In Part One, Tim flew to Des Moines, dined with Ron Wagner, and then played games. Read on for Part Two, and click to enlarge photos! [Skip ahead to Part Three or Part Four]
The start of my second day at Assembly Required presented the forever challenge of conventions. You want to stay up late talking with your friends, but there are also things to do and people to see the next morning, so you get less sleep.
Mark and I met up for breakfast in the hotel restaurant, knowing we needed to make it to the convention center next door at 9am for the first event, or pre-event, as it were. I like breakfast, and function poorly without it, so at a con it is a must. Fortunately Mark is also a fan of this meal. We hadn’t gotten to talk much the previous night, with me not around when he arrived and then us splitting off. Mark explained what a cool conversation he’d had with convention guest Michael Charles Hill, and then presented me with gifts. Mark had for me a small stack of handsome Talking Joe business cards, a few Talking Joe stickers, and, importantly, a Talking Joe t-shirt. Our podcast is mostly audio-only, but for interviews we live stream and Mark always has a Talking Joe baseball cap on.
At 9, we headed over, but stepping outside we saw the very same Michael C. Hill a few feet to the right of the hotel entrance taking a smoke break with someone. I’ll note there that the weather was predicted to be cold, colder than I wanted and colder than Mark had packed for, but it turned out to be merely cool. I wanted to say hello to Hill, but also didn’t want to interrupt. And at the same time, even though Hill, a writer/producer/editor/art director, doesn’t consider himself a celebrity, and even though he was a guest of the con and of course guests might be standing outside, and even though he’d already conversated in the lobby the night before, and in fact, had joined the pizza/barcade outing, this is still a kind of celebrity for me — a G.I. Joe professional, who I’d want to interview for my book (and in fact, tried in 2009!), and who made a contribution to this thing I like so much. And Hill had already met Mark-standing-next-to-me the night before.
And so, even with all those qualifiers, I was surprised to see Michael C. Hill just hanging out by the hotel, a kind of celebrity sighting. And I was tickled. So I called out to him “Hey, it’s Michael Charles Hill! How cool you’re here!” But also that I wasn’t trying to interrupt Hill’s conversation, and so I also turned to the other guy, who may or may have not been an AR attendee, and said “Sorry to interrupt,” and looked back at Hill and continued that “we’re [I pointed] headed over there, we’ll say hello later when the con starts.” Hill, for his part, must have been intrigued at being recognized, and said “Oh, hi, who are you?” And I introduced myself, Mark and I still aiming for the convention hall and fifteen feet away. Hill knew who I was, “The Tim Finn with the blog about this show?” Why, yes, and it turned out that after Hill contacted con organizer Brian Sauer some months earlier about being a guest, Hill read my blog article about last year’s Assembly Required, which helped convince him the trip would be worth it. That’s a nice feeling.
Mark and I walked the short distance to Hyvee Hall. I was interested in the rules stenciled on the door.
Inside, it was quiet, with one person manning the check-in table, and a few signs up. No hustle or bustle of dealer set-up, no dollies or carts, no boxes of toys and merch. Some of that would come later, but also, the loading entrance was on the other side of the con rooms. Past the doors that led into the two con rooms themselves was the panel room, which for this morning-to-afternoon stretch would host AVAC’s Custom Class.
Mark had signed up for this less so because he’s a toy customizer, and more because it was included in the all-in package, and he wanted to take part in every scheduled con event. I’m not a customizer, and would make a poor one, but I like the idea of these classes at all the Joe and Transformers cons I’ve visited, where someone in the front of the room has picked out a project for the 10 or 15 people who’ve paid for the session. I was hoping to sit with Mark and watch it all unfold, both as “press” so that I could blog about it here, but also so Mark and I could spend time together. Again, we’d been working together for three years but hadn’t met in person until late the night before. No one else was present except for the host, but eight kits suggested more would arrive. While waiting for them, Mark and I asked questions of AVAC, who’d be running the event. (For you newer fans, “A.V.A.C.” was name of the pilot action figure of the 1986 Cobra Firebat.) His background is painting, printmaking, sculpture, carpentry, welding, and public art. He started his business, AVAC’s Lab, in 2008 casting small batch kits. In broad strokes, this year’s AR custom class would involve taking a part of the Snow Cat, affixing it to an Armored Personnel Carrier, and if time allotted, painting the composite in Dreadnok teals.
