INTRO—–
This is my fourth year at JoeFest, the largest G.I. Joe convention. There is a variety of shows. Some are small, like a one-day swap meet. One particular show is small, Assembly Required, one and a half days, with a tiny attendance (300?), but the panels and guests and excitement of a much larger show. There’s a medium or medium-small show, the DFW G.I. Joe and Action Figure Show, two and a half days, with a larger attendance (2,000?), with the best guest list in G.I. Joe fandom (comics creators and now two years in a row with seven-plus former Hasbro folks). It has panels and a guest list disproportionately big for a show of its size. And there’s JoeFest, three days, the biggest of them all, with an attendance of perhaps 13,000 people (that’s a guess based on previous years) and a con floor that several ARs and DFWs could fit inside. [EDIT: Not just the biggest Joe con in the States, it’s the biggest in the world, I am reminded.] This 9-second video shows you 90% of JoeFest:
Once again, my podcast partner, Mark LastName, would be attending. Each week on Talking Joe, Mark just goes by “Mark,” so if I refer to “Mark” anywhere in these three blog post parts, I mean podcast-Talking Joe-Mark. We’d be moderating a panel and giving away some comic books. And I would be trying to sell a bit of The Center Holds, a 4-issue superhero comic written by Larry Hama that I packaged and edited. And I’d be seeing friends, and lightly networking my book, on which I’ve made good progress this year. What I was not doing was looking for toys to buy, but this is an amazing place to do just that. I’d say half of what the dealers are selling is G.I. Joe, 15% is what I’ll call G.I. Joe-adjacent (lines created in the last ten years by people who grew up with G.I. Joe and now have their own companies – think Delta-17, Skeletron, and Codename: Longbow. I’ll throw in Boss Fight Studio, which is not making G.I. Joe-ish action figures, but is stuffed with former Hasbro people.) Another 25% is other toys, like Transformers, Star Wars, DC, Marvel, and Turtles. And the final 10% isn’t toys, like one dealer selling video game cartridges, three comic book stores/dealers selling back issues, or someone selling pins.
Tuesday/Wednesday—
Mark forwarded me a note from current G.I. Joe comics artist Chris Mooneyham that he would unfortunately have to cancel his appearance at JoeFest. Talking Joe was not in any way Mooneyham’s sponsor, but we had encouraged him to attend, and helped connect showrunner Ed Schumacher with him. Mark and I had also encouraged Skybound, currently publishing great G.I. Joe comic books, to consider sending someone to the show. We know that Skybound only sets up at two comics conventions, the much larger Comic-Con International (ala “San Diego”) and C2E2 in Chicago — not even New York Comic Con! — but have been telling Skybound what a prime event JoeFest is. To that extent, Mark and I were perhaps very unofficial ambassadors for Mooneyham at JoeFest, and he was to be part of our panel, and we’ve had him on our show, one of only a few podcast appearances he’s made. As much as Mark and I love G.I. Joe toys, between our podcast, my store, and our general interests, we’re really rooting for comics creators to be at JoeFest. One less comics guest is a notable absence.
THURSDAY—–
Leaving the Atlanta airport, I wondered if I would start seeing people with G.I. Joe shirts or hats heading to Augusta. No one! But imagine my surprise when I sat down on my connecting flight right behind friend and fact checker-of-my-book Chris Murray. He gets another stat: founding member, Event Coordinator, and acting Vice President of Joe Declassified. Why, I’d asked Murray to bring a piece of art from his collection to the show, and here he was! Then Drew Hagerty sat next to him! Hagerty lives in California, and had been up for many hours. His collection is mighty, and just two nights earlier on a dinner date with my wife I had texted him last minute, asking him to bring a piece of art to the show. And here he was! And yes, he had squeezed that art into his laptop case, he said, pointing to the overhead bin.
At the Augusta airport we caught the hotel shuttle with three other Joe fans that I know or kinda know. Left to right are Drew Hagerty, Marauder Matt, Sean Harker, Dan Musick, and Chris Murray. Not pictured: me. (Click any picture to enlarge.)
