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Exclusive DC Entertainment Office Tour
Behind The Scenes Look At Where The Magic Happens...
SCROLL DOWN FOR TONS OF COOL PHOTOS FROM THE DC ENTERTAINMENT OFFICES!
Southern California is home to a lot of entertainment companies from toy manufacturers to film studios, producers of TV and animation, and so much more. This summer a couple of your Figures.com reporters had a chance to visit the mecca of Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, and so much more... the offices of DC Entertainment! A division of Warner Bros., the producer of DC Comics and so much more used to be headquartered in New York City and first opened a California office in 2011. The final move brought the rest of the company out to Los Angeles earlier this year, with only the offices of MAD Magazine remaining in the Big Apple. DC’s unique office space consists of several spectacularly designed floors, starting with an incredible lobby that really sets the tone for what goes on there.
Known as the “Fortress of Solitude,” DC Entertainment’s main lobby space greets visitors with a slew of sights including video monitors showing off cool multimedia, a circular central area with glowing lights that change color, metal frames, and a vast panorama window through which you can see the famous water tower at Warner Bros. studios. Alongside the windows is a full display of Lantern Battery Prop Replicas representing the full emotional spectrum, and nearby is a comfortable alcove featuring a giant chess board populated by Mattel DC Universe Classics figures for pieces! Also on the sidelines of the lobby is a game area with both DC-themed pinball and video games as well as cool artwork and prop replicas. If you’re at the offices to wait you won’t be bored, and you can check out a trio of screen-used costumes of the Man of Steel, Batman, and Rorschach and a Lego wall “tagged” with Batman, a 3D LEGO representation of Jim Lee’s artwork from DCE’s 2012 Darkness & Light exhibit. Nearby, there is a beautiful timeline celebrating DC’s 80-year history (through this year’s Convergence event) that celebrates the company, its characters, and all the milestones achieved at the New York offices.
So what’s beyond the awesome lobby? Glad you asked! The most important (to us, anyway) department is of course DC Collectibles, and we spent most of our visit in those hallowed halls. On hand were the dynamic duo of Kevin Kiniry, Vice President of Creative Services, and Jim Fletcher, Director of Creative Services. These two gentlemen started the tour with Jim’s office, a workspace jam-packed with awesome action figures and statues, a testament to all of the great collectibles he and his team have created. He also has unique artwork, trophies his figures and statues have won, and one of a kind curiosities like a giant kit-bashed Parademon (with a drawing of Darkseid by Jim Lee) from last year’s Apokolips-themed Halloween party. We even got to sample some of Jim’s favorite candy, which he inflicts on visitors, and check out cool items like the Helm of Fate replica and the Mother Box.
Right at the entrance to the DC Collectibles area is a series of wall-mounted shadowboxes that tell the story of an action figure in production. It uses the iconic Jim Lee Hush Batman figure sculpted by Tim Bruckner to show the evolution of a figure from concept to finished product, with all the steps that many people don’t know. At the beginning is the artwork on which the figure was based followed by a hand-sculpted prototype, the original paint master, replicas of the actual molds used to produce the figure’s parts, sprue trees of the parts from the factory, a packaging mock-up, and at long last the final, production version collectors bought in stores. It’s a fascinating look at the process behind how toys are made, and what goes into each figure. Except for the actual production most of those steps happen in the DC Collectibles office including artwork, examination and approvals of prototypes and paint masters, package design, etc. The entire cycle from concept to shelf is about one year for figures, and a bit shorter for statues (no articulation, different manufacturing processes, smaller runs, etc.). The office even has its own 3D printer to look at physical prototypes of digital sculpts. It takes up to 50 hours to output a large action figure, done in pieces which are then assembled, and with it they can check the look of the figure and note anything that needs to be fixed, scaled up or down, adjustments in tooling, etc. They can even print parts and figures in different materials and qualities for testing purposes; this kind of thing can cut down immensely on prototyping and getting approvals made.
Other than the offices and cubicles in the DC Collectibles area, which are of course covered in action figures, statues, other collectibles, and artwork, there are a few very interesting rooms we got to visit. First up was the Action Figure Archive, aka “Toy Graveyard.” A treasure trove of research material, this room houses hundreds of past products made by DC Collectibles (and its previous iterations). Bins along the walls hold action figure prototypes, test shots, and paint masters for every figure made since 1998 in both finished and unfinished varieties. We got an exclusive count of the bins by Kevin - there are 480 containers of action figures, parts, accessories, bases, and more!
