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Super Awesome Pinball Show Special

The Super Awesome Pinball Show·podcast_episode·46m 29s·analyzed·Dec 8, 2024
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.037

TL;DR

Franchi and Gomez reveal why licensing restrictions and self-promotion ended Franchi's Stern career.

Summary

Christopher Franchi, a prominent pinball artist at Stern, sits down with George Gomez to discuss why Franchi's career at Stern stalled after 2018 despite early success on Batman 66, Guardians of the Galaxy, Munsters, and Beatles. Gomez explains that Franchi's aggressive self-promotion, social media activity, and unauthorized use of licensed IP for personal merchandise created contractual and licensing complications with major licensors (Disney, Marvel, Star Wars). The conversation reveals the tension between artist autonomy, licensor IP control, and Stern's risk management, culminating in Franchi's eventual transition to other manufacturers like Spooky Pinball.

Key Claims

  • Franchi's art was silenced for years after Beatles (2018) due to licensing and PR concerns, not performance quality

    high confidence · Gomez directly explains the decision was about risk management with licensors, not art ability

  • Kaneda obtained and leaked Munsters artwork without proper authorization, triggering early concerns about Franchi's information control

    high confidence · Franchi describes Kaneda showing Munsters work after promising confidentiality; world received leaked imagery within seconds

  • Franchi created unauthorized merchandise (t-shirts, stickers, banners, art prints) featuring licensed IP from games he worked on

    high confidence · Franchi admits to self-promotion using IP; Gomez describes Gary's reaction to art prints at an expo

  • Major licensors (Disney, Marvel, Star Wars) own the art generated for pinball games, not Stern or the artist

    high confidence · Gomez explains licensing structure: 'it doesn't belong to stern pinball and it doesn't belong to you it actually belongs to the licensor'

  • Gomez told Greg Ferris (art director) to control Franchi or Stern would not use him; internal culture viewed Franchi as a 'loose cannon'

    high confidence · Gomez: 'if you can't control this guy then we can't use this guy' and references being 'forceful' with Greg about the issue

  • Gary (Stern) directly requested Franchi be brought back onto a game at an Expo ~1.5-2 years ago, but nothing materialized

    high confidence · Franchi recounts specific elevator encounter where Gary told Gomez 'we got to get frenchie in on a game'

  • Franchi waited months after Gary's request, expecting a game assignment, then realized he was being strung along and decided to pursue other manufacturers

    high confidence · Franchi: 'I collected dust for months. Nothing ever happened' and later 'I could have fit in on at least 50 percent of these' released games

  • Gomez accidentally revealed Deadpool game announcement at Texas Pinball Festival while praising Jeremy's work, creating another PR incident

Notable Quotes

  • “My art was silenced for years and no one knew why, including myself. Ever since, Pinside has been on fire with speculation, mostly getting it wrong.”

    Christopher Franchi @ opening — Establishes the central mystery of the episode and acknowledges community speculation

  • “I don't 100% know the answer. I don't know that Stern 100% knows the answer.”

    Christopher Franchi @ early — Highlights the lack of clarity on Stern's side regarding the decision

  • “I think that the fame that you ran into in pinball was sort of unexpected and I think that I don't know that you were prepared for it and I think that it affected your judgment in certain things.”

    George Gomez @ mid — Core explanation: fame and immature handling of it drove the separation

  • “it doesn't belong to stern pinball and it doesn't belong to you it actually belongs to the licensor”

    George Gomez @ mid — Explains the legal structure most pinball artists don't understand

  • “I don't need to worry about PR stuff... if you say you think you'd fit in 50% of those projects, okay, but 50% of them are off the table because you don't fit. And then, you know, the conversation internally is, are we going to have PR issues?”

    George Gomez @ late-mid — Reveals the calculus: even if Franchi fit artistically, the PR risk made him unusable

  • “Everything's different but I'm looking at from my viewpoint, which is coming from the comic book world... every one of those deals, while they may be very standard today, maybe back in the day they weren't so standard.”

    Christopher Franchi @ mid — Franchi's perspective: he didn't fully understand the licensing world coming from comics

  • “I was in the audience at your show at Texas Pinball Festival when you slipped out the Deadpool. And at that point, Deadpool hadn't been announced... I swept under the rug as shit happens.”

    George Gomez @ late — Shows Gomez himself has accidentally leaked announcements; acknowledges the ongoing PR management challenge

Entities

Christopher FranchipersonGeorge GomezpersonStern PinballcompanyGreg FerrispersonKevin O'ConnorpersonJoe KamenkopersonGary (Stern)person

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern's internal culture views artists with high social media presence and self-promotion as 'loose cannons' creating PR/licensing risk, limiting future work opportunities

    high · Gomez: 'loose cannon on deck' and tells Greg Ferris to control Franchi or Stern won't use him; states 'I need a guy that's gonna just do the work and what comes of it comes of it'

  • ?

    community_signal: Franchi's unauthorized self-promotion and merchandise created tension with licensors; Gary reacted negatively to unauthorized art prints at Comic-Con

    high · Gomez recounts Gary's 'flip out' at expo seeing art prints; Franchi admits making t-shirts, stickers, banners with his name; explains P.T. Barnum self-promotion philosophy

  • ?

    community_signal: Gomez emphasizes professional norms: artists should ask permission before discussing participation in games with community, professional respect protocol

    medium · Gomez: 'a lot of artists that we work with call me up and ask permission routinely... it's just an element of professional respect' and 'be careful with this subject'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Stern deliberately matches artistic styles to properties; some artists fit certain IPs better than others; diversity in styles valued over single artist consistency

    medium · Gomez: 'not every artist should do every property... we want diversity in the styles' and discusses fitting Jeremy's gig poster style to Metallica Remaster

