Click here to read Part One/Thursday and Friday.
SATURDAY—–
JoeFest wouldn’t open to attendees until 9am (early bird) or 10am (general admission), and sometimes I have enough positive anxiety during a convention or festival that I wake up early. That meant there was time to check email, type notes on the previous day, and get breakfast. Doug Dellow, who I’d seen playing the G.I. Joe Deck-Building Game the night before, and I arrived at D’Agustino’s at the same time, fearing a long line. Indeed there was one, but I spotted some friends at a big table with open spots. They’d just ordered, so us crashing them was actually helping us and the hostess.
Sitting across from me was Kit Lee of Kentucky, who owns a comic book shop/tech repair store. What a combo! I’m always curious to ask comic book store owners about their business. He’s had it for 15 years, it’s mostly new and back issues, and Marvel is the bestselling publisher, like Amazing Spider-Man, The Mortal Thor, and Infernal Hulk (those later two not big sellers at my shop). Lee is in a strip mall and is about to add a third facet, renting U-Hauls from his parking lot. Fascinating! Dellow showed me a pile of his to-read pile of comics, lots of G.I. Joe and Transformers, but also The Center Holds. Neat!
The first JoeFest event of the day wasn’t even G.I. Joe-related, or inside the con hall. Rather, it was the 8am Hot Wheels Meet-Up, which was free to attend, and took place outside the main entrance before the convention even opened! This is a great way to cross over to another fandom, and maybe energize some Joe fans or dealers who also have small scale cars to buy or sell. (I know I do! I have my brother’s and my entire childhood Hot Wheels and Matchbox collection here in Boston — should I have lugged some of it to Augusta?) No photos of that, but I did get a photo before the first panel of the day started. That would be the 10am “Audible Interlude: A G.I. Joe Podcast LIVE at JoeFest 2026.” Click to enlarge photos.
Despite taking part in a weekly podcast for the last 300 weeks, I don’t listen to podcasts (sorry, it’s me, it’s not you, but I see a lot of movies), so the entire podcast-osphere, including many G.I. Joe podcasts, is off my radar. But I did take a photo of the Audible Interlude’s agenda, which I’ve flipped here, so at last I can learn what I missed:
And on a table next to this was this cool set-up, the Snake Fortress by Benjamin Bentley/Action Figure Bunker:
Mostly I missed this panel because I wanted to be at the Talking Joe in the main entrance hallway with Talking Joe’s host and producer, Mark (no last name), as he was handing out fliers to the crowds streaming past us:
People were interested or polite, which is always preferable to them being grumpy — tabling at cons can be hard!
Also, note the gent above left — always fun to see someone with a camera walking through the convention space. Are they recording for themselves? Planning an edit and an upload later? Live streaming right then? Hopefully they are interested in whatever you have at your booth!
Then, amazing serendipity. Last year, an out of town customer came through my store in Boston. All my employees take note when a G.I. Joe fan arrives, and occasionally one of my employees has called me at home from the store to, by phone, walk someone through which G.I. Joe continuity is which, or to point out which back issues they should start with. I was an hour away, and our newest employee got this customer’s email address — maybe we could ship a big stack of hard to find G.I. Joe back issues to him? But we didn’t get the correct email address, and despite me emailing several variations, we never connected. I lamented both a lost sale and disappointing a Joe fan. But here in Augusta, in June 2026, Mark said to me that that very customer had just asked for me at the Talking Joe table. And then he walked up and introduced himself:
Also, the debut of me wearing a baseball cap in public! Thanks for the hat, Talking-Joe-host-Mark!
This was also a good place to see cosplayers. Some kind of Viper and Lifeline!
Keel-Haul!
A very specific Snake-Eyes!
Snake-Eyes version 4 playing as himself in an emulator of the 1992 Konami coin-op G.I. Joe cabinet arcade game!
