Part of your success comes from your longevity. You said with time, artists get trapped in their own work and can eventually become victims to it. Do you have the feeling that’s happening to you?

Hmmm I don’t think so because I understand this idea. My elements, my icons, my comics, all of these things… to make an association to something that exists… I mean I feel like I can still create art without using all of these things that represent me. The only problem is people will say “Oh but what about Pointman? What about your atomic?” So it’s difficult to get people to kind of accept a new style, but I think I will always find something new… I hope…

Your brand Futura Laboratories is extremely successful in Japan and is considerably growing internationally. What part do you play in the brand? Do you make all the designs?

I submit all of the Futura content, whatever it’s like: my work, a lot of graphic ideas that I’m generating. We also have designers, we have artists working for the company. Everything is approved by me. But for the most part, as far as specifically, like: “we’re going to make a belt, we’re going to make a bag , etc.” No, I allow the company to make those decisions based on whatever the popularity of an item is, what’s so special to them. But one thing about FL I’m really happy about, and I love my guys there, they work really hard for the brand, is doing great collaborations. We’ve done some with Clarks, with Descente, in the past we had a program with North Face, so we’ve done some cool collaborations. Some being sold exclusively for Japan or whatever… So I’m doing the brand out of Japan but I’m not trying to make it a really international brand because then it’s going to become too big for me to kind of control, and we’re doing well so… We’re a small company, we’re in Fukuoka, you know, we’re not in Tokyo. So the development of the company, well for 4 years now…hmmm 5 years, it’s going very well, you know, gradual, very gradual.

You are a Flickr heavy user and you share your pictures on a daily basis. Has this new medium strengthen your relation with your fans?

It’s weird I mean… It’s funny because it’s the only place… I’m not on social networks: I’m not on Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, I can’t do all of that but through the last 10 years, I’ve been putting photos on the web, whether it’s on Recon, 5th Dimension, you know, whatever my mystery of online presence: “Oh Futura is there!”, “Oh he’s putting photos here!” You know, I always liked that whole idea. And so Flickr is the most amazing in that… I mean I will always answer comments, so I’m a little bit surprised that… you know I think when you get people they watch, it’s more like voyeurism than participation but I honestly want them to participate because for the moment this is where you can get me, this is where you can actually get me, you know. And if you really say something about a photo I will comment back and if you say something interesting then we could start a dialogue. It’s not like, I don’t have some people doing this shit for me, it’s ME! I’m sitting there, I’m the one! You know, everyday I’m uploading! Come to me! Flickr is interesting because, you know when I first joined I was trying to be in groups. I see how the program works, the application, but I want to change it, I don’t want it to be the way it is. I want to remake it , like my kind of version. And the thing is that groups, when you’re joining these groups, you get bullshit comments. Say something really, don’t say “Great capture!”. There are always clichés like “Great photo!”, “Awesome light!”, blablabla. It’s like, no dude, tell me a story! Engage me so that we can have the feeling that… So I want it to become more like that, like this is the secret place where if you know about me and you think you know about me… you can almost pretend to really know me by having this thing with me. So I think it’s intimidating, mostly I understand. My son is telling me “Dad, you’re giving them way too much! They can’t deal with the content.” It’s probably true but we’ll see… I like the medium. I’m trying to make my son to design something that looks like Flickr, but it’s not Flickr and it’s not Flickriver either. We want to make a Black Flickr! So there’s one kid we know, he can do it, this guy is amazing, a programmer, so we’re kind of working on that. We want to do our own version! And maybe even make it like our own social network; we want to create our own social network! We’ll see, it’s kind of in development right now, but that would be fun, yeah!

Are you still working with your son Timothy mcGuire? What are your projects together?

Yeah, of course I mentioned we have some Nike stuff coming out and he’s going to help me with some support images. He’s working with me obviously, but at the same time, things we do we don’t like to… you know, we don’t want people just to think “Oh yeah, your father…”, you know what I mean? It’s a bad position for him… (Glltn: “Who cares what people think?”) … Of course, of course, but we care and he cares. It’s funny because… I’m sure you know about Tabatha (Glltn: “Yes, your daughter!”). Well, you can meet Timothy, talk for one hour, he would never mention me, it would never be mentioned. Tabatha, you could talk for one hour… within one minute she would say it: “Oh you know who my father is, right?”, this kind of thing. So it’s weird how they both are and it’s something we discussed when we were growing up. It’s going to be more difficult for the boy. Different personalities… But like I said, I’ve always told my son: “Dude, you’re not gonna get a fair break…”, you know what I mean? “They’re gonna be rough on you…” So we have to make sure what he’s doing is kind of disconnected. I don’t want people thinking it’s because of me. But anyway, he went to Japan, he lived there four years, came back and he learnt the language. I mean I love Timothy, I think he’s very talented.

How did you hook up with Jakuan of 360 Toys Group and how was the process of making the Nosferatu?

Jakuan! I love Jakuan! Jakuan, we go back many years, I’ve known Jak for a long time, after all of the Pointman toys, the Unkle version, Nigo, all of this kind of stuff… I wanted to have more control over making a toy and Jak was sculpting and doing his own stuffs. He did something for Warhol, he had a toy store… But in the end, I think we made too many. No, I know the problem, there was a huge problem with the original delivery. You know how they do: you sell a certain numbers, you receive an advance, you say this is the day we’re going to deliver… and we got delayed more than 3 months from when we promised delivery. And all of this stuff was handled by Jakuan so the realisation of this thing never really worked: the timing was wrong, the cadence was wrong, it was just wrong. And the money was kind of not handled right and in the end it was not a good project. The toy was awesome, I loved it, but the business of that project was horrible! As a result he’s over there, I’m over here, you know what I mean? But it’s totally cool. It’s just unfortunate.

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