  • ?

    leak_detection: Kaneda leaked Munsters artwork within seconds of being shown confidential work, triggering early concerns about information control around Franchi projects

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.139

0:00
The following is a super awesome special edition podcast sponsored by our friends at Cointaker.com. Cointaker, where to go for pinball games, parts, and much more.
0:16
I came into this wonderful world of pinball back in 2016 with my artwork for Stern Pinball's Batman 66, which was surprisingly met with great fanfare. After that came Guardians of the Galaxy, The Munsters, and The Beatles. All the art for which was met with great love when I was on top of the world.
0:35
And then it all came crashing down. What happened to this promising career? My art was silenced for years and no one knew why, including myself. Ever since, Pinside has been on fire with speculation, mostly getting it wrong. What was the real truth? Who was to blame? Who wasn't? What does the future hold?
0:55
Today, you will finally find out. Join me, Christopher Franchi, and my special guest, Stern Pinball's George Gomez, as we lay it all on the table. Finally, the real truth will be told. Well, goddamn, if I had a nickel for every time somebody asked me why I don't work for Stern anymore, I'd be a hundred air.
1:34
Maybe a thousand air. I'm not sure. Anyway, I was recently scrolling through Pinside when I noticed, ah, here we go again. The age-old topic coming up of why I don't work for Stern anymore, or if I ever will, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada. And I thought to myself, you know, this has never really been addressed. I honestly don't 100% know the answer. I don't know that Stern 100% knows the answer. But I thought, you know what? I've got a great relationship with George. He's a dear friend. I'm going to have George on. Who else would know about Stern's side of things other than George? And you got me here. The two of us are going to lay it all on the table. We're going to find out exactly what happened between Franchi and Stern. Way back in 2018, just after I finished up the Beatles for Joe Camenco and Stern. But no sense in me just sitting here talking about it by myself. Let's bring on my good friend, Mr. George Gomez of Stern Pinball, everybody. Oh, yeah. It's Christopher Franchetti, ladies and gentlemen. I want to get some spaghetti meatballs. I suggest the ravioli. With the marinara sauce. The ravioli with the breadsticks. Or maybe a rabiata sauce. Maybe I have that instead. Ladies and gentlemen, we are recording with Christopher Franchi Franchetti. All right, I don't have that much Italian music.

high confidence · Gomez admits: 'I threw in Deadpool' during a list and hoped no one heard it; later says he swept it under the rug

  • “I collected dust for months. Nothing ever happened... I could have fit in on at least 50 percent of these but it's obvious they don't want me in here.”

    Christopher Franchi @ late — The turning point where Franchi gave up on Stern and moved to other manufacturers

  • “a lot of guys call me up and ask permission routinely... because they get approached by the community... it's just an element of professional respect”

    George Gomez @ late — Standards Gomez expects from professional artists; implies Franchi didn't follow this protocol

  • “the writing was on the wall but then you know i was always still friends with most of the people at stern”

    Christopher Franchi @ late — Personal relationship remained despite professional separation

    • Kaneda
    person
    Sebastian Napoliperson
    Jeremyperson
    Spooky Pinballcompany
    Disney/Marvel/Star Wars/Lucascompany
    Batman 66game
    Guardians of the Galaxygame
    The Beatlesgame
    The Munstersgame
    Deadpoolgame
    Metallica Remastergame
    Evil Deadgame
    Comic-Conevent
    Texas Pinball Festivalevent
    Pinsideorganization
    Cointaker.comcompany
    The Super Awesome Pinball Showorganization

    high · Franchi: 'He goes, I'll just give you my impression... Five seconds and the entire world had it.' Gomez was unaware of this leak until now.

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Major licensors (Disney, Marvel, Star Wars, Lucas) own all artwork created for pinball games; Stern's rights are limited to approved use during licensing period; licensors monitor community forums and social media

    high · Gomez explains: 'it doesn't belong to stern pinball and it doesn't belong to you it actually belongs to the licensor.' Notes licensors follow Pinside forums and have made complaint calls.

  • $

    market_signal: Accidental leak: Gomez revealed Deadpool game announcement at Texas Pinball Festival while praising Jeremy's work, creating unintended PR incident

    high · Gomez admits: 'I threw in Deadpool' during artist praise list; 'I swept under the rug as shit happens'; acknowledges this was 'confluence of all those things'

  • ?

    community_signal: Franchi's early-career fame from Batman 66 success was unexpected; he was unprepared for public recognition and applied P.T. Barnum self-promotion tactics inappropriately for corporate environment

    high · Gomez: 'fame of pinball has sort of, it's a new thing to him' and observes Franchi 'wasn't prepared for it'; Franchi admits: 'that fame was very odd and something I didn't know how to handle at the time'

  • ?

    community_signal: Christopher Franchi transition from Stern (2016-2018) to Spooky Pinball represents artist relocation due to licensing/PR restrictions at major manufacturer

    high · Franchi states: 'I'm just gonna move on' after realizing he was being strung along; mentions creating work for Spooky on Evil Dead with 'interesting lighting palette'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Christopher Franchi's art career at Stern ended post-2018 due to PR/licensing risk, not performance; Franchi later transitioned to Spooky Pinball

    high · Gomez: 'it's not that you can't. It's simply a matter of we got to fit you into a project and I have to get everybody on board.' Franchi now working with Spooky on Evil Dead and other projects.

