In our last exciting episode, Tim flew to Texas, missed lunch, talked with friends, and got helpful book advice!
SATURDAY—–
Click all photos to enlarge.
Woke up an hour before my alarm. A positive convention anxiety, plus that time zone shift. Better than sleeping an hour late!
Down at the hotel bar/restaurant, Hasbro vehicle designer Guy Cassaday and I sat together for breakfast. We both noted how fried we were the previous night, so this was a proper reset and time to catch up. I told him about my book, and he told me about his first jobs. The convention officially opened at 10am, minus that one-hour-early preview, so we both needed to skedaddle.
Only two of the former-Hasbro guests had ever seen my book, and so this first hour of the con, before people showed up in force, felt like the best time for that. There were no autograph lines at the guests’ tables, and everyone was awake at the start of a con day. I don’t expect someone to remember me if we spoke by phone ten years ago and emailed two years ago, but in a few cases, these nice folks did. It was lovely to show David Kunitz (left) and Greg Berndtson (right) a chapter of my book:
This was fun and a little awkward, me walking around to their side of the table (it’s their space, I’m not a guest), me kneeling on the floor, clicking through spreads on my laptop. In many cases, this quick preview included artwork by or photos of these folks from 1985 or 1989. And then next to them, Frank Coroneos (left), Guy Cassasay (center, who I’d just had breakfast with), and Vinnie D’Alleva (right, who I’d spoken with the night before), got to see a chapter as well:
There were more former-Hasbro folks to talk to, but I’d grab them later.
PANEL: CHICKEN FRIED TOYS
Around this time, I was missing the first panel of the day, from Chicken Fried Toys, on its Dime Store Legends action figure line of cowboys and cowboy-adjacent figures. I stuck my head in and got this photo of Paul Mundheim (left) and his son Cooper (right).
After the con, I asked JE Russell of Chicken Fried Toys about its slideshow, and he sent me a link to the whole thing — it was great! Dozens of process and behind-the-scenes photos, including figure designs, digital sculpts, factory samples, and steel tooling, and an update on the company’s three current lines. Fun fact: G.I. Joe designer Ron Rudat and G.I. Joe voice actor Keone Young’s likenesses are a part of the Dime Novel Legends line.
The previous night, Brian Savage had suggested I talk to a dealer who might have a lead for that photograph I was hunting. Against the back wall of the con room I found him, Louis Simmons, and co-dealer, Steve Wilkerson. They have booths in antique malls. We talked about G.I. Joe conventions in the early 2000s.
I walked over to the booth of John Earl:
He was selling prints and original art:
Nearby was the artist Kickily. Here’s a fascinating case. Having already been published as a real and legit graphic novelist, Kickily gained the internet notice of many fandoms for his colorful paintings of G.I. Joe and other toy characters. Mark LastNameGoesHere and I of the Talking Joe podcast had him on the show, where for the first 45 minutes we didn’t mention G.I. Joe while Kickily spoke of the French Impressionists. An unusual episode to be certain!
He was informally a guest at Assembly Required 2024, but I didn’t get to show him my book. So here, now, I would. It was also great sitting at his table because it was covered with gorgeous prints and originals, paint and ink drawings of Snake-Eyes, Major Bludd, Hot Rod and Megatron, battle scenes with big machine gun muzzle flashes, thick swatches of black ink, and extended and distended arms and legs. I would put Kickily’s poses and anatomy in the slightly “weird” category. And totally awesome. All of these pieces are a hobby, a side gig, not his regular job. He told me about his current project, which is a new process for him. Kickily reminds me of the cartoonist Seth (watch the documentary Seth’s Dominion). Both are artist-artists.