This was Jason Pacquard’s doing. I’m not sure if he’s JoeFest’s #2 or #3 top guy, but the hierarchy seems to be Ed Schumacher at the top and Allen and Pacquard at the next level. At the registration desk, a bit of Pacqaurd’s childhood collection was on display, and on Sunday he would tell me, after a little kid watched his mom play as Scarlett on the Konami emulator, that he also had a full-size Konami cabinet at his home. That’s three people I know who own the ’92 G.I. Joe arcade game!
Walked by Larry Hama’s table and noted he wasn’t there. This seemed odd, but maybe a delicious breakfast was going long. I thought I heard Brett Carreras say to someone that Hama would arrive in time for his first panel. (I would be on his second panel. This was a tad unusual, that Hama was on two panels the same day, but Mark had thought the first one might be a toy announcement, and our later one would be focused on old and current comics collaborations.)
Say, Rod Whigham has arrived, what a relief! Ed Schumacher had communicated to me there there was a chance Whigham would have to cancel at the last minute. This would be an unfortunately double-whammy — first G.I. Joe artist Chris Mooneyham, and now perhaps G.I. Joe artist Rod Whigham, both of whom Talking Joe had been slightly helpful in networking to the convention to be featured guests? (Also, Talking Joe Mark’s favorite issue of G.I. Joe is 1984’s #31, drawn by Rod Whigham, and reprinted TWO DAYS BEFORE THE CONVENTION as a new single-issue reprint “Hama Files” edition from Skybound with a new Chris Mooneyham cover. It was too perfect, I would bring one from my store to Augusta and Mark would get all three talents to sign a copy!
But we already knew that Mooneyham wasn’t in attendance. Could it get worse, with Whigham skipping as well?)
But Whigham’s much harder Plan B travel option worked out and he was set up!
I interviewed Whigham many years ago for my book, and he joined us for a great Talking Joe episode much more recently, and just a few months ago he sent me a photo of himself from 1984 for inclusion in my history book. Plus one month ago I got an original art collector to let me include an old G.I. Joe page of Whigham’s in my book. Suffice it to say, Rod Whigham has been swirling about in my head a bit. Also, he drew some new art for last year’s Skybound Kickstarter campaign!
That’s right, Rod Whigham had brought original art to sell, and his prices were great. Seriously, Mr. Whigham, please raise your prices!
I was going to buy a piece, but I thought that A) I already have the greatest Rod Whigham commission possible at home (from after our first interview) and B) I should let someone else at the con have a crack, I could come back tomorrow and buy that nifty Hawk portrait if it hadn’t sold. (This tiny thread to be continued in Part Three/Sunday.)
Whigham wasn’t creating art at this event — he needs a proper drafting table for that, but he had drawn up some new things, and brought along a bunch of original art pages from two (TWO!) different fan-initiated G.I. Joe comic book stories he’d drawn, something which made my brain jiggle while I flipped through a stack.
Missed Opportunity #73: Mark and I did not get a photo of the two of us with Rod Whigham. Oh well. After the con, Whigham emailed us to say what a great time he’d had at the show, so the long, solo drive was worth it:
At 11am the BigBadWorkShop with guest Larry Hama panel was starting. I was there a little late, and noted that moderator Christopher Irving was alone at the front.
He explained that Hama was fatigued and would try to make the second half of the panel, so Irving took the opportunity to tell the audience about Hama’s career. I didn’t envy this, a Hama-less Larry Hama panel, but sometimes live events have curveballs and Christopher Irving is A) comfortable in front of a crowd, being a teacher and all, and B) well-qualified to talk about Larry Hama for a half hour!