I was taking photos to send to my wife, but wasn’t getting cell reception in this con room, so I stepped into the hallway. And there I saw Michael C. Hill. I realized that he probably wasn’t on the clock until 5pm when the con officially opened, so now might be a good time to talk. He was game, so we sat in the middle of the con rooms as a few dealers quietly set up around us. I’m not much of a rule breaker, so I was aware that we were in a space off-limits to me — I wasn’t a dealer — so I was ready for someone to barge up and chase me out. But Assembly Required is a relaxed show. I was vaguely aware that I’d abandoned Mark, but figured he’d have a good time at the custom class and would assume I had bumped into someone or something interesting.
My conversation with Hill was great. He recalled I’d emailed him many years earlier, although we hadn’t connected. (That’s okay, I’d gotten a great quote about him from someone else for Chapter 8, so if he never attended AR he’d still “appear” in the book.)
For a few years in the ’80s, Hill worked for Sunbow Productions and was a co-producer on G.I. Joe and Transformers. A small show like Assembly Required might not invite such a guest, but Hill wrote three episodes of G.I. Joe, including “Cold Slither.” Seeing as the Dreadnoks were the theme for this year’s convention, and that hilarious episode spotlights those characters, this made for a great fit. We talked about the Public Service Announcements, parental criticism, and a great Transformers episode that Hill also wrote. (I own a cel and background from it — they’re framed on my wall at home.) Fun fact: of that TF yarn, Hill’s intended pronunciation for the gangster alien was Gy-CONE-ee, not GY-cuh-ee.
Hill has a storage unit on the east coast which might have his Sunbow paperwork, and he may be a few hours away from me in the spring. I don’t know that I’ll be able to meet him there to help inspect, but it would be great. Hill lives in Los Angeles, and when he was with Sunbow he supervised the recording and mix sessions, and looked for animation errors when footage arrived from Japan. Since Sunbow, he’s had a myriad of interesting jobs, like Disney Comics editor, and in NY, collections editor at DC Comics, with some helping out in DC’s Special Projects (which I think was Tiny Toon Adventures Magazine for Warner Publishing). For the past 15 years, Hill has collaborated with writer/director/artist Steve Mitchell, who co-wrote some G.I. Joe episodes, and who I interviewed many, many years ago, and who a few years later I met up with for dinner in Los Angeles. I had assumed Mitchell was still out there somewhere, but to hear confirmation was nice. You know how when you’re a kid you assume all your teachers are friends? I didn’t assume all the G.I. Joe writers and producer/writers were and are friends, but to hear that decades after at least two still are is neat. I wasn’t running my audio recorder, so I figured I’d definitely record Hill’s panel the next day, and perhaps send him some follow-up questions by email. I showed him a chapter of my book, and then I realized it had been an hour or two!
As for not recording then, sometimes the feeling isn’t right, and I need to have a conversation without the pressure of “Oh, can I put this device here and collect everything you say?” Even if the Interesting Person says amazing things that want to be on tape. Yes, even if halfway through I think “I should have been recording this.” (It happened at BotCon ’04 with Andrew Wildman. We had an amazing chat at the bar, and then I asked if the next day he could tell me all the same stories again on tape. He kindly obliged.)
Around us, dealers were slowly and quietly continuing to set up. Here’s Andy of Time Traveler Toys assembling a Flagg. I’ve never see one in pieces like this, and didn’t realize it had that flexible spine.
Before I met back up with Mark, I realized this would be the right time to take some candids of dealer set-up. I’m no photojournalist, but I’ve become more interested in capturing some behind-the-scenes of toy conventions. If you’ve never tabled at a con, there’s a whole art to maximizing your space, displaying items in an optimum way, making sure you have room to move around yourself, that prices and signage are clear and appealing. Much of that is a careful mix of height and depth, of visually calling customers over and keeping them there, and making items accessible. And every con space is different, so you’re always tinkering. You might have a layout that works great, but then you’ve got a 6-foot table rather than an 8-foot one. Or you’re against a wall and have no place to stand behind your table, and have to stand beside it. Anyway, here’s another set-up pic:
Over at the Joe Declassified booth, Pat Stewart and Chris Murray were assembling shelves and display cases for their informal “traveling museum” of G.I. Joe prototypes, art, and related treasure.
