JoeFest 2024 – The A Real American Book! Convention Report / Part 3 of 4

In Part One, Tim flew to Augusta and started having a great time at JoeFest ’24. Then, in Part Two, he continued that trend, despite dropping an amazing chocolate ice cream sandwich on the sidewalk! Read on for Part Three…

You may be at a G.I. Joe convention if you see this outside:

[Edit: An earlier version of this post had Breakfast with the Sarge on Saturday the 22nd. In fact it was Sunday the 23rd, so I’ve moved those paragraphs and photos to Part Four.]

SATURDAY – – – –

I headed out for breakfast. Not feeling original, I wanted the same meal I’d had 24 hours earlier. On the way out, I passed food carts and wondered what was going on.

Then I walked past downtown Augusta’s main plaza, and was reminded that June is Pride month, and lots of people all over celebrate it. But there weren’t many people around, and it felt like a bust.

Perhaps this person wouldn’t have any crowds to interact with.

Eggs and pancakes at The Brunch Place were great. Before I got back to the Marriott and the convention center, as I passed that same plaza, I now saw hundreds and hundreds of people of all ages streaming past Broad Street to attend this Pride fair. Many rainbows, much pink, and lots of clothing accessories like wings and crowns. Pride was not a bust after all, but a big hit, it just hadn’t started yet.

Made it into the con hall at 11. The early bird access started at 10am, and I did want to get in before the crowd reached its densest, but I also didn’t want to rush a good meal, so I’d be starting the main, full day a tad late.

I checked in with the guys at the Joe Declassified booth, their roving “museum” of rare art and artifacts. Peter Hubner talked me through some Mike Bear package art for the late 25th Anniversary and Resolute toys in the 2000s and 2010s. As Declassified posts “No Photography” signs, you’ll just have to imagine it. But it was pencil and red pencil on white paper, with painted color added later by someone else. I noted that Mike Bear drew some of the Devil’s Due comic books, and appreciated learning a name for later package art. We fans get really caught up on Hector Garrido and Doug Hart 1982-1995, but there are others!

The next booth over belonged to Carson Mataxis. It was split between his two major projects, one of which was his super fun and successful Operation: Recall toy line. This is another of those action figures that aren’t 1980s G.I. Joe but could be, and Mataxis cleverly involved (and later, shared the company with) seven former Hasbro employees or contractors to recreate the kind of work they did long ago. As a guest of Mataxis, former Hasbro action figure designer/current Operation: Recall designer (and comic book inker) Mark Pennington was sitting and sketching in that half of the booth. I interviewed Pennington long ago for my book, and we’ve talked comics in a major way in the past, so it’s always nice to see him at cons. He was working on a commission for someone. Here’s a fun bit: at such a con, you’d expect Pennington to be drawing Storm Shadow or Darklon, but at JoeFest, he was also drawing Operation: Recall characters!

This next pic will make sense in the following paragraph:

Soon it was time for the “Doug Hart On the Art of G.I. Joe” panel, hosted by Mataxis. Joe fans may know Hart for painting about half of all the G.I. Joe package art, both figures and vehicles, from the ‘80s/‘90s line, but he worked on other Hasbro brands, too. (For example: Stargate and Beast Wars.) As Hart has painted for Operation: Recall, as well as the retro-styled Callsign: Longbow figures and two Skeletron ones (going a little out of order here, I’ll mention Skeletron in Part Four) that’s three modern toy lines made in the spirit of classic G.I. Joe. With that in mind, Troy McKie of Callsign: Longbow and Ben Conway of Skeletron were also on the panel. Mataxis walked the crowd through Hart’s G.I. Joe work, let McKie and Conway talk about new Hart paintings from the last year, and then Hart took questions from the crowd. My favorite two: “How many Beast Wars package paintings did you do?” Answer: A lot, like six or 12. Both the questioner (and I, silently) thought that number was much higher, like “all of them,” which would be more than 50! Also, one question was about tools, and Hart waxed for several minutes about not using frisket, how he lets parts of his paintings dry, using Prismacolor pencils on top of acrylic paint in the style of Drew Struzan, and airbrushing. (I thought of a lesson in college where an illustration teacher gave us all photocopies of an article from Step by Step Graphics Vol. 10. #1/1993, where Struzan demos how he paints a Star Wars poster.) Left to right, Ben Conway, Troy McKie, Doug Hart, and Carson Mataxis:

Another highlight of the panel was Mataxis pulling out 12 original Operation: Recall paintings on illustration board and passing them through the audience! Thanks to Peter Chavez, who saw me foiled by some glare on the mylar, for later sending me a photo he took with his own camera.