Brett Carreras appeared and whispered something in Irving’s ear, that Hama was taking the morning off — significant fatigue — and was planning to be at his table in the con hall for autographs at 1pm. I was relieved, as my/our panel with Hama was scheduled for 4pm. And of course, Hama is a main attraction for some attendees, and they’d be disappointed if they couldn’t meet him. I have sat with or stood near him at his signing table at several conventions and store appearances over many years, and the warmth that comics fans — often G.I. Joe, but also Wolverine and other works — express for Hama and his stories are real and palpable. Often it’s an adult who read those comics at a younger age and sometimes it’s someone who’d gotten their kid into comics. Other times it’s toy-specific, that Hama wrote the back-of-the-card G.I. Joe dossiers, or has himself been turned into an action figure. And still other times it’s more general, that he’s a godfather of G.I. Joe, and both formally (as a consultant on the live-action films, doing a bit of publicity, or doing video promos and autographs for the Skybound Kickstarters) and informally (he writes and draws and has been around since the beginning of G.I. Joe), but it’s all real. A few people online think Hama is a jerk at conventions. I have never seen that. But I have seen folks stand in line and just ask to shake his hand, or present him with an item like a patch they had overseas while serving in the military, or react in surprise in a hallway leading to a convention space as he walks by, them saying “Whoa, it’s Larry Hama!”, a kind of celebrity sighting.
Back to Christopher Irving’s 11am BigBadWorkShop panel — Irving pumped up the audience and showed a slide of a 6-inch Larry Hama action figure. This was an exciting reveal, and Talking Joe’s Mark had guessed correctly. Then Irving unveiled something bananas: a 6-inch action figure line based on Larry Hama’s pre-G.I. Joe pitch to Marvel, Fury Force. These characters were, coincidentally, pretty much analogs to the G.I. Joe designs that Hasbro brought to Marvel Comics in 1980, with the main guy, Fury, positioned as Nick Fury’s son. Hama took this bit of development, consisting of typed character descriptions, a page conceptual outline, and about eight pencil drawing (including one team shot) and applied it to Hasbro’s new toy line for which Marvel would make a comics series.
Even more surprising, it involves artist Dave Wachter, whose career I have noted since his amazing Ninja Turtles issues for IDW starting around 2016. Don’t forget, Larry Hama fans, Wachter drew Hama’s 2021 Iron Fist miniseries (unfortunately the graphic novel is not in print as I type this) and just this year they collaborated on a story for the Logan: Black, White & Blood miniseries. BigBadWorkshop would have a small teaser kit for sale at its table, consisting of Fury Force dog tags, a trading card set with Wachter art, and a pin. From BigBadWorkShop’s social media, here’s some of those toys:
At some toy conventions I like to take photos of dealers at their tables or in their booths, not snapshots, but portraits. These are just with my camera phone and I’m not a trained photographer, but I’d like to think I can capture a little of a person, their manner, and what they sell. Here’s dealer James Aldridge of Evans, Georgia. He does shows, does not have a physical store, is an owner of more than one full-size, actual Ford Mustangs and several thousand toy car Mustangs. Aldridge was originally a Hot Wheels collector, and is the president of the local Mustang and Ford Club of CSRA (Central Savannah River Area).
That photo can also perhaps stand in for me missing the Hot Wheels trading that happened early on Saturday.
In the con hall, I talked with G.I. Joe animation producer, director, and storyboard artist Larry Houston and his wife Alexandra. Houston was a guest of the con, and would be doing a panel. I showed them the two chapters of my book, but didn’t get a photo, so this shot from my store in Massachusetts 18 months prior will have to do:
I also met Houston’s handler, Marc Childs, who hosts the Back To Pop Media podcast. I noted with interest that he’s had Marvel Productions exec Margaret Loesch on his show.
Here’s actor Dan Gilvezan. You G.I. Joe fans might think of Slip-Stream, and you Marvel fans will think of the 1981 voice of Peter Parker/Spider-Man, but I just smile and think of Bumblebee. I’ve seen Gilvezan at Transformers conventions, and it’s always a pleasure to A) hear him tell stories and answer questions on a panel and B) listen to his voice say anything.
