Funko is one of the fastest growing creators of pop-culture collectibles in the country and this year at New York Toy Fair, they showed off some of the awesome things they have in store for us. I got to speak with the very cool Yoko McCann, the marketing manager for the company, about some of the things that collectors want to know.

Mike – There was an announcement about the upcoming Disney subscription box,  is there any information you can give me about the release?

Yoko – All I can tell you is that news is coming very, very, very soon.  It’s really hard for me to not talk about it right now.  The Disney box is going to be very cool and that’s all I can say.

note: As it turns out, the reason why she couldn’t tell me about the Disney box is that it was revealed on 2/20 that it will be called Disney Treasures. The included POP! figure will be Mr. Smee from Peter Pan. 

Mike –  I love that you are doing the Specialty Series and I am proud to support my local Comic Book Shop.  Has this venture been a success?  Has there been a big or positive response?

Yoko – As far as I know, yes.  I think the feedback we have gotten from the smaller shops is they love it because they get something special that the big stores won’t get.  The last one like the Trapjaw from Masters of the Universe…I think it is so cool that we got to do that.  

Mike – …between that and Max Rebus from Star Wars..

Yoko –  Exactly, I love those sort of niche characters 

Mike – How do you decide what to choose for the specialty series?

Yoko – Honestly, I don’t know but let me put it this way: The Minions are a great example because there are so many different characters that we can choose from so we can pick what we want for the main line, then we can go to (and I’m speculating here for the most part) our major retail partners and ask if they want these as an exclusive.  With what’s left, we can use them for a convention exclusive or a Funko Shop or a Specialty Series. But I think something like TrapJaw was just an opportunity to do another character in that type of setting but a lot of it is we get feedback from the retailers on what they want and try to choose that way.  

Mike –  I see that there is now an official podcast by Funko?

Yoko – Yeah, our 8th episode just got posted a few days ago.  

Mike – What was the spark to start this?  

Yoko – We hired Sully from NerdFu in November and he has a background in podcasting so we said let’s do it.  It’s the four of us hanging out and talking Funko…we go over the new releases and try to give some kind of leak or teaser every episode to have a conversation topic and share our feelings on them.  

Mike – As it goes on, are you guys going to have guests on the show?

Yoko – We had our licensing manager on a few weeks ago and we plan to have Reis O’Brien, one of our designers, on too so probably not every week but once in a while we will try to bring some on else in.

Mike – With the variety of items in the subscription boxes and the recent survey you guys asked fans to fill out, have you found that this survey is going to help streamline what the fans want?

Yoko – I didn’t work directly on that but I think a lot of it wasn’t anything that really surprised us.  It gave us confidence that we are making some of the right decisions.  I do want people to know that we take that feedback and apply it when we can but that doesn’t happen over night and I think people forget that sometimes. Especially subscription boxes. They are planned out at least 4-6 months in advanced.  At times, the licensor has a requirement to determine things 6-12 months in advance so sometimes we can’t make those changes later and we make adjustments when we can.  We love getting feedback.  Like in the last Marvel Box, we had a t-shirt with Green Goblin and Spider-man on it.  We actually had another pairing on the shirt first but then we did a poll and they won so we changed the shirt design to reflect what the fans voted for.  We like to do those things when we can so we definitely want fans to know we take that to heart.

Mike –  There are 3 current subscription boxes, is there a reason why the Star Wars boxes always have what the POP! will be when the other 2 are left to be a mystery until the release?

Yoko – It’s something that we decided to do with the box as a different way of getting people’s attention.  

Mike – I think the Han and Tauntaun Deluxe release is awesome.  The figure has a nice design to it.

Yoko – The POP! Deluxe is awesome and I think we have some more coming, not necessarily in the boxes but more pop deluxe figures coming out soon.

I want to thank Yoko and Funko for speaking with me about their products but especially the Specialty Series. This is a venture that is close to me with some personal friends owning a comic book shop that carries these and other collectibles.

Photos by Michael Madison