A year ago, Thrilljoy didn’t really exist as a name collectors knew. Now it’s sold north of a million pieces, thrown a Comic-Con party that pulled in 50,000 people and sold out in minutes, and just landed a Disney license. That’s the kind of year Karissa Marston, Thrilljoy’s Director of Marketing, walked THS through at SDCC 2026.
If you aren’t already familiar, Thrilljoy is the collectibles company Brian Mariotti started after his long run as CEO of Funko, and it’s built around a line called Pix. The vision was that instead of flooding shelves the way a lot of mystery-box figures do, Thrilljoy caps every release. Marston laid out this concept in clear numbers: no more than 9,999 units of any piece exist worldwide, and within that run there’s a “chase piece” with roughly a one-in-six pull rate, plus rarer “super chase” and “ultra chase” versions, including true one-of-ones. Last year, someone actually pulled a one-of-one, and even crazier, they turned down Thrilljoy’s offer to buy it back for $10,000. They wanted the shelf piece more than the cash.
That scarcity is the whole point, according to Marston. “We all come from other collectible companies,” she said, describing how the team watched the mystery-box market get oversaturated. They wanted to build something that put the fun, and the FOMO, back into collecting. It shows up in how the community behaves, too: collectors gather on livestreams to watch each other hunt for specific numbered pieces, turning the chase itself into a shared event rather than something you do alone.
SDCC 2026 was Thrilljoy’s biggest showing yet, with 21 exclusive product launches and that sold-out Block Party: Rock the Block drawing a crowd most companies twice its age would envy. It’s a good showcase for a floor that’s been packed with collectible news all week. THS also caught up with Sideshow and Hot Toys about their own SDCC 2026 lineup, if you want a sense of how competitive the display cases have gotten this year.
The bigger headline out of the booth was Thrilljoy’s new Disney license, kicking off with Toy Story. Marston said more reveals were coming out of the brand’s Comic-Con party that same night, and she was clearly excited about what a deep well of source material Disney gives the team to work with, especially the niche, second-tier characters that rarely get their own merch. She pointed to Lotso’s line, where characters like Chuckles and Chunk ended up as chase pieces instead of background players. It’s a strategy that’s become a small trend across the collectibles space lately, echoing how Funko and Loungefly have leaned into deeper Disney character cuts rather than just the recognizable leads.
Marston’s favorites skew toward her own fandoms. She’s a longtime Creature from the Black Lagoon collector, so the Gillman piece from Thrilljoy’s original Pix launch tops her list, alongside a Junji Ito–inspired mold she called “stunning” in person on the show floor. She’s also, by her own admission, a diehard Star Wars fan, specifically for Grand Admiral Thrawn, dating back to reading Heir to the Empire long before the character hit live action. THS half-joked about a future Thrawn piece, Marston laughed it off but didn’t rule it out: “It’s in the back of our minds now. You planted a seed.”
For a company that didn’t exist in most collectors’ vocabulary a year ago, that’s the kind of confidence a million units sold and a Disney deal can buy. Keep an eye on THS’s full collectibles coverage for more from the SDCC 2026 show floor as new Thrilljoy pieces start showing up.
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