At noon was the next panel: “Joe Declassified in the trenches: A look back at a career making G.I. Joe with Derryl DePriest and Brian Wilk!” DePriest and Wilk’s appearances at JoeFest were sponsored by Heritage Auctions. For many years DePriest assembled a complete collection of G.I. Joe product 1982-1994, and has now consigned it for auction. It’s a magnificent range of near-mint condition, unopened figures, vehicles, and art. (Don’t worry, DePriest still has his loose ’60s and ’70s Joe collection, and probably Magic cards and other things.) Wilk has some items in as well. During their Hasbro careers they presided over several fascinating choices and product launches, plus some misfires and never-rans, so this panel was a chance for them to talk about their times at Hasbro while also highlighting some lots in the auction. (The Heritage Auctions booth in the con hall had free flyer-mini catalogs for the auction, with the full, 370-page softcover auction book available for purchase. I wondered why I hadn’t gotten one in the mail, when during JoeFest, from Boston, my wife texted me a photo of a black softcover catalog with a George Woodbridge ’87 Gung-Ho drawing on it — my auction catalog had arrived in the mail.) It was great to hear Wilk and DePriest put decisions in context, lament some errors, and celebrate some less popular choices like the alien Manimals. Well, at least Wilk was celebrating the Manimals!
Left to right: Pat Stewart and Sam Damon of Joe Declassified, Derryl DePriest, and Brian Wilk:
I needed to get food. Down in the hotel lobby I caught Christopher Irving and Brett Carrera. Like Guy Dorian the previous day, these are gents I wanted to talk to. To Irving I wanted to offer some sympathy. It’s no fun to run a Larry Hama panel without Larry Hama. And also some congratulations, as Irving and the BigBadWorkshop team have done something fun and novel in translating Hama’s proto-G.I. Joe team, Fury Force, into a 6-inch action figure line. I met Irving nine years ago, and not at a convention. I suggested to Larry Hama that we get lunch, as I was visiting New York. He said “Oh, I’m getting food with Christopher Irving, he’s a college professor, you should meet him.” As in, Irving is also a G.I. Joe fan who teaches and is interested in my career, like yourself. We three dined, and this was when Irving was working on his Larry Hama: Conversations book of interviews. In fact, he invited me to contribute my 2001 interview with Hama to that book, which would have looked great on my CV, but I dragged my heels and the book went to press without me. But I love and consult that book, and on the Talking Joe podcast host Mark and I have referred to it a few times.
On this right here is Brett Carreras. He is owner and president of the VA Comicon (as in Virginia), and is the top buyer of vintage comic books in central Virginia. He’s invested over $4 million bucks buying and warehousing comic books in central Virginia. He knows Larry Hama from having him as a guest at his show, and has set up at a few other cons and events, taking payments for prints, sketches, and signatures* as Hama signs and smiles for photos. For a few shows in the calendar, he’s Hama’s handler, which means Hama can greet more people and sign more books, not running the Square app himself. And like Dorian, I’ve been hearing about Carreras for several years. Anyone who helps Larry Hama have a better time at a con is someone I’d like to meet, and for years it has felt like Dorian, Irving, Carreras, and myself are a small, informal strata of G.I. Joe and Larry Hama fans who have gotten to know Hama and turned into collaborators and business partners.
Anyway, left to right, Christopher Irving and Brett Carreras. I showed them my book printouts and they were kind:
(* To be clear, Hama charges for non-dedicated signatures. If you see him at a con or a store signing and you want a comic made out to you, that’s free.) Also, if you see any photos of Larry Hama at his booth from JoeFest 2026 and the banner behind him says “VA Comic Con,” that’s why — it and Carreras sponsored Hama’s appearance at JoeFest — it’s an advertisement so you know about what’s probably a great convention in Virginia.
Hey, are you getting bored? Here are some toys for sale!
Met the English trio of Mark, Peter, and Simon at D’Agustino’s for food. Mark took a video of me opening a blind bag edition of MASK issue #1, following up from our discussion of that comic book on our podcast, Talking Joe. This was my second meal of that day at the hotel restaurant, and I didn’t know it at the time, but my third would also be there. Then I grabbed that 1983 artwork from Drew Hagerty and tried photographing it in my hotel room, again not worrying about taking it home for my fancy scanner or a professional photographer.