I have a few Harts at home, so I could make mental comparisons of his style and technique from around 1992 to 2024. This guy is still sharp!

Mataxis gets a special salute for pulling triple duty at JoeFest. Not only was he selling his amazing art book at his booth, he was also representing Operation: Recall there, and in charge of AV at the con with his own equipment, (a cost-saving measure, I believe, as the convention center was going to charge far too much), and Mataxis also hosted two panels! Did I mention he’s the nicest guy at JoeFest, or any toy or comic book convention? Unfortunately, the microphone set-up in the panel room had some audio feedback, so panelists seemed to not be using mics. This put a small dampener on such events, but a reasonable solution was to just sit close!

The Doug Hart panel ended and Mataxis and Joe Goldston started up the following one, the story of and an update on Operation: Recall. As I backed the Kickstarter campaign and saw the O:R panel last year, I thought it was okay to skip this one. Mataxis is a real wiz at slideshows and selling an audience on his ideas, so I’m sure it was great. But here’s a photo from his booth, paint master, resin, and original sculpt of the first O:R action figure, a character Mataxis sort of pitched to Hasbro around 1987:

In my last blog post, I mentioned how irresistible dollar comics bins are to me. Rarer and even more undeniable are 50-cent bins, and one dealer at JoeFest had, to my complete shock, 15 long boxes’ worth! And these weren’t lame comics nobody wants, and these weren’t shelf worn and in “Good” or “Fine” condition. Rather, these were bagged and boarded, “Very Fine” and “Near Mint” ‘80s and ‘90s Marvel and DC! I couldn’t believe it! If I had brought an empty suitcase I would have surely filled it. If I had driven, rather than flown to the con, I would’ve pointed to any two of the boxes and asked “What discount can you give me for a bulk buy?” Instead, with almost no wiggle room in my luggage, especially after the comics I’d brought the previous day, I limited myself to about 15. You know, I’ve never actually inspected the Denny O’Neil/William Johnson Iron Man, and now I can read a sliver of it, and then sell it at my shop!

Has it been too long since I checked back in with the main purpose of the con? Here are some toys for sale!

At 3:30 I needed food. Mark checked in, and I told him to come to the hotel bar and eat half my pizza. He obliged, and then we split off again to look around and shop on our own.

At 4:13pm, Mark messaged me a photo of Seth Green walking the con floor, his arm visible in a short sleeve shirt, proving that yes, Seth Green does have an Arashikage tattoo. This might require a little explanation. A late addition to the convention guest list were Seth Green, actor and producer known for the toy stop-motion series Robot Chicken, and his partners John Harvatine IV and Matt LeCroy. (Someone suggested to me that Green was in Georgia to visit the Peacemaker set, as Season 2 of that series was in production now somewhat nearby. I don’t know if that’s true.) Green and his partners, as Stoopid Buddy Stoodios, were given a panel in the Saturday late afternoon slot (I took a glimpse and you might not be surprised to know it had the highest attendance of any panel). They were announcing and previewing their new short film, Cleanup Crue. Green had also apparently asked the convention organizers if he could get into the con on Saturday an hour before any attendees, which I think meant that dealers who wanted to try and sell to him had to be there early as well. Social media was a bit abuzz the rest of the day with dealers posting photos of Green buying merch at their booths. Green is a nerd, and wears his fandom on his sleeve.

I was pretend-angry at this actor/producer “crashing” “my” convention because there had been an vague idea a few months earlier that Mark and I would have a Talking Joe panel at JoeFest. When the schedule was announced a week before the con, we weren’t included. Mark was a bit relieved, as some last-minute family concerns might force him to skip the convention trip! And to be fair, we hadn’t aggressively pitched our involvement. Also, Green’s panel wasn’t G.I. Joe related, and my pretend-anger stemmed from any panel getting bumped for a TV personality to promote something else. But Mark had said something like “I think Seth Green is a really big G.I. Joe fan,” like “maybe he wants to be here legitimately.” And I had recalled that Larry Hama cameos as himself in one episode of Robot Chicken. We tied off this loop when Mark texted me a screen cap from that day at the con revealing that Seth Green indeed does have an Arashikage tattoo.