He talked a little about working in oil paints now, AI-generated art (bad), we mused on the cartooning of Michael Golden and John Severin’s interior work, and then, a little to my surprise, I bought a Kickily original. It’s a piece he displayed online a few months ago, that I thought was clever, and figured it had already sold. That it was here in front of me was a sign, and not expensive to boot! I’m feeling shy, so rather than show you it or tell you what it is, here are some other lovely originals that were for sale:
Kickily mentioned that producer (and con guest) Michael Charles Hill, who wrote the 1985 “Cold Slither” episode of G.I. Joe, and the audio drama for the 1986 Operation: Brazil action figure pack, had a convention sketchbook. This was funny to me. I think of people like me and all the other attendees as having con sketchbooks — walk around, ask people to draw in your sketchbook, collect pieces of art by famous people. I don’t think I’ve experienced any of those famous people walking around collecting drawings by other famous people. Kickily explained that Hill only wanted drawings related to those two G.I. Joe projects in this G.I. Joe-specific sketchbook, and Kickily was the first person to contribute. As such, he’d not just draw, but paint, and not just something dashed off, but a real piece, in order to wow everyone who drew in it after him, to raise the bar from page 1.
And because Kickily couldn’t choose between Claymore (the one debut character from Operation: Brazil) or the Dreadnoks-as-musicians in “Cold Slither,” he did both — an ink drawing/painting, and then another one. And further still, because Kickily is a nice guy who wants to make a splash, he didn’t draw on a single page, and then another single page, but instead drew across two pages and then the next two pages. I chuckled. Maybe I’d go ask Hill if I could draw in his sketchbook. (I wouldn’t presume to charge a fee if I asked someone for the privilege of contributing, but in the normal course, artists are getting $50 or $200 for this kind of thing.)
Next to Kickily was artist George Vega, who’d drawn a print for the convention:
The 11am panel was halfway through. I had wanted to attend all of it, but a) I have a lot about G.I. Joe marketing in my book, so maybe didn’t need to go collect new information, and b) was enjoying talking Kickily and lost track of time. Good thing the panel room was 20 feet away.
PANEL: SELLING THE ADVENTURE: THE ROLE OF G.I. JOE MARKETING
Reseacher/author Dan Klingensmith (above, far right) moderated this. He’s built up an incredible network of people who worked on or around G.I. Joe in the 1980s and ’90s, both the more visible Vinnie D’Alleva and Kirk Bozigian (first and third from left, above) the now-more-visible Bob Swanson (second from left), and not-visible engineers, copy writers, play testers, and more. It was a fun panel. When I was in high school, my dad said that he thought I would make a good marketer. It wasn’t something I pursued, but I think about that when I’m making a video or flyer for my store, or telling people about my book — how do I tell people the story of this product/service/guest? How do I convince people they need this? With that in mind, it’s always fun and fascinating to hear some of the best marketers ever talk about all their ideas and work habits, particularly since Bozigian, D’Alleva, and Swanson’s memories are sharp and they clearly enjoyed their jobs at Hasbro. I’ve been to several such panels at G.I. Joe conventions over the years and they’re always great.
I tried drawing a little in my sketchbook.
While some of this wasn’t new to me, the quartet did show part of a Hasbro sizzle reel from around 1990. This was a 20-minute hype video Hasbro made for its sales force, to pump up those agents who’d be working Toy Fair or traveling the country to get stores to buy more Hasbro product. The reel comprised of clips from various boxing films, mostly the “Rocky” series, but also Raging Bull, Three Stooges, the 1948 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon Rabbit Punch (with Bugs Bunny punching “Battling McGook”) and others I didn’t recognize. These were all interspersed with shots from advertisements for Cabbage Patch Kids, WWF, G.I. Joe, and more, all set to a version of “Eye of the Tiger” but rewritten so the chorus referred instead to “The Power of Hasbro.” It was utterly insane, and the next time I do “Eye of the Tiger” at karaoke, I will mourn that I can’t somehow instead sing “The Power of Hasbro.”
Additionally, D’Alleva talked about profits, Swanson talked about store exclusives, and Bozigian shared an anecdote about Marvel Comics that I have in my book but I don’t mind hearing again.
Next up in the panel room at noon were Mikey Kukovich and John Kukovich.
