2025’s San Diego Comic-Con was a big year forFunko- the company displayed a booth packed to the gills with new figurines and goods from a wide variety of popular media. There were Loungefly backpacks, including a new light-upSuperman-inspired design, tons of Funko Pops both big and Bitty, expertly molded Mondo figurines, and more. Everything fromThe Real GhostbusterstoTank GirltoOver the Garden Wallwas represented at Funko’s Comic-Con 2025 display.
Game Rant caught up with Funko’s VP of Licensing Jason Bischoff to discuss all things Funko in 2025. He revealed which new items he was most excited about, provided a peek behind the curtain about how exactly the licensing process works, and talked working withWarner Brothersto create the new line ofSupermanproducts released as a tie-in to the new film. Bischoff emphasized Funko’s “fans first” motto as he shared personal stories about his time at Funko and his love for the brand.This transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Funko Debuted Many Exciting New Products At San Diego Comic-Con 2025
Game Rant:What’s getting you most excited for Funko atComic-Con 2025?
In terms of this year, specifically? Egad, there’s so much to be excited about as I gaze into the distance and recall everything that’s at the booth. So kind of touching on the top highlights for me - Mondo. I don’t know if you’ve seen the She-Ra on Swift Wind, but Mondo continues this tradition of building gorgeous stuff that lives in between what you saw on the screen and your imagination. And there’s no missed beat with that Swift Wind release.
I’m a bigReal Ghostbustersfan. There’s a whole case full ofReal Ghostbustersthis year. Villain ghosts that have never been done before. And, if the trend continues, and people seem to be supporting in the same way that they have, maybe that case will be twice as big next year. So I’m really excited about that.
I love the Mondo squad’sOver the Garden Wallstuff. We’ve been knocking on that door for a while, from a licensing perspective. We finally got it unlocked. The Mondo team is just over-delivering. It’s gorgeous stuff, and that’s a rock fact. You can quote me on that.
Loungefly continues to be the Gucci of geek, right? I think the big hits for me, the non-show stuff, would be the Heihei fromMoanasculpted character. It’s been a big blowout success for us. It looks like a giant rooster on your back or on your side. And then, for me, I love ourFantastic Fourbag and ourSupermanbag. And, believe it or not, for fans at home, ourSupermanbag is actually powered by kindness. There’s an LED strip in the exterior frame around the “S” shield, and it’s definitely not [powered by] a couple of button cell batteries. It’s definitely the power of kindness. You can turn it on, and it becomes a whole statement piece.
Gosh, there’s so much going on in our Funko exclusives this year. I think the big news is our 15th anniversary Pops, which are celebrating the original Funko Force form factors, down to the clamshell packaging. So Batman, Penguin, Robin - you may only get them here on the show floor. I’m also a hugeKingdom Comefan, so we’re doingKingdom ComeBatman.
Gosh, what else? We’ve got a black and white Jumbo Chan Voltron that people seem to really be digging. And then we’ve got a whole Bitty world. So we’ve got a giant inflatable Freddy, where you are bitty and Freddy is big. And in that booth is what we call “Bitty City.” So we’re taking all the different Bitty elements - maybe you’ve been buying the singles, the four-backs, the Bitty Buildings, the Bitty Mobiles, and now you can combine all those things with some modular pieces to literally build the neighborhood of your dreams. You can actually take some of your existing four-inch Pops, maybe your Godzilla kit, and you can take some of our new Bitty Bots, which are four-inch Pops with a Bitty pilot on the inside, and you could do a whole “defending the town” situation.
But that’s just a little taste of all the things that are exciting. I’m also personally very all in on the Thunderdome panel. I’ll be co-hosting that with Katie Wilson, and we’ve got Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk and a whole menagerie of incredible celebrity talent. There’s gonna be shenanigans.
Game Rant:You’ve been coming here both as a fan and now working it - what gets you excited aboutComic-Con? What are those moments where you go “This is why I do what I do?”
Anybody who knows me knows that I am a true believer. I legitimately bleed Funko blue. If you were to wash it all away in an imaginary scenario, Comic-Con, and, more specifically, Funko, represents a sense of purpose and belonging. It’s all about community. It’s all about fans first.
