As it does every year, San Diego Comic-Con has come out of the gate swinging. Marvel came to play withDeadpool and Wolverine, as well as new teases forThe Fantastic Four. Monty Pythonis coming toMagic: The Gathering, Hasbro revealed a ton of new figures,Marvel Rivalsshowed a first look at Thor and Jeff the Landshark, and some fans think there wereteases ofSoul Reaverremasters. It’s been as busy as ever, but of course, standing alongside the other giants there wasFunko- a staple of SDCC, of fandom, and of expressing that fandom.
Funko, Mondo, and Loungefly all have strong presences on the show floor, with Game Rant sitting down with Funko CEO Cynthia Williams to discuss all of these products and more. This includes the future of the Pop! Yourself program (featured at SDCC with Deadpool and Wolverine), her stance on fandoms and Funko as a brand, and much, much more.The following transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Funko at San Diego Comic-Con
Q: We’re here at Comic-Con. What are you excited about? What’s bringing you here?
A:Well, I’m so excited to be atSan Diego Comic-Con. There is nothing better, in my opinion, than just getting immersed with your fans in this sort of fan experience. I am excited to see their reaction to all of the products, and I got to sign a few Pops for a few people who were super. It just took my breath away. Yeah, I am super excited for everybody to get to see more about Funko Fusion. The panel that’s coming up this week should be a really great, deeper introduction to people to the game. I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to see Mondo yet.
I guess you probably know Mondo is our high-end collectibles product. This one is Scareglow, the cherry blossom variant. Apparently, our cherry blossom variants always sell out, but I’m very excited that the creatives on our team actually created Scare-Mare and worked with Mattel to get it into the canon ofMasters of the Universe. That’s a pretty exciting moment for us; who gets a new character accepted into canon? Dark Horse is doing a comic for it, so I’m really looking forward to that. Most of all, I’m looking forward to Fundays, my first-ever Fundays. I’ve seen videos, but there’s nothing like seeing that in person.
Q: Funko has been here for many years, and its footprint has grown a lot in that time. What do you think marks Funko’s 2024 vision for its booths and experiences?
A: We’ve been coming for more than 20 years, and yeah, as you said, the booth has grown quite a bit. We have a team, including Mike Becker, who get together and decide this is the theme we want to go with and the experience we want to create for our fans. I love this sort of travel theme. It’s a wonderful way to bring everyone together. What a cool play on words for Loungefly to have the baggage claim area, but it’s just that immersive fan experience that Funko is known for. I love seeing it come together again this year.
Deadpool and Wolverine Pop! Yourself
Q: That makes me think about Pop! Yourself, and you know, and it’s one of the first huge licensing things. There’s a huge license of movies about to come out, too. Can you talk about that partnership and what it was like bringing that here and having people be able to experience it for themselves?
A:Marvel has been great partners with us on Deadpool. We’re very excited about that.[She grabs two Pop! Yourself Funkos]
This is a version of me in bothDeadpool as well as Wolverine. We’ve also done this limited edition of Freddy Funko. The number of people who have signed up for this is huge. It will absolutely sell out. What I love about this is that this is really the first real cosplay time where you can Pop yourself as your summer blockbuster hero. I think it’s going to be really cool to see who chooses Wolverine and who chooses Deadpool. Marvel has been terrific partners about it as we go forward and say, “Look, we want to give people an even deeper expression.” They even came to us and asked us to create an animated short for them that I hope everybody gets a chance to see because it’s just a ton of fun as well. We’re excited to expand the Pop! Yourself technology to give people an opportunity to have an experience here in person and online.
Q: Do you envision this as being a kind of first step where eventually every brand that has been a Funko you could essentially Pop yourself, or do you think it will be more restrictive?
A: Let me start by saying part of what I think is amazing aboutPop! Yourselfis that we believe that everyone is a fan of something, and I believe that a lot of people, including myself, are fans of their families and the people they love. I think what’s special about Pop! Yourself is that there are so many ways to express your fandom with your family. I totally see it becoming the way that you commemorate all the moments of your life, and I love that we can have partners who are also interested in letting people cosplay as these characters can create these immersive moments as well. Do I think it’ll be the last one? No, I certainly don’t, but you know, some of our partners will be super excited to do it and others may choose not to. And that’s okay.
Funko’s Heart and Soul is Its Fandom
Q: Springboarding off that, Funko is a brand. Mondo and Loungefly are brands themselves known for their licensing. Can you talk about the balance between providing for fans of the brand, but also fans of Funko who specifically come here because they love Freddy, because they love the Funko Fundays experience? It’s become its own thing.
