Mondo Collectibles has never been as big as it is now, and it only hopes to keep giving everything the fans want and more.
Many will likely remember the name Mondo in association with their gorgeous and artistic licensed poster designs. Now, the collectible company has grown to offer so much more, including Vinyl records, 1:6 scale figures, statues, tiki mugs, and soft vinyl figures.
Mondo Executives Talk Hopeful Collaborations and What Makes Their Work Special
In an exclusive interview with The Direct's Russ Milheim on the show floor of NYCC, Peter Santa-Maria, senior Creative Director at Mondo, and Hector Arce, director of creative and product development, discussed the collectibles company and what they'd want to do next.
Maria revealed that personally, he'd love to start doing "prop replicas," naming off "Mega Man's Hand Canon" and the "Power Sword" from Masters of the Universe as key examples:
"I think, personally, it'd be fun to start doing a little bit of prop replicas. Mondo's take on something like Mega Man's Hand Cannon, or the Power Sword, which is something we haven't explored... We do a lot already, right? Like, we're between posters and records, Tiki mugs, soft vinyl toys, 1:6. We're now getting into the 1:12 scale with 'Ghostbusters' and 'Masters of the Universe.' So, prop replicas would be great. Prop replicas would be cool. Helmets, yeah, stuff like that would be fun."
He also pointed to Mortal Kombat as a potential IP that Mondo would be thrilled to be able to do one day if the stars ever did align:
"I think we have a bunch of those, but one of them that I know both of us are excited to be able to do one day is Mortal Kombat. We'd love to revisit the looks of the old games and figure out how to bring those to life in different form factors. We're just die-hard fans, so we would go deep into that if we could, right?"
One of their biggest collaborations right now is with the X-Men: The Animated Series, which, funnily enough, was completely unintentional.
What started as a fun joke for a quick meme figure at a convention turned heads and brought enough interest for an expanded line that they have "plans for the next few years already:"
"'The X-Men Animated' series, Mondo, started on it some years back as a really complex goof with a meme like, wouldn't it be so funny to make a figure of Wolverine in the bed... It was never planned to be a big line, a big series of figures. It did super well. And so obviously, everyone's like, we probably should explore this further, and that's how the line was born. Of course, with the popularity of the 'X-Men '97' it shot up in popularity again, and the figures have just been doing so well for us. And we're already deep into the line, and we got plans for the next few years already."
Arce added how they're even doing a new rehash of that same Wolverine but with their in-house sculptor, Alex Brewer:
"What we announced at Comic-Con, a rehash of Wolverine, is next... Like he said, the first was meant to be a Comic-Con exclusive type of item, right? Like a one-off. So the people are like, ['How dare you?']. And then so Alex Brewer, our in-house sculptor, who's actually been sculpting the entire line after that came out, everyone's like, well, we want his Wolverine now. We're gonna do it. So Wolverine is next, and then next year, we've got plans for a couple more villains, a couple more core team members, and stuff like that."
As for what makes Mondo standout from other collectibles companies, Maria noted how they are "a very small team" that has "a ton of autonomy:"
"We're a very small team with a ton of autonomy. Funko encourages us to just try weird stuff, do whatever we want, and take the risks that we think we should take. We're very conscious of fan feedback. We have made decisions and then changed certain decisions based on fan feedback."
Arce added how they are a "very fan-forward, artists-forward company:"
"We're a very fan-forward, artists-forward company. Everything we do is like a piece of art that we just cherish. Yeah, right. And I'm sure that's similar for many other companies, but we truly do put the art forward, the artist forward for every department that you see, like all those posters, is two guys, yeah, and a project manager, right for the records, is two people. For the toys, it's like four or six."
He went on to explain just how small his original team was, keeping the spotlight on just how small Mondo actually is:
"When I first started, the toys team was one person. And then it was two, and then three. We've been growing. So, yeah. We're still a small team putting out a ton of stuff, which I think many people may think Mondo is this giant team of people."
Peter Santa-Maria reiterated how Mondo works to offer unique products across the board, especially for those properties that already have countless collectibles to their names:
"Mondo has always been a company that has been free to explore stylizations, reinvent things that we've loved for a long time, and have different artist partnerships. So no matter whether it's posters or records or figures and collectibles, it all has that same thing at its root, which is, we know a lot of stuff exists for, let's say, the new 'Ninja Turtles,' or a lot of stuff exists for 'Masters of the Universe.' But what can we bring to the table? It's different. It's unique, and only we would be able to produce it. So I'm always excited to take the stuff that we worked so hard on all year, put it in person, and get people's reactions. That's number one."
Maria described the work coming out of Mondo as "very much signature to the people working on it:"
"[With] Mondo, unlike a lot of other companies, the product that comes out is very much signature to the people working on it. So, everything from the licenses we choose. We do not work on anything we don't care about. If someone came up to us with an awesome IP that is super famous and has millions and millions of dollars in movie ticket sales, but none of us are fans, We're not gonna touch it. Conversely, if there's an opportunity to work on something that might be very niche but we love, we're going to try and give it the push that we think it deserves to do something different in that spot.
Fans can check out everything Mondo has to offer here.
