Having a ninja commando on the team was just the start. In 1988, G.I. Joe got a real-life samurai in the form of Budo. Here’s his action figure sculpt input sheet.
Figure art, above, by George Woodbridge. Accessory art, below, by Mark Pennington.
Category Archives: Toys and Toy Art
Larry Hama and the Flagg
This is a fun one. Between the occasional Wizard or ToyFare article, G.I. Joe fan website, and Hama’s own Facebook page, it’s not too hard to find shots of Larry and G.I. Joe toys. It is hard to find any where the toys outsize him. But then the USS Flagg outsizes us all.
I don’t know where the original Polaroid (seen here as a photocopy) is from, but I have a lead I can look into (and should have already!), but my guess is either at Hasbro in Rhode Island or Toy Fair in New York City, February of 1986 or 1987. Probably not the Marvel office in NYC. Less interesting, but still a captured moment in time from the same series is another angle, sans Hama.
Filed under G.I. Joe Behind the Scenes, Toys and Toy Art
Charbroil presentation painting
To comics fans, Bart Sears means Justice League Europe, C.O.P.S., his “Brute and Babe” column for Wizard Magazine, Turok, X-O Manowar, Spider-Woman, and more recently a Legends of the Dark Knight double-sized issue and some Indiana Jones work. Sears was also at Hasbro in the late ’80s. There he briefly worked on G.I. Joe, and designed the company’s C.O.P.S. line. Here’s his presentation painting, seen internally and not part of any package design, for Charbroil. Unfortunately it’s a color photocopy, so it’s much contrastier than the original artwork.
Filed under G.I. Joe Behind the Scenes, Toys and Toy Art
Bazooka original dossier by Larry Hama
You’ve probably seen this:
It’s Bazooka’s 1985 toy cardback dossier, or “command file,” to use the official term. Many fans know Larry Hama wrote these, so in addition to the monthly adventures from Marvel Comics, Hama was also influencing the Hasbro toys. But before computers and the internet and .doc files and e-mail attachments, Hama’s originals would have been typewritten and faxed from New York to Pawtucket. So you may not have seen this:
You can even see the correction fluid. (Certain typewriters had a second ribbon in white for fixing typos, many did not.) This dossier is particularly interesting for Hama’s comment on outdated gear, and has his customary codename suggestions for Hasbro Legal to check.
Toxo-Viper v2 presentation sketch and comp
In 1986 Hasbro revised the generic Cobra Soldier, the anonymous man in a dark blue cloth uniform, as the Cobra Viper. The basic Viper is far from basic. He has knee-high books, a beefy backpack, body armor, a bigger machine gun, and a silvery face mask that resembles Cobra Commander’s. In every way the Viper is more aggressive and cooler than the 1982 Cobra Soldier. A brilliant idea that followed a year later was to use the name “Viper” as a base, and connect it to a variety of prefixes that denote specific types of Cobra troopers — Strato-Vipers are pilots, Frag-Vipers are grenade-lobbing specialists, Astro-Vipers are, um, astronauts. And on.
1988 saw a strange debut: Toxo-Viper. (Click that link for a photo in a new window.) The garish color scheme and alien-looking helmet were seemingly not a good fit for G.I. Joe, but the concept, a soldier suited for hostile environments (fuel spills, chemical weapons) was sound. And the Toxo-Viper had a counterpart on G.I. Joe, the 1985 figure Airtight. In 1991, with environmental awareness on the rise, Hasbro introduced an entire sub-line of toxic waste spreaders and fighters, the extra garish Eco-Warriors. Toxo-Viper got a redesign:
The above pencil art and marker art are by figure designer Kurt Groen. Here’s a detail, color added in marker to a photocopy of the pencil art:
The next step would have been a larger, slightly more polished marker drawing.
I’ve always found the Toxo-Viper version 2 to be oddly restrained compared to version 1. Waist-down it’s underdetailed and undersculpted, and the helmet is much less interesting, (although at least it doesn’t look like an alien). I suppose time and money were diverted to version 2’s water-shooting canon and color-change feature. I’ve never owned this figure, so I don’t have one to photograph, but here’s a picture at yojoe.
