Lawsuit pits 'love doll' makers against each other

NORTH COUNTY [California]---- www.northcountytimes.com- It's a business rivalry with a risque twist: two artisans in the high-end sex doll trade are squaring off in North County court.

A barely noticed civil case wending through the system pits an adult novelty pioneer against a former employee and upstart competitor.

In most respects, it's a typical corporate quarrel, laced with allegations of fraud and broken contracts.

But it also opens a window onto a quirky world in which craftsmen sell lifelike, silicone mannequins for the price of a used car.

Matt McMullen, 40, is the owner and founder of Abyss Creations, headquartered in a nondescript industrial building just south of Highway 78 in San Marcos.

For more than a decade, the company has made RealDolls, billed as the "world's finest" anatomically correct love dolls.

"This is something that I more or less pioneered," McMullen said recently.

The newcomer, of sorts, is Matt Krivicke, 38.

He just launched a doll-making business out of a Valley Center home. It's small ---- he's the sole employee ---- but he knows the industry.

Krivicke essentially ran Abyss for a two-year stint. He was once McMullen's friend.

Nowadays, the men communicate through court filings.

Krivicke sued McMullen in August, claiming he was deprived of his share of Abyss' profits.

McMullen counter-sued, saying Krivicke, among other things, secretly laid the groundwork for a competing sex-doll business while working for him.

Both men are seeking financial damages.

Both deny wrongdoing.

A trial is set for September.

"When you start mixing friends and finances, it can get pretty difficult," Krivicke said during a recent interview at his attorney’s office.

Getting to Krivicke's studio requires a long drive through rural North County, past hobby farms and fruit trees, along twisting, two-lane roads.

Privacy is a plus in his line of work ---- no nosy neighbors inquiring about the headless female body hanging in his garage, nobody wondering whose feet ---- sans legs ---- are resting on a workbench.

A graduate of the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, Krivicke cut his teeth making Halloween masks before following McMullen into the doll business.

He was hired as the facto chief executive of Abyss in 2006, but over time, his relationship with McMullen soured.

He was laid off last year.

With ties cut, Krivicke launched his own product line called "Lovable Dolls."

"I think we currently make the most realistic doll that's available anywhere on the market," Krivicke said.

Each mannequin takes days to produce.

Flexible skeletons, made of metal and plastic, are fleshed out in silicone molds.

Krivicke's girlfriend helps market them online.

"These," Krivicke said, explaining the $4,800 price tag, "are the Ferraris of dolls."

The pioneer

That such a product even exists gives some people the willies.

But there's a market. Abyss has a dozen employees and ships about a doll per day, according to finance manager Debra Newsom.

Its annual income was about $2 million in recent years, according to a document in the court file.

On the Internet, doll fanatics share reviews and post pictures.

Their number includes curio collectors, photographers, and, yes, men looking for some quiet companionship.

One doll owner recently quipped online that his life "seems to be a never-ending cycle of washing, dressing, moving here, moving there, undressing, comb this wig, comb that wig, fix this, fix that and so on."

Today, a handful of companies make high-end dolls, but Abyss remains the best-known, said Sherri Shaulis, managing editor of Adult Video News Novelty Business, a trade publication.

Through appearances in television shows and movies such as "Lars and the Real Girl," RealDolls have even attained a bit of mainstream celebrity.

Radio host Howard Stern has one. So does Vince Neil, lead singer for the rock band Motley Crue.

McMullen said he started making love dolls in the mid-1990s, but it took years of trial and error to hone the design.

That's why Krivicke's venture has been so upsetting.

"The part of it that bothers me is that he had the benefit of coming in and understanding, on a very deep level, how we do what we do," McMullen said.

Friends turned rivals

Krivicke, for his part, said he's simply continuing in a business he knows well.

And while his creations may be similar, his aspirations aren't, he said.

"I want this to be an art piece more than anything else," he said, envisioning gallery shows.

Recently, at an adult industry expo in Las Vegas, the two companies were assigned opposing booths.

Krivicke said he liked the placement. McMullen called it "uncomfortable."

Newsom, Abyss' finance director, brushed off the idea of Krivicke as competition.

"Matt Krivicke doesn't have the skill to do the dolls like Matt McMullen does," Newsom said in a phone interview. "He can do them, maybe technically, but he doesn't have the artistic finesse that Matt McMullen does."

Krivicke said there's enough business to go around, even with the economy struggling.

As his attorney, Laurence Haines, put it: "This is just good, healthy American capitalist competition."