An artifact of being a teacher and having Winter Break is that my 2024 book-writing year ran late February ’24 to early February ’25 rather than a normal January-December. First up, the non-book things:
HUB COMICS
My comic book shop was open 363 days, tabled at two conventions, hosted one party, hosted some stand-up comedy, and held Free Comic Book Day. We had a month-long sale, and hosted talks/signings for writers and artists Cara Bean, Keith Knight, Jannie Ho, Danielle Corsetto, Svetlana Chmakova, and Nathan Fox. Related to G.I. Joe, we also hosted Tom Reilly (who as of this writing has drawn eight G.I. Joe comics) and Rick Parker (who lettered around 70).
SHORT FILMS – HUB COMICS
After four and a half years of shooting, editing, and posting a 60-second ad for my shop every Tuesday night, I decided to take a break in January ’25. I haven’t heard from anyone that they have noticed the absence, so that might be a tip that as fun as it was, it’s also okay to not do them. But if you miss them, all 241 are still available to watch, and I’ll come back to some other version of these sooner or later. Maybe they should only be about G.I. Joe!
VIDEO ESSAYS – ATOMIC ABE
My partners in New York continue to write, produce, edit, and voice-over our funny and carefully researched video essays on television and film. We added 10,000 subscribers to our YouTube channel and netted an additional two million views. Some weeks go by and I don’t do anything for Atomic Abe. Others involve writers/producers/funny people Nick Nadel and Kevin Maher sending rough cuts of several hour-long videos and need prompt feedback. Some big hits this year were Behind the Backdoor Pilot: MacGyver and Behind the Backdoor Pilot: The Flintstones. These are just jpegs, not links:
DOCUMENTARY PRODUCTION
I’m producing two documentaries.
One I can talk about, Anne Continelli’s The Big Picture, about repertory movie houses. I signed on in October. She’s local, so we met in person at an event at a repertory movie house.
The other I can’t. We’ll call it Project Z. Last year I said “we’ll have something to promote later in the year,” but the scope of the film has expanded, so maybe this year we’ll announce it and halfway through ’26 it’ll be done. The director is in New York, and filmed a week of interviews there in March, and then went to California for another week of interviews. Lots of editing since. We hired an art director, an American living in France, and I mostly leave them alone.
Oh, and there’s a third documentary from ten years back that got bought out. I think nothing of the original will exist if it’s ever finished, but I should be getting a producer credit since I contributed to an earlier incarnation. We’ll call that Project W. (These letters aren’t code, they’re just in some order at the end of the alphabet.)
No picture for this section, so here’s a company logo.
PROJECT X and PROJECT Y
I can’t talk about these either, but they are books, and they do have pictures (as in, not prose). They do not relate to my G.I. Joe history book. I’ve been helping them along (I did not write them and I did not draw for them) for several years. I couldn’t tease these in past Year-In-Reviews, but 2024 involved a big push for each. I hope one will get announced in 2025. Maybe both? Sorry to be coy. You’ll think they’re neat.
PODCASTING – TALKING JOE
Mark, the host with no last name, and I continue to record our weekly two-hour discussions of Devil’s Due G.I. Joe stories from 2007, plus new Real American Hero ones and new Energon Universe ones from Skybound. Most episodes are just us, but in the last year Mark also nabbed Joshua Williamson, Dan Watters, Kelly Thompson, Andrea Milana, Tom Reilly, Jason Howard, Paul Pelletier, Kickily, Michael Kelly, Andrew Wildman, Rick Parker, Mike Bear, and Mark Powers! My gosh, that’s 13 interviews! On top of about 40 regular episodes.) Certainly 2024 was a good year for G.I. Joe comics, and people who’ve made them might want to promote their work, but not all these fine folks are “new,” and just because someone says “yes” to an interview doesn’t automatically mean it will be a great 90 minutes. As a G.I. Joe historian, I’m lucky to be in the co-host’s chair (some recent interviews have helped my book-writing), and I am equally impressed by Mark’s preparation for “normal” episodes where we’re just talking about one comic book, as well as his work getting ready for a writer/artist/editor/professional guest, plus all the backend editing and promotion that comes after. Find all that here (links) or here (YouTube).
BLOGGING
I posted 17 articles here at ARealAmericanBook! this past year. Pretty good! That’s more than 2023. I think many of you want Hasbro and Marvel pre-production and behind-the-scenes art more than long convention write-ups, but for several years now I’m favoring the latter at the expense of the former, despite having lots of Hasbro and Marvel stuff sitting right here next to me.
I have five half-written blog posts with some toy development art, but what happens is I sit down to just post an image and a fluffy four-sentence paragraph. Then I feel the need to put the art in context, or take a photo of a toy or scan a panel from a comic for comparison. And then I need to cross reference the art or artist or date with some other item in my hard drive or on yojoe.com or 3djoes.com, and then there’s some gap that requires asking a friend or G.I. Joe-professional, and suddenly it’s four hours later and I don’t have a blog post. And I think “Why didn’t I just spend those four hours on my book?”
CONVENTIONS
Attended JoeFest and Assembly Required. They were great.
MOVING
My wife and I moved in August. Many things are still in storage and in boxes, but I’ve set up my computer and most of my files in a room with windows. When I need a break, I can sit in a different room with my laptop and at times a cat. No renovations this past year, but more than a normal amount of needing to call the appliance repair person, the plumber, the contractor, and the electrician for home or store matters.
BOOK INTERVIEWS
The era of needing and getting many firsthand accounts from people who worked for Hasbro, Marvel, Sunbow, or DIC is past. This year I conducted one new interview with an animation person to solidify something about the 1980s cartoon, plus one new interview with a toy person (who I’ve interviewed four times and who I send follow-up questions annually) to solidify something about the ’82 toy launch).
BOOK WRITING and NETWORKING
Designer Liz Sousa turned in a first pass on the layout for Chapter 19, long in the works. I sent her assets for redesigns of middle chapters. Editor Nick took a final pass on the text of Chapters 3 through 6, while reader/fact-checker Chris Murray inspected Chapters 5 and 6, and reader/fact-checker Patrick Stewart ran through Chapters 1-4. I also finished the first draft of Chapter 20, the finale to the book, and sent it off to Nick, who’s mostly done with his comments. (It took a long time to figure out what the ending to the book was, and to get the right interviews for it. Yes, it’s a stark contrast that I started the very first Chapter in 2007 and mostly finished it ten years later, yet didn’t start the final Chapter until 2018.)
Additionally there’s an arc through Chapters 2-11 about rules in broadcasting related to commercials and half-hour shows, and last year I added into Chapters 2-4 important facts and citations from my research at the Gutman Library. But it had long nagged me that Chapters 5-10 were missing this, and so I’ve finished note-taking on all those articles from the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s, and sprinkling them into the book. The beginning of that arc had been beefed up, but the middle was lacking.
No photos of me sitting at the computer or Zooming with Nick, Chris, or Pat for this section. This image isn’t G.I. Joe-related, but it does come close:
With Nadel/Murray/Stewart’s notes on early chapters and that new TV/media/regulations material, I can effectively call Chapters 1-4 Done, Done with a capitial D.
WHAT’S NEXT
Finish editing Chapters 5-20, which involves friends/smart people Chris, Pat, and Nick. Get an agent. Make a deal.
A Real American Book! 