Mondo has been a leader in high-end collectible space for the past twenty years and at NYCC 2024, they came to give fans a preview of their exclusives at the convention and new products and collaborations they have upcoming next year in 2025. I had the opportunity to speak with Peter Santa-Maria, senior creative director, and Hector Arce, senior director of creative and product development, on the show floor about some of these upcoming collectibles.
This interview was edited for clarity
JULIAN LYTLE: Okay, so what brings Mondo to New York Comic Con this year? What are you showing here at the convention?
PETER SANTA-MARIA: Yeah, well, we wanted to come to New York, obviously, to meet the people here. We haven’t done a show in New York in a while. we brought out some great exclusives. Our Mirage variant Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles soft vinyl figures are a big hit. People are loving them. They’re soft vinyl figures with a black-and-white paint application. The red bandanas are an homage to the to the original comics. We also got some great exclusives with Nightmare Vessels. They’re first to market here. The first time people can get them is here at the show. And some other great soft vinyl exclusives from American Werewolf in London, the blood moon variants. Great, great pieces there.
LYTLE: What is the direction for Mondo going from 2024 to 2025?
HECTOR ARCE: Yeah, I mean, we’re showing off a couple pieces that are coming out later this year, which is Buzz Off from Masters of the Universe, which is a big line for us, where we get to redesign the characters in, like, our own take, which is really cool. We have a King Ghidorah over there by Jesse Hernandez – Urban Aztec. We have Scarecrow in there that’s coming out on Halloween from Batman: The Animated Series and Faker (from Masters of the Universe), which just dropped this weekend and unfortunately sold out already. For next year we just had a panel and we just announced a slew of amazing stuff.
SANTA-MARIA: 1:6 scale Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Gargoyles, A Goofy Movie, Aliens, Yu-Gi-Oh, Naruto. A lot of good stuff.
LYTLE: I’m guessing you guys are seeing good success with mining the nostalgia of 80s and 90s.
SANTA-MARIA: Sure.
ARCE: That’s what we grew up with. And it’s like we’re almost making toys for ourselves first in a way. You know making the figures that we thought that we were, we fall in love with as we’re making them. And then we’re hoping that fans feel the same way once they come out. Right. Because we if we do something it’s because we’re fans of it. We’re not just gonna randomly pull a license or do whatever we want if we’re doing A Goofy Movie its because we love A Goofy Movie.
SANTA-MARIA: There’s a lot of work to develop figures and collectibles, so you really have to love it or else you’re gonna be miserable.
LYTLE: Okay. Do you guys feel that, that you guys are standing out from some of the other competitors and even some of the ones in Asia? Because I think some of the pricing of your figures like the X-Men ones I’ve seen are comparable to those from Hot Toys.
ARCE: Yeah, absolutely.
SANTA-MARIA: Yeah, so with our one six scale line those are premium collectibles. We got into the game with the animated style, and no one was really doing that in 1:6 scale and we’ve also been introducing our Mondo Showcase line, which is more realistic. Like our MacReady from The Thing, Nada from They Live, M3GAN and now The Creature from the Black Lagoon. The new one’s coming out. So, yeah, we’re doing a little bit in the animated space, a little bit in the realistic space. And it’s a premium collectible so it’s definitely got a premium ticket on it.
LYTLE: You guys kind of came into the market with making a lot of Film Collectibles & Posters. Is there going to be a push to return to some of those really high end quality print posters?
SANTA-MARIA: Sure. We never stopped. In fact, here at the show, we got brand new screen prints by Dave Arcade for The Warriors. We have a great poster for The Goonies. You know we’re always working with great artists with different points of view to work on some of our favorite films and shows and all that. So. Yeah, that’s never changed. We continue to do it. We just also happen to have grown this big collectible division and alongside our music division we have a really robust set of offerings at MONDO.
LYTLE: Okay, well, all right. I think that’s all I have for you today.
SANTA-MARIA Appreciate it.
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