PANEL: COUPLE OF KUKS
That’s pronounced “kooks,” like Mikey and John are a little nutty. While they are part of Grindstone Toys (more at 2pm), their side project is Couple of Kuks, which offers action figure accessory and customizing kits. (They had in fact run the Friday figure customizing workshop.) They talked about buying up several Classified Dusty figures and Classified Tiger Force Dusty figures on clearance, and they could plan a future customization kid around Dusty. (As in: buy a Dusty, buy their kit, turn Dusty into another figure that hasn’t been made/won’t ever be made.) The Kukoviches referred to paint and pins that attach heads to necks. I stayed for part of the panel, but wanted to get back to walking and talking.
Say, there’s Mark Pennington drawing!
Cool, he’s drawing two favorite characters, who have never met before!
Out in the exhibit hall, I bumped into Greg Brown, who runs this show. I wanted to be able to give credit since no show is completely run by one person. Brown explained that the team is himself, Bob Welch, Dan Klingensmith, the DFW club, and Gray Childs. As the others weren’t standing right there, I took a photo of just Greg Brown:
He explained that last year’s attendance was 1,000, and this year’s would top it, that the Friday Night Preview had double attendance the night before from a year prior. I don’t mean to overly hammer home the difference between two G.I. Joe conventions, but since I just wrote four long posts on JoeFest, Brown also talked about growing a convention, that he was happy to have a show this size because it looked and felt like the old Brian Savage JoeCons. And that having a bigger crowd didn’t necessarily make a better show, because a key aspect is attendees who spend money, which makes the dealers happy, who then might return. Brown kindly noted that a con didn’t need a lot of “lookie-loos.”
Nearby Dan Klingensmith was selling his books. I see his social media posts and am on a few email lists, so it was nice to see him in person, interacting with potential customers IRL:
Ron Rudat was selling prints:
Hey, cosplay! This is fun, as this gent is costumed not as Outback, but as the UK-only Tiger Force version of the character. You don’t see a lot of G.I. Joe cosplayers with naturally white hair and beards, but these are indeed Outback’s colors:
I ran back to my room for “lunch,” which consisted of nuts from Friday and trail mix I had grabbed at the Mixer the night before. This meant missing the first half of the next panel.
PANEL: BEHIND THE BATTLE: INSPIRATION BEHIND G.I. JOE FIGURES & VEHICLES
Left to right are Mark Pennington (figures), Kurt Groen (figures), Greg Berndtson (vehicles), Frank Coroneos (vehicles), Guy Cassaday (vehicles), David Kunitz (vehicles), Dan Klingensmith (moderator), and Ron Rudat (figures). This is a little like Dan Klingensmith’s books and podcast come to life. He was slowly running through slides, each with a series of drawings, photos of models, package art, and in some cases, the TV commercials for particular Joe toys. The Hasbro guests would one at a time talk about how they’d come up with a figure or vehicle.
In some ways, it was a crowded panel and one might expect this broken into two — figures and then vehicles — but there was a certain energy to having all the designers (the three marketers had already presented) together up in front, all looking at each other’s work and casually commenting. Schools have reunions, but jobs less so. This whole convention, and particularly this one-hour panel, had the feeling of a Hasbro reunion — all these guys shared space in the same building of offices and cubicles 35 years ago, where they sketched, revised, pitched to each other and their bosses. I’m particularly aware of that feeling because I’ve interviewed them and others over the years, and constructed a bit of a timeline about it in my book, and I have photos of these guys at Hasbro around 1985 and 1990.
Cassaday talked about the Rolling Thunder, Berdston talked about the Defiant, and more. Earlier, when I showed Frank Coroneos my book, one image showed a hand holding the Warthog in water. He said “That was an engineering marvel,” to get the Warthog to float — this being a big compliment not to himself or other designers, but to the engineers who took over the project from him. Although that recollection “belongs” earlier in this blog post, it’s the kind of thing these designers were saying during the 1pm panel.
I stayed for the start of the 2pm:
PANEL: CALLSIGN: LONGBOW
Troy McKie and the aforementioned John Kukovich are Grindstone Toys, which is developing a cool line of 1980’s style O-ring action figures. Although they have their own characters, factions, and story, the starting point is inspired by G.I. Joe, but with a Cold War-era Soviet enemy (not a fictional group like Cobra), and a third faction of antagonists. I backed the Longbow Kickstarter in 2022, and McKie started by stating the top question they get is “where are my toys?” Their second slide was a timeline of what they’ve delivered (the first figure!) and where they are with the next two batches. The focus of this panel was how they develop a figure, and the next few slides showed pencil concept art and sculpt input turnarounds that reminded me of all the Hasbro-internal art I’ve collected. A running theme of this weekend: in order to balance covering the events with socializing, I left halfway through.