And that’s true for me and my story here at Funko. I was on the licensing side of things. In 2017, I went to a Fun Days event that changed my life. Seeing the excitement and passion in the room, I just knew I had to somehow become a part of it. Two years later, I started my journey formally at Funko, and I’ve been here six years now. Really, it’s fans first, right? That’s what really kind of gets me going.
Game Rant:What is the experience like of being able to tap into a property likePower Rangersthat, for many people, has been dormant for a long time, and be able to resurface it for them in a way to reignite their fandom and nostalgia? What is that experience?
So, the way I say it - and this is not like a formal corporate thing - is that Funko literally gives people the chance to build the neighborhood of their dreams. And I mean that in terms of on their shelf, the same size, scale and stylization of all their favorite things, but also in the community that they’re building as they’re amassing those collections or trading with friends or what have you.
We say it constantly, that everyone’s a fan of something. I would extend that to say that Funko is a fan of everyone. We also always have to be mindful of all the different myriad fandoms that are out there. The things that I grew up with that still mean a lot to me, likePower Rangers,I know that there are thousands, if not millions, of other fans that feel the same way.
Equally, and in turn, I need to be respectful of the fact that even though something is not my fandom, it’s somebody else’s fandom. So we’re constantly pushing the envelope of what’s next, what’s new, what’s interesting. And sometimes, that’s pulling stuff out of the vault and taking a big swing. Like this year, we’ve got Tank Girl available for the first time ever. And we know that there are fans out there from the 90s that are like “Oh my gosh, I haven’t thought about Tank Girl in 30 years.” And now’s their chance.
“Be Part Of The Moment And Create The Moment”: How Funko Decides On New Products To Pursue
Game Rant:What kind of research goes into those decisions about what’s new and what’s next? Does somebody just say “Hey, guys, rememberTank Girl?“Or do you look at online forums and stuff like that.
There is a secret government cabal of people called the Illuminati that feed us our… No, no, I’m kidding. I’m kidding. The reality is, we literally have fans lining the walls working at Funko. And people love what they love, and they’re very loud about that stuff. So we are constantly challenging ourselves to capture those suggestions.
Sometimes, it’s social listening. Just like, what are fans looking for? What’s the next thing? I think what we always want to do is ensure that we are setting the standard, and we are creating the trend. We’re not riding the trend, right? So for us, part of that is being avant-garde in the licensing space, finding those fans and being in the forefront.
Anime is a great example. We do more anime than any other company on the planet, in aggregate. And we are signing things today that are tomorrow’s hits. Not the things that people are kind of trying to get into to share. And we’re going to celebrate the things that are the big staples, no question. But we are also signing things that maybe the masses haven’t discovered yet - but we know, in our heart of hearts, having seen that material, it’s gonna be awesome. More than anything else, it’s gonna make people geek out. That’s what it’s all about.
Game Rant:Are there any challenges associated with that idea of seeing something that’s just a massive hit and not wanting to just ride that wave, but create the next one? Let’s say you released a line ofFunko products, and it was your biggest hit by far. How do you decide, how do you have the courage to keep innovating and pushing forward in the face of overwhelming success?
Look, we’re gonna feed the meter on stuff that works. As the phrase goes - if it ain’t broke, [don’t fix it]. That said, I think we constantly have to push ourselves into new frontiers. Think of it like farming the land. If we’re going to feed as many people as possible, and we are being good to the soil that we have, we’re going to continue to plant and rotate and feed accordingly. But, if we want to feed more, we’re going to have to spread into other fields and be just as good to that soil and those people as well. So it’s just being respectful of the opportunities you have and then building a bridge to the opportunities that have not yet realized.
Game Rant:With each Comic-Con, where are Funko and other brands in terms of deciding the future? When you’re coming here, you usually announce tons of stuff for all the different lines, like at the Thunderdome panel. When do the conversations about those announcements start?
Months and months ago. We have many licensor friends. They all have different standards of approval. We have to be respectful of that from a news cycle perspective. Or literally down to the slide itself. The asset that we’re going to show. So it starts months and months in advance. And part of it is just, what’s coming out? When’s it coming out? What’s important to our licensor friends, and what’s important to us? Trying to balance those things to the best of our ability, and be part of the moment or create a moment.