At 3pm David T. Allen moderated the “Voices of G.I. Joe” panel with voice actors Keone Young (Storm Shadow), Samantha Newark speaking voice of Jem), Lisa Raggio (Zarana), and Dan Gilvezan (Bumblebee, I mean, Slip-Stream). I doodled the quartet in my sketchbook:
And then it was nearing 4pm and time for our panel. Con organizer Ed Schumacher saw me and communicated that Larry Hama was still super tired and would be missing the rest of the day. This was a disappointment, and Hama had seemed fine the previous day, but travel or being 77 years old can sneak up on someone. Mark and I had done a little prep for this, but since we’d interviewed two of these three guys before, and do a lot of interviews, didn’t have to coordinate too much. Without Larry Hama the time would open up for more discussion with these artists. Atkins and Shearer have drawn loads of Joe comics over many years, while Dorian has drawn a single Joe cover, but has collaborated with Hama on other comics. I like asking process questions, and was pleased that our audience didn’t empty out of the room when we said at the top “Sorry, Larry won’t be here!” The panel went well, and you can watch the whole thing here, or listen to it here [YouTube] or here [Apple] or here [Spotify]. (But do come back here and read the rest of my blog post!) Here are our three panelists. Left to right Robert Atkins, Brian Shearer, and Guy Dorian, Sr.
In the elevator bank, Talking Joe listener Brian Lowe of North Carolina said he’d enjoyed our panel and bought a set of The Center Holds. Thanks, Brian!
Now it was 5pm and the convention hall was closed. This is a downside to having the 4pm panel — you can’t then go shop! I made my way through the upper hallway again, with more fun and amazing deals. Let’s look at some “hallway trading” toys for sale, shall we?
Is that the Metroplex with finger joints? Why yes, yes it is.
At the end of the hall was a fellow selling a bit of pre-production Hasbro paperwork and some catalog stuff, and wait, it’s Dan Moore, who I haven’t seen in several years but who was sending me scans for my book just two months ago!
I passed Marc Childs, who invited me to join him, Larry Houston and Larry’s wife, Alexandria, for dinner. I didn’t want to skip out on dinner with podcast-Mark, but we hadn’t yet made specific plans and I do like to leave some space for surprises. I said yes. Lisa Raggio joined, and while I didn’t necessarily need another meal at D’Agustino’s, I was letting Childs lead.
Dinner was great, although we were in the sort of greenhouse seating area, with only glass and high ceilings and nothing to absorb sound, so the acoustics were pretty loud. But the food was good and company was great. At G.I. Joe conventions, I like to ask guests about non-G.I. Joe topics. And so it was with great interest that I listened to Raggio talk about the first Broadway musical she ever saw as a kid, and a terrible Broadway show she was in called Got Tu Disco, and how Mayor Koch tried to get it shut down. Larry Houston told me that he and his wife would be back in Boston in August for a con appearance, maybe we could meet up again. Just outside D’Agustino’s in the lobby, graphic designer Brian Sauer, and After Action Report writer/publishers Josh Eggebeen and Greg Augustin were going over some designs:
With the wind-down of dinner and the paying of checks I missed the window for dessert, so straight from the restaurant I walked to the front desk snack closet to buy a candy bar. Then I wandered upstairs, noted that hallway sales were still in force, and heard “Happy Birthday” being sung in the panel room. Why, it was Samantha Newark’s birthday party, and there was cake!
I’m trying to think the last time I had cake at a con like this. At BotCon ’96 is Chicago, there was a cake and we sang “Happy Birthday” to Transformers: The Movie near the Unicron toy prototype.
The Newark cake was good, so now I’d had two desserts. Thank you to Lauren Schumacher for pulling this off. I should note that it was indeed on the schedule: “8pm – It’s a Samantha Newark, Happy Birthday JEM!!” This party turned into karaoke, Cold Slither Karaoke, specifically (not the band or the song, just a way to brand the block as Joe-related. MC/KJ and AV guru James Hitchcock did a song, as did a few other people.
Then I did a song that was a fun curveball. It’s fun to sing for a room full of not-quite strangers, and also people I know or just had dinner with.
