From Street Fighter, passing by Mortal Kombat to
Masters of Universe and Conan (Schwarzenegger version) to… Power Rangers (?!),
Pop Culture Shock has been amassed a great deal of fans. Today I’ll interview
the founder of PCS (as the company is called by its fans and by his owner),
Jerry Macaluso.
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| Ladies and gentlemen, with you: Jerry Macaluso! |
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1 – I will start with a hard one: what sets PCS
apart from the rest of the
fierce competition you face?
Jerry Macaluso (JM): You aren’t kidding when you say ‘fierce
competition’. Over the past few years it seems like a dozen new collectibles
companies have appeared. I think what separates us is that unlike the owners of
most collectibles companies, I myself am a designer/sculptor. This means I
consider PCS to be more of an art studio that sells copies of its art, than a
corporate type manufacturer. While we use many talented sculptors, I personally
art direct every project to make sure it stays true to the PCS ‘look’. There is
a cohesive style to everything that comes from this studio. The other aspect
that really separates us is, we listen to the community. We may not always
agree, but we are listening and give all constructive criticism serious
thought.
2 – Are there new franchises on the way? What could you anticipate to
let
us salivating?
(JM): Well the big ‘well
known’ secret is we are doing Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. It’s a license
that’s very close to my heart because I was the Creature Supervisor for the
first season. Another new license we have is Rambo. Even though other Rambo
statues have been made, like with Arnold Conan, I don’t think it’s been done
justice yet. Ours is going to be epic. Another that we are working on is the
new videogame Battleborn. It’s a great game and when I saw the character
designs I knew I wanted to make statues of them. We have a few more licenses
but the paperwork isn’t done so I shouldn’t speak too soon!
3 – Many costumers complain of the long
developing/producing period of PCS
from prototype or announcement until the end product arrives at the homes
of collectors? What do you say about that?
(JM): The long wait from
pre-order to delivery is something we are working hard to improve on. The
delays certainly are not intentional. There are a lot of factors during
manufacture that cause these delays. The biggest factor is that I demand a very
high level of quality and frankly, there are only a dozen factories left in
China that can achieve the quality I demand. If we push too hard quality comes
down, so we take a bit of a ‘when it’s done it’s done’ stance. That’s always
how you get the best quality. Most collectibles companies will approve the
second sample, it usually takes 4-6 samples before I approve them. Having said
that, we are slowly moving to a pre-order model where we are further along at
the factory level by the time we announce the preorder. This should cut down on
3-4 months of wait time.
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| Where's my Robocop? |
4 – Which license has been the most profitable so far?
(JM): Street Fighter is
our most popular license. I’ve been the Street Fighter licensee since 2001.
That’s a long time!
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| Come and get me! |
5 – Which was your fastest seller product of all time?
(JM): I honestly don’t
remember. We have had a few collectibles that sold out within 5 minutes.
The 1:3 Akuma, 1:3 Ryu and some others. I bet the collector community has a
better memory than I do.
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| Five minutes ago I was on pre-order... |
6 – Do you have some PCS sculpts that are your favorites? Which ones?
(JM): As an artist myself,
I tend to like things less and less as time goes by. The longer I see something
the more I can start to find flaws and pick it apart. So the honest answer is,
the most recent pieces are almost always my favorites. Having said that, I
still really love the Mortal Kombat 9 Sub-Zero sculpted by John Cleary a lot. I
can’t really find any flaws in it to this day. As far as pieces I have sculpted
myself, it’s the 1:3 Darkness from the movie Legend. It’s one of my favorite
character designs of all time and I think I did a good job capturing his
character.
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Perfect in Jerry's opinion
|
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| One of Jerry own favorite works. |
7 – All the process of sculpting of Pop Culture Shock is digital
(through
3D software) or is there a part that is still hand made? Which parts are
hand made? I’ve heard you’re an active sculptor yourself and that you make
the 1/3 statues from PCS hand made. Is this info accurate? If so,
congratulations, handle business and clay at the same time! ;) At least you
didn’t abandon the fun part being in this industry.
(JM): My career began as a
sculptor. I have sculpted for Toy Biz, McFarlane, Mattel, Trendmasters and as
well as many movies. I try and spend 50% of my week on business and 50% on art.
