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Getting Primal: Animal Warriors of the Kingdom & More with Jason Bienvenu From Spero Toys
397 Plays10 months ago
It's a jungle out there! This week we're joined by Jason Bienvenu, managing partner at Spero Toys to talk all about their Animals Warriors of the Kingdom. In this episode we dig up the roots of the story behind the indie darling toy line, learn more about the origins, and talk about what's to come!
Visit sperotoys.com to order toys, comics, and stay up-to-date with the latest news on AWOK, Bushido, and more!
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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
Introduction to Adventures in Collecting
00:00:04
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.
00:00:27
Speaker
Hello everybody and welcome back to Adventures in Collecting. The awkward pause that is normally there is not going to be there this week because my darling, wonderful, lovable brother Dave is on vacation so I have been given both the
00:00:49
Speaker
main pilot seat and the co-pilot seat for this week. So I either deeply apologize for either reason listener why you're upset. So either you're upset that it's just me or you're upset that Dave is missing. I apologize, but I am not alone. And as Dave would like to normally say, Eric, please don't bury the lead. So I will not bury the lead. We do have a guest with us this week.
00:01:19
Speaker
Um, I have a guest with me this week. I might say we, and us a lot this episode and it will not apply. And I, I apologize again for that, but, uh, yeah, so we do have a guest this week and I am super excited, uh, to, to, to have this
Guest Introduction: Jason Bienvenu
00:01:34
Speaker
conversation. This has been a long time coming, uh, founded in 2014, Spirotoys focuses on delivering highly articulated and designed collectible action figures.
00:01:44
Speaker
for the collector market. Joining us this week on the show is Jason Bienvenu, managing partner at Spiro Toys. Jason, welcome to Adventures in Collecting. Thank you for having me on. I can't wait to talk about action figures and awesome, fun, upcoming stuff for 2024. Yeah. Like I said, I am super excited to have you on. Some of the animal warriors of the kingdom figures that have come out this year have been among
00:02:12
Speaker
you know, the most enjoyable things that I've, I've collected. So I'm really excited to kind of chew the fat with you. But before we jump into all of that, um, as this is a show about collecting the first thing that we ask all of our guests, uh, what are you currently collecting and what are some of your recent pickups? I would say I am mainly collecting at the moment GI Joe classified as well as, uh, the,
00:02:40
Speaker
He-Man Masterverse figures. I am also collecting Mythic Legions as well as Cosmic Legions. Let me think, I do love, you know, I'm constantly collecting Marvel Legends and I've started to kind of dip my toes a little bit into the McFarlane stuff. I'll pick up a few of those figures here and there. And I think that's pretty much it for now.
00:03:09
Speaker
So is there anything that you picked up recently that has kind of brought you, brought you a little joy? So I like to give myself, uh, I like to, I like to give future Jason presence from Amazon or big bed. Uh, let me see, what did I recently get? I think I got, uh, the slush head for a master verse as well as the buzz off, which I had really been looking for that for quite a while.
00:03:36
Speaker
And then I also got in some of the Crimson Alley Vipers, the Walmart exclusives, which are really, really awesome figures. I'm glad I waited. The Sherbert Orange just never did it for me, even as a kid. So I'm glad I waited on those. And then the last thing I picked up was at this last show that we just came from in Los Angeles. And I picked up two of the cosmic legions figures that I actually meant to pick up. The legions combat wound up
00:04:06
Speaker
being too busy at the booth. Awesome. Yeah. I mean, all of those lines have a lot of love for them. Personally, when it comes to the Masterverse stuff, I love the fact that they're going back to the 86 live action film, the Dolph Lundgren film. Right, right. I actually like all of them except for the Dolph one. I feel like they probably couldn't get the lightness rights or something.
00:04:36
Speaker
Um, I just felt like that head could have been dotted on a little bit better, but you know, for the most part, they're really, really great. Yeah. I ended up picking up the, um, the Ramen toys, uh, the third party head for that figure. Oh, I didn't even realize they had that. Okay. That's cool. Yeah. They did a limited run, um, for that likeness and completely crushed it.
00:05:00
Speaker
Oh, cool. Well, you know, I had, uh, I picked up the, it's, I think, I believe it's a Walgreens exclusive. And I can't, oh, Centurion, the Centurion Marvel Legends figure has a fantastic head that I think goes really well on several of the, uh, several of the He-Man figures from the Masterverse. So that's an option too as well.
00:05:24
Speaker
Yeah. I love the, uh, the, the part swapping stuff. Like it's always fun to feel like I see a lot of people doing it with the classifieds too. Like, uh, I know a lot of people are using the Hank Pym West coast Avengers, Marvel legends head for the Chuckles body. They think it's a, it's a better, uh, Chuckles likeness. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's cool. I've seen a couple of pictures of that. Um,
00:05:50
Speaker
Yeah, so clearly you're collecting a lot. But how did you get into the actual place of toy design?
Jason's Journey from Games to Toys
00:06:00
Speaker
Well, around 2011, I remember sitting on my couch and really wanting to do something. And at the time, Xbox was offering this program where you could
00:06:12
Speaker
You know, you could make your own video games and submit that and everything. And I actually drew a whole bunch of sprites and backgrounds and whatnot and couldn't find a programmer. And then the next thing I thought was, well, maybe I could do a comic book.
