What inspired you to acquire the license to Captain Action in 2005?
For me growing up, Captain Action was a favourite toy for birthdays and the Christmas season. I just loved it and had a lot of fun with it. Part of the reason is because I loved superhero comics — and still do. Captain Action was the original superhero action figure that allowed folks to play as other superheroes. It has a cool place in history.
As an adult, I became part of an online Yahoo group where we were sharing our collections. I still had my childhood collection, although I didn’t really add to it. I met a fellow at business school who sparked that interest again. In talking with this group, there were a few of us around New York, and I suggested we get together in person, and we did. One fellow who commuted from Hoboken into New York as I did was Joe Ahearn. He was a big fan, too, and had done some things with Captain Action. We struck up a friendship beyond just that group.
There came a point where he said, “Look, I think there’s an opportunity to acquire this IP [intellectual property]. Would you like to do it?” He knew that I was an advertising guy and had been involved with comics in other ways in the past, too. And, of course I said, “Absolutely not. You’re crazy. I don’t want to do that. I don’t know anything about making toys.”
But we did get over that and acquired the IP.
First, we made a comic book. That led to Captain Action Enterprises and a plethora of activities and creating cool merchandise, comics, and stories — reconnecting with the things that made it interesting when we were children, and also reconnecting with things that still make it very interesting as older fans. We’ve been on this journey selling in comic shops and Toys”R”Us and forming licensing deals with Marvel and Ultraman.
I thought it was a mad idea at first. We did our first comic with Moonstone Books and it became Moonstone’s best-selling comic at that time. We had a great writer, Fabian Nicieza. Paul Gulacy did the cover art and Mark Sparacio did the interior artwork. That was a really fun experience to go through. We were proud of the project when it was completed. Those good vibes just keep us going.
It’s been quite a joy, I must say.
In what ways has the character been interpreted through Captain Action Enterprises?
One of the things that we tried not to do was replicate things that were done in the past.
Often with these nostalgic properties, folks who want to remake the thing that they loved. We’ve really resisted that and instead created new action figures. At the heart of it, Captain Action is a 12-inch — 1/6 scale — action figure.
Our first big push was partnering with Marvel Comics and Toys”R”Us for new action figures and uniform sets for Spider-Man and Captain America as well as other heroes and villains such as Loki, Thor, Hawkeye, Wolverine, and Iron Man. And we’ve done work with other groups like Ultraman from Japan. The 1/6 scale figures are so much fun and we’re excited to do more of those.
We’ve published comics, and as comic fans, that has been a lot of fun. It allowed us to work with some of our favourite creators — people we admired when we were younger and folks who we’ve gotten to know like Dick Giordano, Murphy Anderson, Jim Shooter, Steven Grant, and Fabian Nicieza. We’ve now published at both Moonstone and Dynamite.
We’re currently doing two comic book projects that are weird, totally nuts, and so much fun. One is with Jeffrey Vaughn using his Al Capone Vampire property crossing over with Captain Action. Jeffrey always jokes that it’s the team-up that nobody asked for. And he’s probably right but it’s a beautiful book and it’s a lot of fun.
We’re also working with Don Simpson, creator of Megaton Man and Border Worlds. Don has become a friend and participated in a comic convention that we’re very involved in. We’re going to have a Megaton Man and Captain Action crossover. We’re just thrilled about that.
We’ve created a lot of other merch — everything from cards to prose books. We provided the cover to an Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide Volume 45. We did a Funko Pop that let us enter a new collectible category, giving the property more exposure, because people who like Funko Pops typically are not our older collectors.
Doing all the different things, from apparel with Titan to books with Airship 27, has just been a joy for us.
Tell us about the new line of Captain Action figures.
In the past, the way that we made our action figure was kind of astounding in retrospect, and we probably shouldn’t have been able to do it. We worked with Toys”R”Us and Marvel to come out with this great mid-range action figure. The world’s changed, and the mid-range action figure is no longer feasible. So, we’re working with this new group called Let’s Be Onyx (LBO). LBO is full of passionate toy collectors, and they have a vision that’s very wide and diverse. We’re working with them to make 1/6 scale Captain Action figures.