  • ?

    announcement: Jeremy (gig poster artist) brought in to work on Metallica Remaster by the band directly; faced steep learning curve on pinball artwork requirements vs. gig posters

    medium · Gomez describes Jeremy thinking 3-day/1-week timeline for gig poster but facing 'entire project with all this detail' requiring playfield, backglass, plastics, and approvals iterations

    • 2:58
    So, well, all right, so let's get one thing straight, okay? I called you and asked you if you wanted to do this, but we did not discuss it at all, have we? This is true. You said, let's set it up a little bit. You said, I'm asked a lot why I'm still not working with Stern Pinball. That's what you told me. And then you said, would you be willing to talk about it? And I said, Christopher Franchi Franchetti, my buddy, if you're willing to talk about it, I'm willing to talk about it. It didn't go any further than that. No, it didn't. It didn't. So you actually, you have no idea what I'm going to say. I don't. You think you know. And you have no idea what I'm going to edit out.
    3:37
    Well, you can't do that. No, I wouldn't do that. You got to be true to the people. If I edit out anything, it's going to be like breaks of silence or you going, um, which you tend to do a lot. I do. I've heard that over the years. I've heard that I was in a high school speech class. It goes back that far. I would, um, and I would get corrected on my ums. Okay, so to set the table for everyone, in case they're just coming into this blindly, let's just start at square one. You want to tell the Franchetti origin story? Because I could do that. Yeah, I was going to do that, but it's better coming from you because you're the guys that called out. Yeah. So go ahead. So when we were working on the Batman 66 project with our good friend Joe Kamenko, when we started the project, Joe said, hey, I've got a lot of guys that owe me favors. You know, I want them to work on the game, you know, artists, etc. And some of them from studios that he was associated with, some of them from studios that he had been associated with in other times. So, you know, we started, Greg Farris was the art director at the time. And, you know, the direction that we gave those artists wasn't a heck of a lot different than the direction that we gave you. And we were having difficulty with these artists because they really were doing it for nothing as a favor to show. And unfortunately, the work was feeling that way. So I started, you know, I'm starting to look at this stuff. And finally, one day we start seeing two problems. One problem was it looked like three guys did it. So, you know, the stuff on the back glass didn't look like the stuff on the side of the cabinet. it. The only experienced guy that we had on the project pinball experience was Kevin O'Connor on the playfields. And so he was doing a great job. He was doing what he always does on a playfield. And, uh, but all of these things were, they were looking very disjointed. And at first I was like hammering Greg, Greg, you got to pull these guys in. You're the art director. You got to, you know, art direct, get me, you know, get me consistent pallets, get me consistent forms. This thing's got to hang like a package. And we went around and around. And one day I said to Greg, Greg, we can't salvage this we gotta pivot so greg goes on the internet and uh finds mr cristobal franci cristobal franci the francietti and in all of his bat glory very colorful he's done the batman he has done the robin greg viva la franci so you know greg calls me into his office and we're staring at a screen looking at a bunch of frenchetti work what was it it was was it blister cards for toys i can't remember exactly it was a little of everything yeah i was making like my own hot wheels and action figure packages and poster prints and things yeah so i said to greg i said get this guy on the horn right now where is he and it's somewhere in michigan all right get his ass in here and let's do this so we bring you in and you get it right away. You know, you totally like, oh, this is like a passion franchise for you. Right. So it was a great fit. And I think you and I hit it off on what the thing had to look like. And, you know, Kevin had a little bit of a direction. We just altered Kevin's characters to be consistent with your characters. And we used your characters on the playfield. And Kevin understood like the, you know, the logic of a pinball playfield, right? Not everybody can do of pinball play fields now you know because you've done a few you know you've done a bunch and uh but at the time we were like a little bit like i don't know if i want to turn you loose on a play field just yet right i want you to do you know get get me the cabinet sides get me the back glasses and and we'll let kevin because it play fields are a difficult thing for yeah well he had a head start too i would have had to start from the ground yeah he was yeah so it was but it was good that we could take a lot of your palettes right like because your palettes ended up driving a lot of his work right and we use some of your palettes and some of your characters etc so we started working and you know the franchetti story joe kamenka calls me one day after after i had sent him some samples of your art he calls me in in classic joe fashion and he says you know the franchetti guy he's like he's pretty good right i was like oh yeah we're loving him his name's franchi yeah That Franchetti, he's like, he's, I think, you know, put me in touch with Franchetti. Okay, Joe, I'll put you in touch with Franchi. But so from that moment on, you became Franchetti. One day you said, Joe called me and said, yeah, did he get your name right? And you're like, well, he's called you Franchetti for a while.
    8:16
    And I had to keep correcting him. So it's the origin of Franchetti. And now, you know, now as far as when you talk to me, you know, you are Cristobal Franchetti. I hear Italian restaurant music in the background when you ask the phone. Absolutely.
    8:32
    So, I mean, that's the Christopher Franchetti origin story, right? So now, which everyone has to remember that story because it ties into some of the things we're going to talk about. And then, you know, you did an amazing job on the game. The game looks spectacular. You know, all of us, I think, sort of raised the bar on what that game could be. And I think, you know, it's one of my favorites. And so, yeah, that, you know, that led to, yeah, the next project, which was Guardians. And again, you know, Guardians and Beatles, right? Guardians and Monsters and Beatles. Yeah. And, you know, you know, I think the world of your talent and I think that you always bring fresh ideas to stuff, which is really great. It's fun to collaborate with you because of some of the ideas that you bring to it. And I think... Before we go ahead, on that note, you and I had the same idea without knowing it for the topper for Batman. That's correct. Like, mine was more of a flat version, but you were developing a three-dimensional version. Yeah, we both had the idea that, hey, the Batmobile cockpit, you know, with