00:06:27
Speaker
And I had been doing graphic design and I was doing something for like a drive through zoo and I was just drawing a bunch of animals and whatnot. And I thought, well, maybe animals would be kind of a fun way to tell the hero's tale. So I started working some sort of, you know, I was trying to work into find some sort of main protagonist and I wound up deciding between like a lemur and a monkey. And I thought, well,
00:06:52
Speaker
Monkey will be a little bit more fun for me to draw over time the facial expressions will be a little bit easier to show and so I decided on the monkey and at that point pale was born and I did a Kickstarter in order to get the You know in order to pay for the printing of the comics and it was really just for the first issue but you know once the Kickstarter became a reality I thought okay now I'm kind of
00:07:16
Speaker
I've got people that are depending on me, so I went ahead and did all six issues of the comic book. With the success from that, I tried to leverage the characters from the comic into a toy line. At the time, a little girl was collecting Ninja Turtles, and there was a certain type of Ninja Turtle that was really modular.
00:07:38
Speaker
I kind of took some inspiration from that and tried a kickstarter. And that kickstarter ultimately wasn't successful. So after a couple of weeks of feeling sorry for myself, I kind of went back to the drawing board and saw what kind of critiques and
00:07:54
Speaker
what actually collectives were looking for and basically took a whole year to learn how to use social media as far as advertising goes and redoing all the sculpts and whatnot. And that Kickstarter wound up going well. We did a little bit more than we asked for, so we had a little bit of a buffer and we got that toy line produced.
00:08:16
Speaker
And then from that success, we did the same scale, but a little bit bigger because there's different size characters in the comic and that's important to me. So we did a Kickstarter for that. That was successful as well. And then I started wanting to do.
00:08:33
Speaker
conventions and raising brand awareness for people that might not be, you know, just Kickstarter followers or whatnot. And so I signed up for Toy Fair. And then this little thing called COVID happened. And I got a call from Toy Fair saying that they were going to cancel the event. All the buyers had pulled out. And I remember just kind of sitting in the park and not thinking, well, I like six inch scale stuff and, uh,
00:08:58
Speaker
You know, I had been buying six-inch scale Black Series, Marvel Legends, Power Rangers. So I went ahead and I talked to my buddies who I was already friends with, the sculptors and, you know, we kind of talked about doing it in six-inch scale. And so I spent the next four or five months, you know, kind of dialing in the six core characters that we were gonna do before we launched that Kickstarter. And we, you know, we launched the Kickstarter
00:09:27
Speaker
But before we launched it, I talked to our factory and I was like, listen, you know, we want to do stretch goals and everything, but I don't want to do anything that's going to put a strain on the factory as far as like, you know, having too many skews or, you know, confusing numbers and whatnot. So the factory gave me what they were comfortable with for stretch goals.
00:09:48
Speaker
and we launched. And I thought, you know, if we make this goal, because I was asking for more than I had ever asked for before, you know, I'll be a happy camper. And we wound up making goal the first week, which was amazing, because then, you know, everything else is just icing on the cake, right?
00:10:05
Speaker
Um, and so, so we started unlocking stuff and, you know, towards the end of it, we were like, I was 3d printing stuff at night and hurrying up and painting it in the morning and taking photos of it and, uh, posting stuff. And we wound up unlocking everything except for the last big figure, our, our, our big deluxe stain figure. And on the last day, we had a great, you know, 3d render of it and everything, but
00:10:33
Speaker
On the last day, I think we had like three hours to go. It finally got unlocked and I was just like, holy cow. And it just kind of seemed to skyrocket that last day. So I just kind of remember pinching myself and being like, wow, holy cow, I can't believe that happened. And then like we said, then the real work began in production on the Primal series began at that point.
00:10:56
Speaker
Yeah, that's, I mean, I remember when you guys launched that Kickstarter and the moment I saw those kind of core figures, I had a gut feeling that the project was going to take off very quickly. And, you know, it did. It's just, there's something about, you know, I've mentioned this a couple of times on the show, especially with kind of these original IPs, there's this
00:11:23
Speaker
I don't want to say like comfort zone, but there, when there's something familiar about the characters, but also new and fresh and it kind of toes that line. Um, I know it sounds like double speak, but like, you know, when it, when it has that, you know, um, that fine line between familiarity and, and new and fresh, that's, that tends to be what people really look for and gravitate towards.
00:11:48
Speaker
Thank you. Yeah, you know, I feel like we really hit that Goldilocks zone where, like you said, it feels familiar, but it's something new. And part of the idea behind the line was something that happened to me when I was in high school. There was a little stretch where I was thinking to myself, well, I'm starting to grow up. I can't be playing toys and watching cartoons and all that stuff, which was really tough because I loved all that stuff. And I was like really kind of nerdy and geeky and whatnot.
00:12:18
Speaker
You know something kind of clicked I think the pinnacle of it where I was just I had I couldn't resist anymore was when McFarland released their Metal Gear figures and that game had come out and I was just like you know what I like toys and everything and
00:12:33
Speaker
What I'm getting at is there was this window where there was a bunch of stuff that came out that I just didn't know about. I wasn't interested in it. And then I see it years later. I'm like, whoa, what is this thing called street sharks? Or what is this thing called bichromise from Mars? Those were a couple of things that people my age that just continued to collect really liked that stuff. And I got to rediscover it.
00:12:59
Speaker
So the idea was similar to that where it was maybe this came out a long time ago and I'm just discovering it and it kind of really reminds me of the nostalgia of being a kid and whatnot. And then the other end is obviously
00:13:15
Speaker
you know, we have these comic books that I'm really proud of. And we're actually wrapping up the fifth issue, which is the first story arc. And it's the familiar hero's tale that, you know, Western culture just loves that that hero's tale. And, you know, so we kind of
00:13:31
Speaker
We do a little bit of world building. We do a little bit of our main character, Pale, building his team out so that whenever he encounters, you know, the main the next antagonist and the next story arc, he'll have that core team built. And also the comic book kind of served as like little sneak peeks and clues of what figures we're going to be offering as the waves, you know, as this as the toy line grows. And as we introduce the world of a walker, Animal Wars of the Kingdom.