Back in the exhibit hall, I spotted Guy Cassaday finishing another drawing:
Then, I “re”-introduced myself to Bob Swanson. We’d messaged once or twice on Facebook, and I’d even bought some paperwork from him online, but we hadn’t ever spoken by phone or in person. I started showing him some of my book. Here he is with the original artwork for Major Storm (driver of the General), who was sculpted with his likeness and named after him:
Soon I saw that Kirk Bozigian, seated next to Swanson, was looking over his shoulder. I thought I had shown Bozigian my book, but it was so long ago that it must have been my designer’s earliest concepts of pages rather than actual pages. So I showed both of them a chapter. This felt like a bookending of sorts. Swanson is someone “newer” to me in my research, whereas I first met and borrowed paperwork from Bozigian in 2005!
I hadn’t attended this show with the goal of showing most or all of the Hasbro alums my work, but in wanting to say thanks again and sort of remind them who I was, pulling out my laptop and clicking through a PDF was a good way to do that. It ended up being fun and satisfying to show seven Hasbro guys, who worked on my favorite toy line, my history book on work that they did.
In passing Kickily’s table, somehow I got to talking to him again. A little alarm bell went off in my head, like you’ve already talked to this guy, this is time you’re not talking to someone else! At the same time, I want to let conventions unfold naturally, and let interactions happen as they do. And there’s no way to talk to everyone, look at every dealer table, and attend every panel. Kickily and I went back and forth of whether the new Superman movie would be good. I have opinions about Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and 3, and I referred to the new Rolling Stone interview with James Gunn. Kickily showed me some process photos of his recent reverse angle “Silent Interlude” drawing, his take on the Ed Hannigan cover to G.I. Joe issue #21. Here’s two more Kickily photos, the first — in oil paint! — plus a fun behind-the-scenes bit:
PANEL: MARKETING [SOMETHING] REDUX
3pm meant the next panel. This gets some context. Originally, and still on the printed schedules, this was to be Carson Mataxis talking with Hasbro marketer and VP Kirk Bozigian about the 1991 toy commercial ad shoot. Instead of live-action footage of kids mixed with animation, that year the TV advertisements had live-action actors, like 15-second G.I. Joe movies. Bozigian took a bunch of home movie footage on-set at the time, and Mataxis and Bozigian have previously presented this at a G.I. Joe convention. This was to be a repeat, and Mataxis would be tabling at DFW, selling his G.I. Joe book and promoting his own line of G.I. Joe-adjacent action figures, Operation: Recall. Mataxis caught COVID the weekend before at JoeFest, and had to cancel his appearance. I suggested to DFW organizer Greg Brown that if he needed a substitute moderator, perhaps I could just ask Bozigian questions for an hour, no footage, no slideshow. It turns out that Bozigian, in brainstorming what a panel might be if he’s invited back to DFW next year, had started planning a different panel, and could turn this into a replacement for his hour with Mataxis.
Also, Bozigian is a master marketer and teaches college classes, and absolutely does not need a moderator! Bozigian can hold a mic and hold court with an audience for an hour, no sweat. It would have been fun to briefly be a part of the con, but also more relaxing if I could just be in the audience for this one. Bozigian brought in Vinnie D’Alleva and Bob Swanson, also Hasbro marketing in the ’80s and ’90s, and the trio put on an entertaining panel that was completely different from the one they had done four hours earlier! I don’t know what the title of this replacement panel was, hence my nebulous bolded line above. They talked about the 1982 G.I. Joe Marketing Plan (two pages of pencil-written notes in Bozigan’s hand), Hasbro before computers, their weekly and every-four-to-six-week sales checks, and more. It was great, and I felt a little like a dummy, as the topics they covered in the first half of the panel — the half I missed — were things I’ve been meaning to follow up on with Kirk Bozigian and Bob Swanson! Oh well, I hope to follow up after the con.
