Cryptozoic Entertainment quickly became a hit at SDCC with their Golden Goddess line. This year they are bringing back the popular SDCC Exclusive with a second series… this year includes Supergirl, Poison Ivy and Batwoman. Cryptozoic doesn’t only just put out amazing highly collectible figures, they also make board-games, trading cards, and all sorts of other great collectibles. We spoke with Amanda Barker at Cryptozoic about their SDCC 2018!
For our readers can you give a quick description of what Cryptozoic is?
Cryptozoic Entertainment is a company that has a lot of different components to it. We do collectibles, games, trading cards, and digital collectibles.
What are some of your Exclusives this year?
This year at SDCC we have quite a few exclusives! We’ve continued our popular Golden Goddess line with a set of Series 2 Golden Goddesses that includes Supergirl, Poison Ivy, and Batwoman. We’ll also have Golden Goddess Chun-Li, which is our first Street Fighter Knockouts Golden Goddess figure! We actually have an exclusive for almost every line we have, including Metallic Green Blanka and Cammy for our Street Fighter Lil Knockouts fans, the Batwoman DC Pump figure, the Obsidian Idol Batman DC Teekeez figure, Irradiated Cthulhu for our Cryptkins fans, and last but not least, the Ravishing Red Wonder Woman DC Lil Bombshells figure. That’s a total of ten exclusives for SDCC 2018!
Cryptozoic does games, collectibles, trading cards.. what else can we expect after SDCC?
We have a busy year ahead of us! Our Digital Collectibles team is always coming up with new and exciting content for the Quidd app. Our Games calendar is full of new projects and upcoming games, some of which have already become favorites of mine! We’re expanding what we do with Trading Cards by adding new items and collectibles into the boxes for more fun things to discover and chase! As for Collectibles, we’re hoping to expand our favorite lines, while adding some new ones! We’ve begun to work on developing Cryptkins Series 2 and it’s my favorite thing to work on. I’m really looking forward to our new Series 3 DC Bombshells as well. Black Canary and Mera are two of my favorite figures that we’ve done!
What’s a typical day like at SDCC for the Cryptozoic staff?
Well it’s not all fun and games… except for when it is. I personally get caught up with a lot of emails, checking on projects, seeing where everything is at. From there, my day will involve editing promotional pictures, posting on social media, updating our website, answering customer service questions, coloring concept art, giving feedback on design, photographing samples, and sending revisions to the factory. The atmosphere here is very cooperative, as each person gets to work with a lot of departments and multiple teams. Especially being on the creative production side, we get to have a lot of fun collaborating on the “what ifs” of design and creation.
The DC Bombshells are a big hit, when they were in production when did you realize you were onto something big?
From the beginning, we’ve believed in these girls. We were enamored with DC’s original Bombshell designs and knew that we wanted to be a part of that line! So, from the inspiration to the concept design to production, we felt that we had something special and worth making. However, the popularity of the figures didn’t become something totally real to us until we saw fans rushing to our booths at conventions and lines wrapping around our booths.
How do you decide which characters get made and which don’t?
Well, for the first run of DC Bombshells, it seemed pretty straightforward to start with the iconic fan favorites: Wonder Woman, Harley Quinn, and Catwoman. From there, the fans actually gave us a lot of feedback on who they wanted to see next, and we listened! They asked for Supergirl, Poison Ivy, and Batwoman, so that’s where we went next. We try very hard to be “Fans First” here at Cryptozoic!
Does SDCC have any influence on what gets made during the year?
It most certainly does. We begin anticipating SDCC exclusives almost as soon as we start a new line. We’ve already designed some exclusives for next year! Also, if there’s something big and exciting that we really believe in, we will do our best to fit it into our production schedule to be able to release it at SDCC.
What’s the craziest thing idea someone had that didn’t get into production?
I think the funniest idea that we almost produced was Ghostbusters Soap on a Rope, shaped like Slimer!
Cryptozoic is one the busiest booths… what happens when you sell out of everything? What else is there to do during the con?
We will have all sorts of things to do at our booth! We are super excited to have Paul Dini, the co-creator of Harley Quinn, and Yoshinori Ono, Executive Producer of the Street Fighter series, available at our booth for signings!
What are you looking forward to at SDCC 2018?
One of my absolute favorite things is when people have the opportunity to open the blind tins or crates in front of us. When I worked at a local game store, it was always fun to experience the surprise with the customer. Now that I help produce these collectibles, it’s even more exciting to participate in the reveal of the characters fans receive. And since its SDCC, I’m also really excited to see the cosplays! They’re always so spectacular at SDCC!
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