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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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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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?
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G.I. Joe toy photography by Andre Blais for Gladworks
Ace lensman Andre Blais came on board just a few weeks after I signed the contract for Gladworks to design my book, and part of the appeal was that he was (and is) in-house there. So in one room there’s designer Liz Sousa at a Mac, and in another is Andre, with a cyc, pro lights and diffusion, tripods, and more. (And a Mac.) I’ll interview him soon for a future blog post.
The general idea for these photos came from the toy photography of Brian Malloy and Erik Hildebrandt in John Michlig‘s G.I. Joe: The Complete Story of America’s Favorite Man of Action. (Regular readers will recognize that book as one of the two main inspirations for A Real American Book.) There are only four “fantasy” shots in Michlig, where the reader point of view is in scale with the 12-inch Joes, but the toys themselves are set against the scale of the man-made world. Rather than product shots, like a catalog displaying toys on a table top (even if the table top is a dressed set), I wanted story moments, like movie stills.
This was also practical. I don’t want to reproduce too many visuals that are commonly available. My book aims to continually show and tell unrevealed facts, anecdotes, and imagery. But whole sections tell the history of people talking and making decisions, but people weren’t taking candid photos of co-workers at the office in 1982. (Which may seem odd compared to today when every cell phone and music player is also a high resolution camera.) If an interviewee recalls making the Snake-Eyes figure, an obvious pairing would be a photo of that figure, or a scan of a concept sketch. But what if there’s no obvious pairing? To break up stretches of history that have no clearly analogous visuals, the solution was to sprinkle in dramatic diorama-style toy photos.
For this photoshoot, I had only a vague idea of where (or why) an image of Duke and Spirit would go. Maybe Chapter 4, when the narrative gets to the second and third waves of toys? Sadly, nothing from this shoot made the final cut. There are two reasons for that: First, I had forgotten to bring Spirit’s belt. I was worried that hardcore fans would dismiss the photo for not being fully accessorized, so I asked Andre to crop above Spirit’s waist, which really limited the composition. Second, the chapter where this photo would go ultimately didn’t need a photo of two action figures in a “fantasy” setting, even if it’s a great photo.
G.I. Joe toy photography by Andre Blais for Gladworks
G.I. Joe toy photography by Andre Blais for Gladworks
Note the difference in these two — how the golden light from the left adds dimension and warmth to Spirit’s hair, gun-holding arm, and torso. It’s not in the first shot. Here they are together for comparison:
G.I. Joe toy photography by Andre Blais for Gladworks
A few weeks later we tried this shoot again, this time with the belt, but the magic was too difficult to recapture.
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Last time we looked at hooded Cobra Commander. Today continuing with more outtakes from photoshoot #1 in March 2008 by then-Glad Works photographer Wes Rollend, we’ll look at CC in his battle mask.
Photo by Wes Rollend
Dramatic lighting separates Cobra Commander from his two guards. But CC’s pose doesn’t work — he’s too casually holding his pistol. If this is HQ, it doesn’t make sense, if it’s going into battle, why the fancy backdrop?
Photo by Wes Rollend
Change in angle adds drama, and more space between CC and his guards, but now his sigil is in shadow and the right guard’s helmet is clipped.
Photo by Wes Rollend
The vertical here accentuates the proportions of the figures, and by cropping out one guard we’ve honed in. There’s movement, like the two are walking toward us, so CC’s weapon now makes sense. But in general I don’t want vertical shots in my book — just a personal preference — so a choice horizontal one is beat out by this one.
Photo by Wes Rollend
Here we’re trying underlighting, but since we don’t have a proper set-up, with the figures on a grid or a transparent floor, the underlighting is more frontal low-angle. This, combined with the down angle POV, makes the figures look like toys rather than living characters in a fantasy story moment, the kind of photo I’m avoiding.
But to repeat from last week, none of these shots — even the best ones (and these four are just a sample) — made the cut since the slot for a photo of Cobra Commander and two Cobra Soldiers never materialized. But that’s fine, since the writing process is really rewriting, so I along with my editor and designer and photographer Wes and Andre are collectively keeping what works, trimming what doesn’t, and then trimming some of what does for considerations of space.
More photos from both Wes and Andre here soon!
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Up until now I’ve only shown artwork here at A Real American Book — pencil drawings, ink designs, offset printed four color paperboard, and such. But no photography. I’d have to get a few clearances to show some of the vintage G.I. Joe-related photos I’ve cataloged while researching, but what is free to show are the original photographs we’ve taken specifically for the book. Or at least, a few that haven’t made the cut. And so here, debuting in public for the first time ever, a couple pictures posed, lit, and shot at Glad Works’ studio in Pawtucket, RI.
The ink on the contract for graphic design services was still drying in March 2008 when we had our first photoshoot. I posed a batch of 1983 Swivel-Arm G.I. Joe figures and photographer Wes Rollend shot for three hours, racking up 250 pictures. At the time I wrote “I’m sure when all is said and done, only nine or ten will make the cut.” With almost half the book laid out, that number has declined, mostly for space reasons, but also because a few shots have replaced those early ones. All I knew then was that a) I had an entire chapter devoted to people at Hasbro making decisions — not product — and no firsthand photos or memos to go with it, and b) sooner or later amidst all the pre-production materials I’d have to show some actual production, mass-produced action figures and vehicles. So I started with some 1982 toys, guessing at what photos we might need later on in Chapters 2 and/or 3.
The photo studio at Glad Works, a room next to the main one where designers click away on Macs, has what you’d expect: a tall ceiling, a makeshift cyc, lights and diffusion, bricks and cinder blocks for making flat surfaces taller or shorter (like a tabletop), fabric for backdrops, and more. Wes played around with lighting (from the side, above, below), and camera angles (low, eye-level), and backdrops. Plus we had two Cobra Commanders to choose from.
Photo by Wes Rollend
This first one above has a great composition, depth, and a bit of menace from the foreground soldier. The backdrop maroon nicely echoes the Cobra sigil. But we’re cropped in too closely, so we lose the sense that the Soldier is holding a rifle. But this does manage to be both about product — you can tell they’re plastic toys — as well as fantasy — this is a story moment during some kind of speech. So I still like it very much.
Photo by Wes Rollend
This second one tries the other end of the rack focus from the previous shot. But it doesn’t work much better — there’s a clearer sense of the Cobra Soldier holding his rifle, but he’s too out of focus, and therefore too ambiguous. The background isn’t distracting, but it’s also not adding anything. Maybe if I’d built a little throne?
Photo by Wes Rollend
This third one introduces the second soldier, and in a way I’m channeling the bit from 1987’s G.I. Joe: The Movie where two Crimson Guards stand in front of Serpentor. But the composition flattens out — the distance between the two guards and the Commander is uninteresting — they’re about the same size, and they’re all in about the same pose. And the added gap between CC and the second guard doesn’t do anything.
Photo by Wes Rollend
Now we’re getting somewhere. The two guards are cropped too much, as is CC’s hand, but I like this one as a balance between the dynamism of the first two and the concept of the third.
Again, none of these above made the cut, and this does not take away anything from Wes’ fine skills. He took 35 photos of this trio, knowing I would file down the selection to one, so of course there would be some duds. In this first attempt we were figuring out what was possible, and getting a sense of what I wanted. Ultimately the book has little need for a toy photo of Cobra Commander and two Cobra Soldiers, as nice as these are and as majestic as that background is.
The book project seemed to suffer a setback when just after this shoot, Wes moved on to another company. But things worked out, as photographer Andre Blais joined Glad Works soon after and has handled photoshoots 2 through 9. More outtakes from both Wes and Andre here soon!
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