In the Marriott lobby was Tony Nichols. He’d said online that he was looking to buy a set of The Center Holds so I pulled one out of my backpack while in line to check in at the front desk and he handed me a twenty dollar bill.
I started looking for the England crew. Mark, Peter Seddon (related to Mark, and a Talking Joe listener, first time at JoeFest!), and Simon Goodall (his third year at the show, a podcast listener an Patreon supporter) had all flown in two days earlier. They’d had their own adventure, driving from Atlanta and stopping at a massive toy and comic shop on the way. And stopping at restaurants and buying lots of snacks. I don’t need three hours in a car, but a road trip with friends sounds fun, especially bookending this packed convention weekend. And in getting to the Marriott so early, they had time to spend with other early arrivals. Why, here’s room trading on Wednesday night (a full 18 hours before I arrived) in dealer Joe Balitz’s room:
[Back to Thursday late afternoon] It was great seeing Mark again in person. We spend two hours a week together via computer livestreams, but are averaging only about one in-person meet-up per year. It was great to finally meet Peter, who I’ve known about for some time, and it was great to see Simon again.
These three gents, plus three dealers from the UK, and the chap from Trinidad, might be the only international visitors to this convention. (That assumption is surely wrong — let me know in the comments!) [EDIT: Mere minutes after posting this, Mark has already corrected me, counting out fans from Ireland, Australia, Brazil, and Canada.] It probably speaks to the brand’s lack of heat right now, plus G.I. Joe has always been more USA-centric than other pop culture brands. By their very natures, Transformers and Power Rangers are half-Japanese, and Star Wars films have always been international hits. But from Mark, Peter, and Simon, you’d think G.I. Joe is at its peak – they read the comics, and follow the toys, and are all waiting for any news on a possible Energon Universe cartoon just like me. International travel ain’t cheap, and they’ve chosen to make a week of it for this, the largest G.I. Joe convention on the calendar, not a trip to New York or Disney World. It’s a real but subtle feather in JoeFest’s cap. When I used to attend BotCon, there was a higher percentage of international attendees. The few international visitors here at JoeFest represented an important dash of spice – they had foreign stuff for sale, they could answer questions about this product or that company. I know a lot about Hasbro, but I know little about Palitoy, for example.
The hotel’s food/drinking/hangout spot is a legitimate Italian bar/restaurant called D’Agustino’s. We four got food, despite them having had lunch three hours earlier, and then Mark started selling the Action Force toys he’d brought. A certain stripe of American fan sure does get excited for UK G.I. Joe product!
Mark has spent the last several months assembling a small AF collection to sell here at JoeFest. He filled two suitcases, and if he could sell it, he’d have money to buy American toys and collectibles, and then two empty suitcases in which to take them home. Would he pull it off?
Here’s a Mark photo of all the toys he brought for sale. Reminder, click any picture to enlarge:
And here’s a Mark photo of all the comics (95% UK) he brought for sale:
After dinner I met Ken Po in person. We’d sort of talked a year earlier, but neither of us quite know who the other was. A few months ago, I guested on an episode of Toy Kennections spotlighting the Marvel Comics G.I. Joe run, a topic on which I can heartily expound.
Up the stairs in the upper lobby, informal selling had already started. These aren’t dealers squeezing out additional selling hours, but attendees offloading extras, paying for their trip, and raising cash.
One gent was selling a bunch of Storm Shadows. There were three times as many as pictured here:
This “lobby sales” part of the schedule overlapped with the party/hangout. People materialize coolers of booze, or bring up a drink from the bar, and catch up. There’s no music or dancing, it’s not that kind of party. I enjoyed both talking to people and also the feeling that this would only get louder, more crowded, and more fun. This was the night before the con started!