Currently we do about 85% of our 1:4 scale and smaller collectibles digitally
and 100% of the 1:3 and life-size busts in traditional clay sculpture. While I
myself can sculpt digitally, I still prefer good old fashioned clay and wax.
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| Jerry and his "work" on the movies |
8 – On average, how many people work on a PCS figure to elaborate the
painted prototype?
(JM): A lot of artists are
involved from concept, to sculpture, molds, casts, electronics, paint,
costuming, etc… I would say at least 6 people are involved on every piece.
Sometimes many more. Then we should not leave out the photographers, graphic
artists, customer service, shipping, factory project management and so many
other people that keep things running.
9 – Do you outsource sculptors? If so, how do you guarantee unity to the
pieces of a given line of statues?
(JM): While we do have a
great staff of full time in-house artists, we do outsource many of our
sculptures. As the sole art director at PCS, I work hard to keep a cohesive
look to everything. I give a lot of direction to our sculptors to help guide
them to our style. The sole exception to this was when we were doing Masters of
the Universe collectibles. For those I brought on the brilliant artist Emiliano
Santalucia to art direct.
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| Thank Emiliano Santalucia. |
10 – Do you have a 3D printer at PCS or do you outsource this part of
the
project either?
(JM): We own two Stratasys
Eden 3D printers, which are very high-end machines. However, even with two of
them we still need to send some prints out to vendors when we get behind. If we
had more room at the studio I would probably buy a couple more.
11 – How old is Pop Culture Shock? When things began to work? Tell us a
bit
about the company’s story
(JM): Pop Culture Shock
Collectibles was technically formed in 2007 after I sold my previous company,
SOTA Toys. However, for the first few years it was mostly a hobby as I ran it
out of my home and I only released one statue per year. After 10 years of running
SOTA Toys I was a bit burned out and just wanted to take it easy. In reality
the fans and collectors created PCS, because I would not have grown the company
if I wasn’t getting so many requests to make more statues. So, in my way, I see
PCS as having really come together in 2010.
12 – In your opinion, what is the best statues company out there (not
counting PCS, of course)? Why?
(JM): That’s a tough
question as companies have strengths and weaknesses. My personal favorite is
Kotobukiya PVC statues. They are so beautifully made and really capture the
characters personalities. But at the same time I’m not a big fan of their
polystone statues. Something is missing in their polystone for me. As far as
polystone I would say Sideshow is still king of the hill. Their art department
really knows how to balance the composition of the figure with the base. Some
companies, like XM and Prime 1 go too crazy on the bases for my tastes. I
prefer a more subdued base. And while he isn’t releasing any statues lately, I’m
a huge Randy Bowen fan. I love his work.
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Bowen Designs, Kotobukiya and Sideshow.
Jerry favorite companies other than PCS. |
13 – What measures you take to guarantee quality control standards to
your
production lines? Never saw a fan complaining of the end product they
receive from PCS.
(JM): We do something most
collectibles companies do not, we have a full time employee in China. Most
companies rely on the factory quality control and every few months send someone
from the USA to China. I’ve learned that that is not good enough. Our employee
spends his week going from factory to factory doing constant quality checks. He
and his assistant also personally review every piece before it is packed into
the box. This ensures we have one of the best records for quality control in
the industry.
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| Quality in every product is a cornerstone to Jerry Macaluso. |
14 – Do you have a specific team for each franchise or everyone takes
whatever work falls on one’s lap?
(JM): We don’t have teams
but I do have artists that are my go-to for certain licenses like Street
Fighter or Mortal Kombat. Some artists have a hard time getting into the
aesthetic of a license, particularly if they aren’t a fan of it. You really
want to choose a Street Fighter fan to sculpt Street Fighter.
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Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter are two very
different games also on sculpting. |
15 – What is the most fun and what’s the most difficult parts of working
in
this industry?
(JM): The most fun is
conceptualizing a new project. Discussing ideas with everyone and sketching.
That’s great fun to see it come to life. The worst is all the technical and
logistical issues that come with working with factories 6000 miles away. It can
be very difficult even with our full time employee there. I wish I could hop in
my car and go see what’s happening personally.
16 – How do you justify the inflation of prices of collectible figures
in
the last couple of years, even though PCS is one of the companies with more
competitive prices over there?