At 6pm the exhibit hall closed for the day. Mark and I met up on our way out, and I realized that the front hallway where you buy your tickets had another five or ten dealer tables! That’s how stuffed JoeFest 2024 was! (JoeFest 2023 had just one.) And cleaning up for the day in that outer area was an impressive quartet: Darren Howlett, Almon Ellis, Matt Smelcher, and Chad Smelcher. I didn’t realize they were the team behind another 3 3/4-inch O-ring line of action figures in an ‘80s G.I. Joe vein, Legends of the Hidden Force.

Howlett is the owner and idea man behind Whiskeyjack Toys, an umbrella under which Hidden Force and other toy lines fall. Ellis is a well-known G.I. Joe art collector who’s been a guest on Talking Joe. A lawyer by trade, he’s been working finance on Legends of the Hidden Force. Matt Smelcher is lead designer and marketer, while Chad Smelcher is creative consultant. There are other brand names, LLCs, and partnerships between these four on Hidden Force, and with other entities, but I’m trying to keep this org breakdown to broad strokes.

They’d put away most of their product, except for a Fisher Price Imaginext castle they’d heavily customized as an eye-catching diorama…

…and even though it was past 6pm, they talked us through most of their line and the cool artwork they’d commissioned.

That’s a subtle recurring theme in the new worlds that come decades after ’80s G.I. Joe toys. A lot of makers are commissioning not just a “retro” style for artwork, but physical paint on board, not digital paintings. (Of course, plenty else is digital — layout and type and sculpting, et cetera!)

Josh Blaylock walked up, and he got some of the same sales pitch on Hidden Force. We said thanks to the Hidden Force quartet, and suddenly the three of us, Blaylock, Mark and myself, were getting dinner! Lovely.

The restaurant next to the convention center had a wait, and Mark realized he was tired. As he’d had a late lunch, this would be an opportunity to call it early and be properly charged for Sunday. I didn’t want him to miss a fun dinner or what would certainly be an amazing karaoke performance by me several hours later, but I also had sympathy for anyone who’d flown over from the UK and whose body clocks thought it was midnight. Blaylock and I tried the Boll Weevil, which happened to be next door, and were surprised to find it had no wait. I noted that this restaurant was both Southern faire and also a bakery, so perhaps cake would be necessary just after my salad with tuna. Blaylock and I chatted about Devil’s Due in the 2000s, Chicago, and his various comics properties that are in development or development hell. What a complicated web! He also talked a little about his new project, The Disavowed, and partnering with Massive Publishing. Here’s an image from Blaylock’s spot back in the con hall, a stack of promo posters to give out:

Blaylock noted that Seth Green had once pitched a G.I. Joe story to Devil’s Due, but it wasn’t going to work, so it never happened. But this was interesting to me, that Blaylock had known Green 15 or 20 years ago, and Green was at this very con, making a splash. As we stepped outside, I realized that Seth Green, and three or four associates were all standing right there, with no one else around, right next to The Boll Weevil. Half jokingly I said to Blaylock, “there’s your famous friend” and pointed. He turned and reintroduced himself, and Seth Green seemed pleased to see Blaylock. Green noted my shoes, and then Blaylock kindly introduced me. I handed Green my business card, and in a moment of poor networking, turned around and left!

If one of my students were telling me this story, I’d smack my forehead. But I thought that it was valuable or fun for Blaylock and Green to catch up, and I was a bit starstruck, and felt like I or we were interrupting Green taking a breather with his associates. In another timeline, I would have pulled out my laptop and said to the TV star “yes, I’m writing a history book on G.I. Joe, can I show you a chapter?” And then he would have looked and I would have done the three-minute pitch, and then never heard from him again, which would have been totally fine. Seth Green is not going to wave his hand and finish my book for me or magically get it published. But talking with one more person about it, famous or not, is always good practice, and you never know what might happen! Later I apologized to Blaylock for not sticking around, like “thanks for the generous intro, sorry I bailed.” Blaylock did have a nice chat with Green, though, so that’s nice.