Unfortunately, a light in my room that wouldn’t turn off, a visit from the hotel engineer, and a loudly snoring neighbor in the adjacent room meant I slept poorly. But I was grateful there’d been no travel complications, that the hotel was air conditioned, and I was among friends.
FRIDAY—–
The convention hall opened early for dealer load-in. The three guys from England and I got breakfast at The Brunch Place, a diner that I like. It’s a 15-minute walk, and in this heat and humidity, this was a commitment.
When I got back to the hotel, I realized the custom class was well under way. Some folks had complicated set-ups:
And others had moderately complicated set-ups:
I did see one kid talking part. Always good to see a younger contingent at a Joe convention!
Dealers were lugging in dollies at the bottleneck garage door, at which only one dealer vehicle could unload at a time. Even though I see a USS Flagg box at every G.I. Joe convention I attend, which is to say two or three times a year, it’s never not surprising.
I wandered around the con hall, not being helpful to anyone, but enjoying the variety of toys being unpacked and set up. (Because Mark and I have a podcast, we get press passes, so we can enter the space early along with the dealers.)
Here’s a view of one aisle in the con hall, mid-set-up:
Here are some toys for sale:
Say, King’s Castle! I had that. (This one’s being unpacked from a cardboard box.)
–Gasp!– It’s Tarn! I’ve been on the lookout for a Tarn. I never thought that character would get a toy. But now there are three – Ultimates, this one, and the Blokees buildable one. Which one do I want???
I met Drew Hagerty’s friend Aaron Porter, a collector I should have probably have met by now.
Introduced myself to Brian Wilk at the Heritage Auctions booth. I interviewed him six months ago by phone for the final chapter of my book, so it was nice to meet in person. Said hello to Mark Pennington, who I know from many of these shows and an interview some years back for my book. I managed to not get a photo of him, or us together, but I do have several of those from past cons. He was already drawing for someone:
I bought dollar bin comics, half looking for fun things to resell at my store, and half for comics I used to have that I’d reread for a buck. One dealer, Cherry Pickers, had maybe 10 dollar bin long boxes, so this took awhile. And then that many two-dollar bins.
The con opened for “early bird” entry at 5pm, and all the dealers and artists were supposed to be ready. In the outer hallway by the entry queue, Mark stood at the Talking Joe table and handed out fliers. At some point earlier in the day, Mark had set up our table, with our printed table cover, fliers with a QR code, and our business cards. I contributed a sign that would apologize to passersby if we weren’t there, while another urged folks to attend our Saturday panel.
I talked to Justin Talton, who sells great G.I. Joe paperwork and oddball merch, and contributed to my book, but would only be a dealer at this first half day of the con! (He had a wedding to attend, and would be leaving early Saturday morning. Now that’s commitment – setting up Friday morning, selling for three hours, taking down, and that’s it!) From Talton I bought a GI Joe Extreme promo poster (just text, no images) and I saw Ken Po buy a 1994 Christies auction catalog. (Hopefully those two sales made it worth it, Justin!) Rats, forgot to get a photo with Talon. Oh, wait, Joe Balitz did!
I thought to say hello to Larry Hama, with whom I’d gotten breakfast in New York a week prior. While we’ve seen each other a few times this year, this would be the first con where we’d both be since our comic, The Center Holds, finished up. He had come straight from the airport to the con floor, so I walked with him to check into the hotel and drop off his luggage.
Back in the exhibit hall, I introduced myself to Guy Dorian, Sr. This is someone I’ve not met, but I thought I should since I’ve been hearing about him for ten years. Dorian and I have something in common, in that we’ve both teamed up with Larry Hama to get comic books published. Their current project is Mounties vs Werewolves, a 56-page comic funded on Kickstarter. In front of Dorian was a photocopy of the inked art for his one G.I. Joe cover, and I looked through his portfolio at a myriad of other work. Dorian was drawing. (This is actually a photo of him from the next day.)