00:14:03
Speaker
So, so going back to that and the comic book and even kind of the initial inspiration being the work that you were doing for the zoo, um, you know, animal warriors of the kingdom has had a remarkable, you know, last two years, but, uh, you know, what kind of drew you to those specific animals? You know, I know you mentioned the, the, the concept of being able to kind of show the emotions of a, of a primate character, but.
00:14:31
Speaker
You know, the selection is very, I feel like is very unique and especially your take on the animals. Oh, thank you. You know, I think there's some, I think that the apes, the great apes really approach that uncanny valley that, you know, they're very fascinating to us and they're not quite human, but they're just so close and, you know, kind of studying chimps and seeing how violent they can be and how
00:15:01
Speaker
how territorial and you know they've got this amazing hierarchy that they that they work around with and there's no language you know this is kind of unspoken body language that they understand something about that was very fascinating and I thought it was a great starting off point because the reader is going to be starting off in this brand new world where there
00:15:24
Speaker
going to be exploring other cultures and the forms of animals. And this is kind of the closest we're going to get to the human experience while being introduced to new alien or animal life forms. So it just felt like kind of a good jumping off point. And where did the idea for your hero come from? What inspired you when you were actually writing the story here?
00:15:54
Speaker
Um, so, you know, I write pale as me as a teenager, you know, he's, it's fun to write his dialogue because it's very, it's pretty much just my dialogue, but you know, probably 20 years ago, I would say. So his dialogue's pretty easy to write. Um, and you know, before I throw any of my characters into a situation, I've got backstories for them. I know exactly, you know, who they are.
00:16:23
Speaker
um... what their characters like and so whenever i whenever we place situations in front of them it's very easy for me to know how how's mala gonna react to something as opposed to pale and uh... you know how's kali gonna react to something not going correct or or exactly to plan uh... so knowing their knowing what their personalities are before really kind of starting that the plot points really helps me uh...
00:16:54
Speaker
And I try to write their dialogue different. I find a lot of people, you know, reading scripts and stuff, if I know the person, it's like I almost read the dialogue in their voice and that's not what I want to do. You know, if you've read the comics, you'll see that Mala very, very rarely says can't or won't. She will say cannot or will not.
00:17:20
Speaker
Uh, Collie's very similar, but not quite as strict in his speech. And, uh, you know, play pale in a tray, you will have a little bit more slang and have a little bit looser, um, kind of natural speaking voices.
Comics and Toy Design: A Symbiotic Relationship
00:17:36
Speaker
So I'll writing all that different dialogues really fun. Now speaking, you know, of these, these characteristics of, of these original characters, um, considering now that, you know, the, the,
00:17:50
Speaker
the comics are kind of informing the toys down the line, showing the characters that are coming. When you're adding new characters to the mix or making changes to existing characters, are you kind of simultaneously thinking about how that affects the upcoming toys, or is it kind of the toys are reactionary to the source material?
00:18:12
Speaker
You know, I would say it's a bit of both. Like we had a question about why the void toy was noticeably smaller than he was in the book.
00:18:22
Speaker
And the simple answer to that is because we want to have that body type shared across several characters. And the original character that that buck is made off of or based off of is King Hannibal. So that is true as to his form. And so we didn't want to make a whole nother buck.
00:18:45
Speaker
for the void. So we just kind of shrunk them down by like maybe like 10 to 15 percent. As far as like the characters go, one of the things that I was really conscientious of about was anytime we see a variant of pale or a tray or collie or anything like that, it needs to be in the story. We don't want to just have like you know sherbert
00:19:09
Speaker
Colored Batman, you know, even though I love that as a kid we needed to make sense in the story So that's something that I've been really strict about But you know we you know you Toma and I talked about when we're gonna introduce everything like, you know the rabbit Character kanji isn't introduced until issues three and we're gonna be doing a
00:19:35
Speaker
the issue, the first issue is not going to be out in stores until March six. So we've got that buffer, you know, so by the time issue three comes out, people will have already had the chance to, you know, you know, order that figure and be excited about it. So, so what you're telling me is that, uh, that's, that surfing pale and spaceman pale and dressed up as cowboy pale. Those aren't, those aren't coming anytime soon.
00:20:01
Speaker
You know what? You never know. The space pail is actually something that could possibly happen, but it's going to make sense, especially once you've read the stories. The cowboy pail, not so much. But the surfing pail, man, that sounds fun. I wouldn't have him in
00:20:19
Speaker
You know, palm tree swimming trunks and like surfing on water. We might have him like, you know, maybe surfing down the side of a ship that's disintegrating. And he's like standing on like a piece of, you know, the hole that came loose. But I don't know if that would translate to a figure, but it seems like it'd be a fun scene in the book or comic book. I mean, or excuse me, cartoon eventually. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Hey.
00:20:45
Speaker
It's the thing that was always fun about those like, and I always, my brain always immediately goes back to Kenner whenever this conversation happens. Cause they were like the masters of the, uh, weird, like super toy attic repaint with the source material, you know, the golden black Batman and I still have that Batman. That's a great Batman.
00:21:12
Speaker
I always remember Arctic Batman with the white, like, could you ever Batman in white? Like, come on. But like, you know, those figures were fun. They were fun. They had a much play. And that's the thing is, you know, it's, you know, we're poking fun at it, but we know like how fun that was. So it's like, how do you take that that fun and incorporate it into a way that's
00:21:38
Speaker
that our adult minds can suspend the disbelief. I don't know how much of the comic book you read, but we've got some upcoming variants of pale and atreu and gladiator attire. It makes total sense because it's in the book. I'm very aware of making toys toy-etic.