We’re using this as an opportunity to make things new again, to polish it all up, and come up with new ideas. The first things we’re introducing are a new Captain Action and — through a licensing deal with the Dave Stevens estate — an uniform set for one of our favourite characters, The Rocketeer, who originally appeared in Pacific Comics back in the ’80s.
Also part of the LBO line will be Major Action and Dr. Evil figures. Then we’ll introduce a new character called Professor Fangs. It ties in with one of the comic series for which we’re working on a new licensing agreement.
All those new characters will have uniform sets, too.
What are the considerations when adapting Captain Action for new audiences?
We had a lot of friends at Toys”R”Us, personally and professionally. You can see the way that people shop at retailers. One of the things that I learned with toy stores is that there are a lot of grandparents who buy toys — more than I ever imagined.
Toy sales are to buy things for children. That was great, but retail has changed — people don’t go into physical stores to peruse the inventory as they used to. Of course, a big chunk of shopping is now done online, especially with collectibles. There are still toy hunters who go out and wait for the unpacking, but not anywhere to the extend it used to be. So, for this type of 1/6 scale figure, we now make fewer toys and each one is more expensive.
In the past, we made Captain Action and had six uniforms available that could all be bought within an 18-month period. Now, the way we’re doing it is making a higher quality Captain Action figure and fewer uniform sets. We have some great uniform sets planned, but they’ll be more staggered because each one is higher quality and higher cost. They won’t necessarily be available through a mass-market retailer for this round, we’re selling directly to fans. Although in the future, we’d like to sell through comic stores, just because I love the nation’s comic store owners, and I love all the store retailers, I think they’re great people who work really hard.
What’s next for Captain Action Enterprises?
We were at New York Comic Con with Toy Tokyo in October where we promoted the Captain Action figure, The Rocketeer uniform, and other new uniforms that we’re not officially ready to announce.
We have the comics coming up with Jeffrey Vaughn’s Al Capone Vampire and Don Simpson’s Megaton Man. We also have a big announcement coming up that I can’t reveal quite yet. It’s for a whole new line of licensing that we’re really excited about.
An animated series has been in the works for a while. We’ve come really close a few times and gotten clobbered. We’re still working on it and we might have a good way to push that forward. In some ways, it’s almost like the Captain Action animated series should have come first, followed by the merchandise. We’re kind of doing it backwards, but that just makes it more fun for us.
Bonus Question: You’ve recently taken the helm at RetroFan magazine. What can readers expect in future editions?
I’ve been a contributor to TwoMorrow’s magazines for a while. They are a publishing outfit in North Carolina, established 30 years ago by John Morrow, focusing on the history of comics and pop culture.
I was writing for Back Issue magazine for five or six years. It was so much fun to write about semi-forgotten characters such as Lilith from Teen Titans to Thundra, Thriller, and Irv Novick’s Batman run.
The editor and founder of Back Issue magazine’s RetroFan, Michael Urie, is stepping down from that role. He asked if I’d like to take over at RetroFan. And you know, as I was thrilled to be asked, it’s a new set of skills that I’m developing. RetroFan is all about nostalgia, typically pop culture things, not necessarily only comics — although we have a dose of comics in there. It’s everything from television shows to movies to fads and written by a stable of writers, although we bring in guest writers as well. It’s a great magazine.
One of the things that I see is that the typical magazine world is dead or dying. We don’t subscribe to Time, Newsweek, or Glamor like we used to, but people who love a particular topic or are deep into a particular fandom or activity are on board with subscribing or spending 10 bucks on a particular magazine that they really love. That’s the type of reader we have at RetroFan.
We’ve got some cool things coming out. The current issue on the stands has a focus on Space Ghost for the main article, but there’s a whole bunch of other articles in there as well. I’m listed as assistant editor there and now I’m working as full editor-in-chief. It’s a lot of fun.