ST. PETERSBURG, FL — Monster High doll fans have good reason to be excited. This weekend the brand’s creator, Garrett Sander, will make his first-ever appearance at a new Florida convention at Sunshine City Scare.
The brand-new horror con runs Saturday and Sunday at The Coliseum and focuses covers the gamut of all things scary — anime, video games, TV, movies and more.
The toy designer is one of the event’s celebrity guests and while he’ll have some art for sale, he’s also happy to connect with Monster High enthusiasts and sign any of their items at no cost to the con’s attendees.
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“He is signing dolls for free, which is a very big deal,” Sunshine City Scare organizers wrote in an email. “There are lots and lots of Monster High fans out there. Signing dolls for free ranks on a scale of extremely rare to unheard of for famous guests at conventions. This is a very generous offer by a celebrity guest.”
It’s not about the money for Sander, who told Patch that not only does he love meeting fans, but Monster High is also more meaningful now than ever before, especially in Florida.
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“The message behind it is celebrating yourself and who you are and your differences that make the world special,” he said. “It’s socially relevant now. I signed up for the con before a lot of stuff (like new legislation) was happening in Florida. I want to show fans that I support them, that we can work through this and find ways to connect.”
He added, “Things like this bring you hope and make you happy and helps you battle the bad stuff happening around you.”
Based in Southern California, Monster High grew out of an inside joke among his colleagues at Mattel in 2007.
When shopping with 12- and 13-year-old girls to see what was trending, they started noticing skull motifs trickling down to younger and younger audiences, Sander said.
From there, they started joking about dead dolls, he said. “People laughed and laughed and laughed, and I brought it to marketing, and they said, ‘Please stop talking about dead dolls. Mattel is never going to make that doll.’”
Still, he thought he was onto something and initially created a concept for a line of zombie girls.
“Then, I thought they were too similar,” he said. “I started thinking about monster dolls with so many different monsters out there. I created Frankie. She was the first one born.”
He jumped into the world of these teen monsters, pulling their world together.
“They were trying to live life differently from their parents,” he said. “And I loved the visual. They can’t hide who they are. Each had a freaky flaw, but they owned it. It was not something to be ashamed of, but something they owned, and it made them more human in a way.”
Sander wasn’t sure the idea would go any further until Mattel moved it into the testing phase.
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“The girls in testing went crazy for it. They wanted to know more about the monsters, more about the school,” he said.
As the Monster High brand evolved, the dolls became half human, half monster. The dolls launched in 2010.
Since then, the dolls have spawned a franchise of movies, TV series and web series, including last year’s “Monster High: The Movie.”
Though he’s since moved on from Mattel and now works as a principal designer for Just Play, Monster High remains close to his heart. He’s excited to attend Sunshine City Scare this weekend.
“The best part is getting to meet the fans and find out what the brand means to them,” he said. “So, if you bring a Monster High item that you have at home, I will sign it for free. I’m a toy designer. That was my job, to make a toy. You don’t need to pay me for a signature. It’s something I worked so hard on. I love to revisit it.”
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