Back in my hotel room, I ordered some books for my shop back in Massachusetts. That’s something I need to do several times a week. When I’m away on a trip, it can feel like a fun break or an unwelcome intrusion. I thought I should head back to the convention area, that spending time alone in a hotel room during a con was risking missed fun or missed opportunities.

In the panel room I realized that blinking red light and loud buzz in the back of my head had been accurate, as I’d missed Pizza with Bob Brechin! I caught the last minute. There was a huge crowd, and it gave a boisterous standing ovation to the Brechin, who seemed greatly pleased by it. Partly I thought this was a ticked event, like “Breakfast with the Sarge,” but also, I wasn’t paying attention to the schedule. And let this be a lesson, don’t spend time alone in your room at a convention! But I do have Total Toy Books’ beautifully designed My Palitoy Story, Brechin’s autobiography, which details his time at Palitoy from 1967 until 1984, so I can experience a version of this panel. Pat Stewart said the panel was amazing.

Here’s a photo of Brechin from elsewhere at the con:

Here’s Brechin’s left hand, which was the basis for the Action Man hand that became G.I. Joe’s Kung-Fu Grip hand, and the original resin tooling aid.

What a cool prop to bring to a Joe convention!

Karaoke was supposed to begin at 9, but with people milling about and reconfiguring the room going slowly, it wouldn’t actually start ’til 10. The Hall Swap was in full swing just in front of the dissipating Brechin panel crowd, and it was once again impressive, which much looking and buying and selling. Chris Murray saw me standing at the edge of the crowd and motioned me to go to his room to retrieve two items of treasure he had brought to the con from his home in Texas. These wouldn’t be on display at the Declassified booth, but rather, were to lend to me to photograph. I’ll keep this vague except to state they are three-dimensional, formerly of Hasbro, and you’ll see them in my book!

James Hitchcock ran karaoke:

A small crowd stuck around from the Brechin panel and all the pizza still available. It was fun.

The crowd was a bit smaller than last year’s karaoke. Also, the joke-name was different. Last year was “Cobra-oke,” and this year was “Cold Slither Karaoke.” I did a song and Mark sure missed it!!! He’ll just have to be satisfied with me singing our one-line jingle at the end of every Talking Joe episode, all the other weeks of the year.

I headed to the hotel lobby-and-mezzanine to find people to talk with. I think for some attendees, this is the real JoeFest. They are definitely there to buy or sell, but reconnecting with friends is key, especially if they’ve been on the con floor working for eight hours. I hadn’t fully clicked into this the night before, and there were still people I had seen but not spent time with, and so began a two-hour session of talking with this person and that person. At the bottom of the grand staircase I talked to Troy McKie and Leena McKie about Callsign: Longbow, the challenges facing the indie toy companies making new figures at the old G.I. Joe scale, the Super7 ReAction+ line, collecting in general, and kids-and-screens. Then I spoke with Stuart Blackwelder about G.I. Joe comics and retail. He owns 1.21 Gigawatts Comics Toys and Nostalgia in Borger, Texas. Blackwelder’s shop and my shop are different in many ways, the least of which is that Blackwelder’s town has a mere 13,000 people and is somewhat isolated. We talked about a deal we might make where I’d ship him some things from my shop. Fun!

Over in the corner I finally got to catch up with Carson Mataxis and Sam Damon. Mataxis, with a few collaborators, put together a sublime book of G.I. Joe package art from the ‘80s and ‘90s, and was selling it at his booth. As he has now published a big tome, and I’m working on one, and we know some other people who’ve done the same, we compared notes, and with Damon, talked about sharing assets and being generous. Left to right, Mataxis, myself, and Damon:

While talking with Mataxis and Damon, I mentioned that I’d acquired a piece of original artwork, and the seller threw in a hard-to-find foreign toy with it. I don’t really do overseas G.I. Joe, and don’t have much need for it in my collection. Damon collects foreign Joes, so maybe this would become a deal!

It was time, and time to retire.

Jump back to [Part One] or [Part Two]. Come back here in a few days for Part Four, our thrilling conclusion!