the spinning strobe and all that, you know, it could look cool. And I wanted it. I wanted to be three dimensional. I had a little bit of space there. So I thought it would be cool. And when you showed me, you showed me your sketch and I showed you my sketch. And we're like, look at that. Yeah, I just stick my thing on the sides of yours like wings and it's complete. Exactly. Yep. All right. So go ahead. So we were. No, I mean, that was that was the setup. And then, you know, you want to take it from there. I'm good with that. OK, well, yeah. I mean, we both kind of have to like hold hands through this because I think a lot of stuff that happened was simultaneous just on two different sides of the coin. Well, so the first major blunder that I know of and really the only, well, there's one and a half things. But the first major blunder was nobody warned me about Kaneda. I didn't know who this guy was. And he comes out of nowhere and he's like, you know, hey, why don't you show me what you're working on for monsters? Somehow he knew it was monsters. Okay. He goes, I'll just give you. So I totally forgot about this. I totally forgot. I completely forgot about this. Okay. Yeah. So I just show me, you know, and I'll give you my impression. I'm like, well, yeah, but you can't show anybody. He's like, no, no, it's cool. And he didn't have like pictures of this in his hands. Five seconds and the entire world had it. Right. And so I was like, I actually, to tell you the truth, I wasn't even aware of that. I specifically, I was like, I knew Kaneda had gotten some stuff. I didn't know what that connection was. You never knew? I don't think so. So you're just finding this out now? Yes. It's sounding like it's sounding new to me. Yes. People talk over there? Honestly, first of all, it was a long time ago. And I know that, you know, look, it's a we have a relationship. And, you know, like any relationship, sometimes I'm not happy with you.
    11:28
    You know, and I've told you as much. Right. I said I said Chris you know you can do you can do this You can do that I think that I tell you without I not a psychoanalyst and I don play one on TV but I think that the fame that you ran into in pinball was sort of unexpected and I think that I don't know that you were prepared for it and I think that it affected your judgment in certain things. So all of a sudden you went from working in relative anonymity to a bunch of people know your name and they're talking about you and they're reaching out to you, and you're getting compliments. You're also getting some people shooting arrows at you, but that's the work, right? That's the job. That's fair. I think you're accurate with that. It was very odd and something I didn't know how to handle at the time. Right. I think there's an element of maturity, and I've seen this a lot, right, because, first of all, I experienced it in unexpected ways in my own career, And then I've watched a lot of young people sort of wrestle with it. And some people manage to adapt better and some people handle it gracefully. Some people, it turns them upside down. You know, everybody does. Everybody deals with it differently because we are all very different human beings and with different life experiences. And so I my feeling was and I and I had I think I had these conversations with Greg. I'm going to say, look, the fame of pinball has sort of, it's a new thing to him. He's, you know, in it, you know, whether he wants to be or not. So he's dealing with it. And so I had numerous conversations with Greg saying, tell him to shut up. Just tell him to be quiet. Stop talking about the work and that, you know, everything will be okay. And Chris, from our perspective, when some of that stuff happens, it's kind of like we go, whoa, whoa, loose cannon on deck. You can't control. you can't control that guy you know and i mean i remember being very forceful with greg i said greg you're the freaking art director if you can't control this guy then we can't use this guy and so you know it's stuff like that right because because i just like i come to work and and people say things to me did you see this i'm like because i don't you know for my own sanity i don't chase the the pinball scuttlebutt i'm not as in tune with the pinball scuttlebutt maybe as uh other people are. And I like I don't hang out in too many of the forums. I try to help people out on Facebook. When I see something going south, I jump in or but that's the extent I'm not up on the rumors or the, you know, the buzz or whatever. So a lot of times I throw that to the guys that are managing whomever. And so I get Greg got the brunt of, you know, you know, you might you want to wrestle alligators you know like in french you know that wild man frenchy he's like just being a wild man over there in michigan he's like yeah you know i think what contributed to that was that i was sort of brought up in the school of pt barnum when it comes to self-promotion when you see an opportunity you take it so if it's like you know like you said a lot of the stuff that i did was stuff that you don't really get recognized for you sit back my little office at home and i do my work and nobody knows who I am and then all of a sudden all these people are wanting to know who I am and where I come from and all that and so I jumped on that and said like okay well you know if I can make something of myself here I'm not just going to sit around so I'm making t-shirts with my name on it and stickers and all this crap and giant banners to put up at the show and you know hey look at me you know little fingers pointing down just to promote myself promotion is a it's it's like a double-edged sword right because you you have a right to promote yourself but yet you are contractually engaged with a company that's in business doing business with a licensor let's talk about licensors for just a second so your art the art that you generate when you work for us it doesn't belong to stern pinball and it doesn't belong to you it actually belongs to the licensor and a lot of people don't realize that a lot of people think well you you know as the artist as the creator you have rights to it as stern pinball who contracted the work you guys must have some rights to it and our to tell you the truth our rights are somewhat limited right like we get to use it in approved ways relative to the license meaning that i only for the span only for the that's right that's right and for for a certain period of time in a certain way with licensor approval, etc. Some of our contracts go as far as to stipulate that if we see infringements of IP in the world that we operate in, you know, in other words, in our business environment, that we are to report those to the licensor, right? You know, no one wants to make that phone call. No one wants to say, you know, this guy is knocking us off. But contractually, sometimes that is what we're supposed to do by the letter of our contracts, right? So if you have an ongoing relationship with us and you want to do more work, it's probably not a good idea because like I had this situation at Comic-Con, right? So Comic-Con is the absolute worst place for anyone to cheat on anything because all of the, you know, like the, you know, the Disney legal Terminator is walking the halls, right?
