We’ve come to the end of our Comic Con 2007 talk with The Four Horsemen’s Eric "Cornboy" Mayse and Chris Dahlberg. In this final installment we delve into the exciting world of the Seventh Kingdom and muse about next year’s Batman Begins sequel The Dark Knight.
Fwooshnet: Let’s switch gears a little bit and talk about some of the other things you are working on right now, like Seventh Kingdom. Everybody is excited about that right now.
CB: Yeah we are pretty excited about it too because Seventh Kingdom now has gained enough popularity to where we are going to launch it off into it’s own line. It has pulled away from the Fantastic Exclusive. However, the Fantastic Exclusive is going to continue. It is going to have some of the same properties that were involved before and we might throw in a couple of others. However Seventh Kingdom has become popular enough that we are going to try to do a figure from Seventh Kingdom about every six to eight months. We will release each figure with variants that you are used to seeing like with Ramathorr and Xetheus that way over the course of two or three years we will have sixteen or seventeen characters. So it’s going really well and we will always make time for that, even if we are really busy with other things like DC. DC Super Heroes is what pays our bills and what allows us to do things like Seventh Kingdom.
CD: This is just like the other half of our work. We love to do the DC stuff and it rewards us in many ways, one of which is being able to create our own property.
Fwooshnet: One of the greatest parts about Seventh Kingdom as a property is that it is not just cool looking figures, there is an entire history and back story that goes with it. However it is becoming more and more rare to see an action figure property without some matter of tie in from another media. What is going to be the execution on these at retail now?
CB: Right now we are going to remain low-key with it, distribute it ourselves and other vendors like Fwooshnet and some of the other guys that were involved with it this year. Then hopefully it will get picked up and turned into a legitimate property. We actually spoke with some one yesterday, and I don’t want to say too much about it, but it was a guy who is a movie producer. He came by and saw it all and was really excited about it and he said "I want to do this as a movie" and that he wants to sit down and talk to us. We have had people come by and talk to us before but this is the first time that we have had a legitimate movie producer say "let’s do something with this". Right now it is all talk and talk is not worth all that much but who knows? But it is kind of exciting because maybe it will turn into something.
CD: We’re pretty hardened too when it comes to stuff like this, we have been in the industry for so long, it’s like being in the military: you hear this stuff and five or six years ago we would react like "Oh my god, this is it! We are getting our break!" Now it is kind of like, okay, cool, let’s see what happens. It isn’t going to sidetrack us from what we are doing. We are going to continue to produce, if it happens, it happens. If it doesn’t then we are going to continue down the current road, we’re not going to stop.
CB: As long as we can keep selling enough of the Fantastic Exclusive and Seventh Kingdom to cover our production costs and make a little bit of money on top of it to put into the next wave, we’ll keep doing it.
CD: As of right now, we just basically need to sell enough to keep it going. We would love to get it to the next level but we are really pleased with where it is at right now.
Fwooshnet: The two-up of the female in your display case, would you like to comment on her?
CB: Yes, that will be the next Seventh Kingdom release. That is Queen Aluxxandra of the
Bluddmane Clan. When Seventh Kingdom was chosen for the Fantastic Exclusive in the most recent round, she was the second most popular character only behind the Elephant Swordsman. So we figured you know what? It’s splitting off on its own, it is not going to be a whole voting thing so since she is now the most popular [unproduced] character, she will be the first new release for Seventh Kingdom. She will have her own variants, we are going to do some things like different ethnicities, different head sculpts, different weapons and accessories, armor, things like that. Just like what we have been doing with Ramathorr and Xetheus.
Fwooshnet: The variants have been handled very well thus far. When the new Ramathorr variants were being unveiled and things like a hippo and a rhino and a warthog were unveiled, people got really excited.
CB: You know, that came directly from the fans and the message boards. We knew we would be doing different variants but we were not exactly set with which ones. When fan suggested things like the hippo and rhino gained popularity, we figured why not? A couple of people even suggested a triceratops and that would have been awesome. We went with the mutants though to show that Seventh Kingdom is not just about these animal guys, there are the other kingdoms in the mythos as well. And circling back to the DC stuff, we were able to use that model to show Mattel that you can take little pieces all in the same mold and change a few things here and there and do a different paint job and you have a completely different character. I really think that helped in their decision to move forward on the DC Universe stuff.
Fwooshnet: So can you tell us what you are thinking of for next summer with the Fantastic Exclusive?
CB: Well actually I think we will be kicking that off in September this year, a little later than last year. This we are going to try to get the fans involved even more. We have had some guys from some of the message boards do some art work for us for the booth cards and stuff already. Then hopefully two or three years down the line we will be creating figures based completely off of fan designs. Eventually that is what we want but it will take a lot of lawyer talk to get something like that done. Even though we are headed into year three the line is still in it’s infancy.
Fwooshnet: Well guys we know you are busy but we want to thank you for sitting down with us today.
CD: No, thank you.
Fwooshnet(VB): If could just leave you with some parting words: Blue Beetle and Wildcat!
CB: Wildcat! That’s an easy one too! Switch out the head and forearms on Black Manta and you have a nice blank body.
Fwooshnet: That would work great. I am sure you will get a lot of input on the DC
board.
CB: I haven’t had a lot of time to post lately getting ready for Comic Con but I am always lurking.
Fwooshnet (SR): Now, you were talking about the NEW Blue Beetle right?
Fwooshnet(VB): Nonononononono!
CB: Naw, he’s not long for this world. But oh yeah! We are going to be doing some really cool six inch figures for the next Batman movie. We have seen some really cool source material for that.
CD: Finally!
CB: It took a while but we finally got it.
Fwooshnet: So is that going to be a stand alone movie line apart from the main assortments?
CB: Yeah, we will be doing the six inch scale stuff. I don’t think Mattel has released too much information as to what their plans are yet, but what WE are doing is six inch. And from what very little we have seen, the movie is going to be awesome.
Fwooshnet: Well Batman Begins set a kind of new standard for mainstream comic book movies.
CB: Yep, they nailed it, they really did.
Fwooshet: It is going to be a long wait for next summer. Any parting thoughts or messages?
CB: OH! If people have any ideas for accessories or variants or anything in a nice solid list we would love to see it. Put it together and send it to us. Eric and I are pretty well versed in DC and Marvel but there is always something there that we might not consider. There are lots of times where we see suggestions that are perfect and seemingly obvious but we don’t even think of, so every little bit helps.
Fwooshnet: If there is ever anything specific you want, like a poll or a Top Ten, just drop me a line, the Fwooshers love stuff like that.
CB: Great we will, we might even have a few ideas already.
Fwoosh: Cool, and guys, thanks again for talking with us and enjoy the rest of the show.
CD: Yeah, thank you.
CB: Thanks and we will be in touch soon.
Again, Fwooshnet.com would like to thank Mr. Dahlberg and Mr. Mayse for sitting down with us. They are working on a lot of very exciting projects so it is a very exciting time for all of us. We hope to see you guys around the boards and wish you all the best in the future!
SDCC DCUC Photo Gallery: http://www.thefwoosh.com/picsold/thumbnails.php?album=930
SDCC Seventh Kingdom Photo Gallery: http://www.thefwoosh.com/picsold/thumbnails.php?album=928
Discuss: http://www.thefwoosh.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=42280
Official DC UC Top Ten Vote: http://www.thefwoosh.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=42294