Funko Pop — Stan Lee Prototype

This is a prototype Funko Pop dedicated to Stan Lee, offered with the edition subsequently released to the public. Prototypes are the origin point of every Funko figure: the pieces from which a design is judged, corrected and approved, and which by their nature are not replicated. Their interest for collectors lies precisely in that position, as a record of the design decision rather than of the finished product.

This example comes from the private collection of David Goldsmith, part of Funko since its early years alongside founder Brian Mariotti and now active in a new venture, Thrilljoy. The provenance places the object inside the company's own history, at the stage where the figure of Stan Lee, the author who shaped American comics and co-created much of the Marvel universe, was being translated into the Pop vocabulary of oversized head, minimal features and instantly legible silhouette.

The figure is accompanied by the public release edition, which establishes a narrative link between the prototype and its final realisation: the two objects document the beginning and the end of a single design process, and together they give this piece a completeness that prototypes rarely have.