PANEL: GI JOE HOLY GRAILS: RARE FINDS FROM THE 1960s and ’70s
While I didn’t make time to properly talk with Ace Allgood, I did catch the beginning of his panel. 12-inch GI Joe from the 1960s and ’70s still has a showing at this convention, with at least four dealers selling a great variety of boxed, loose, complete, and incomplete figures, as well as loose accessories:
I’m used to panels about rare stuff from the A Real American Hero line 1982 to 1994, or even through 2007, as collectors have found items in the wild and former Hasbro folks have sold items from their own collections. I assumed there was nothing left to find of the most vintage of Joes, but of course there would be rare variations or even prototypes turning up from the original Man of Action and Adventure Team era!
Allgood walked his audience through a slide show of specific toys, including packaging variations, figure variations, and more. He often mentioned where he or someone else had found such an item, and called out the names of well known collectors, all of whom were known by folks in the audience. 12-inch Joe isn’t quite my bag. I own one and have no plans to acquire more, but I appreciate hearing smart and passionate people talk about it, particularly in a historical context. Part of why I didn’t stay for the whole panel was because both it and the open hours of the dealer room ended at 5pm. If I wanted any more time to walk around, take photos, talk to people, or buy something on Saturday, this was my chance.
Back in the showroom, I showed a bit of my book to Zack Hoffman. We had spoken briefly a week earlier at JoeFest, and I had really enjoyed his panel back at JoeCon ’16 or so. I didn’t have any questions and didn’t need to conduct an interview, but abstractly thought it would be nice to keep talking, especially since there wasn’t a line of autograph-seekers. I asked about not being in “Hollywood” anymore, and about a book of poems that Hoffmann had been selling a week earlier at JoeFest. He talked about his process of writing poetry, and trotted out a line about someone liking or not liking his written work, which I joked would make a killer title for a collection of poems. We chuckled, and I do hope he uses it.
Here’s another dealer portrait. It’s Nolan Stevenson of Little Elm, Texas. He does Texas shows plus the two Kentucky G.I. Joe shows.
On the right edge of his booth, I spied these, cheap!
We have a capsule vending machine at my store in MA, compatible in size to most of these Jada Nano figures. I was able to source some Marvel and DC ones on clearance a few years back, and so those definitely-pricier baubles have become a hot-selling item at Hub Comics. At G.I. Joe conventions over the last two years I’ve kept my eyes open for Jada’s G.I. Joe Nano figures, but that’s only happened one time, and with one 6-pack. But dealer Stevenson already had them priced down, and offered a deal if I bought them all, WHICH I DID. (At the moment, our capsule vending machine is full, and we’ve got resupplies for months, so Duke, Baroness and the rest aren’t going to debut in 2-inch plastic bubbles for some time.)
DINNER—–
Whereas Friday evening had a ticketed social event that involved (snack) food, Saturday did not. The showroom closed at 5pm and a swap meet in the lobby and bar started at 7pm. Between then, attendees could go get food or perhaps have it delivered. (In the era before Door Dash and Uber Eats, it was an occasional sight to see a Domino’s delivery person heading through the hotel lobby to the elevator.) I had no plans, but I had enjoyed talking with artist Jamie Sullivan and his wife earlier in the day, and maybe I’d bump into them and tag along with whatever food quest they set out on — they had a car and nothing seemed walkable.
On my way back to my room to drop off stuff, I passed Gray Childs. He was taking most of the convention guests out to dinner, and invited me to join. I demurred. I was not a guest and was happy to stumble into dinner with whoever I might know or not know in the lobby. Childs insisted. Happy to not turn down a free meal, and sit with interesting people, I said yes. Also, after my lunch of nuts and the previous night’s dinner of desperate pre-packed salad, alone in my hotel room, I liked the idea of a real meal at a real restaurant. An Uber arrived, and producer/writer Michael Charles Hill and I squeezed into the back. I’ve spoken with him at two prior conventions now, and we’re both interested in what the other is doing now. After Action Report writer/publisher Josh Eggebeen sat in front of us, along with voice actor Gregg Berger. Voice actor Zack Hoffman took shotgun.
