Funko Pops: Hate Them Or Love Them?

Vinyl toys, action figures and collectibles in general offer a vast playground for grownups, media fans and collectors, from the most geek, die hard fans to the “I kinda like this character and I saw this at Comic Con, so I bought it” lightweight fans. And in this immense universe you have several brands with their own galaxies and constellations of series, characters and collaborations, from Kidrobot to Tokidoki to Funko, which brings us to a very polarizing subject matter amongst collectors and vinyl toys aficionados: Funko Pops.

Funko Pops date back to 2010, where the company Funko Inc. (founded in 1998) presented their first Pop! Series at the San Diego Comic Con showcasing classic DC characters like Batman or Joker. Since then, almost every tv show, movie franchise, comic book or random piece of media you can think of and their more obscure characters, have a Funko Pop representation out there. This can be a positive thing because it gives fans the opportunity of acquiring very niche memorabilia, the problem is most brands don’t go beyond Funko Pops when it comes to offering fans options in terms of merchandise.

The most recognizable or distinctive factor about the Funko Pops is their design, which is also their main flaw or downfall, according to their detractors–we have a few of those in our studio, lol. These figures are heavily inspired by Chibi, a Japanese art style popularized in the 1980s by anime series like ‘Dragon Ball’ and ‘SD Gundam’, where the proportions of the characters are modified to give them really big heads and big eyes in comparison to the rest of their bodies, also focusing on highlighting the “cuteness” factor (Chibi actually means “small child” in Japanese).

Funkos’ signature is based around the cuteness factor or “chibiness”, adapting a large variety of characters to this format but sometimes sacrificing main traits of the characters that make them unique in their original representations (for example: the Buzz Lightyear Funko Pop doesn’t have his distinctive smirk). And when you have really big headed characters with no mouth and really small feet to stand on, you would think that Funkos would include a stand for them in their boxes, right? Well… they don’t, most of them fall down if you get them out of their boxes, which is great for collectors and resellers but sucks in terms of functionality and design.

Truth is, love them or hate them, Funko Pops are in high demand, with rare figures going on sale for numbers like US$25.000 on online auctions. Some say it is an investment, others say it is a waste of money – similar feelings to what some art collectors say about NFTs and their current hype (which is actually slowing down, but that’s a topic for another piece, huh). What we wanna know is where do you stand on this debate: are you ready to burn down a pile of Funkos or your shelves at home are stacked up with chibi-like MCU characters?

Sources:

I hate funko pops more with every passing day – Absoludicrous Blog