Game Rant:How much of a discussion is had about the timing of certain things - for example, the Superman bag coinciding with Comic-Con and theSupermanfilm being out? Like, “we think this thing is going to be popular outside of Funko. Should we start to think about that down the line?”
So here’s where I peel [back] the curtain a little bit. A lot of people, I think, take for granted how much work goes into making cool stuff. It takes armies of people. It takes months, and sometimes years, of planning. A great example of that is last April when I had the good fortune of being on set forSuperman.I had the time of my life as a DC fan, but it was also a really important strategic meeting between us and Warner Brothers.
At that point, we had a lot of stuff figured out, but not everything. There was still some room for jello, right? And so, seeing some of what we saw on site helped us fill in those gaps. And that was April of last year. The line is just out now. It took about a year for the first wave to come out. The second series - Guy Gardner, Mr. Terrific, Metamorpho - all that stuff is now on the shelf. But it started in earnest, like 14 months ago, if not more than that.
And we get those signals all the time from our partners. “This is coming out. This is when it’s coming out. This is what we can show you today. This is what we can show you five months from now.” But again, it’s a Herculean effort to pull off these magic moments of being there, being part of the moment.
Game Rant:From when you started at Funko, compared to more recently, how much easier is it to go to them and say “We’d like to makeFunkos of Superman.” With that brand recognition, have you noticed a change?
Interesting question. I would say it varies by licensor. What I would definitely tell you today is, we discover we have fans everywhere, in all of our partnerships, at every level. A great example of that, because I’m on a Superman thread here - James Gunn is a big Funko fan. He had them as cake toppers at his wedding to Jennifer Holland.
We find those kinds of advocates. So when we do show up, on occasion, saying “Hey, we want to do this,” it’s a no-brainer. It’s a foregone conclusion. Of course, we’re going to do this, right? Sometimes it’s them coming to us saying “Hey, we want you to do this. We’re just that excited.” And, more often than not, we’re all in. We love that. That kind of shenanigan is some of our favorite.
So, more specifically to your point, it happens at every level. Sometimes, with partnerships we’ve never engaged before, it takes a little bit of back and forth. But, for the most part, we are trusted for a reason. Trusted by licensors and trusted by fans. And that’s something we do not take for granted. We’re very, very grateful. And I am certainly grateful that when we pick up the phone - because I pick up the phone constantly - more often than not, we find a smiling friend on the other side of that conversation.
Game Rant:What is the pitch like to someone who is maybe not as familiar with your brand? When you go to aninternational athleteand say, “We want to make a Funko of you,” how do those conversations work?
I would say it’s not particularly complicated. There are mathematics things, you know? Like, we have this many fans on social media. We speak to this many people every single year at conventions. We’re a business of this size. That math. Again, it comes down to fans, I think, more than anything else. If we are speaking with authenticity and love and respect for the property, more often than not, it becomes a much easier conversation.
Great example: I’ve got somebody on my team. She’s wonderful. Her name is Charlie. She’s responsible for all the anime here at Funko, from a licensing perspective. Charlie loves anime, legitimately, top to table. So she’s the perfect person to run that business, because she’s studying Japanese. She’s going to Japan, meeting with the licensors in their native tongue as a sign of respect, and then speaking with great passion and love for their properties and what they are doing from a storytelling and character standpoint. That’s how you win, right? you’re able to throw all the numbers around in the world, but, if you can walk in with authenticity and love, more often than not, you’re walking out with an opportunity.
Game Rant:From now to next Comic-Con, what do you want Funko fans - andMondofans too - to take as the message of Funko over the next year? What things should they think about and consider?
If there’s stuff you love that we are doing, certainly celebrate it for all it is worth. It’s hard to make stuff. But, more specifically, we are thinking about you constantly. We legitimately love and bleed blue for our fans. And so, more than anything, I want those folks to know - it’s fans first. We’re going to constantly push ourselves. We want you to push us too, to ensure that we’re doing right by all of you.
So be loud, and, in turn, we will be proud of the incredible community that you all have built that we get to be a part of. So let’s just have a good time. Fans first, fun first, right?
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