A:It has! I think that’s one of the things that makes Funko unique. We were talking about that today, that we are a brand that other people are also interested in partnering with because we have fans for Pops, for Funko itself, and the way we think about it is we want to serve our fans. We try to be fan-first in how you want to express your fandom.
I love that our creative team will always find ways to celebrate Freddy Funko, and you know, this year we brought out Franny and Proto. These were new this year, so we’ll let our creatives up with new IPs that we own. At the same time, we’re delighted to work with partners that help people express their fandom by displaying aPop of Marvel, Deadpool, or Spider-Man. I think that’s what makes the Funkoverse so special and makes something like Funko Fusion possible.
Q: Has being here, seeing the booths, seeing everything here springboarded any ideas of what you want to do next or anything like that?
A: My brain’s fizzing. I have to say, right now, what the booth has inspired for me is thinking about how we continue to have immersive fan experiences at Comic-Cons, potentially at other events or other locations. Our fans are our heartbeat. They’re our heart and soul. My experience with fandoms started when I was at Xbox. The first year that I was atE3 was actually the year Keanu Reeves came out on stage. Do you remember the joy and excitement on people’s faces? To me, creating those moments can happen at a con. They can happen in our retail stores or with Pop! yourself. I’ll tell you what I’m thinking about is how do we expand this fan experience?
Q: I think there are good parallels between the kind of Xbox experience of having fans in the front and Funko Fundays and things like that. Did that prior experience inform anything you’ve done here?
A:It definitely informed my desire to take this job. I’ll say that. You know, my team and I are starting to talk about how do we evolve all of this? But the thing that I loved about the Xbox showcase at E3 was that we also included our partners more. Part of what I’m imagining we could do along the way is to work with partners on events that maybe are their event, maybe that share an event. I think that’s where my head is right now, but we’re two months in. Yeah, there’s going to be a lot of time to come up with fantastic fan experiences.
Q: To wrap up, what are you most excited to see here in terms of your own experience? Maybe it’s Funko-related, maybe it’s not. Then, what are you most excited for fans of Funko, Mondo, and Loungefly to experience?
Williams grabs a lot of this merchandise to show.
A:I am most excited just to go to my very first Funday. It’ll be the first one I’ve been to. From my time at E3 and going to MagicCons, there’s nothing like being in that fan experience. It’s just so iconic for us, and I can’t wait to see that. For the fans, I’m excited for them to see the incredible products that have been created with so much love for them. I am so excited to see the fans of Stranger Things reacting to the season 5 trailer. I love that I learned about Proto Zoa this week; it’s not something I was familiar with.
Now, I am a particular fan of both Mondo andLoungeflyas well. This is Cinnamoroll. I think these are so cool because there are so many different expressions. Beetlejuice, this one is just so incredible to me. I like that the profile of it is different from any backpacks we’re doing. I happen to carry the purses and the totes more than the mini backpack, so that’s personal.
With Mondo, oh my gosh I love the work we do with other artists here to date. This year, we’ve worked with almost 100 artists externally. We’ve worked with almost 100 artists externally this year, and there’s this year. This year we’ve worked with 100 artists now. This isKing Ghidorahfrom Jesse Hernandez. He does urban arts and does a lot of work in San Francisco. This is, of course, unfinished work in progress. I don’t know if you’ve seen the Godzillas he’s done with us. They are some of my favorites, and we obviously talked about Scareglow and Scare-Mare.
[END]
Funko Fusion
WHERE TO PLAY
Funko Fusion is a third-person action game that’s all about celebrating fandom. Play with some of your favorite characters from across TV, movies, games, and comics, and explore handcrafted worlds inspired by Jurassic World, Back to the Future, JAWS, The Thing, Chucky, Battlestar Galactica, Hot Fuzz, The Umbrella Academy, Five Nights at Freddy’s, Masters of the Universe, Invincible, and many more!Select, unlock, and play with 60+ unique playable characters from more than 20 fan-favorite franchises, all lovingly recreated in Funko Pop! form.Each character has their own weapons and special moves, and some characters have unique skills for solving puzzles and finding secrets.Explore your favorite franchises in video game form, relive memorable moments, and play through a unique story that ties them all together!Shoot, blast, and whack enemies in ranged and melee combat. Craft gadgets and items to give yourself an advantage or to unlock hidden areas.