00:22:02
Speaker
I've heard a lot of people find the pins in certain figures very distracting. It's funny because I find it kind of charming in a way. Some of our characters, the pale bug does have pins in it, but the pins are flush with the arm. It's not quite as noticeable. There's armor and stuff that covers it and whatnot.
00:22:27
Speaker
I think it kind of goes back to my love of the movie Toy Soldiers and how those little characters really look like toys. It's just one of those things where I don't necessarily want something that just looks like a statue. There's that fine balance of aesthetic and functionality. It's all very interesting and fun to try to figure out what my ideal is.
00:22:58
Speaker
So continuing that kind of thought you know that the thing that kind of sets animal wars the kingdom and spirit toys apart you know there there is an ever expanding. It's beyond cottage industry at this point a bit an expanding full on industry of of indie toys out there. What do you what would you say really sets animal wars the kingdom apart from kind of the field.
00:23:24
Speaker
You know, that's a great question. I think because we've got a really great comic book and we've done the world building so that whenever you see stuff like the void and you're like, I've seen the other figures, I don't understand how this works. And I think the, I think the toys having characters and personality that are associated with each figure sets us apart. And I'm very proud of that, that, you know, it's not just a cool looking figure. They're featured in the comic. They have their own.
00:23:54
Speaker
their own mythos and part of the story that we're telling. And whenever we set up the story, I wanted to build the sandbox in a certain way that we could have fun sci-fi stuff and have mythological and magic stuff in the way that Masters does. And I feel like we've achieved that.
00:24:16
Speaker
Now, one of the other things that I love about the line is the ability of customization. The way that parts are swappable, and you recently posted on Instagram this awesome video of building your own animal warriors of the kingdom figure by buying one of the plane figures and then buying the accessory packs and everything. So that customization aspect, I think, is a huge selling point for a lot of people outside of myself.
00:24:45
Speaker
What goes into the design process to make sure that that whole concept works? As far as the engineering goes, it's got its own set of challenges, but I think
00:24:58
Speaker
You know, I've got a particular color palette. So if you happen to collect the line, you'll notice that Atreyu's fur is the same color as Cordoon's fur. And there's an adventure pack with a head that matches both of those figures. So you could potentially army, you know, you could turn those three, you could turn those two figures into potentially three different characters or even six different characters, just mixing and matching.
00:25:25
Speaker
And the same thing with Lexion and the ancient Ash, there's a gray head. So I really tried to just make sure that we had a bunch of heavy hitters that also have the potential for cross play with not only our line, but, you know, Masters and Mythic and an upcoming toy line that's also called Savage Crucible.
00:25:51
Speaker
Yeah, those are some other stuff that's it's it's alluding me at the time right now, but you know, I spent a lot of time thinking and making sure that it would be very customizer friendly the
00:26:07
Speaker
The one exception that I would say, as far as like customizing goes, is for safety issues, we actually designed the pelvis and the abs section to not pop apart. Instead of doing that, we recommend that people pop it off at the hips so you can like take off that skirting. And it's actually super easy. It's just one of those things that you need to know before you try to do it.
00:26:35
Speaker
But yeah, we're really proud of the customization. Over the weekend, I actually had an idea for an upcoming offering that would be the Ancients Definitive Edition, where it might have an ape head on it.
00:26:54
Speaker
but it will include a cat head, a cat hands and feet. So that way someone that wants to do cat characters can do that and then other character, other person can do an ape character and we're gonna put all the bells and whistles on it. We'll do dry brushing. It'll have all kind of really great paint applications. That way, if someone doesn't feel like doing the paint themselves, they can do this character or this offering as opposed to
00:27:21
Speaker
the current ancients offering is really meant as a base that people can paint and color the way they really like. And now a word from our sponsors.
00:27:36
Speaker
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00:27:53
Speaker
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00:28:17
Speaker
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00:28:48
Speaker
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00:29:17
Speaker
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Speaker
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00:30:06
Speaker
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00:30:33
Speaker
Now, speaking of, of color, um, you, you mentioned that you, you know, you have a very specific color palette, but I want to go even deeper than that. I love the color combinations that you're using. So like, personally, my, my favorite of the, of the figures, I love the color way of blight. Um, the blue Mohawk with the purple armor with like the kind of metallic teal hits on the weapons. Like I, that's, that's kind of like, that was my first.
00:31:03
Speaker
a walk figure and, you know, when I got that one, I was like, Oh man, this is, this is like legit. It's going to be fun. Yeah. Uh, what, what kind of goes into that color selection? I know, you know, since it's your, you know, your story and you kind of own the whole thing, you know, what kind of inspires the, this, this color palette that you're, you're working with.
00:31:28
Speaker
So the current iteration or the current phase of what's out so far is my 90s color palette.
00:31:40
Speaker
uh... as we go further into the sci-fi aspect of a walk uh... then we'll start to blend in my seventies color palette and what i mean by that is you know the ninety head the nineties have a lot of neon colors neon wasn't you know neon colors were kind of introduced back then they kind of crept in a little bit in the eighties but i feel like the early nineties was when they really started to
00:32:06
Speaker
to flourish. So there's a lot of really bright saturation and
00:32:12
Speaker
you know, kind of just fun colors that complement each other. And then, you know, for the sci-fi stuff, it's a little bit more muted stuff, subdued colors, a lot of like, you know, egg white, as opposed to like really bright white. You know, instead of yellow, you might have like a yellow gold, a burnt sienna orange, kind of like cloudy blue, stuff like that.
00:32:41
Speaker
So yeah, right now we're in Jason's 90s color palette. And then as we go further into the story, we'll start to kind of get into that 70s, a little bit more muted, subdued color palette.
AWOK and Future Toy Concepts
00:32:57
Speaker
Yeah, you can already see that start to kind of hint its way into the line. I'm just looking at the Wave 4 pre-orders again.