Newark sang a song as well, a fun point of convergence since her character, Jerrica/Jem, was a pop star. But folks may have assumed that Newark isn’t a singer since she was the speaking voice (recording in Los Angeles) while the singing voice (and all the songs) were recorded in New York. In fact, Newark is a great singer, and belted out “Stupid Girl” by Garbage.
By the way, if a well-lit panel room isn’t your idea of ambience, about 20 minutes after karaoke started, the lights were turned down. On the way out, I saw Josh Eggebeen, who gave me a chunk of advice about my G.I. Joe history book Kickstarter, since it would be my first, and he’s completed nine successful campaigns. Eggebeen had advice about timing and fulfillment, and I hope to bring him on as advisor when the time is right.
Standing nearby was Brian Sauer (him again!), who is designing much of my G.I. Joe history book. We sat down for an hour — a long time during the festivities of Saturday night karaoke and upper lobby party/hangout — and went through each page of the two chapters he’d brought.
It was so loud in the upper lobby that I regretted leaving my earplugs back in my room. (Actually, they were in my pocket the whole time.) The carpeting must absorb the noise as no one from the front desk came up, although I was told that the front desk would have a problem if we didn’t clean up all our White Claw cans and such. Koepnick explained to me what I’d missed during karaoke and book-meeting, that a half dozen people were opening up dozens and dozens of sports card packs. This wasn’t G.I. Joe-related, but rather, something to do socially. Someone had pulled out some sealed boxes of baseball cards and such. Alexander Murrell was quietly putting hologram stickers on peoples’ backs.
Introduced myself to the Boss Fight Studios trio that were in attendance, Lenny Panzica, Henry Hall, and Cory Cantelupe. This is a little odd. I only casually follow G.I. Joe toy news, so while many folks have watched Hasbro’s G.I. Joe livestreams and know who Panzica is, having seen him roll out action figures and HasLab announcements for years, I had never communicated with, spoken to, or met him. That he left Hasbro recently after shepherding the Classified line for so long was a big deal, but now he works at a company co-founded by a longtime friend of mine. Hall has been with BFS for awhile, but I’m three years late on forcing my way into the company’s HQ for a tour, so I hadn’t met him. And Cantelupe and I had crossed paths at several toy conventions for his work with Skeletron, yet I had never formally introduced myself. I rectified that. It was nice speaking with all three, and showing them my book chapter printouts, and asking a little about Hasbro and Boss Fight (which was founded by people who’d worked at Hasbro).
Talked with Kenny Keopnick about JoeFest this year and next, and Aaron Detrick, and toy stuff.
James Hitchcock was in the party area, meaning karaoke had ended. I commended him on his AV set-up. In addition to a projector and a screen for karaoke and all the panels, Hitchcock had lugged in and set up on tall stands a pair of old, cathode ray tube TVs (that is to say, not modern flat panels), so the high definition signal from YouTube had to get crunched down from a digital, widescreen signal to an analog, 4:3 standard definition one. It was probably too much work, but made for a cool add-on to the panel and karaoke experience. Let’s not forget Hitchcock’s crazy microphone stands:
I did a little clean up of bottles and cans and hologram stickers stuck to the carpet. It was late (and loud!) at 1am or so when I retired, but the party was still going strong.
I had bought a copy of Marvel’s NFL SuperPro issue #3 in the dollar bin the day before, so I read that before nodding off. This is a funny dollar bin find for me because I found eight mint copies in a 50-cent bin at a comic shop in Colorado a few years back, which made for a funny display in my shop’s dollar section. But I never actually read them, and eventually we sold them all. NFL SuperPro is not a great comic, but it’s written by Fabian Nicieza, who co-created X-Force, and drawn by Jose Delbo, who drew many ’80s Transformers comics, and lettered by Janice Chiang, who lettered my comic, The Center Holds. Between the printing, color, paper, and art aesthetics, this is how I want most of my comics to look, so even if the dialogue and action are hackey, it was enjoyable at 1:30am in a hotel room.
———To be concluded in Part Three: Sunday!
A Real American Book! 