    16:55
    So, like, probably you don't want to set up a booth there knocking off some IP, right? Probably, you know. So, you know, I think that's the very first thing that happens is because they don't understand all the stuff. So they might just see that this guy worked for us and the first call they're going to make is not to the guy, it's to us. And they say, you guys are aware of this? You didn't know about this, etc. Puts us in a difficult situation, you know, because we can't lie about it. And we can't say, yeah, we didn't know about that. Oh, yeah, we were gonna, you know, so it's like, oh, yeah, we were gonna call you on that. That's the most graceful thing we can say. Right. And then after that, I think that big brands like Marvel, Disney, Star Wars, Lucas, those big brands, they selectively enforce their IP. I mean, the people that that crop up to violate the IP are like, you know, it's like whack them all. they could, you know, they would have to hire an army of 50,000 lawyers, you know, to just keep up with it. But that said, they have selectively enforced, right? If they feel something is egregious enough, or if they feel that something is bothers them enough, you know, they're going to enforce it, right? And I don't know what those things are. I can't tell. I can't tell you that it could be one of those guys going, the hell is Cristobal French? Who is this guy? Who is this guy with these colors he brings these colors like what does he think he's like pet's dispenser yeah that's the guy to add on to this particular conversation um i remember talking to gary about this gary came over to me at an expo and he saw art prints that i had made of some of this stuff and he flipped out and i was trying to tell him now see the only experience in this area that i could bring to the table and try to explain of course everything's different but i'm looking at from my viewpoint, which is coming from the comic book world, I was telling Gary, I said, Gary, imagine you're at Comic-Con, okay? And then right in the center, there's this giant Marvel booth, and it's all the people from Marvel, and they're pushing all their new movies and their new comic books. And right across the hall is an artist that works for Marvel, or he's a contractor or whatever he does. And on his table, he has these little printouts of all the little superhero drawings that he's done for the covers of his comic books and all that, which are not licensed because they never are. But the part you don't know is, and having worked with Marvel a lot, every one of those deals, while they may be very standard today, maybe back in the day they weren't so standard. And so, you know, some guys have the ability to do certain things and some guys do not. And you can also, you know, a guy can also ask permission, right? And maybe get permission. So I can't speak to any of that. And I don't know. I think that, you know, Gary's flip out is the more blatant you make it, the more at risk we are to defend our position relative to the relationship, etc. It's just look, it's it's unfortunately it's business and and we're both in it. And it doesn't look good. I mean, if somebody you hired is causing waves and then you're telling you that, you know, the first call is coming to us. It's not going to you. First call is coming to us because they see you as a guy that works in our space and they know they have a relationship with us. And so they're going to call us and we're going to have to explain it in some way or we're going to have to tell them, you know, it might be as simple as I will call them up and tell them to stop. Or the next thing he gets is a cease and desist from a Disney lawyer. You know how difficult the whole licensing thing is, right? By now, you've worked on a bunch of different IP. You know that, A, it's inconsistent across licensors to start with. That's one of the very first things that makes it so hard. And, B, the stuff that they, you know, I mean, look at the WIC gun controversy. I mean, just so many things are very different from licensor to licensor. Yeah. So, well, you know, after Gary threw a tantrum, of course, all that stuff disappeared off the table.
    20:58
    Right, right. Because, you know, you only need to see Gary get mad once. I'll tell you, you know, I mean, look, Sebastian Napoli, the new art director, the guy who replaced Greg Ferrer, he's a very talented guy. You know, there was a project not long ago that he said, he goes, man, this would be great for Cristobal Franchi. And I said, well, I said, you know, I said, Cristobal has a, you know, he has a deal now. But I think that, you know, the other thing about what artists we use and how we use them, Not every artist, and you know this, not every artist should do every property, right? Some properties fit a style better. And honestly, we want diversity in the styles, right? Because it means so much. Look, this guy that just did Metallica Remaster, a gig poster artist for the band with a relationship with the band. And, you know, I mean, look, the reception to that art package has been tremendous. It was a suggestion from them, right? They were very involved in the game and they said, you know, we want you to use this guy. And that poor guy, he had no idea what kind of a train hit him. Like, oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And I never do. You're right. Right. I was like, I need these decals. And it was like, I need to, you know, these plastic sets. And I need, you know, there's three, three back glasses. Right. The play field. Right. And initially he's thinking, oh, yeah, I, you know, I knock out these gig posters. right i think i was talking to jeremy i said jeremy what do you think three days for the gig poster you know oh maybe maybe a week you know okay and now you got this like entire project with all this detail and uh you know a game designer going oh you know i'm changing the shape of this plastic or i move this insert you know on the playfield or whatever or you gotta change your art which they're also not used to because gig posters are pretty well and even that guy had, he wrestled with some likenesses because there were some approvals things, right? That where it kept going back for approvals and yeah, he's not happy with his likeness. Okay. All right. Let's, let's go back at it. So a couple of iterations of that and, and, you know, it very hard So no the reason I bring this up is you have a you have situations where licensors are requesting artists Marvel asks for Jeremy a lot because they liked the work he done So they ask like their first question when the conversation comes up is you know is Jeremy the artist So you have, I have three cornerstones and maybe a couple of specials every year that I got to do. And I want to try to, I want to try to fit styles to the projects. And I think you did a great job. Like Guardians was a very limiting property in terms of the stuff you had to work with. Beatles was a very limiting property. You didn't have much to work with, right? You know, I think that those things, I'm very happy you did them, but, you know, I can't envision anybody else having done them. But why are you not working with us anymore? Well, I mean, I've always told you it's not that you can't. It's simply a matter of we got to fit you into a project and I have to get everybody on board. Everybody's going to come the first time there's any kind of an issue. they're going to come see me and they're going to say, dude, you got a loose cannon on deck.