Peter Hubner had brought with him a stunning, glorious, custom-made metal binder to display all the original Earl Norem art from one particular G.I. Joe storybook.
Peter reintroduced himself. We’d met before the pandemic at a different show, but sometimes you just can’t keep all the faces and names in your head. Between Mission Critical the night before, the Norem art above, some other contributions to the Declassified booth, and Murray nodding and telling me Hubner was alright, I am, with this sentence, committing to memory Hubner’s name, face, and place in the Joe collector community.
It felt like hours since I’d said to Mark “I’m stepping out in to the hallway to get reception and send some photos.” I had certainly intended to return to the custom class! I had intended to sit with Mark, and watch him use real tools to make this weird composite vehicle, to soak up the energy of a room of eight Joe fans all engaged in a toy project, to see how AVAC was as a teacher, but I ended up talking to Hill and talking photos for so long that I missed most of the toy class. While I regretted less time with Mark, speaking with Hill was on my to-do list, and in the spirit of letting a toy convention take you where it will, bumping into Hill, suggesting we sit and talk, and then not taking note of the clock was certainly a-okay. I finally checked back in with the custom class, and it was almost over. Everyone else had split, so it was just AVAC and Mark, with the latter trying to get to a good stopping point even though he wasn’t quite finished. Here’s AVAC:
And some tools:
Here’s Mark’s final vehicle, which I’ll call the Dreadnok Mayhem, with a S.L.A.M. on a Snowcat base nested in the APC.
Inside, you can see where some wood had been drilled in. Plus, attendees got two bits of AR-exclusive merch: the Breaker gum and the new Dreadnok grape soda (scaled for 6-inch Classified figures). Also of note: the Dreadnok-colored steering wheel and femur gear shift.
Femurs? Yes, femurs.
These were the paint colors that AVAC had on hand. I don’t think anyone got this far. (Tim update from six weeks in the future: Mark did spray paint his Mayhem at home, later!)
Mark and I headed back to the hotel, as we needed food. There we saw Josh Blaylock checking in. He recognized us from our Talking Joe interview with him from a year and a half earlier (Apple Google YouTube) and we told him we were looking forward to moderating his panel the next day. And then Blaylock sat with us and got lunch himself. This was to be only the first (or second, depending on how you count) G.I. Joe convention since the Devil’s Due days of Joe ended in 2008 to which he’d been invited, and I think Blaylock has been enjoying a renewed interest in his and his company’s contributions to A Real American Hero. We talked about conventions and the convention grind — types of people, driving or flying, hotels, tabling, panels. Mark pulled out his convention sketchbook, which Blaylock and I looked through. It’s impressive, and Mark was aiming, the next day, to commission a sketch from Blaylock. While Blaylock is most known as a writer and publisher, he drew layouts for the earliest issues of his 2001 G.I. Joe run, and published and wrote and drew his own comics before G.I. Joe, and is, right now, for the first time in many years, both writing and drawing a new miniseries featuring Mercy Sparx, his signature creation.
As Mark and I had a scheduled appointment, we excused ourselves. With 2022 being a big anniversary for G.I. Joe, Mark had lined up several interviews for Talking Joe. A few were toy related, but most were comics, since we review the various comics series. Ron Wagner had expressed an interest after a query from Mark, but we were still circling a year later. But I’d nudged Wagner, and that Mark would be traveling to Iowa from England, that we could do this in person, made it too good an opportunity to pass up. So while Wagner wasn’t due to start his Assembly Required duties until 5pm, he graciously arrived a few hours early. Mark and I hadn’t planned the “where” of it all — where was a room we could squat in without interruption, and where there wasn’t hotel muzak or background noise? It turns out that the second floor of the Hilton had a few small conference rooms. One was unlocked and empty save for a table and chairs, and when a hotel employee found us there, he didn’t throw us out.
Mark had brought his microphone, while I had my laptop with its internal mic and my backup Zoom H-1 audio recorder. Our interview was entertaining and informative, and we managed to cover some material distinct from my 2005 book interview. Wagner’s a funny and smart guy, and tells good stories, and does a good Larry Hama impression, and you can find the our conversation here: Apple Spotify Podbean Google YouTube Direct. When we were done, Mark let Wagner look through his custom bound Nth Man hardcover book. Wagner was impressed! So was I.
