The Hot Seat With Super7’s Brian Flynn (Part 1)

Last year, Brian Flynn and I began a conversation about kaiju toys and Super7. No matter what people (including me) wrote about Super7’s products, it seemed somehow we were always on the periphery and not quite on the mark. After a couple email volleys plumbing Brian’s brain about specific toys, I realized the real guts of the story were elsewhere, and the idea for The Hot Seat (respect to Wired) was born. Brian has been collecting toys for over 20 years. His shop, Super7, will soon celebrate its 9th anniversary. Who better than a toy collector, toy designer, toy retailer, toy manufacturer and toy punk to inaugurate a critical column about all those things? This interview comprises conversations Brian and I had over a few months in writing and in person. I hope this column inspires dialogue. (Best enjoyed with a tall cup of caffeine…)

JB: Super7, among Western collectors, is pretty much considered to be “the kaiju guys.” I know you think this falls short of the truth.

BF: Even though we’re the “the kaiju guys,” if you look at the products we manufacture, we don’t make “kaiju.” We aren’t making toys in 1960 and 1970. We’re making toys today, so we take our inspiration from classic kaiju toys and reinterpret it for the current day. 2009 was: Gorilla Biscuits, Ooze Bat, Mongolion, Mummy Boy, Mummy Gator, Hollis Price, Steven the Bat, Vampire Rose, Partyball, Dokuwashi SD resin, Milton, Fenton, etc. None of these are Ultraman, Godzilla or retro figures; they’re current figures. The mental island we’ve made for ourselves is hard for anyone to break out of, and hard for others to see past when looking at our products. We are in between scenes, trying to make our own scene and our own identity, so that twenty years from now, people will look back on what we made and think it was unique to the time, and not a rehash of someone else’s idea.

One of the reasons I like “art toys” is because many of the artists came out of the same subcultures that I did. So when an artists make a reference, I get it, and I like getting it. It’s a nice feeling to “get” art. On the other hand, I can look at the Ooze Bat and think, well this is kind of cool-looking, but what exactly am I looking at and what’s this “Hawaii Colorway” all about? I think people struggle with “getting” your toys.

I think in some ways people over think it. Sometimes, it just looks cool. Ooze Bat is cool, and has nothing to do with traditional kaiju. It’s designed after an obscure 1970s U.S. monster toy called the Ooze-It. It was filled with slime, and when you squeezed it, it oozed out of the plugs. Chanmen from Gargamel loves this toy and used it as his inspiration for designing the Ooze Bat. The only Japanese influence (besides the fact that Chanmen is Japanese) is that it’s in the fight figure scale.

The Hawaii colorway is a reference to the ultra rare Hawaii variant Hedorah figure. (Hedorah the smog monster, a Godzilla kaiju.) There was a very rare version of this figure exported to Hawaii that was a pink vinyl with black, orange, red, silver and metallic green sprays. It is one of the most sought after kaiju figures, as Hedorah is a popular character, and the sculpt and colors are so unique, dynamic and unlike anything else. When someone refers generically to a toy as a “Hawaii version,” they mean painted to mimic the Hawaii Hedorah.

Aha! So there IS a kaiju reference in there (by way of the colorway). Brief me on the anthropology of the common kaiju collector.

The thing with the “Kaiju/Super7” scene is that most of our collectors are much older than other places, and most have been into collecting for many, many years. This isn’t the first thing they’ve collected, and it’s not the last. They collect for themselves, and aren’t really motivated by peer recognition. Because of this, a lot of them aren’t out there engaging in more of the social aspects of the hobby. They would collect toys even if it was only four other people in the world who cared about this stuff. I think that’s a very different point of view [from other types of collectors].

On the flipside, there are a lot of new kids. This is a tricky spot. Most of them are excited about everything, and their general excitement/hyperactivity makes most of the long term collectors want to say “Just settle down and cool off, you are driving me crazy! I don’t need to talk about toys 24 hours a day!” This phase lasts around 6 months until they feel like they’ve got a handle on the scene in a larger sense, and they realize that the world won’t end tomorrow after the latest toy release.