I wished it were somehow later in the evening so we could see this lit up, rather than so close to the Summer Solstice:
(A side note, Jamie and Erin Sullivan were actually to be included in the dinner outing, but due to a mix-up, were not. I hope they had a nice dinner, wherever they ended up!)
About 20 of us took over the back room. Most or all the Hasbro guys were there, as were Brian Savage and Derryl DePriest. Closest to me at my end of one of the tables were Berger, Hoffman, and Hill. What a wonderful dinner! The food was great, from the guacamole to my fish tacos. Conversation was lovely, funny, and fascinating. (Hill wasn’t quite Berger and Hoffman’s boss in 1985, but he was the client. He was at all the voice recording sessions, representing Sunbow Productions, which was paying for the animated G.I. Joe half-hours. Next to him in 1985 would have been voice director Wally Burr, and then on the other side of the glass, in the booth with mics, were Berger, Hoffman, and others.) Hill said that at the time he’d felt like everyone else had seniority, these actors who had worked together. Berger agreed but from the opposite side, that as a relative newcomer to voice acting, he was trying to watch and learn. I asked Hoffman and Berger if they remembered actually working together, recording together at the same time. They said yes, and Hoffman had a great anecdote about Berger describing how he should review his script. I felt like I had already bended Hoffman’s ear enough earlier in the showroom, but very much enjoyed this extra chance to talk more, him being an actor, a writer, a professional with a sense of humor.
At one point, figure designer Kurt Groen, sitting on the other side of the table, asked these three Hollywood and ex-Hollywood guys how they got into the biz. I was glad for this question, and I’m interested, but as an animation guy who’s attended a lot of panels at conventions, while I didn’t know the specifics, I feel like it’s well-trodden ground I should avoid. But the toy designer who never paid attention to the G.I. Joe cartoon, who maybe didn’t know much about voice acting, was in the clear. All three obliged him. Berger’s answer in particular struck me, that he had 11 origin stories. He told one, and later, in talking about theater in college, told another. He also talked about the 1968 World’s Fair in Toronto, summer stock, and after I told an Orson Welles story, Berger did his Orson Welles impression. Pretty good! Although Mr. Berger is not the go-to actor for that voice. I asked him about the craft of that impression, and then our food arrived. I told the trio about why I think the 1984-1988 Transformers cartoon is an evergreen that people and kids go back to, contrasting it with the Michael Bay films. Berger recalled Wally Burr’s intensive preparation for voice recording sessions.
Gray Childs made a toast, that he was pleased to have this range of wonderful guests at the convention, and that having everyone out for dinner was a highlight.
Dinner was filled with many great moments, and the room was filled with interesting people — oh, there’s Derryl DePriest at the other table speaking with Brian Savage; oh, two spots to my left Kurt Groen is talking to Ron Rudat and his wife, Ginny. Zack Hoffman and Michael Charles Hill sitting across from me just compared notes on something about working in television. I wanted to take a bunch of photos, but it didn’t seem like the right move. This was a meal, and everyone had already been on-duty in the con room during the day.
I did hand Hill my phone to snap a photo of Berger and myself, as that felt like a valuable moment to capture. But sometimes my camera rolls all the way down on the exposure meter, so this came out dark, and Photoshop can only bring it back so much–
–so I made a more drastic fix.
In particular, Berger described something he’s writing, and I told him about my book. It’s perhaps not helpful to pick a favorite moment of a weekend filled with surprises, lovely and meaningful interactions, but to have made such a connection with Berger, whose voice I know from Garfield and Friends, Transformers, Men in Black: The Series, and so many more, and from a few BotCon and JoeCon panels (don’t forget: he’s Firefly and Spirit!) was so delightful, and I look forward to the next time we can speak.
I’m not much one for taking photos of my food, but as a contrast to the skipped, rushed, and snack-filled meals I was managing so far on this trip, I’ll call out that the guacamole that came before dinner, and my fish tacos, seen here, were superb:
Cars took us back to the hotel, and it was now time for the next event, which started at 8pm.
