At the DFW G.I. Joe and Action Figure Show in late June I bumped into Derryl DePriest, toy collector, book author, and former Hasbro VP. I joked that he should drive north to finally see my store many, many hours from where he lives. Turns out he was heading my way two months hence!
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Expert/pal Chris Murray lent me a one-of-a-kind G.I. Joe toy item, as well as a rare pre-production bauble, when I saw him at JoeFest in August. We had loosely worked out that I would photograph them in his hotel room, but I didn’t bring a proper camera or lights, and I’m not enough of a photographer that I could light these items properly. Chris generously let me take them with me. I offered to mail them back a few weeks later, but Chris was concerned about shipping mishaps, and said he’d take them back in person at the next G.I. Joe convention in November. I had assumed I would attend that show, but hadn’t locked it in — three months was a long ways off and it’s hard to plan your next trip during your current trip. But that settled it, I would be attending Assembly Required in November 2024. Now I had three months to photograph these two pieces of treasure. This week I did. Make that the passive voice, have them photographed.
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In Part One, Tim described his feelings towards libraries, discovered that the Peggy Charren/ACT archive was close to his home, and inspected the Harvard Gutman library’s online index of Charren/ACT papers.
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I’ve gotten a little used to posting remembrances of G.I. Joe alums from the worlds of animation, comics, and toys, where the departed were born in the 1940s or ’50s. It’s sad, although it makes sense. But I was caught off guard this summer to learn that Andre Blais had died. He didn’t work on G.I. Joe, but for me, he worked around it. Longtime readers of this blog have “met” him, as Andre was my photographer from 2008 to 2017.
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It’s that time of year again, when I list what I did for this book in the last 12 months and apologize that it’s taking so long! Last year in such a blog post I mused on what it’s like to research and write.
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Two weeks back I spent a day and a half at Glad Works so A Real American Book! photographer Tim Marshall could shoot new images for Chapters 12, 18, and 19.
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It’s been another year, so here’s an update on my progress since the last Year in Review. As always, teaching and retailing take up much of the week, so writing happens mostly over vacations.
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It felt good, a year ago, to put into words all that went into writing this G.I. Joe book, so I’m doing it again. Many things repeat from last year, and a few things are new. And there is — good news — some progress.
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A Real American Book! 