    24:12
    So, you know, that sucker's taking shit out, you know, so, you know, so I can't have that. Now you're, you're how many years into your pinball art career are you? Eight years. You're eight years into it. Yeah. And I'm going to guess, you know, I'm going to guess that you're, you're way more mature than you were you know when fame uh seduced you yeah and now and look and you're doing great stuff right i saw that stuff you did for our friends at spooky and you know i think that stuff looks great and then you had you you probably didn't have a lot to work with there either and you threw a really interesting lighting palette at it and you know what i got from evil dead a logo yeah i think you did a great job with that to go back to where this all kind of dissolved you know i had a good idea of why things dissolved it was you know the canada thing the lock and horns with the art print thing and all that it was kind of obvious writing was on the wall but then you know i was always still friends with most of the people at stern and i'd run into greg at the next bow or something yeah and he'd be like uh he's like hey you know we're just waiting for the right project to come along you know we're gonna have something for you and like three years went by and during that time i realized okay i'm just getting strung along here because obviously you know i could take a look at what you guys have produced in those past three to four years and said i could have fit in on at least 50 percent of these but it's obvious they don't want me in here so well i'm just gonna move on look i think it's a combination of things right so like i said um it doesn't help if people um you know it's kind of like the work is hard enough You know this. The work is hard enough and I don't need to worry about PR stuff. And I think that, you know, I was in I was in the audience at your show at Texas Pinball Festival when you slipped out the Deadpool. And at that point, Deadpool hadn't been announced. And I heard it. I was in the back of the room and I heard it. And then I thought to myself, I hope no one else did. And that one I swept under the rug as shit happens. Do you remember how that was mentioned was I was bragging about Jeremy. Yeah. I was running down the list of all these great things that he did and I threw in Deadpool. I know. At that particular moment in time, it was the confluence of all those things. Okay. So if you say you think you'd fit in 50% of those projects, okay, but 50% of them are off the table because you don't fit. And then, you know, the conversation internally is, are we going to have PR issues? I know it sounds trivial or it sounds ridiculous, but there's a method to the madness, how they want to announce games, how they want to release games. And all that stuff gets more complex when the environment is such that you have to be careful and you have to be true to the licensor. And licensors are funny. Some of them, they follow our stuff. Right. The minute they do the deal, they start following our stuff. And so we have had calls from outside, from licensors going, you know, I was on this pin side forum and, you know, these people are saying this and that. And, you know, we have to say, oh, yeah, you know, that that's going on. Right. So others, they may never look at anything beyond what we submit as approvals material. And your checks. Right. And the checks we write. That's right. That's exactly right. Yeah. Okay. Well, there was one last stand. There was one last thing that happened that really sort of made me realize I just need to do a 180 and reach out to some other companies and all that. And that was you have to take yourself back two years now. Well, it would be a year and a half. Not this past Expo. Expo before that. I was walking down to do the autograph signing. You know, you have to go up that second level there. And so I was walking around to go up the elevator, and Gary's back there. He's like, hey, friend. he actually he's not hip to the franchetti thing and he puts his arm around me he's like how's it going and we weren't talking more than 30 seconds and you walked by and he goes he goes to george come here come here come here and you walked over and he's like hey we got to get frenchie in on a game we got to get him rolling again we got to do something you're standing there and you kind of look like a deer in headlights a bit but you're like yeah all right well okay all right like yeah we got let's get him a game like all right that sounds cool guys and then we had to go and go do the autograph signing. And it was at that point that I thought, okay, maybe things are going to turn around. Maybe I'll just, you know, hit the brakes on everything else and sit here and see what happens. And I collected dust for months. Nothing ever happened. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, like I said, I think there were a lot of reservations, you know, about your, you know, your participation in social media, your self-promotion stuff, you know, the, you know, it's just, it just all adds up and you say, you know, I don't need to deal with this need to kind of you know i need a guy that's gonna you know just kind of do the work and uh what comes of it comes of it you know chris a lot of guys call me up a lot of the artists that we work with call me up and ask permission routinely you know because they get approached by the community right and i have no interest in being anybody's gatekeeper but the reality is that it's just an element of professional respect hey can i talk about my participation in whatever and and so you say sure you know you i mean you look at it and you say okay be careful with this subject or you know don't i don't want to i don't want to discuss this challenge because it's going to put the licensor on a bad light right and so that there's a lot of those conversations that are had and um you know that's that like i said i think just a couple months ago sebastian said to me he goes yeah this is perfect for french you know i said french has got a gig And so it's kind of like, you know. Well, let's try. Let's put a spin on that. What if Franchi didn't have a gig? What would you what would you have said? I would have said to him that, you know, we got to talk about it and we got to see. And I've been frank. I have shared the notion that some of your initial self-promotion and and participation in the in in the community, so to speak, was because it was new to you. And I think that if we were to do it again, Chris, I'd say, look, Chris, you understand the sensitive spots. And, you know, you're smart enough to know when, you know, when you're poking the bear. So