size figure with Marison back in like 2005 or 2006 of that figure just because of the same thing as like, I hate the bull mark giant size. I want this one in giant size. So we convinced Marison to make a giant size of that sculpted mold. It is the greatest Godzilla vinyl ever. And like I said, it looks absolutely nothing like him, which is why it's so amazing. That though, the thing that really kicked off
01:33:41
Speaker
the rest of my Japanese toy collecting and still my other favorite and would follow on for a lot of people if you just Google it and look at it as weirdest, is the Bondi standard size Inaziman or Popi slash Bondi standard size Inaziman.
01:33:59
Speaker
He's poopy in most cases, so we're going to go with poopy then for everybody. Inazuman is blue, baby blue, covered in yellow lightning bolts, and he is actually a moth that shoots electricity. So he starts off as a regular dude, and when he goes to Henshin, aka Transform, he actually has to go into Suginoman, which is a cocoon first,
01:34:26
Speaker
Then he henchions again and breaks out of his cocoon and he is a Nazaman and he's got these, you know, lightning tentacle moth things coming off his head and he's covered in lightning bolts. And it's just one of those things where I saw it with no context. I've never seen any of these tokusatsu shows. And I was like, what the fuck is that thing?
01:34:50
Speaker
There is no frame of reference that I have that allows me an entry point to understanding what this is. I need more of this in my life. How do I find out more?
01:35:09
Speaker
And that is the absolute beauty of Japanese Takasatsu series, the kaiju, if you will, world, and everything else is that they just throw the fucking
01:35:24
Speaker
Playbook out the window and they're like what the fuck do we want to make like robot detective kgk? He's a robot, but if he puts on a trench coat and a hat you don't know it's him. It's a secret detective Oh shit. He took off his hat. It's the robot. We're fucked and he fights I mean literally he fights lockers that sprout legs he fights chairs that sprout arms and fight him like a
01:35:48
Speaker
Like, what the f... Like, Baron won. Doruge gets mad at the end. He's not winning, so he starts ripping paces off his head, and those turn into monsters. So he's fighting an eyeball with legs, and a hand with legs, and lips with legs. It's a fever dream. It's all a fever dream, and it's wonderful. And it's amazing, and that's what got me so into Japanese toys, because then you say, okay, it's fever dream on TV.
01:36:17
Speaker
When
Impact of American Collectors on Japanese Market
01:36:18
Speaker
we go to toy, we throw the rule book out of the window again and go like, well, fuck it. What do we think will make a good toy of this that a kid will buy? And we don't care about whether or not it's accurate. We don't care about the colors. We don't care about anything else. We're just going to sculpt something that kind of resembles this thing. And they're bananas. They're absolutely bananas. But that was the thing.
01:36:43
Speaker
Western science fiction, Star Wars, Tron, as we were talking about, any of it. Even in Star Wars, you're talking about every alien in that cantina is still two arms, two legs.
01:36:57
Speaker
You know, they're still humanoid in nature. Yeah, maybe he's a hammerhead head, but they're still basic formulas. The bad guy is black and the good guy has, you know, you know, white farm boy outfit, but they're all variations on a theme. It's still very, very.
01:37:15
Speaker
you know, for lack of a better description of Western. And it's very literal in that regard. And then you go to Japan and Kanagon's a giant coin purse with arms and legs with a zipper mouth because the kid was greedy. And you're like, what the fuck is this? And that was what was so cool about it was just like, you know, Canadoras, because I'm looking at ultra Leo Canadoras, it's literally a pineapple with a head in the crotch.
01:37:45
Speaker
and then a saw blade on top. So somebody put that on paper, drew it up, held it up in a meeting, and the team went, yes, yeah, that's the one, that's the one, go get it. This is another joke I always make. If you think about somebody going to an American movie studio and said, okay, you got an idea,
01:38:08
Speaker
Here's the movie, here's the pitch. Giant radioactive lizard, and he's gonna fight the concept of smog. And to win, he's gonna rip the guy's eyeballs out. And somebody went, fuck yeah, fun that. That is the core difference between Japanese movies and TV and American TVs and movie.
01:38:37
Speaker
So growing up, I had a friend, a very good friend of mine, like when we were grammar school, kindergarten, middle school, all the way up through high school, who was half Japanese, and he had family that lived in Japan, and a lot of times he would bring stuff to like sleepovers that like would completely blow our minds as kids because his cousins were sending him
01:39:01
Speaker
VHS is of things he's like you got to see this stuff and I remember like I remember seeing a lot of like the Power Rangers bad guys before they before they aired on TV in the US because they were from Super Sentai, but I remember the first time we saw us anything with pudgy pig and it was like that's a pig in a gladiator helmet That's eating a knife He's literally eating everybody
01:39:30
Speaker
Yeah, with a jive fork and knife. You're like, how did this get, did this, was there vetting involved in this or not? And like somebody along the line was like, no, this is the one and they were right. Yep. Yeah. And that introduced, you think about it, that ended up being the gateway for an entire generation of kids, the Western audience, kids into
01:39:56
Speaker
you know, kaiju culture because they were seeing, you know, Power Rangers after school.
01:40:01
Speaker
Yeah, completely, completely. It was a game changer. And I think for me, you know, when we go back to this, it wasn't even like I didn't know any of these shows. So I didn't come to any of it with baggage, if you will. Like I remember being in Japan once and talking to a very well established collector over there. That was a good friend of mine. And I was needling him about condorman variations. Uh,
01:40:32
Speaker
just going like, I know they made a talking vinyl, but did they make a missile-firing vinyl? What about the standard size? There's the seven-inch one, but then there's the nine-inch one, but they're not really true standards. And at the moment he just stopped and he was like, no one cares about Condor Man because it was a dumb show to them. I don't know the show. I just look at the toy and the design of it and I'm like, Condor Man kicks ass.