Say the good people at DC Collectibles are looking to make a new Kilowog figure; they can pop into the Graveyard, pull out the old Green Lantern Series figure and see exactly what that version looked like. And it’s not just action figures! There are also countless DC statues and other collectibles in prototype and alternate variations from what the final production versions became. Lastly there’s a cabinet of unproduced action figures and collectibles including toys with alternate paint schemes and colors, etc. Oh, and there were even some upcoming items floating around like the Batman: The Animated Series Harley Quinn exclusive to the “Mad Love” Two Pack, a figure which will NEVER be sold in any other way!
Next up on the tour was the Model Shop, informally called the “Doll Hospital.” This is where the DC Collectibles team does in-house testing and quality control plus all sorts of mad scientist-like experiments on new and future releases. Here they work on mock ups of toys and packaging, examine early samples, and note any defects that require fixing before final products are approved. There were all sorts of items undergoing strenuous testing while we were there including upcoming Icons action figures, Felicity Smoak from TV’s Arrow, Bombshells Harley Quinn and Joker Statue, Batgirl statue, Gotham City Garage Harley Quinn, and the Batman: The Animated Series Batmobile which looked absolutely amazing and huge! Along the way toys do get damaged and destroyed, and the team has amassed quite the collection of action figure heads in a giant box.
There’s an interesting business side to what the team does in the Model Shop as well, as costs determine what’s possible in a figure and they try to work within the limits to make the most of everything they do. They also take risks with new collectibles formats and innovations like the recently released wooden figures (which my son loves!). We can even let you all in on an exciting bit of news from something we saw in the Doll Hospital. We got a sneak peek at the upcoming Arkham Knight statue from the Batman: Arkham Knight video game, but what the early solicits didn’t tell you is that it comes with removable/interchangeable magnetic parts.
The last room we checked out in the DC Collectibles area was the Photo Room where experts build intricate backdrops and settings for collectibles of all kinds. They then light and pose figures and statues to show off what they can do for photos that will appear on packaging, in solicitations, and for all manner of promotions including even the stop-motion animation done for online segments. There was even some super cool photography going on while we were there, but we were sworn to secrecy and can’t tell you what we saw. As always, keep your eyes out for the monthly DC Collectibles solicits as there are lots more cool products on the way this year and into 2016!
Of course, there’s lots going on at DC beyond just collectibles. We got to see the super cool game room where the company tests all DC-related games all the way from prototype stages through final releases. It’s here that the team examines the look of characters, not to mention their actions, motivations, voices, and everything else that makes them iconic and well known to fans.
We also got to visit the brand new DC Entertainment Library, just recently moved to the West Coast from New York. The door to this area is decorated by the first ever comic book by the ancestor of DC Comics, New Fun #1 from 1935, and behind it is every comic book lover’s dream: over 90,000 comics from the very beginning all the way to today’s newest releases! They have everything from the earliest books to first appearances, incredibly rare one-off ashcans, special promos and printed advertisements. Current issues go to library too, along with collected trades and one of everything DC releases. Best of all there’s a small display case that holds true icons of comic book history including first appearances and truly unique vintage items like Action Comics #1, an ultra-rare ashcan version of the same, the 1939-1940 New York World’s Fair Comics issue (with a blonde Superman, John Zatara, and the Sandman on the cover!), Supergirl’s first cover appearance, All Star Comics #8, Wonder Woman #1, Whiz Comics #1/2 from 1940, Detective Comics #1 from 1937, and more.
After the library we visited the DC Comics and Vertigo editorial departments, recently moved to the west coast from New York. There we got to roam the newly constructed office space and received an inside look at how digital and custom comics are made.
As fans of DC Comics and Collectibles it’s hard not to be wowed just stepping foot in the building where so much cool stuff happens, and where literally the stories of Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, Green Lantern, the Flash, Cyborg, and all the rest are crafted and transformed into various media, comic books, animation, and collectibles. From the intricately designed lobbies and door art to the different departments working side by side there’s tons of excitement at the DC Entertainment Los Angeles home base and it was truly a privilege to be able to visit it.
Special thanks go out to Jim Fletcher and Kevin Kiniry for this amazing tour!
Words by Scott Rubin, photos by David Yeh
SCROLL DOWN FOR TONS OF COOL PHOTOS FROM THE DC ENTERTAINMENT OFFICES!
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