by Cat "Venomiss" Hahn
Hello and welcome to a new year. I personally am a Funko Pop! Collector and self-proclaimed Pop-a-holic and have found myself searching the web wondering how it all began so I thought why not share my findings with my readers. I’m sure I’m not the only one that wanted to know how it all began so let’s have a look shall we.
The company’s history dates back to 1998 when at the time a t-shirt designer and toy enthusiast Mike Becker was in search for a vintage coin bank that depicted the mascot of the Big Boy restaurant franchise, only to discover that the item he was in search of was fetching hundreds of dollars on eBay. It was at that point that Mike took it upon himself to produce his very own replica in China for about the same price.
Not long after that Mike launched Funko from his home selling bobble-heads, coin banks and hand puppets that were nostalgia friendly. The first line-up of licenced products included Popeye, Dick Tracy, the General Mills cereal characters like Count Chocula and not forgetting the Big Boy mascot himself.
Whilst Mike's venture was nothing but successful, his interests were not focusing Funko to widen its audience but reviving his old favourite brands. Come to 2005 his uninterested state in the company came to a point where he considered closing it down. In came Brian Mariotti, a former night club owner who quickly jumped on the opportunity to purchase the company after persuading Mike to sell but only under the condition that key employees would keep their jobs.
In 2010 under new ownership at the San Diego Comic-Con, Brian chose to debut a prototype the company had been working on. This would be known as Funko Force 2.0. This line was slightly less detailed compared to the company’s original line of Funko Force and included four figures from the DC comic book line: Green Lantern, Batgirl and two different Batman figures. With the mostly negative feedback from the company fan base Mariotti did receive enough positive feedback from mainly female fans that gave him the motivation to continue on.
Using the three big licences that the company had (DC, Lucasfilm's Star Wars and Marvel), those became the first Pop! figures to be put into production. Not long after Funko was able to secure a further 25 more licences and was eventually able to push their product into other stores rather than just comic book outlets. Sure enough fans started posting in online forums, creating spreadsheets and generally talking about the brand and the customised Pop! figures being created that the cast of Game of Thrones started posing with their Pop! counter parts.
From there Funko’s cultural cache allowed the company to expand the empire further than expected with licensors seeing the products were making a stand in the marketplace and the “awesome” or “coolness” factor to them they couldn’t help but be a part of it all.
In Brian Mariotti’s words “from there the rest is history” and with the vast array of Pop! figures that are available today it’s just further proof of how successful the business is and how much it has taken a hold of the market.
So with all that in mind stay tuned as I look forward to bringing you some more wonderful things from the world that is Funko and as always Happy Collecting! And if you get a few moments please like us on Facebook, and check out GO-TV (also via YouTube where you can subscribe).
Get Yer Pop!s: Entertainment Earth, ToyWars, Fugitive Toys, Gemini Collectibles and J & K Stuff to name a few.