01:41:01
Speaker
It's the equivalent of I had a friend of mine that's married to my friend, Dennis, who came over here, and she was so hyped on Dukes of Hazzard. She really wanted a boss hog figure. I'm just like, it's fucking Dukes of Hazzard. No one cares. But she's not coming to it with the baggage that I have.
01:41:26
Speaker
She's not coming with the baggage. She's just coming to it and being like, this stereotype played out in this media with these figures is super interesting to me because it's crazy and bananas. If you really think about that show, General Lee would, you know, we're always running from the cops and we run away and we smash their car, but it's all okay. It's not like they drive to my house the next day because they know where I live and arrest me.
01:41:54
Speaker
You know? And they're playing on all these crazy southern stereotypes. Boss hog eating fried chicken in an all-white suit. Like, Colonel Sanders didn't just walk in there by himself with a big cigar and like, you know, it...
01:42:09
Speaker
To us, it was like, all right, it's fun but dumb. To them, it's just like, this is an amazing pastiche. And so it's the same thing for us going across looking at their shows, and they're like, that show was dumb. And we're like, no, but character designs are amazing. So you have these shows that Americans collect that drove the prices through the roof in Japan because you couldn't give it away in Japan until all the Americans started buying it.
01:42:37
Speaker
There's a guy called Leaf Man from Ninja Arashi. He's just basically made of leaves and he has this sword. And we would go to Japan and I'd buy every Leaf Man I found every year and we'd sell them in the store. At first going to Japan and you have to preface this with like vintage Japanese vinyl has always had sort of a $100 floor. Like you got to have $100 to get in the game. So it was like I'd go there and they'd be $100.
01:43:06
Speaker
Next time I go there, they'd be 125, but I'd buy two or three. And they'd be sold before I even got to the back home. Then they were 150. Then they were 200. Then they were 300. And we stopped buying them at 300 because we're like, all right, this is stupid now.
01:43:26
Speaker
But now you can't touch them for under 1,000. You want to know why? Because there's none in fucking Japan, because we bought like 40 of them over the course of a decade, brought them all back to Americans, and every American collector has one in their collection. And now all the Japanese guys are like, this stupid leaf man from Rainbow Man is the hardest, I mean from Ninja Arashi is the hardest one to get. And you're like, that's because he's the best.
01:43:54
Speaker
There's a couple of those where, you know, Tiger seven is another example, like nobody in Japan gave two shits about Tiger seven. And after a while they're like, they started raising the prices because all the dumb Americans had come over here and buy this stupid Tiger seven. Well, now Tiger seven is expensive as fuck because no one has it, but the Americans scarcity scarcity. Yeah. I mean, it would be that same thing where it's like,
01:44:23
Speaker
I'm not thinking of the exact right example, but if you go backwards, you'd have those things where Japanese would get really into vintage denim, and they bought out all of America's vintage denim. They searched the whole country, bought it all up. You want $10,000 jeans, you've got to go to Japan because they have it all.
01:44:41
Speaker
There's certain lines where of uncool Japanese toys where they was uncool over there because of the show. But Americans looking at it with completely different eyes drove the prices up through the roof because they bought it all up because it was the trash that the Japanese didn't want. And the Americans were like, give it all to me. I'll take it all right now.
Where to Find Super7 Updates
01:45:04
Speaker
So, so Brian, before we let you go, please tell everyone where can they find out the latest about super seven? Uh, where should they be following you on the internet? All that good stuff. Um, obviously on, on the socials, yo, uh, it's, uh, you know, at super seven on Instagram. Uh, I believe there is a super seven Facebook page. I don't go there. So I don't know. Uh,
01:45:30
Speaker
I don't have time enough to manage my Instagram, much less Instagram and Facebook. I actually do think that supposedly there's a Twitter and a TikTok, but I am not aware of them.
01:45:45
Speaker
It's a terrible thing to say. The Instagram is a good one. Super7.com though is where you can get everything. If you want to buy stuff, Super7.com. It's got all the latest right there for you. But yeah, I view the world, social world through the tiny porthole of Instagram because that takes enough of my time already. That's the good one anyway. The other ones are... Yeah, that's true.
01:46:09
Speaker
That's where we call home, too, is Instagram. We're with you on that. The other ones are a lot. There's not even conspiracy theories on Instagram, although they're there. Yeah, they are. They are. They're easier to filter out.
Closing and Acknowledgments
01:46:23
Speaker
Listen, this was incredible. Brian, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us and to tell us all about your collection, about what's going on with Super 7. Let's definitely do this again sometime.
01:46:38
Speaker
Definitely, as unfortunately anybody that's sitting here at an hour 40 in has learned I am all too willing to hear myself talk, which is terrible. Well, we're all too willing to give you that platform. So there we go. We want to listen to you talk. Yeah, we want to listen. Oh, this is a sad, sad, sad state of affairs, as my daughter would say. This is what you call a symbiotic relationship.
01:47:05
Speaker
Hey, we, we, we are the, I was going to say we are Venom. I don't know. I don't know how else to end. I think symbiote. We'll just let that slide. Yeah. Yeah. We'll just let it, we'll leave it there. Dave, you want to send us home? Hi, everyone.
01:47:25
Speaker
Thank you, dear listener, for hanging out with us today. 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.
01:47:41
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.
01:48:05
Speaker
This has been a non-productive media presentation. Executive producer, Franca Blaui. 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.