don't poke the bear. You know what I mean? So, I mean, that's the real reality. You're a very talented guy. You make a great contribution to all the games you get involved in. I don't think anyone debates that. I think the only thing, you know, You should think about how some of your peers are almost invisible unless we ask them to be otherwise. And in some cases, those guys are, it's just a very professional relationship. They're commercial artists or higher, and they understand that with the gig comes some constraints relative to how the company wants to present the work, the order in which they want to do it, the sensitivities. you know, it's, I think all of this you understand, right? Sure, yeah. I mean, I wouldn't be working today if I didn't, you know. Right. How many games have you done now? How many games have you got under your belt? All together or outside of Star Trek? All together. So we got Batman, Guardians, Monsters, Beatles, Godfather, Elton John, Galactic Tank Force, and Evil Dead 8. That's, you know, that's a good amount. Especially because a lot of those, like ours came serially, but once you went out into the wild, you're managing three, four projects simultaneously, which is remarkable. Especially with some of the disarray in some of those organizations.
    32:12
    Well, that was a polite way of putting it. I was like, I sort of know what you went through, brother, brother. it's not been easy one day one day you said to me man he said i just didn't know how good i had it yeah yeah i know christopher i know because not everybody because we are you know you're professional we are professionals we are professional pinball makers so yeah i guess if we had to put a little bow tie on this, it would be safe to say Bow tie is we love you, brother. We love you. We love the Cristobal Franchi Franchetti. We love you. We love your spaghetti and meatballs. The indefinite answer to anybody who wants to know why I don't work for Stern is the problems that I caused up front are something I have to live with. I may have changed my ways between now and then, but it's created never say never we let's let's revisit the conversation when your commitments expire or you feel like you you know like you need a zig you know i think i think you did a great job for those guys i i think that uh is probably one of your one of your most uh considering what you had to work with and i know you didn't have you know you didn't have jack to work with i think that you know you did a remarkable job um what you're talking about evil dead yeah yeah thank you thank Yeah, it was a tough one, but a total labor of love. I have never seen one. It's a strange film series because the first one is a true horror movie. But then the second one is like makes a horror movie with the Three Stooges. It's like completely different. And then the third movie takes place in medieval times. And all three movies were done by three different distributors, three different production companies. so in order to get evil dead one and two in that game they had to get two separate licenses if they wanted to add army of darkness the third one they would have to get three separate licenses and plus how do you mix the first two with the last one because you've got modern day times then you got medieval times i don't know it's crazy i'm always impressed uh i'm always impressed with those guys pull off really yeah i can relate there there were there were periods of time in my life when i didn't have all the resources that i have today and i know how hard it is to make cool stuff so yeah Respect, you know, yeah. Yeah, so I just I kind of knew, you know I think we both kind of had a you know a good idea of what the deal was for this and I just heard people speculate on it over the years and tell Stories and they were like you know well I talked to the French and he said this I like I never said that like Where are these people coming from Because there was no record record of it anywhere it like well maybe we could make a record and just stop all this It never ceases to amaze me the conclusions that people arrive at in the pinball community about just you name it And there's, you know, some Machiavellian plot. Yeah. Oh, and some of these guys want it to be worse than it is. I was like, well, I heard Franchi was making out with George's girlfriend. You know, it's like, what the hell?
    35:19
    Has she seen me? She doesn't want that. Oh, my God. Yeah, I think, I mean, like I said, I am never, I guess it never shocks me when I see some of the crazy, you know, it's like I've tried to tell people a lot of times, especially like the podcasters and the sort of community news outlets. So it's like, look, I know you think something is the way it is, but, you know, if you really want to talk about it or get some, you know, maybe more realistic information, you know, feel free to call. And so, you know, but you can't help that. I think I think that it happens in the world around us. It's the media. The power of everyone has control of media today is what allows that to happen. Yeah. You know, I think people want to make a mark for themselves and all that. And sometimes maybe a little twisted truth really gives him some notoriety. Absolutely. But whatever. I'm not here to slam anybody. So, well, now let's talk about the next evolution of X-Men shooter lane problems. Oh, yeah. What's going on with that? Yeah, yeah. Well, we can. We can if you want. I mean, we have a... No, I was making a joke. Yeah. No, we have a... You got something to say to the people? Oh, we have a... I'm happy to... We have a kit coming.
    36:33
    Has a... You know, there's... It fixes the plunger problem and improves the auto launcher substantially. And it's physical stuff. It's software stuff. It's a combination of things. Look, I saw some guys speculating that because the game had a slightly shorter schedule than normal, that somehow Jack began working on the bottom of the playfield and ran out of time for the top, which is ridiculous. But it's just not how pinball playfields are designed. That never happens in pinball. People don't say that. you know they so it's like i'm like how does this get this guy thinks like you know like we start at the bottom and then you work your way up okay time's up pencils down you got whatever you got up there's you know so yeah no it's not like that but uh whatever you got up there yeah no i only got half the right right right i don't think really so no i think that um you know x-men is a super complex playfield net that shooter lane normally a shooter lane is just a shooter lane in this particular case it's also happens to be the drain lane because in order to get all the stuff on the left side of the playfield he had to shift everything to the right in addition to that he's got like all kinds of other interactions with that lane so when you make parts every manufactured part in the world no matter what it is has a tolerance and and a tolerance is an allowable deviation from the dead nuts design. So if you say, I want the hole to be an inch in diameter, and you say plus 5,000 minus 5,000, that means that the hole can be 5,000 of an