DIMIC

I never gossip but asking questions to the persons themselves, that I like. I’m a bit of a nosy person. I can’t help it, I like to know stuff about other people.
One could say that I always interview people (or as Ingis puts it; dragging them on the grill) so I thought, why not interview someone that makes sure that my wallet’s empty so often? So, using the amazing Internet feature called E-mail, I was able to conjure up an interview with no one less then Jerry from Pop Culture Shock!!

First of all, thank you for your time. We of DIMIC really appreciate it.
Now, on to the questions:

Could you tell us a little bit about yourself? We’d love to know where you live, some of your general interests, hobbies, pets, …
I live in a pretty cool world filled with toys and art and movies… it’s called Los Angeles. Though I grew up in South Florida. I have an obsession with cheesy pop culture, from music (ABBA) to movies (Toxic Avenger). If it’s cheesy I tend to like it. My hobbies are sculpting and making movies… which also happen to be what i do for a living. I feel pretty lucky to be able to say that. I live with a giant 150lb Great Pyreness named Macaroon and a Chausie cat name Moggie. He was originally named Mowgli but it didn’t roll off the tongue.

We like quotes. What’s your favorite quote?
I have many favorite quotes from movies such as “Its all in the reflexes”,”Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal” but the one that I came up with (long before Spongebob) was “Everyone Loves Pie”. It was something the villain says in a script I wrote back in the early 90s.

Are you also gamers? If so, what’s your favorite console of all time? Got any favorite game(s)? (genres are also a-ok)
I’m old so my fondest memories come from the 80s arcade games, not any console. I used to spend hours every day playing Xevious at the local arcade.
As far as more recent games, the entire Silent Hill series, entire Resident Evil series. Ive always been a horror guy.

What came first: gaming/collecting or sculpting?
Sculpting. I was sculpting Kaiju out of play-doh by the time i was 5 or 6.

We are quite the collectors and if we’d own a shop or something, it only would get worse… So, do you collect yourself? Anything goes.
Between 1994 and 2005 I collected almost every action figure released. Thousands of them. But at a certain point pretty much every character I wanted had been released. These days I will occasionally see NECA release something cool that I have to have. I also selectively collect Sideshow statues but I don’t have the room to display a lot of them. I guess I should also mention that I have a complete collection of 1970’s Micronauts all mint in box.

Street Fighter or Darkstalkers? … or Mortal Kombat?
I’m going to have to call it a three way tie – they each excel in different ways.

Got anything special with Capcom? Good childhood memories of beating the crap out of your neighbor’s kid (virtually of course, we don’t tolerate real violence).
My love affair with Street Fighter wasn’t so much about playing the game(s) as much as how brilliant the character designs and story was. I really fell in love with Street Fighter after watching the animated movie in the mid 90s.

Favorite Capcom character?
I have a special fondness for Oro. I tend to like the more obscure characters such as Birdie, Sodom and Bishamon.

How did it all started? And by all we mean all those nice statues that we can buy…
My old company SOTA Toys went from a small side project to a big company employing many people really fast. It was a huge and unexpected responsibility so after I sold SOTA Toys in 2006 I only wanted to focus on my movie producing career. After a couple years I started to really miss making collectibles and Capcom would occasionally send me an email asking if I was interested in doing anything with Street Fighter. One thing I didn’t want to deal with was the sales/distribution end, so I went to my friends at Sideshow to see if they would handle that. They agreed and a new company, Pop Culture Shock Collectibles, Inc, was born. I really only intended to make a couple Street Fighter statues per year. A small side project… well it turned into something much more than that.

How big is the company now? How many employers? We don’t count freelance… or maybe we do. Your choice whether to include them or not.
The only full time employee is me. Everyone else is a freelancer. I’m not interested in another big company with a couple dozen full time employees. Its too much of a hassle. Right now I have three freelance sculptors beside myself who account for 80% of the statues. Because Sideshow handles sales/distribution/shipping/returns/etc I don’t need any other employees. Thank you Sideshow!

What was the really first statue ever made? And what was the first Pop Culture Shock statue that you ever made?
The very first product I did at my old company SOTA Toys was a set of three Planet of the Apes minibusts. That was back in , I think, 1999. The very first statue that my new company made was the 1/4 scale Akuma. I’d been itching to sculpt a super muscular Akuma for a long time.

Having a job without fun isn’t really that much fun… So, what was the most fun and/or satisfying statue that you ever made?
I have great memories of sculpting the Darkstalkers Morrigan statue. I really love how the contrapposto flows on her.

We have the two Darkstalkers statues from you guys and we love them! What’s your favorite released statue?
Definitely the Morrigan for reasons mentioned above. Not to say I dontt love the Felicia, she’s great and the upcoming Lord Raptor is fantastic work from sculptor John Cleary.

We still don’t know all your new licenses… Care to tell us?
Actually I think they are almost all known now. Street Fighter, Darkstalkers, ThunderCats, Mortal Kombat, Kabuki, Judge Dredd. There are a couple smaller licenses but I can’t say yet.

If you could pick any license in existence, what license would you choose?
It’s a three way tie. The original Resident Evil, because I love the series so much. Soul Caliber for the brilliant character designs. Gatchaman because its my favorite anime of all time.

Got any hints on future releases and/or licenses? And please, no impossible hints and/or images… Kind of hate those.
Hints…hints…um… Street Fighter fans will be seeing the first SFIII character in 1/4 scale soon. That is a great game that doesn’t get nearly enough love.

Thanks again for your time. And keep those statues coming!