Just less than a year after acquiring the high-end movie poster business Mondo, Funko has shut it down and “unceremoniously” laid off several employees, which includes Mondo co-founders Mitch Putnam and Rob Jones, as well as Mondo senior creative director Eric Garza.
They also shut down The Lab, which was a division created for cutting-edge experiences and products. The Lab was run by Mondo co-founder Rob Jones, who was also laid off.
As a collector of poster art and collectible figures, this is a pretty big blow. Mondo was always pumping out incredible cool and quality products! I bought several posters from them over the years from various artists including Olly Moss, Shepard Fairey, Ken Taylor and Kevin Tong. This is seriously the end of an era!
Mondo is based in Austin, Texas, and was founded in 2004. It was previously a subsidiary of the indie theater chain Alamo Drafthouse before Funko made a deal to buy it last year for $14 million and it makes no sense that this happened so fast. Over the years, Mondo has gained a loyal following of collectors, and I’m sure that something new will be born out of this.
According to The Wrap, Sources said that Mondo’s “vinyl records and collectibles businesses are intact” and one insider said, “the poster line could continue.” But, the whole creative team behind it is gone, which is so ridiculous! Mondo isn’t Mondo without its creative team!
In response to the news, actor Elijah Wood tweeted, “This truly horrendous news. I’m in shock. What have you done @OriginalFunko?”
Artist Daniel Danger said in a tweet, “Funko effectively decimating MONDO by firing the creative old guard of Rob Jones, Mitch Putnam, and Eric Garza among others is a fucking travesty and sheer idiocracy. End of an era, but im with them for whatever they want to do next, and I imagine every Mondo artist will follow.”
He told Gizmodo: “Do they not understand they just lost their entire artist base? I want to work with Rob, Mitch, and [senior creative director] Eric [Garza]. They’re Mondo. If they’re not there, it’s just Funko.”
Another anonymous artist said: “I’d love to continue working with Mondo but if they become a pale imitation of what they were, I’m sure many of us artists in the scene will migrate to wherever creative staff transitions to in the future.”
There were future projects actively being worked on and discussed, but those are projects are now “dead in the water.”
This is a shame and everything about it all feels so wrong. This is madness and everything about it makes me sad. Who would have thought that Funko could be the villain of the story!?
This content was originally published here.