00:33:05
Speaker
Um, and you can see that, that, uh, you know, Pels colors are getting a little more muted, a little darker. Yeah. Yeah. It's a, it's a really cool way to transition from the, the, like the shock 90s brights into, you know, that kind of, uh,
00:33:20
Speaker
with this topic. Yeah, it's great for, you know, storytelling wise, because, you know, a lot of times we're doing, you know, there's set locations as, you know, we have our A story, our B story, and then we've got subplots on top of it. So
00:33:42
Speaker
Um, you know, we need to let the reader know like, hey, it's, it's nighttime on this location. And then it might be Dawn and another location on the, on the beast story and whatnot. So all those colors really play an important role that should be almost subconscious. You know, the reader might not necessarily be paying attention to it, but it's meant to kind of help them, uh, uh, kind of get their bearings when, when they're reading through or experienced in the comics.
00:34:13
Speaker
And the toys are meant to be the comics jumping off the page, essentially. And have there been any challenges in getting those colors to translate the way that you want? Getting the factory to deliver on the expectation?
00:34:28
Speaker
That's a great question. So the first time we did the toys, I had my own Pantone color book, which if people don't know what that is, it's almost like this little book you'll see at Lowe's or at Home Depot in the paint section. They'll have these color swatches. It's very similar to that, but it's just a book. I realized that the factory had a different book than me.
00:34:56
Speaker
uh... so they didn't get the colors quite right on our first try for the the four-inch scale uh... and once i move factories and everything and i got my you know our current project manager we would buy i would buy two of the same color book and i would mail them one and i would keep one for myself and we would do uh...
00:35:19
Speaker
paint masks just so I would paint, you know, three of each figure and I would keep two and send them one. So that way we could really kind of dial in those colors and make sure they translated well. And I have to say they just really nailed it as across the board as far as like what I sent them. Yeah, that's, that's awesome. And, and, and yeah, Pantone colors come up quite frequently on, on this podcast. Okay. Great. Yeah. Yep. We're familiar with the color Bible, the color Bible.
00:35:48
Speaker
Perfect Yeah, so I you know we've we've talked kind of at length about the the cast of characters here and and the types of animals that we have and you know, we have primates and cats and Mongrels and bunnies and rabbits bunnies And and and you know, we have all these different animals kind of entering the the world here when it comes to
00:36:16
Speaker
introducing a new animal type into the mix, how do you go about selecting what animal's coming in and more on that, can we expect more animals in the future? So I'll answer the second question first. We're definitely going to be experiencing and seeing more animals in the second story arc. As far as the animals that are introduced,
00:36:46
Speaker
Yutoma and I kind of made an unofficial map because, you know, Pale's basically making a journey. It's not a linear line, but they're kind of moving around as they're being pursued. So they start off at House J'nar, which is a breakaway section of the main ape house, which is the Horde.
00:37:13
Speaker
and they basically seek refuge in the neighboring kingdom, which is the pharaohless, which is the cats, and there's several great houses in the animal kingdom where the story takes place, but then they also have lesser houses and then even smaller kind of
00:37:36
Speaker
surf tums. So as the story progresses, we know they're in the feralist house and they're kind of being pushed. And they actually get kind of pushed out into the feralist surf section, which happens to be the rabbits. The cats protect them in exchange for crops and whatnot. And they'll get pushed further and further. So we have an idea geographically what the land looks like.
00:38:03
Speaker
You know where they gonna move next they're gonna be there kinda on the run and everything and so maybe they're gonna see you know. Maybe they're gonna get to you know pack of terms or something like that but i'm trying not to spoil stuff. Yeah we do have stuff planned out we know.
00:38:19
Speaker
We know exactly where the houses are and what their territories are, so it just depends on where the team is going to be pushed in the story. In the second story arc, there's going to be a lot more traveling. In the first story arc, they're almost in this
00:38:41
Speaker
You know, it takes place in a very localized region of the world that they're in. It's almost kind of like, you know, they might, the whole story might take place in like the New England area. No, it's not a huge geographical place, but it's also not like this tiny island. In the next story arc, they're gonna be dealing with trade routes and stuff and pirates and whatnot. So they'll be traveling a lot more in the second one, in the second story arc, I should say.
00:39:11
Speaker
awesome and and you know so far we've seen you know all mammals is is that kind of the the course at this point or you know could we know not at all outside of mammals no so how many have you read the stories yet or no I admittedly I've only read the first issue okay so
00:39:36
Speaker
They won't start seeing other non-mammal characters until the fifth issue, which is kind of late in the story arc, but we are going to see birds and other kind of characters. Actually, I take it back. They do have a couple of cameos of non-mammal characters, but nothing major. In the fifth issue, we'll start to really see there'll be birds and then going forward into the next story arc.
00:40:06
Speaker
they'll visit a fishing village and reptiles and whatnot. So it's definitely going to continue to grow as far as different animal types goes.
00:40:18
Speaker
Yeah, and speaking of the kind of toyetic nature of all of this, that's like all those different types of animals present all different types of fun engineering hoops that you have to jump through, I'm sure. Right, right. Yeah, I was really kind of thinking today about the reptiles and stuff and how they have really shiny skin.
00:40:41
Speaker
And some of them are iridescent, the same with fish and whatnot. So, you know, I had a little bit of time on my hands this afternoon. I just kind of mulling around what, you know, how those paint applications would work. So before, before we wrap on, on just the, the animal warriors of the kingdom, the one thing you, you had kind of hinted at, um, you know, talking about source material was, uh, was, you know, an eventual, you know, uh, animated experience.