(JM): Prices are rising
for several reasons. The good reason is quality. Many of us companies are
raising the quality and better quality usually means higher price. In addition,
factories that have the best quality are raising their prices because they have
come to see that there is a line of companies knocking on their door trying to
get them to manufacture. It’s the law of supply and demand. There just aren’t a
lot of great factories left. There are other more incidental reasons, but the
two above are the main ones.
17 – Why 1/4 is the standard scale for figures nowadays? Is there an
explanation for this? If not, what’s your theory?
(JM): I think 1:4 scale is
the perfect balance of detail, space and price. As you get smaller a lot of
collectors feel the statue becomes more like a toy. I think our 1:6 statues are
some of my favorites but they don’t sell nearly as well as the 1:4.
18 – Do you think that the 1/3 figures will really
catch or is this format
reserved for very special figures in PCS?
(JM): I think 1:3 scale is
my favorite. It’s certainly catching on with Prime 1 and ECC jumping into it.
Because of the cost and space I don’t think it will become the ‘new 1:4’ so for
now I’m only focusing on what we call ‘A List’ characters. But you never know,
I might try something down the line.
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| 1:3 Arnold ready for war. |
19– Did you ever think in entering in the 1/6
articulated figures arena?
What’s your vision about this segment of the Market?
(JM): We are doing 1:6
articulated figures, or as everyone calls them these days, ‘Hot Toys Style’. I’m
approaching this market from two different angles. One is from what we are
known for, Street Fighter. We have a very full line of 1:6 SF figures being
developed. I hope this line goes for ten years , if not more. The other way we
are getting into it is with licenses for less well known properties that I’m a
fan of. So, we are doing Sons of Anarchy, The Thing, An American Werewolf in
London and even Alice Cooper. All things I love that I didn’t see anyone else
doing. I myself collect Hot Toys so I’ve learned about the market that way, and
while I don’t think we are at the Hot Toys level yet, I think the 1:6 figures
we are making are pretty good.
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| Entering the 1:6 arena to cause some anarchy on the market. |
20– What makes you happy with PCS? What makes you
mad about it?
(JM): PCS is like being a
kid in a candy shop. There is not much to complain about. I try to choose
licenses that I love, or that I find creatively interesting so it’s always fun.
At times dealing with the factories can be a bit of a drag but really it’s a
great job.
21 – Where are your figures manufactured?
(JM): China
22 – What do you say for a guy/gal who wants to
enter the Market as a
sculptor?
(JM): I would suggest
practice both digital and traditional sculpture. The best digital sculptors I
know are also good at clay. Being good at clay is harder than digital so it
gives the artist and extra step up. I would strongly suggest spending a lot of
time learning to translate others two dimensional artwork into three
dimensions. Most of the time in this business the sculptor will not be
designing the statue so they need to know how to translate others artwork. Many
times I see great sculpture portfolios full of original art. But then you hire
them and they cannot follow others art. Being able to copy is one of the most
important things.
23 – What would astonish you the most: to see an
alien or to see a ghost?
(JM): Hmmm good question.
I would be most astonished to see an alien as I actually spend a lot of time
thinking about what type of life exists on other planets. I’ve always wanted to
do a line of statues based on alien creatures.
24 – Three bands and three movies.
(JM): Bands - The Sweet, Savatage,
Abba. Movies - Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Evil Dead 2, The 7th Voyage
of Sinbad.
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| Did he see Encounters of 4th Kind? That movie almost got me. |
25 – What is the franchise of your dreams?
(JM): Gatchaman
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| Gatchaman. Would you collect them? |
26 – Leave a final note, or quote, or a bombastic
news to PCS fans.
(JM): I want to thank all
of our fans and collectors. Without you we wouldn’t be here today. I also want
to thank you for the interview. We will continue to work hard to bring
collectors the highest quality statues and figures possible while keeping prices
as reasonable as possible.
Thank you for your patience! Have a great day!
-x-x-x-
You
already gave a great day with this interview, Jerry! To be perfect only if you send
me a Blanka statue, since I’m Brazilian and love SF II!... Just kidding… kind
of… er… nevermind…
Well, thank
you for your sincerity and passion for what you do and for a so informative and
fun interview. Now I understand the reason for such cool statues with such high
quality production value and so friendly prices. And Gatchaman doesn’t seem an
impossible dream. I just don’t know if it’s going to sell…
-x-x-x-
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