Collectors, we’ve got bad news for your display cases – there’s a new collectibles company in town, Thrilljoy. Making their debut at New York Comic-Con (NYCC) earlier this month, the endeavor is the brainchild of Brian Mariotti, Eric Peng Cheng, and Dolly Ahluwalia.
They’re launching with three flagship product lines, featuring a bevy of exciting licenses from some of your favorite franchises. There’s PIX! Which are high-end collectibles “immortalizing pivotal moments in pop culture.” Mega Pix 12” which are supersized and feature magnetic accessories. Finally an apparel line with Thrilljoy Threads.
We had the chance to speak to Mariotti at NYCC. (Interview has been edited for length and clarity.)
DHK: Okay. Do you keep collectibles in box personally, or are you a take them out of the box person?
Mariotti: Yeah, I’m going to be complex with this. If it’s old school packaging, like my 60s tin Batman stuff from Japan: In box. Old Hanna-Barbera in box. New stuff: out of box.
DHK: You’re a monster.
Mariotti: Yes. Never an easy question.
DHK: I suppose, but you get access to double. So you could have one.
Mariotti: Well, that’s the perfect world. In a perfect world, even the old stuff is one inside the box and one outside.
DHK: Tell me what your creative process is like with Thrilljoy and how that has evolved from previous endeavors?
Mariotti: Oh, look, I don’t think most people knew that I had a lot to do with the design and development of everything at Funko, including Pop, and naming Pop and the stylization. But, you know, as that company got bigger and bigger and we went public and all that stuff, it just I got away from what I think I do best. I think I’ve got some skills, and a lot of areas I’m clueless in. And so getting back to what I like to do best, which is creating.
It’s been invigorating and it’s been like 7 or 8 years, (since) where I’ve had a chance to just go untethered and create whatever I wanted, not have to argue with all my artists, and it’s been it’s been really fun. It’s really like kind of a refueled me and, you know, my retirement. I really, honestly thought I was going to retire.
And it lasted about three weeks and I was just going batshit crazy. And so like, all right, I gotta do something. This is what I came up with. So yeah.
DHK: So what are the trends that you’ve noticed since the last time you were involved in the creative process earlier versus now when you’re reentering? Because fandoms change, right? Consumers change. What has stood out the most?
Mariotti: I think where we’re going to kind of draw our ethos around is limited edition and chase pieces.
DHK: Son of a …
Mariotti: I think fans, though it is the bane of their existence, they want it. I’ve seen people open 24 piece editions here and they started shaking and there crying. One guy just went out and he got two of them just by random. Put one on WhatNot. Sold for $3,000 on a company that started yesterday. And that shows that there’s something good about what we’re doing.
When someone can resell something that cost $50 bucks for $3000 the same day the company opened…. So I think: Scarcity, Chase, and Community.
Ultimately, (it’s) the diversity of licenses and high, high quality products you’ve got to have – I don’t care who I am or what I did in the past. What licenses I have. If you don’t make something that’s compelling and unique and different, and I feel like with Pix we did a really good job of putting something out there that’s so much storytelling and so much heart into a piece that, and I think for the price we’re asking, the perceived value is through the roof.
When people get to see the box and the magnetic closures and all the cool elements of this thing. I think it’s scarcity, and I think it’s, it’s just a really good product.
DHK: So you’re not opposed to the reselling culture necessarily?
Mariotti: I would tell you I said the same thing at Funko. You make really smart business decisions where you treat your customers right, your fans right, your retailers right. You will automatically, if you have a good product, have a great secondary market. But in upper end collectibles, it’s even more important to nail all the aspects of every part of the product. Then it will have a really, if you don’t overproduce, will have a really healthy secondary market.
DHK: But I think there is some push back to be honest about the scarcity thing making it completely impossible for the average person…
Mariotti: I think the frustration is you go on somebody’s website and it’s filled with bots and the real fans don’t get the product? Absolutely. So we spent an inordinate amount of money and despite our very bumpy first day on our website, which is to be expected, we went high level on bot protection.
We want to make sure that the products get into the fans. There’s always going to be somebody that buys two and resells one, that’s okay.
DHK: Or somebody who gets two chases somehow.
Mariotti: We don’t want this to become about bots winning the battle. Getting all the products from people that turn around have no, no real affinity for them. Anyone trying to flip them.
DHK: Okay so the secondary market – you encourage it for people who are hardcore collectors and you know, they have their income to spend on that versus… Okay, I respect that.
Mariotti: Yeah.
DHK: What has been your favorite license so far of Thrilljoy?
