JoeFest 2024 – The A Real American Book! Convention Report / Part 1 of 4

This was my second year in a row at JoeFest, and the city of Augusta, Georgia, is similar to how I described it in last year’s report. With that in mind, I’m skipping all the descriptions — murals and storefronts — but you may wish to read my ’23 intro here to get a taste.

– – – [Jump ahead to Part Two, Part Three, or Part Four] – – –

A little context: There is no longer an official G.I. Joe convention, “JoeCon,” licensed and attended by Hasbro. Whereas JoeCon moved locations each year, JoeFest is always in Augusta, Georgia, and has aptly filled the gap for a major summer Joe show. Last year’s attendance was 7,500. This year’s I’m told topped 10,000. It was in the same space as last year, now just imagine more people. Here’s JoeFest 2024, or two-thirds of it: –[Click all photos to enlarge]–

Unrelated to JoeFest, there is also a circuit of smaller toy shows, mostly in the south and midwest, that tend to have a G.I. Joe focus. That consists of JoeLanta, ToyLanta, the DFW G.I. Joe and Action Figure Show (for Dallas-Fort Worth), the Kentuckiana GI Joe Toy Expo, and more. Many of the folks who attended and vended at JoeFest would have also been at the 2024 DFW show, but unfortunately, these were held on the same weekend. I’d like to tip my hat to the wonderful Greg Brown and Gray Childs of what is abbreviated “DFW.” It looked great and I really wanted to attend. Also of note was Dan Klingensmith’s work bringing to DFW a killer line-up of marketers and designers who worked at Hasbro. I wasn’t the only person at JoeFest who said “if only these shows were on different weekends, I’d be at both.”

One last bit of preamble: A hearty nod to Talking Joe podcast host and pal Mark, who shared his JoeFest photos, and has graciously allowed me to post some here. These nicely fill out moments I missed.

THURSDAY——
The show starts Friday, but diehards arrive a day early. Vendors drive, because they’re bringing trailers of toys to sell. I would guess that most attendees drive as well, but a few fly. Certainly guests fly. That means a plane to Atlanta or Charlotte and driving almost three hours, or connecting at such an airport to land at AGS, which is then only a 20-minute drive to downtown Augusta.

At both the Marriott and possibly other hotels nearby, room swaps were already happening.

A friendly and chatty bellhop picked me up at the airport in the Marriott shuttle. I don’t think I even asked my standard “how’s your day going?”, he just launched in! He’d played college football and basketball, is one of 10 or 11 siblings, and retired at age 40 after running the #1 GNC store in the country, which happened to be in Las Vegas. (I’ve visited that city, so we compared notes.) But he wanted to be closer to family, and retirement was boring, so now he gets to meet all sorts of interesting employees and guests of the hotel and convention center.

Once inside the lobby, I immediately spotted Patrick Stewart of Articulated Points and Joe Declassified, who’d flown in from Pennsylvania. While Stewart doesn’t know everything about the G.I. Joe toy line, he does know more than almost everyone, and he’s fact-checking my book this summer. Also there was David T. Allen, who posts great interviews on Facebook and helps JoeFest to such an extent that he’s I think effectively the #2 organizer of it. (A hat tip here to Ed Schumacher, JoeFest owner/CEO and organizer, who I managed to again walk past but not say hello to. You run a great show, sir!) David T. Allen introduced me to his partner, Todd, who collects adventure novels and reads comics. They’d driven from Florida. Roger Taft was there, too, co-publisher of the After Action Report guidebooks on G.I. Joe comics. Taft and I are both cat owners, so we can talk a little about something besides G.I. Joe. Also, Paddy Lennon was in the lobby, who I’ve wanted to meet for years now. Lennon has done some work for Boss Fight Studio, an action figure company owned by some friends of mine. More prominently, Lennon is one-third of Total Toy Books. This company has published several dazzling coffee table history books on British toys, notably two on Action Force (the British G.I. Joe) and one by Bob Brechin, a retired British toy designer. More on TTB and Brechin later.

In fact, a contingent of seven English and Irish fans had flown from London and Dublin, and then road-tripped from Atlanta. Such a trip is both a vote of confidence for an American show organizer, and also adds some zest to the show itself. British and Irish fans may bring neat items to sell or run a neat panel on some obscure aspect of Joe history. If you have a question about European toys, they probably know. Comics and toy conventions in the UK are quite small, many toys that were released in the States were not released in the UK (like the Flagg and the Defiant), so such fans are often hunting for both new and old toys (and comics) that they can’t easily get at home. (eBay offers one option, but international orders are complicated and nothing beats holding something in your hand and haggling in person!)

Also in the lobby I saw Chris Murray, who longtime readers of this blog will know is a) in Texas, b) part of Joe Declassified, c) is reading/editing my book this summer, and d) a very nice guy. And lastly in the lobby was Josh Eggebeen, the other half of the After Action Report guide books. I recently wrote the introduction to his newest volume, all about issue #21 of Marvel’s G.I. Joe comic book — yes, that famous issue from 1984. Eggebeen had mailed me a copy two weeks back, and spent the week before this con trying to wrangle the full shipment of books to debut at JoeFest. After I dropped stuff in my hotel room, Eggebeen bought me a drink as thanks for my writing, and told me about his shipping woes. I ordered a pizza at Augustino’s, the Marriott’s bar/restaurant. Murray had some Mega Marines artwork photocopies or color printouts from 1992-ish that he wanted ideas on, so a few of us headed to his hotel room to make educated guesses. That’s part of what Joe Declassified does: turn up art and ephemera, identify and date it, and later, display it at JoeFest and other conventions.