00:41:10
Speaker
You know outside of the comic is is that something that has you know any sort of ETA on it? When when will people hear more about? You know about that So whenever I decided to do the comic book I was sitting on the couch and just kind of thinking what is the dream scenario and at the time I thought you know I can make a comic I just have to sit there and draw it out and then the toys was the next logical step and then kind of the
00:41:39
Speaker
The trifecta would be getting a syndicated cartoon that would form that circular advertising or brand awareness loop from the 80s that proved to be so popular and well-received. As far as a cartoon goes, I really believe on leveraging baby steps. And like I said, the comic was the first phase, and the toys was the third phase.
00:42:06
Speaker
And so I'm hoping that we can leverage the success of the toys and the comics to get a showrunner interested in pitching it because that's who's really going to pitch it to streaming networks or whenever it might be aired on.
00:42:25
Speaker
Well, I definitely look forward to hearing more about that developing, because these characters are super cool. And personally, I can't wait to read more of the comic. It was something that was sitting in my to read pile for quite some time. And in order to get ready for the episode, I ripped the Band-Aid off, and I was like, man, I only downloaded issue one. So now I got to go get the other ones. Oh, cool. Thank you.
00:42:55
Speaker
So from the animal warriors of the kingdom and this plethora of wildlife to feudal Japan, tell us about the new IP that you announced. What a transition. What's that? So what a transition.
00:43:15
Speaker
I know that that's a segue, right? So one of our sculptors, Dan, had been wanting to do something for himself. And I said, listen, just do what you want. We'll produce it and make sure that you can do exactly what you want. And he settled on feudal Japan paired with samurai paired with oni. And I was like, that's fantastic.
00:43:42
Speaker
And when we debuted them, we just happened to watch Blue Eyed Samurai on Netflix, which I highly recommend. Do not watch it with the kids. It's very adult-oriented. Yeah, I've heard. Yeah, it just made us so excited for the line. We're like, oh, man, that's right up our alley. We also watched Onimushu before that, which I think is really good, too. But I recommend watching Onimushu first.
00:44:07
Speaker
just because Blue-Eyed Samurai is so amazing. Not taking anything away from the other one, but they're both really cool. And I feel like we're kind of introducing it right at an opportune time where it seems like Samurai stuff's really becoming popular again. I saw that there's an Assassin's Creed game that made an announcement.
00:44:32
Speaker
I want to say I kind of watched The Last Samurai maybe once a year just because it's such a great film. It's an awesome movie. And so we're super excited about it. You know, our guys do a lot of G.I. Joe classified Marvel Legends and everything. So the the figure is essentially a G.I. Joe classified articulation. But we're going to have, you know, we're going to put all the bells and whistles as far as like paint deco and
00:45:01
Speaker
accessories and whatnot go so we'll be putting out really special figures with that and it's it's fun to finally be doing a human line as opposed to just you know what i felt like people might have thought we were kind of one trick pony and so it's exciting to introduce our first ip of 2024
00:45:22
Speaker
And we're working on some other really exciting stuff too that we can't talk about just yet. But I think we're really going to blow people's socks off when they see what it is. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. And I mean, I.
00:45:35
Speaker
Talk about striking while the iron iron is hot, you know, coming off of the popularity. I think, you know, ghost of Tsushima did, or did, or did really well for kind of the idea of, of samurai and in pop culture, you know, really kind of brought it back to attention. That game was beautiful, Kurosawa-esque, you know, experience. And then like you said, you know, things like, like blue eyed samurai, which are, you know, I haven't had a chance to watch that yet.
00:46:03
Speaker
But I've heard nothing but but excellent things about it, and you know I'm excited because really there hasn't been with the exception of I think I think figma had a did a Ghost of Tsushima figure you know in the 112 scale, but there really hasn't been
00:46:24
Speaker
accessible samurai figures on the market in a very long time. And usually they're so encumbered in their articulation because of the, you know, their, their outfit because of what they're wearing. So I'm really, really excited.
00:46:38
Speaker
To be able to get one that moves, you know, that's yeah I mean, that's one of the things is I will say that that is one of the things that's different as far as like the GI Joe classified So if you look at the classified, they've got that ab crunch and then they have the bowl on the samurai figures that You know the ones that are wearing the armor and
00:47:01
Speaker
They do have the bowl, but they don't have the ab crunch. So there is gonna be a limit as far as like that goes. But the bare chested one, I don't know if you saw both of them. That one's gonna have a mid torso. It's not the same style, but it's gonna allow for a good range of motion. And that's one of the things about Spiro. We wanna make sure that we're creating toy-etic toys
00:47:29
Speaker
We don't want you to just kind of like play with it for a little while and put it on the shelf. All the stuff that we're putting out is meant to be enjoyed, played with. If your kid wants to kind of check it out and stuff, you're not going to kind of like be secretly cringing that they're going to break it, you know. So as we start to release products, you'll see that
00:47:49
Speaker
The unifying factor is that they aren't super high end, but they're what the big toy companies should be doing as far as like paint apps and including accessories paired with their great sculpting that the big companies are doing.
00:48:08
Speaker
and their durability. So hopefully that makes sense. It's going to be something that's collectible, but something you're not scared to like take and play with. And, and if the kids bash them up a little bit and won't do any kind of damage to them. That's awesome. Yeah. Very much so looking forward to it. Any news on when we're going to hear about pre-orders or anything on that Bushido line?
00:48:30
Speaker
Um, it will be towards the, uh, let's see, it'll be the fall of 2024. What we're going to start doing is releasing images. Um, so the idea is to do them in small waves of two figures. So in other words, the first wave will be a fully decked out samurai and then an oni character. And then we'll keep repeating that. So, um,
00:48:56
Speaker
You'll have a samurai type character and only in each wave until you know, that's what we're going to reveal until we do pre-orders in the fall. Okay, awesome. Now before we head into our our follower Q&A, just one other question for you. The dreaded Q&A!