Mariotti: Yeah, I think, I think for me personally, I mean, when I developed the Van Gogh. Yeah, with the gold museum frame and the Starry Night background, I’m like, oh, my God, we got a really good product here. I mean, I just kind of like, ‘Oh, wow!’ If done right, right style for the figure. Right frame. Right artwork. Right. License. Why this is so much storytelling in so much moment in time here. Yeah. So, Van Gogh has been my favorite. I think, the fans are just so excited when they get a chase piece or when they get a super chase piece, they lose their mind. And so, that’s fun. And I think the one thing I’ve seen from the show is the few days that we marketed the company, which was only four days before we open.
They are so impressed by the product in person versus what they saw on a picture. They get it now. They can feel it now.
DHK: The tactile experience.
Mariotti: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And I think that is going to be the best thing for us. We knew that it was such a unique product that we wanted to come to a fan event to launch so people could actually physically play with it because we’re not going to go out and sell the Walmarts and the Targets and the Amazons.
Yeah, we got a great partnership with Hot Topic, Box Lunch and a Bait (Inc) and Undefeated (Inc), which is my partner Eric Peng right there. But, other than that, you know, you’re going to rely a lot on direct to consumer online. So to get this in front of people and let them really understand how cool this is, we’ll make it so easy for them to go.
Oh, yeah. Now I know the format. I have a couple. I’m buying this license and this license.
DHK: So it’s the educational piece
Mariotti: Absolutely.
DHK: So what percentage of the mix is gut instinct because you’ve been doing this. and you’re an expert versus audience research when you’re picking or pursuing a license?
Mariotti: I think, I think with the licensing part, I kind of know it in my sleep, you know, and if there’s something that I’m not really good at, if it’s like an anime title, I don’t know if I’ve got enough resources. I’m like, hey, what do you guys think about this? This has been done to death or not done at all and understand that.
So I think in that regard, that is the easier part of this. And, and I always know that a license can give you a different fan base, which is great. Yeah. Expand the fan base and then people get excited about what you do. Yeah. I think when it comes to product development, you need that feedback from people you trust.
As you’re developing something to make sure that you are checking the boxes, you know, have to be checked free to be successful at a launch. And so I think in that regard, it’s much more, it takes a village. Certainly, you know, a lot of the ideas I had, originally with this, have been elevated by all my partners and little tweaks here and there that I didn’t think of, like the card and the, you know, the acrylic card holder for the card, the magnetic (parts). All ideas that came outside of me that I’m like, oh my God, what a great idea. Let’s make it, let’s make it better.
DHK: How do things in the cultural zeitgeist get onto your radar? Or what are some of the more unexpected ways that things have come to your attention?
Mariotti: For me? I mean, I’ll give you one example: Moo Deng the baby hippo.
DHK: THE greatest.
Mariotti: Okay, so we showed an image last night at our big panel that we’re going to do Moo Deng, and the proceeds are going to go to actually help Moo Deng and creating that environment for her in her zoo in Thailand. So that’s something that’s like, you got to be on it.
But for me, it’s, 1) ears to the fans and they know I have they’ve got that way to reach me. 2) My wife and I do probably a movie or two a week at the cinema and we binge watch TV shows relentlessly. And so like right now I’m, I’m tweaking between “Bad Monkey,”, “Sunny”, “Industry,” and, what was the other one I just finished?
Oh, “Pachinko” – I’m obsessed.
DHK: Oh, my God, season two!
Mariotti: Obsessed with “Pachinko”. And so, I’m always constantly balancing that with the new movies. And, you know, I’ve always just been such a TV / movie / comic book nerd ever since I’ve been a little kid. So that part is like. Thank god I married someone that’s similarly predisposed to absorbing a lot of content.
DHK: Is a connoisseur!
Mariotti: Yes, exactly. So, so, but ear to the ground on the stuff that I don’t know. I’m not. I mean, “Blue Eye Samurai” was the first anime show I’ve ever watched.
DHK: I love Amber Nozumi and Jane Wu.
Mariotti: Oh my god I was like, this is utterly amazing. Yeah. And yet I’d never watched anime show before that. So that was definitely not my area expertise. But that show and “Warrior Nun” big rabid fan base with me and obviously those are licenses that there is almost no product made. So I got really excited about being the guy who made “Warrior Nun” (products).
Yeah. And so that that part excites me, finding those licenses where there is a fan base but no one’s touching it.
DHK: For something like a Moo Deng, obviously production pipelines take a while – so when is something maybe I don’t want to say…
Mariotti: Too late?
DHK: Yes. How do you decide when in a trend you can still jump in?
Mariotti: So here’s what’s awesome about Moo Deng. Yeah we will basically – we’ve already developed it and we put it on order. And it, it will go live in probably less than a week. Okay. And we’ll just take preorders. But we’ll get the product from start to finish under 90 days.
DHK: Oh my God.
Mariotti: So that, when we did all this in four and a half months: start to finish. Okay. I think that part is where being a smaller company has an inherent.
DHK: And in smaller runs of things?
Mariotti: Exactly.
You can find the Thrilljoy collection at thrilljoy.com