Back at the bar, my podcast partner Mark appeared. Mark (the only person in this con report who I’ll refer to by first name, because that’s who he is on Talking Joe, “Mark”) was part of the UK contingent, his second U.S. Joe convention in seven months! We record an episode of Talking Joe every seven days, and had thought we might pull off a “regular” episode at some point in Augusta but there were also cool people at the con to interview. Mark had invested in a two-pack of lavalier mics that wirelessly connected to his phone, and I had brought for him from my shop some comics he couldn’t easily get. Mark and I have now spoken to each other weekly for three and a half years, but over the internet, so this third meeting in-person in half a year was fun and special. Mark brought an empty suitcase in order to be able to lug back his purchases, as well as perhaps a few items he could sell to people back home to help pay for the trip. Smart. Not smart: most of the UK contingent was at a different hotel for the first night, although they had rental cars and probably wanted to hit Target or Wal-Mart anyway. And hey, they’d get to see a little more of America!

Here’s Mark, Simon Goodall, myself, Josh Eggebeen, and Christopher Desira — only two-fifths of this photo is American citizens!

I will occasionally interrupt these JoeFest Reports with photos of toys for sale from the convention floor. This is partly to break up my big swaths of text, and also to remind us all that beyond the friends and information, the con is also about buying and selling. From the next day, here are some toys for sale!

While I ate my pizza and salad at the bar, Mark ordered his own. To my great surprise, Sam Damon materialized in the bar as well. He has a job that takes him far away, that he doesn’t talk about, and one year ago at this very con had told me he wouldn’t attend JoeFest ’24. (Or Assembly Required, the Iowa con that takes place between.) It turns out he’d gotten out a little early, and could attend after all. He has moved, so I asked him about his new home, and how he might display his mighty G.I. Joe collection once it’s all unpacked. (Damon was also a consultant on the 2000s Devil’s Due G.I. Joe comics.)

Mark and I were then joined by Eggebeen and David T. Allen. We talked about typos in self-published books, and general hopes for the con. Paddy Lennon wandered back in, this time with his book partner, Brian Hickey. Whereas Lennon does much of the writing for Total Toy Books, Hickey is photographer and graphic designer. To say that TTB’s books are smart and beautiful is an understatement. Sadly, because they originate in Ireland, they are expensive for American fans to import, but they are worth every penny. TTB has most recently released Bob Brechin’s autobiography, a coffee table book on his time designing for the British company Palitoy. Next up is a stunning triple threat: Total Toy Books will, in conjunction with rights holder Rebellion (a British company), IP owner Hasbro (an American company), and Skeletron (more on them in Part Two or Three), publish three oversize collections of the British pre-G.I. Joe “Battle Action” comic books from 1982-1984. Others have tried, but these will be definitive and must-haves. Here’s a mock-up from the TTB site:

It was nice to finally meet Brian Hickey, and to tell him a) his work is gorgeous and b) that my shop would be pre-ordering the Battle Action Force collections as soon as the weekend was over. (Hickey and Lennon actually have been guests on Talking Joe, but it was a rare occasion where Mark went solo and I wasn’t present.) From a day later, here are Hickey and Lennon:

The Marriott in Augusta has both a ground floor lobby as well as a large carpeted second floor mezzanine connected by a grand staircase. These two zones, as well as the contiguous bar, make for a large chunk of space for G.I. Joe fans to congregate each night of JoeFest. That means sitting and standing around talking and drinking, plus buying and selling. Yes, every evening at JoeFest had a scheduled or unscheduled swap meet.

Upstairs, as friends from in person and online caught up, several folks brought out boxes or display cases of toys and comic books (mostly toys), and laid them on the floor or a table, as dozens of collectors and the curious ambled around looking and occasionally buying. I kept my eyes open for Kenny Koepnick, who I met one year ago at this very show, a night that I turned him into a Talking Joe listener. Some people might be arriving on Friday, and others might be in the place I wasn’t — several people the next day said they were downstairs after-hours when I was upstairs, or vice versa. A fact of cons is that if you’re talking to someone and then you have to run off to somewhere for 60 seconds, you won’t reconnect with that person for five hours. But it’s all part of the process, an organic unfolding of reunions, interruptions, and continuations, in conversation and in commerce.

JoeFest was off to a great start. I was familiar with the lay of the land, someone had already bought me a drink, I hadn’t skipped any meals (a risk at cons!), I had reconnected with at least ten pals from the internet and previous cons, and met a few new ones.

I’m sure some people stayed up ’til 2 or 3. I called it at midnight.

Jump back a year for JoeFest ’23! Head forward to JoeFest 2024 [Part Two], when Tim eats the best ice cream sandwich he’s ever had! Also, [Part Three] and [Part Four]