00:49:17
Speaker
I think you're going to survive. We haven't had anybody faint, pass out, leave, rage quit. We haven't had that yet, so fingers crossed. That is a name shame. Oh, well.
Evolution of the Collector Space
00:49:29
Speaker
You're coming up now on a decade of Spiro, this coming June, actually. That is wild. It's crazy, right? Research. What has changed about the collector space in your perspective in the last 10 years?
00:49:47
Speaker
Well, I will say I think the biggest and most obvious change is the favorability of the four inch scale, taking second seat to the six inch scale.
00:50:02
Speaker
I kind of saw the writing on the wall when Star Wars released the Black Series and then Hasbro picked up the Marvel Legends figures from Toy Biz. I thought, those are cool, but I've got such a big collection of four-inch scale and it slowly won me over. I still love the four-inch scale, but I think that's the biggest difference.
00:50:27
Speaker
The cost of the figures I think have increased quite a bit, but that's kind of the cost of living across the board.
00:50:39
Speaker
But to kind of get back into the positive, I find that the form and function have really found a nice balance. I feel like the last five years, the Scopes have really kind of found their sweet spot where they still look like toys and they can move really great.
00:51:02
Speaker
but they don't have kind of that garish, obvious articulation that Toy Biz Air, which is great for the time, but it's obvious that there's a big difference as far as that goes. I also found that that kind of printed eyes, whenever that started, I want to say it was about four years ago, it didn't look that great. I feel like they've kind of
00:51:31
Speaker
They've dialed it in, but they've also learned not to use it where it's not necessary, if that makes sense. You know, I've noticed some figures, they don't use it on. And so I've kind of appreciated that they're not just kind of putting it on everything. There's certain characters don't really need it. You know, it makes sense for a movie character, but not necessarily a comic book character. So it's nice that we're finding that balance as far as that goes.
00:51:58
Speaker
Um and then one of the other differences that I noticed was uh, you know the packaging From 10 years ago marvel legends hasn't really changed much but uh, I do feel like
00:52:12
Speaker
the boxed characters in the six inch scale has really kind of become the standard. I feel like Super 7 just puts out the best looking presentation as far as packaging goes. We're starting to get out of the woods with the blind boxes that didn't have the preview window, the plastic window that
00:52:36
Speaker
Yeah, people that are going to open want to kind of QC their figures and make sure their eyes and stuff look good. It seems like they're kind of course correcting on that and going back to the windowed figures, which, you know, I kind of joked it was they're almost like Schrodinger's figure. It's like, do I even have the right figure in this box, you know? Yeah.
00:52:57
Speaker
It's a rough period for mint collectors, very rough period. I had a bad day a couple of months ago and I got my scrap iron from Amazon and I opened it and it was just part swaps. I was like, what? What is going on here? They were great. They sent me a replacement in two days, but I was just like, this would not happen if there was a window.
00:53:18
Speaker
So yeah, those are some of the real changes and ebb and flows that I had noticed in the last 10 years. And I didn't get my partner until 2019. So it's been a couple of years having a partner, which is great because we can bounce financials and stuff.
00:53:46
Speaker
go over that kind of stuff and it's not just all the weights not just on my shoulders which is really really nice yeah that's that's awesome yeah it's got to be it's got to be tough uh i i mean frankly i can't imagine you guys doing it just two people but uh you know one person that's that's all that's a lot uh a lot of weight
00:54:06
Speaker
Right, right. Well, he's a CPA and he's got his own accounting firm, so he's a little bit more experienced with that kind of the financial aspect than I am. I'm the creative side and we do have our employees.
00:54:25
Speaker
three great fulfillment employees and then we've got our customer service and our sculptors are freelance. But we love them all and we're a lot smaller than people realize, which is cool. I feel like people think we're way bigger than we are and we want to get there, but we're not quite there yet.
00:54:49
Speaker
So this leads us to our Q&A. And for those listening that are maybe listening for the first time, anytime we have a guest on, we post on Instagram at AIC underscore podcast. If you keep an eye out there, when we have a guest on, we will put a post up, a story up, and we'll collect questions and kind of call through them and pick some of the really good ones for this Q&A section here.
00:55:18
Speaker
If you are interested in participating in a future episode of Adventures in Collecting, definitely give us a follow at AIC underscore podcast, so that way you can submit your questions. Now, for this Q&A, we actually already answered
00:55:35
Speaker
the question that was kind of thrown out by a bunch of people kind of similarly. So I melded them into one question. We already took care of that one, but we have two questions from two specific askers. So Jason, you ready to do a little Q and A? I am ready. All right. So our first question comes from at brad loves pet smart on Instagram. And he asks,
00:56:02
Speaker
Is it possible to get a reprint of the first issue of the comic?
00:56:15
Speaker
The series is going to be in comic shops everywhere, so if you go to your favorite comic shop in January and request them to order copies of Animal Wars of the Kingdom, you'll be able to get that first issue again. We'll be offering all the previous issues once a month at your favorite comic shop.
00:56:36
Speaker
Each issue will also be offered the standard edition which everyone from the Kickstarter that backed is received as well as collectors covers By a bunch of really great artists So whenever you order your comics, make sure you you order the standard edition as well as collectors cover Craig Dave my friends at zap comics. I know you're gonna be listening to this. I'm going to be bothering you in January. I
00:57:04
Speaker
So yeah, we got to make sure Zap gets those. Yeah, they'll be in the Diamonds previews catalog. Amazing. Yeah, so you heard Jason go to your local comic shop this January, just in a few weeks from now. If you're listening to this one, it's brand new. And make sure you get on them to order Animal Warriors of the Kingdom. Next question, and last question, comes from at acorn30.