G.I. JOE VEHICLE BUILDING WORKSHOP—–
In some ways, I had planned the weekend around this. I already had my plane tickets and hotel reservation when I heard about this workshop, but was ready to change those in case a limited visit to Dallas-Ft. Worth meant missing it. And now it was starting.
This was being run by five former Hasbro vehicle designers, guys who knew the process of bringing a toy to life like no one else. That would be, left to right, Dave Kunitz, Frank Coroneos, Greg Berndtson, and Guy Cassaday, plus figure designer Kurt Green, who showed up for the whole thing and ended up explaining several concepts as well. Not pictured, but also assisting were Mikey Kukovich and John Kukovich. I counted 12 attendees participating, which makes for an unbelievable teacher-to-student ratio.
Kunitz had crated two wood patterns based on the hulls of the Cobra Pirhana boat and the G.I. Joe Badger jeep, seen here for scale (each a small, one-person vehicle — participants weren’t remaking the Rolling Thunder!) and as a reminder of their general shapes. One is boxy and the other is conical.
These two production toys weren’t a direct part of the workshop. Here are the wood patterns based on the Badger and Pirhana, representing smooth and unadorned forms in the shape and volume of those two vehicles, as if the vehicles hadn’t yet been created and all the attendees were making their own vehicles from these starting points:
Also before the workshop, Kunitz had vac-formed sheets of plastic onto those wood patterns:
Attendees picked one or the other, and then got to cutting away the excess plastic.
And now the fun began. Cutting away, bending, and gluing additional parts, each workshop attendee attempted to make a sketch model of some potential G.I. Joe vehicle. Coroneos had brought a dremel scroll saw and an oscillating sander, plus dozens of other tools:
Attendees could ask the Hasbro guys for help, and the Hasbro guys walked around and offered advice. John Kukovich had taken a production Badger wheel from 1993 and 3-D printed a whole bunch more:
At one point, Greg Berndston cut a wooden dowel into small pieces, axels for anyone making a land vehicle.
Here’s a shot of participants working:
I noticed Bob Swanson and Kirk Bozigian sitting a few rows back, watching it all unfold, so I joined them. We ended up talking for a half-hour about the molding and tooling process of vehicles. It was fascinating, and I might need to call or visit one or both this summer to repeat that conversation into an audio recorder. We also talked a little about comic books, with me explaining the difference between the Direct Market and the Newsstand Market to Swanson. Bozigian, a lifelong comics reader, I think already knew.
Wandered back over. One participant had made this:
Another workshop participant, who I think was sort of a father-and-kid team, made this:
This workshop was scheduled to run two hours, but for people not interested in paying extra for it, there was a free event taking place on the lobby level in the bar. That would be…
YOU DON’T KNOW JOE TRIVIA CONTEST—–
This started at 9pm, so my plan was to sit in on half of the workshop, and then check out the trivia. But I didn’t make it there until 9:45, moments after it had ended and almost everyone cleared out. This was the same bar area where the Mixer had been the previous night. Questions would have appeared on the front TV. Host Brian Savage is seated here on the right:
He cued up a question on his laptop so I could see what it looked like:
I heard a bit later that this was actually the same set of questions and answers as the final JoeCon, from 2018, funny stuff! Completely reasonable that Savage wouldn’t invent a whole new set, as I think his appearance at the con was relatively last minute and his involvement was informal.
Josh Eggebeen told that there were two teams of six people each, and with two buzzers, the set-up was like Family Feud. His team won one game, with the other team winning one.
It was late, I was tired, and somewhat relieved that a dozen people weren’t hanging out in the lobby — definitely a different crowd than the previous G.I. Joe convention a week earlier! Maybe I’d draw in Michael Charles Hill’s sketchbook — which I’d borrowed from him earlier — back in my hotel room. Or maybe that would wait until Sunday morning.
——-END SATURDAY
In our next exciting episode, Tim draws in Michael Charles Hill’s sketchbook, tries to squeeze something out of only 90 minutes at the con, and attends an event in another time zone after the DFW Show!
A Real American Book! 