Kaiju collectors are very nice, but they aren’t kids, so they have stuff to do. This is a very social scene, but it’s not a giant clubhouse. They buy what they like and aren’t really concerned whether you like it or not, as no one else they know in their daily lives will ever care about this stuff.

You and I have talked before about toys as toys versus toys as art. Sum up Super7’s philosophy on this.

We make toys, not statues. If you’re going to make a toy, then it needs to function as a toy. How do the parts move? What is the interaction? What is the play value? Taking a “character” or idea, and just turning it into 3D is a waste. This is 90% of the non-platform toys out there: someone so in love with their idea, that they didn’t change it to fit the medium. It just sits there on the shelf, doing nothing, staring blankly back at you.

My example is: “Van Gogh’s Starry Night is a great painting and a shitty coffee mug.” You need to understand what makes a toy a toy, and design it to that standard. Making things in 3D is not making a toy. 

What is up with using the term “sofubi”? I get the sense (via Skullbrain) that calling toys “art toys” is viewed as pretentious. Yet, to me, saying sofubi is a lot like going into the taquería and ordering a “burrrrrito.” (Roll the R’s for effect.)

Collectors use sofubi, as it’s the Japanese name for old toys. Sofubi means soft vinyl. If you’re looking for old monster toys in Japan, you are looking for Sofubi Kaiju. Sofubi is a catch-all term for vintage vinyl toys of any style. I think people just like the way it sounds. I don’t think it’s an affectation. It’s a happy word. It kinds of sounds like pink bubblegum when you say it.

Art Toys implies something slightly different. It implies the artist, but in a way, also means something new, and in many ways associated with toys they don’t directly collect, so they avoid it. People call any new toy an Art Toy, and many of them clearly are not.

So do you make art toys?

For me, I don’t really care for any of the terms. I make toys. I don’t feel any insecurity with that term, and I’m fine with using it. I don’t need to clarify it. I don’t make designer toys, art toys, or any weird variation of it. I simply make toys.

Actually, I find more people insecure about using the term “art” than I do with using the term “toys.” What’s wrong with being an artist?

Nothing’s wrong with being an artist, but I like toys, as I like the simplicity and innocence of it. I don’t need to gratify my ego and have my name on it. A six year old doesn’t need to know I designed Mummy Boy, they just need to know if they like the funny looking one-armed toy or not. As someone who has collected toys for 20+ years, that’s the goal for me: to make great toys. If you know who I am, that’s fine, but if you don’t, it’s okay with me.

What about your recent solo show, Only in Your Fondest Dreams [PDF]? Fiberglass sculptures, metalwork that recalls Murakami…is this not “art”?

Yes, but that was an art show; it wasn’t a toy show. If it was a toy show, I would have made sure to ramp up the interaction and play value much more. Instead it was filled with items designed to be sculptures. I heard a few snickers here and there that it was “Biskup-like,” but I think that is a cop-out from those who don’t know the design references (besides, he owns a few). If you look at what I make, the sculptures are designed to be pieces that accentuate your home: literally art housewares. My house is 100% mid-century modern, as that is the aesthetic I am drawn to. When you see photographs I’ve taken of the sculptures, they’re always framed up like housewares, clustered on furniture like vases or ceramics, and shown as a way to accentuate your life. I’m very specifically referencing things like Stig Lindberg and Gustavberg, Lefton Pixie jars, Laurel and Vignelli lamps, Catherine Holm, Huetschenreuther, etc. mixed with Japanese Kokeshi Dolls and Danish pepper grinders. These shapes and patterns were used for decades in an entire movement of arts and crafts people (mostly in Europe). I’m reinterpreting them in my way, combining them with my ghost characters and a sense of kawaii which comes from my Japanese toy influence. I’ve been making these sculptures since 2003. I have no problem with it being art and product at the same time. Product can be art. Art can be product. There is no line between art and product as long as it’s true to its particular medium.

This interview is JUST GETTING STARTED. Want to hear Brian’s thoughts on platform toys, colorways, releasing edition sizes and what’s wrong with the toy scene? Click to continue on to Part 2!