Wagner needed to head into the con room to set up his table, and Mark and I needed a late lunch, so we walked down to the hotel lobby.
Finally, the con opened. All the dealers were set up, and a light crowd of people headed in. I was looking forward to inspecting all the wonderful toys for sale, and fan-produced figures and accessories, and to see if anyone was selling recent IDW issues (no one was), and instead, ten feet inside the panel room I ran into Pat Stewart and we got to talking for a half hour, just catching up. Pat’s job precludes him from most weekend trips, so this convention and the summer one in Georgia are mostly it. He’s also going to read my book-so-far and give feedback, and I wanted to update him on that.
A few tables over I chatted with Hawk Sanders about his British pre-G.I. Joe comics reprints, ten big books. I was tempted, but instead, got his fan-produced sequel comics. I know little about Battle Action and Action Force before G.I. Joe, so it’s a funny feeling to stand in front of so much of something G.I. Joe-adjacent and have no idea about it! And a relief when a Hawk Sanders is there to explain it all. Also, Mark was there as well, and (a reminder) is British, so he knows all about British G.I. Joe.
In the corner selling cool vintage toys and lovely custom designer toys was Brian Kauffman:
Before I could even make a circuit of the first con room, much less the second, I spied The Dealt Hand’s three tables in the middle, all set up to demo and play both Mission Critical and the Deck-Buidling Game. Joe R. and Mary R. recognized me from a year earlier, and we sat down to play. I really do enjoy this game, but once again I could feel some travel fatigue creeping in, and wondered how much faster I’d learn the game if I were A) well rested and B) playing with friends several days in a row.
At 7 the convention room was to close for the day, but cons don’t always kick you out. I walked over to Michael C. Hill, who was posted at his table and ready to sign some cool autograph cards that deserve an explanation. Hill wrote the script for the audio cassette that came in the 1986 Operation: Brazil Toys R Us exclusive. That set had a sort of new Joe, codenamed Claymore, for which Hill wrote the figure dossier. Con organizer and graphic designer Brian Sauer whipped up a card for the character, which would make for something beautiful and with some heft, that Hill could sign since he didn’t have G.I. Joe script photocopies or paperwork of that sort. I didn’t take a photo, but here’s a screencap (the one image in this post that doesn’t enlarge) of something comparable from the Assembly Required/Codename: Iowa website for comparison. Image it’s Claymore:
It was now time to regroup for dinner. Mark and I met up. He’d bought some toys, as that was his main shopping goal for the trip, to fill in some loose Joe and vehicle gaps in his collection, and I was pleased that he was having success.
At the restaurant, we all waited outside for a bit, note the crowd above. I think the room in the book wasn’t ready for the party of 50+ people. Once inside, groups of tables got food from the buffet area, and I recalled from the previous year I could order a veggie burger at the bar. I chatted with Josh Blaylock some more, about his work schedule and strategies for mindfulness and keeping on task. I don’t mean to equate Blaylock’s work history with mine, but we’re the same age, he ran a company with a major license and had employees, and still takes meetings and makes deals and makes things, while I own a store and a small company and have some irons in the fire that variously demand attention. It was nice to hear how he juggled it all. And it seemed like however well he’d done with the stress in 2005, he was doing better with it now.
I sat with Pat Stewart and Aforementioned Mark and David T. Allen, who talked about his work podcasting both for James Kavanaugh Jr.’s G.I. Joe Fan Club, and also Allen’s own New News Review. I started to take stock of the friends who weren’t in attendance, that I’d spoken with (and hugged) Kavanaugh for the first time in a long time exactly one year earlier. Additionally, Carson Mataxis wasn’t around, too busy working on fulfillment for his amazing book, perhaps? (Turns out it was his daughter’s birthday.) And Dan Klingensmith, who had sold his great G.I. Joe art books at AR the year before, and Sam Damon, who was at work and had known back in June that he’d miss this con in November and the next one in June ’24. So there were some moments of not quite sadness, but something missing.
But back to dinner, Allen wanted us and a few others with podcasts and a social media presence to create some kind of mini advertisement or post about Assembly Required, so we brainstormed a little, more on that in Part Three.