00:57:34
Speaker
Will there be alternate feet packs in different colors down the line? Now you kind of sort of answered this already, but maybe we can be a little more specific.
00:57:45
Speaker
So the idea behind that is we kind of want to do those, you know, we mentioned it before, but we kind of want to do the definitive ancients offerings. So it won't be a character in the book, but it'll be, you know, it'll be a mammal that will have, you know, like I said, it'll have like a canine head, an ape head, a cat head, and it'll have the corresponding feet and hands in the pack, you know, included in the packaging.
00:58:15
Speaker
So that way you don't have to add, it won't be like a necessarily add-on type thing. That's great. And I mean, for those who are interested in army building too, that's a huge plus. Right, it's kind of the idea where it's essentially catering towards army builders slash customizers. Very cool. And I know that was a brief Q&A session, but you survived it.
00:58:42
Speaker
We were thorough, right? We answered everything throughout the course of the interview. So kind of knocked it out. So now I'm going to do my best here. This is usually Dave's shining moment on the show where he asks the final question that we ask all of our guests. He does it in a very, very believable impersonation of Inside the Actor Studios James Lipton. I am not going to attempt to do that.
00:59:12
Speaker
impersonation, I'm just, I'm not going to do it justice and I don't want to step on his toes while he's on vacation. But the final question that we ask all of our guests, what is the strangest and or favorite piece in your collection? It can be one of each or it can be both.
00:59:32
Speaker
So I think the strangest thing, figure in my collection is the, I want to say his name is Piggy from the Power Rangers Lightning Collection. It is such a weird, bizarre character. It's one of the figures that stayed in my kitchen since I opened it on Christmas.
00:59:54
Speaker
I get new figures and they kind of hang out in the kitchen for a couple of weeks and then they make their way back up into my collecting area and on the shelves. This one has stood the test of time. He just kind of hangs out and mocks me as I eat breakfast. So that would definitely be the weirdest one.
01:00:13
Speaker
I love that Pudgy Pig is judging you with his gladiator helmet. He's judging you while you eat breakfast. Just an amazing figure. The engineering is fantastic. It's such a weird, goofy, wonderful thing. I just love it. Do you ever eat bacon and stare at him directly while you're eating it? No, but I should, you know? I think that's a good call. Like just kind of like reestablished dominance, you know?
01:00:40
Speaker
I am the alpha. Right, right. And you know, this is going to be a little bit of the guy in the band wearing the band shirt moment. But my favorite figure in my collection would definitely be pale in his adventure armor, just because of just the journey that went through and the sacrifice and work that went into making this figure line.
01:01:08
Speaker
You know i mentioned before pales kind of my avatar for the for the ip. We were you know we've been just so busy since the line arrived in the summer and about a week and a half about a month ago i'd say we had i had just a little down time a little girl had gone to sleep and everything and.
01:01:31
Speaker
I was kind of cleaning off her nightstand and there was a pale figure and I picked it up and I kind of looked at it and I thought to myself, holy shit, we did that, that's crazy, you know? And it's funny, at the beginning of the interview you were talking about, you know, I'm not gonna say we and whatnot, but my inner monologue is always we and us. So I kind of laughed to myself because I'll give myself pep talks and I'm like, okay, we're gonna have a good day, right? We're gonna get all this stuff on our checklist done, right?
01:02:00
Speaker
And I'm like, yeah, we're doing good today. So I just kind of thought that was amusing. But yeah, I'd say favorite figure is definitely pale. I don't think it's a case of wearing the band shirt to the concert. You did something incredible here. You created a character from nothing, right? From absolutely nothing. You put them on the pages of a comic book.
01:02:29
Speaker
you cast them into plastic he's in countless homes you know he's on and and honestly from from dad dad and he's on your daughter's nightstand i mean that's just like that that literally is.
01:02:47
Speaker
I'm honestly getting a little emotional just kind of thinking about it for you. It is a really, really cool thing and you should be super, super proud that that is your favorite figure in your collection. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
Where to Find Spiro Toys and Comics
01:03:05
Speaker
So before I let you go, uh, please remind our listeners, uh, everyone out there, where can they learn more about spirit of toys? Where can they, uh, follow you online and most importantly, where can they pick up the comics and the, uh, the figures themselves?
01:03:21
Speaker
So if you want to get the figures now, you can get them on amazon.com. You can go to Big Bad Toy Store, or you can buy directly from us, which we would appreciate at spirrotoys.com. If you want to...
01:03:36
Speaker
Enjoy the comic books. We do have them in digital forms on our website in the comics section. But if you would like a physical copy, you can start getting those on March 6. Make sure you ask your comic shop to carry the animal ways of the kingdom series. And I think that's about it. Did I did I answer everything? And what's your really great mom and pop shops across the country? And of course, I'm having a brain fart right now.
01:04:04
Speaker
Well, if you have a local toy store near you and you want them to carry Animal Warriors of the Kingdom, have them reach out. Have them reach out to Jason, have them reach out at Spiro Toys, right? Yeah, absolutely. We would love that. We offer, you know, wholesale packages for mom and pop shops as well as, you know, big stores. I forgot to mention Entertainment Earth.
01:04:28
Speaker
has them as well. So, you know, basically whoever you like to order your toys through, they should be on there. And if they're not, let us know so we can get them to carry it. Awesome. Well, Jason, with that, we're gonna close up shop here and we can't wait to see what comes next from from Spiro Toys. Thank you so much for for hanging out with me tonight.
01:04:51
Speaker
Oh, thanks for having me, and I really enjoyed it, and looking forward to listening to how funny my voice sounds on this podcast. 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.
01:05:19
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.
01:05:42
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.