inch under one inch, or it can be 5,000 of an inch over one inch. That's called a tolerance. Everybody always confuses the notion of clearances and tolerances. Clearances and tolerances are two different things. The clearance is the space between two things. A tolerance is an allowable deviation. So in most cases, all of the standard manufacturing tolerances that go into all the parts in that shooter lane would probably be just fine. In this particular case, because of the complexity of it, if things stack up against you, and that's what's called a tolerance stack, when the stack is shifted in one direction by multiple parts, or in the other direction by multiple parts, it possibly presents a problem. And we typically normally design to that. In this particular case, it's a bunch of parts that have to be assembled just right, have to come together just right. And probably I wouldn't allow that again. You know, I probably would say, you know what, let's not make something of that level of complexity with something as simple as I got to get the ball in play, right? And let's think about this too. Let's talk about the notion of the ball in play, right? An auto launcher, typically, all it ever has to do is get the ball in play. And the X-Men auto launcher does that. It actually gets the ball in play. The plunger is a different story, right? Because the plunger, the player actually has control of it. But the only control that a player has of an auto launcher is, did I press the button or not press the button? He doesn't really have, he can't really, he can't time the, you know, he can time it, but in this particular case, timing, it doesn't mean anything. You know, like a timed auto launcher situation would be like, for example, the gun on a Terminator 2, right? The skill shot is when do I press the button, right? In X-Men, that doesn't exist. So the auto launcher basically has to get the ball in play. The plunger is a different animal, right? The player actually can decide how far he can pull it, when he's going to let it go, et cetera. So anyway, a long-winded way of saying, yes, we have a kit coming. And yeah, it's like, if you have an X-Men, don't worry, you'll be fine. it's gonna be good and is it true that the prices are being raised in january to cover the cost for the kids if the prices get raised the prices will be raised probably because we haven't raised prices in like three years but uh and i don't even know that they're gonna do that i think that i think seth has been trying really hard not to raise prices so um i don't know that they're going to be raised but you know you know i mean whenever that price raise conversation comes up Those guys will tell you, we haven't raised prices in three years. You know, we can't say that for the stuff we're buying. So, but anyway. Okay. Well, I'm going to end with this. You got any more hard questions for me? No. I like your haircut. You got your haircut today. Can you still bother? Yeah. Very respectable. I just got it cut about like an hour before I joined you. It smells freshly cut, like a shrub. i can see she put some kind of goop in it because it's a little bit shinier than normal i always bring a hat when i go to get my hair cut because i know when i walk out of there i'm like why did you style my hair like this i'm not going to the grocery store looking like this all right well i'm gonna end with this george even though you weren't aware of it which is strange but i know that i had a lot of conversations with greg about it at the time I previously profusely apologized for the Canada situation and had done everything that I possibly could to make up for that. However, I will just say this, and I haven't said this before, but considering this conversation, it seems like the fitting time to do it. Please accept my apology for my behavior back in the day when I didn't handle things properly. And I was probably stubborn at times. I probably know I argued with Gary about the art prints and I should have just stopped doing it. You know, it's like it doesn't matter if it's right or wrong, you know. Apology accepted. You know, you know me and you know that in spite of all of it, we've stayed friends. Right. And I've been on your show numerous times. Right. And in that time. And so, yeah, no apology accepted. That's what I tell people. They always surprise when I say I still got a lot of friends that's starting to like, really? I'm like, yeah, I mean, everybody I know. In fact, I even Mike Vinicore hated me because of the trophy stomp. Do you remember that? Was it a Twippy thing or something? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We set it up ahead of time that I was going to walk up and act jealous that Jeremy won and stomp his trophy. Unfortunately, neither me nor Jeff, who was running the show, remembered to tell Mike that we were going to do this. So he's up there. I was supposed to go up there and accept it for him and then stomp on it and act pissed off. He just ran up there to accept the award, and I'm like, well, shit. And he's like, well, just go up there and do it anyway. I'm like, really? He's like, yeah, just go. And they're like shoving me up the stairway. So I get up there. it's like he's totally blindsided by it so after the friend that your friend that always got you in grammar school i ran up to him after the show and i'm like mike i'm so sorry we didn't know we all forgot to tell you and it seemed like he always hated me after that but at tpf last year i saw him and i'm like mike vinicore hates me and he's like why do you keep saying that i'm like because you do he's like he goes no i don't and i'm like like are you sure and he goes well i mean There's some things about you I don't like. And I go, well, what's that? And we talked about it. And by the end of the conversation, we were hugging. And he gave me a little Mike Vinacore coin. And now we're pals. So everything's good. Everything's good with everybody at Stern. Everybody that I know, anyway. All right, sir. Well, thanks for coming on. This was an educational and fun experience. And I'm glad we could get all of our dirty laundry aired out. Saturday afternoon in the pinball community, ladies and gentlemen. Just another day in pinball. I will say goodbye to you now, Cristobal, and I will say goodbye to the pinball community. And now you know the rest of the story. Thanks a lot, dudes.
    44:10
    And that's going to do it, everybody. The air has been cleared. I have exorcised the demons. This house is clear. I'd like to thank my good friend George Gomez for coming on. We always have such a good time. Hope you enjoyed it. And if you got a little pocket change, I suggest you run out and get an Evil Dead Pinball Machine from Spooky Pinball right now, because there's still a few left. Anyway, until next time, stop pinball hate, people. Show the love. See you later.
    44:54
    Cause I'm getting Oh, oh, oh Not the kind you give me But make sure you're free So bad Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye Goodbye I'm with you Nothing's got to do With you Make me feel so bad Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye Goodbye, goodbye