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An Interview With Frank Kozik

Frank Kozik’s career began in 1980. He started out making fliers for punk bands in his native Austin, Texas, which led to posters, which led to album covers, which led to his own punk label, Man’s Ruin. He’s been provocative from day one, from art shows with images of Hitler masturbating to ripping off the band Offspring and their label Columbia by charging an exorbitant amount of $75,000 for designing the album art for their 1998 release, Americana. In a 2000 interview with The Onion’s A.V. Club, Kozik claimed messing with Disney was suicidal. But in 2006, he created this bust of China’s Chairman Mao …with Mickey Mouse ears. The man likes controversy. Complex asked Kozik about his path from music industry to the world of toy design, and what he’s got planned next.

Read the full interview and check out more photos after the jump.

Complex: How did you first get into toy design?
Frank Kozik: I got tired of the music thing. For 20 years I had been doing it—mainstream, underground, all kinds of stuff. I also have done a bunch of advertising work, and I’ve always been practicing fine art…anyway I’ve always clicked with toys, and I was going to Japan a lot in the 90s, doing a lot of ad work over there—basically just selling off my designs and trying to get away from music. These friends of mine in the fashion industry started making these toys—the Bounty Hunter guys, and I had known them from other projects and relationships.

So the Bounty Hunter rabbit was your first toy?
Yeah, Bounty Hunter was my first toy, Hikaru [Iwanaga] is my good friend and that led to me doing some stuff with Medicom, the big Japanese company…and I was like, ‘Man, this is cool, I’d like to try and figure out how to do this in the States.’ But for the first year or two it was impossible, but then Kid Robot started up, and then I hooked up with them…and Kid Robot just blew up. So now I’ve totally quit the music business—don’t touch that shit at all. Just doing toys and some clothing.

Haven’t you done some work for Burton?
I did two exclusive designs in Japan for Burton. I did a Mickey Mouse snowboard and a smoking rabbit board. A few have made it to the States but I imagine they’re very hard to come by.

What about the work you’ve done with Kid Robot?
Well, basically I like cute shit and fucked up shit. So Kid Robot is awesome because I can do the cute stuff with them and they can sell it effectively, and I can also do the weird stuff, and they can sell that too. They’re a great company. I deal with the top echelon, and it’s just a great relationship that we maintain.

But you don’t work with any one company?
Nobody has an exclusive deal with me. I license characters, so I work with a lot of companies, and I self-produce, plus I work with all these weird little Japanese companies. I’m always doing really secret, limited edition runs with these smaller Japanese companies—I’ll actually go to Japan and hand paint all the toys.

So what do you have out now?
Oh shit man, I don’t even know where to start. In the last year I’ve probably done 200 different releases, and I’ve got another 100 or so in the pipeline. I do the full price range, too. I offer shit that costs five bucks—and five-dollar toys can be real fucking cool. But if you have a grand you can buy a rabbit chair. I also do fine art commissions, you know, private work. No commercial work, though, which is great.

-Tracy Anderson

One of Kozik’s latest Kid Robot toys from the floor of the 2007 Comic-Con: San Diego, the 12” Smokey.

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