Right off the bat, there are a few things you should know about Mark Nagata.
- He may or may not have THE largest Ultraman collection in the world, but take my word (or look at the pictures): it’s massive.
- He believes (kind of) that kaiju (Japanese monsters) really do exist.
- Mark looks a good decade younger than his birth certificate would tell you: “All the vinyl fumes are preserving me. They’re either killing me or preserving me.”
In addition to possessing that secret to youthful longevity, Mark is one of the nicest guys working in the toy scene today. Beyond being the proprietor of Max Toy Co, he’s an incredibly talented artist and illustrator. The header cards on his toys merely hint at his artistic skills. This combination of art, toys and long-term San Francisco residency intrigued me, so naturally I invited myself over to see Ultraman Mecca and ask Mark a ton of questions. Even after lobbing hard balls at him, he invited me back for a second round. Thanks to Mark-san for being such a great host, and now, let’s get started.
JB: How did you begin collecting Japanese toys?
MN: Growing up in southern California, I liked to draw and watch Saturday sci-fi and horror movies. When I was 10, I had an aunt living in Japan, who for one Christmas, sent me this massive box of toys. Up until then, I had played with 12-inch GI Joes and Hot Wheels like every kid, and then I get this crapload of Japanese toys. I opened the box, and I was like what the heck are these things? Who’s this space dude with a gold star on his forehead kicking this other creature who looks like he’s made out of fire? It just totally blew me away.
After recovering from that awakening, what did you do next?
By 1974, I was living in San Francisco, and I’d go to Japantown with my father and grandfather. This was in the midst of when Bullmark Japan was at its height. I would slowly add to my little Japanese toy collection over the next 2-3 years. The toy thing started waning as I got to be pre-teen because Bullmark went out of business (around 1976-77), and I was getting more into drawing and comic books. Junior high through high school, I didn’t follow or collect toys. It wasn’t even on my mind.
Going through high school in San Francisco, I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do. I went to City College and met this art teacher and he said: “You should probably go to art school. I see some potential.” So I left City College and went to the Academy of Art for about 2 years. I didn’t complete my courses there because I definitely knew I wanted to do commercial work. The Academy, at that time, was more fine art-oriented, and they looked down on what I wanted to do, which was super realistic airbrushing and stuff.
I know you did original paintings for the covers of RL Stine’s Goosebumps! You were working very successfully as a commercial illustrator. What happened?
After illustrating for 13 years, I got burnt out, and on top of that, everybody wanted computer stuff. A few years prior, in the late 80s and early 90s, I had picked back up collecting Ultraman stuff. This was obviously before The Internet, so I got some reference books all in Japanese and would start marking them off. I was reading this tabloid-sized magazine called Toy Shop, which would come out every two weeks, and it was just toy ads of all different types. I found a couple contacts in Japan through that; I would Xerox my want list, fold it up and mail it off and wait. I’d have this big list going, and then about the later half of the 90s, that’s when eBay and email started coming in. I just went bonkers, searching Bullmark, Ultraman and going to toy shows.
How did you get involved with Super7?
Around the time that I was getting out of illustration, I got a call from Jimbo Madison, a real Renaissance guy. He came up with an idea with Chronicle Books to do a nice glossy coffee table book about Japanese toys and how cool and funky they are. Somehow he got my name and Brian Flynn’s name and says, “I know you don’t know me, but I’d like to take pictures of hundreds of your toys.” Both Brian and I showed up with our toys at the photo shoot. We’re just sitting there while they’re taking the pictures, and Jimbo shows me this zine he’s been doing with Bwana Spoons. I thought: this is really cool, and I said we should do a zine all about Japanese toys. Jimbo hears all this and says: “You should think bigger. Why don’t you guys do a full color, glossy national magazine, sell ads, go all out?”
That really changed my life. What he said made me realize a lot of humans have limitations. You grow up with your parents saying: “Do something safe.” I thought, yeah you’re right, if we’re gonna do this, why not do it up? If it doesn’t work , it doesn’t work, but nobody’s ever done it before. At that point, it’s me, Brian and Jimbo. I’ve got Ultraman covered, Brian has Godzilla, Jimbo has Micronauts. And the other thing we had in common was that we all liked art. So we thought: lets combine art with the toys, all in English. That’s how the Super7 magazine started. From there, it was 6 years of the magazine and opening the store.
And how did you get un-involved with Super7?
The San Francisco store started with me, Brian and Mark Miyake. I’ve been gone from Super7 for about five years. I would just say we had different ideas about where it was going, and it’s very hard to make partnerships work. It was for the best for both of us. With my own toy company, I had a very clear vision about what types of characters I wanted to do.
Let’s talk about the word kaiju and your aesthetic. People get very ornery around this subject. [Just yesterday, there was a heated debate here.]
The word kaiju has been bastardized. It’s like otaku. Here, otaku is like a hip geek thing. In Japan, it’s not cool; it’s even lower than major nerd: it’s a pathological psychological problem there. With the toys, for lack of terminology early on, we would say “everything’s like Godzilla,” because people didn’t understand what Bullmark was. After a while, “Godzilla” didn’t fit every situation, so kaiju sort of started coming up.
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