Here’s a general shot of the back room at Buzzard Billy’s with the Friday dinner in full swing:
Now it was time for organizers Travis Webber and Brian Sauer to pause the festivities and make a few announcements. If you sign up for the Friday night dinner, you get a fun exclusive. This year is was a tiny six-pack of grape soda cans, sized for play with the 6-inch G.I. Joe Classified toys. Here’s a photo from the AR merch booth the next day:
And then the centerpiece of the whole weekened. Sauer explained that of course the convention this year was Dreadnok-themed, with a focus on “Cold Slither,” the 1985 cartoon episode where the Dreadnoks are in a fake rock band. I’ll skip the rest of the plot in case you’ve never seen it — it’s wonderful. But the episode netted an original song called Cold Slither (which I’ve always loved and sometimes I hum to myself when I do the dishes), with lyrics written by Michael Charles Hill, who was in attendance a few tables behind me. And that Sauer likes to make things hard for himself, and to top each Assembly Required the following year. And how he has a friend in music production, and that they plotted to not only re-record the song Cold Slither, but that his friend wrote two new verses, since the original doesn’t play through in the original TV episode. I knew where this was going, and in fact, had started to guess this two months earlier when I put two and two together, the Dreadnok motif, the Cold Slither focus, and that Sauer delivers and over-delivers. And that’s when Sauer held up a compact disc in a slim jewel case, like a demo single, and said that our other gift for attending the dinner was the “lost demo” for Cold Slither with the re-recorded, faithfully soundalike single.
The crowd was enthusiastic, and I was blown away! However, I’ll admit here that the crowd didn’t get as loud as one year earlier when Sauer unveiled the ’22 dinner exclusive. (I think this is because the grape soda cans this year were a bit of a retread — albeit a funny and clever one — of the previous YoJoe Cola, and that as much as people like Dreadnoks and Cold Slither and this bad-good ’80s rock song, a G.I. Joe convention is always more about toys than the comics or cartoon, much less one episode. But I don’t type this to take anything away from Sauer, who as a Joe fan, to use a related term here, is a rock star.) Sauer tipped his hat to Metro Joe and Zach Ide, who he’d gotten to add to, perform, re-record, and mix this expanded version of the Cold Slither song, plus Wordburglar and also-not-at-the-con-makes-Tim-sad-friend Chris McLeod, aka Diagnostik80, on the bonus track.
I’ll mention that con guest Ron Wagner was also at the dinner, so, yes, the three guests were all treated to BBQ, as well as “Cold Slither” played on a CD boom box. I had a moment of imagining how wonderful and weird this must have been for Hill, who in 1985 wrote a dumb TV pitch he didn’t think would get developed, and here he was hearing a fancy 2023 remake of a sliver of that episode, and that was why he was a VIP guest of this show in Iowa, let me type that again for emphasis, Iowa. Folks were finishing their food and the room was thinning out, so several of us headed back to the hotel. Mark had brought me a gift, so we went up to his room to retrieve it.
Gifts, plural! He had for me three Battle Action/Action Force annuals, which is great, because I’d like to dip my toe in the British pre-Joe G.I. Joe comics but don’t know where to start and wouldn’t be able to find them in a brick and mortar shop in the States. And these are hardcovers, and hardcover = fancy.
Then we returned to the lobby where I showed Ben Conway of Skeletron, and Mark — finally! — a chapter of my book. It’s been a running gag (for me, anyway) when we’ve had guests on Talking Joe from the online fan/podcast circuit, that I had shown my book to several of them, and yet for getting together almost weekly with Mark for three years — but online only — he’d never seen it. And I had joked that the only way I’d show him would be if he came to the States and we attended a con. And here we were.
I have a standard though informal presentation when I show anyone my book, which involves breezing through the early layout for Chapter 10, a PDF on my laptop. That one focuses on the two DIC seasons of G.I. Joe and a bit of what else was happening around 1989 and 1990. I point out what each photo or piece of artwork is, and read a sentence or two aloud for effect. Ben and Mark were complimentary, and then I realized I was exhausted, so I retired.
Jump back to Part One or click over to Part Three, when Tim attends a panel, co-moderates one, eats dinner and plays Galaga, and still doesn’t buy any toys! Or jump to Part Four!
A Real American Book! 