Filed under G.I. Joe Behind the Scenes, Toys and Toy Art
Behind the Scenes – Law blister card
Something simple today: A blister card front sample for 1987 Law. No blister, no figure, no accessories.
I’m attributing the artwork to Hector Garrido.
Many fans know Law was sculpted to resemble Kirk Bozigian, number 2 marketer for G.I. Joe when it relaunched in 1982. In fact, several figures from the whole ’82-’94 span resemble Hasbro employees, but it was much less often that the package paintings did. I can’t find my Law figure, so that’s why there’s no accompanying photo today, but the toy does match the person, and in this case, the painting appears to as well.
Filed under G.I. Joe Behind the Scenes, Toys and Toy Art
Cobra Commander’s lost gun!
1982 Cobra Commander photo by Wes Rollend
I’m pretty sure this hasn’t surfaced previously. Commonplace is Cobra Commander’s weird blow dryer/flashlight/laser pistol-thing.
1982 Cobra Commander photo by Wes Rollend
It came with his 1982 straight-arm figure, and the 1983 swivel-arm retool, and the 1984 mail-in hooded version of the character. (Embarrassing trivia: My brother and I never knew the gun fit into CC’s back! I figured this out in 2008, meaning I should probably call off this whole book thing.)
1982 Cobra Commander photo by Wes Rollend
From 1981, here’s Greg Berndtson’s control art for the weapon in question. This was drawn concurrently with Ron Rudat’s figure turnaround.
And here’s Cobra Commander’s other weapon, the one that wasn’t ever produced and did not come packed with the Cobra Commander action figures!
Know of any other designed-but-scrapped weapons?
Filed under Book Behind the Scenes, Photography, Toys and Toy Art
Behind the Scenes of G.I. Joe – Cobra concept art, 1990
For every figure that made it into the line, dozens were proposed as concepts and sketches. Here’s a color marker comp (ink on a photocopy of pencil art) by Kurt Groen of an unproduced Cobra soldier — likely some kind of Viper — from spring of 1990. I’m not sure if this character made it into three dimensions, but I doubt it. Click for a slightly larger image:
Subtly refining the art and adding a touch of detail, Groen redrew this as a finished color presentation “painting,” but by the time he was involved with the brand the toy development process dictated the internal presentation paintings no longer be painted. The final art, not pictured, looks just about the same as the rough, above.
Presumably this character was initially pitched for the 1992 product line.
Filed under G.I. Joe Behind the Scenes, Toys and Toy Art
Behind the scenes of G.I. Joe – Hawk
Something simple today: A blister card sample, front and back, for 1986 Hawk. No blister, no figure, no accessories.
I’m attributing the artwork to Hector Garrido.
Filed under G.I. Joe Behind the Scenes, Toys and Toy Art
Behind the scenes of G.I. Joe – Hydro-Viper
Today’s art post is the complete sculpt input (i.e. “turnaround”) for the 1988 Hydro-Viper. Again for casual or non-fans, let’s start with a photo (by me, not my fancy book photographer) of the production figure for a baseline comparison.
Here’s George Woodbridge’s turnaround. Such a crisp and clean line, and a deft spotting of blacks.
Note that the figure is referred to as “Cobra Frogman,” so “Hydro-Viper” hadn’t yet cleared Legal.
Woodbridge’s association with G.I. Joe is limited. He drew most of the ’88 inputs, and did many of the Hasbro-internal figure presentation paintings that Dave Dorman and Bart Sears didn’t around 1988. Writer Mark Evanier wrote a short biography of Woodbridge in 2004 when the artist passed away. You can find it here, but if you want a shorter version, I’ll just throw out the terms “Mad Magazine” and “military and historical illustration.” In the near future I’ll show a few more pieces like this here, and in the not-near future I’ll have Woodbridge’s Crazylegs (a Joe paratrooper) color piece in my book.
Here are three sheets of the Hydro-Viper’s accessories, drawn by Bart Sears. In toys, Sears is known for designing Hasbro’s C.O.P.S. In comics, Sears drew Justice League Europe and has recently penciled some Conan and Indiana Jones for Dark Horse. Of note here is the ray, the most bizarre of all animals that any G.I. Joe figure came packaged with.
Filed under G.I. Joe Behind the Scenes, Toys and Toy Art
A Real American Book! 
