INTERVIEW: Connor McConnell from Abominable Toys!

Abominable Toys, a designer toy company who has not been around for a long time but is already seeing much success and putting its mark in the designer toy world! As soon as collectors and toy lovers were introduced to Chomp, a friendly furry yeti, they immediately fell in love and the Chomp craze began. The love for Chomp is undeniable as pins and figures have been selling out in just minutes and keeping collectors waiting for the next Chomp drop.

Connor, the man behind the fantastic beast

We interviewed Connor McConnell, the creator of Chomp and Abominable Toys, on how this whole adventure began and has us all hooked for more...

SS: Let's start off by telling us a bit about yourself. 
Connor: I'm 19 years old, I'm from Pennsylvania, and I've loved collecting toys for as long as I can remember. I started a few businesses in high school my freshman year and some I still run today. Abominable Toys is my newest, most fun, and honestly favorite by far.
SS: How did you get inspired to get into designing toys? 
Connor: I've been a collector of toys in general pretty much all my life, but I really was never into art/designer toys, let alone actually making them, until I saw Tiny Ghost by Reis O'Brien. There was something about his design and his interactions with fans that just really made me want to be a part of it and so I decided to make my own character into a toy.

Benjamin Su, a Pixar animator and a key creator of Chomp
SS: When did the 'Chomp' design get started? And was it your first and only design? 
Connor: The first Chomp sketch was probably 2 years ago on a piece of my Trig homework in high school and I made a few different ones, but they all were super rough sketches. Chomp really came to life when Benjamin Su got on board and fleshed out the design to make him into an actual character.

SS: Was it your goal to start your own designer toy company? And how did you come up with the name? 
Connor: Initially the sketches I made were actually for a logo of another company, but people really seemed to like them and with me being introduced to Tiny Ghost I decided to scrap the logo and start working towards making a figure. I didn't do it all on my own though. Benjamin Su, Eric Johns, and Alain helped me out a lot through the process and I'm so glad to have them on the team. Chomp's name funnily enough also came from Tiny Ghost. I held a vote in a fan group to name the character and gave the highest voted name some rare Tiny Ghost stuff from my personal collection and Chomp won by a lot. The second highest voted name was Yibet.
SS: Do you plan on releasing other toys besides Chomp? 
Connor: Yes! We are planning on debuting Chomper in figure form this winter as well a few other characters throughout next year.


SS: How about any Con appearances? 
Connor: We're planning to be at NYCC and Dcon this year.
SS: We've been following the #chompocalypse contest and we've seen all the awesome submissions. How did this idea for the contest come about? 
Connor: One of the long time supporters of Chomp was actually making coloring book pages and I really loved the idea, but I didn't know how to implement it. I eventually came up with this contest after looking at some similar giveaways with other designer toy companies and expanding on them. I really just wanted to get the fans engaged by giving them a chance to design their own figure and reward them for their creativity.

SS: Could you give us a hint of any other Chomp figures and/or pin variants coming in the near future? 
Connor: I can't say much, but next month will have some pretty Sweet releases that's for sure.
SS: Any last comments for all the Abominable Toys' fans? 
Connor: I know I've said it a million times, but I truly can't thank everyone enough who's supported this incredibly fun venture. Without all of you this never would have been able to get anywhere close to where it is now.

Follow their social media pages, Instagram and Facebook, for all Chomp and other Abominable Toys news, contests and giveaways!