At the Codename: Iowa booth I bumped into Brian Sauer, who is designing my book. It’s entirely possible that you, blog visitor, might think I mostly write about G.I. Joe conventions, but my major project is a G.I. Joe history book 25 years in the making. Sauer handed me printouts of two chapters– we’d had this little deadline for the convention that I would pick two chapters and he’d do another pass of small corrections, get them printed, and bring those hard copies. Our back and forth is with PDFs, and reading a book that way requires resetting your eyes and seeing the work on paper. They were stapled (well, saddle-stitched), and I was impressed with the printouts themselves. I immediately shared them with some Joe Declassified friends like Page Wagner, who contributed a scan for chapter 6, Pat Stewart (one of my fact-check readers), and over at the Heritage booth, Derryl DePreist (formerly of Hasbro and having just arrived at the con) and Brian Wilk. It was nice to see people react not just to my book, but a physical object representing it. Some of these friends saw a chapter on my laptop five years ago, others have heard about it but this was their first peek.
Sauer was representing his own convention, Assembly Required (organized with Travis Webber, not in attendance). In last year’s JoeFest report I explained the tease for the next AR, but I didn’t get any photos this time. But it’s outer space! (To be continued here on the blog in November.)
Pal and editor-of-my-book and lifelong creative partner Nick Nadel (also not in attendance – one of these years, Nick!!!) had texted me to get photos from the Super7 booth.
Super7 founder Brian Flynn:
I’ve enjoyed the ReAction+ figures, but will admit to not having any. (But I did get most of the non-plus ReAction figures.)
In past years, mega dealer The Toy Department has had a booth against one wall. Nearby, that store’s manager, Kenny Koepnick, would help run another booth for ROMA Collectibles. (Yes, there were two great toy dealers from Ohio, each with a brick and mortar shop there.) But ROMA’s Aaron Detrick — Koepnick’s cousin — died, and ROMA has closed down, and so The Toy Department took that show space to sell non-G.I. Joe toys. Koepnick noted that in the con hall before set-up began, the paper placeholder identifying where each dealer’s position was had even read “ROMA Collectibles,” either a oversight or a tiny nod to a missing pillar of the show, sweet and a little sad — ROMA wouldn’t be attending. But it was in spirit, with Koepnick and Detrick’s widow (also a con regular) selling in that exact same spot where they had previously. I thought back to Detrick’s memorial service one year earlier.
Customers were moving in and out of both The Toy Department’s main space and this annex, and there were amazing toys common and rare for sale, so it all had a good feeling, and with this transition, I thought “life goes on.” Koepnick told me about the toy show he’d put on back home, and how he was planning for another. Here he’s talking to a customer, and this wasn’t actually a photo I meant to include, but rather, a note-to-myself about the his show, but somehow it’s the only photo I got of him.
Over in the main The Toy Department space I showed a bit of Chapter 4 to Chris Neal, whose photos of some unproduced ’80s G.I. Joe figures were now in my book. We talked about him contributing another photo for a later chapter.
And then it was 8pm, the preview hours were over, and we were encouraged to leave the con room.
I was going to meet-up with Mark, Peter, and Simon (the English contingent), and it still took 40 minutes to get back to my hotel room, drop off my stuff, and convene in the hotel lobby to find dinner. That is because between the exhibit space and the elevators to the rooms is a hallway that had already filled up with “lobby” traders. (Not the lobby, but still.) Everyone was hungry for more buying and selling, as the official con time had only spanned three hours. Now people set up on the carpet or a window ledge or a box or plastic bin they’d brought. I’d like to think I’m immune to this, as I don’t really buy toys at JoeCons, but I can’t not look at the assortment of loose and boxed stuff, new and old. I did buy three issues of Special Missions to resell at my shop.
Also, it took 40 minutes to regroup because Chris Murray had brought an early piece of Hasbro G.I. Joe artwork for me. I wasn’t going to bring it home to scan, but rather, was going to try to photograph it at the con with my phone. That’s not my preference, but I’m starting to see the advantage of not booking a photographer, that maybe a few images in my book can be “good enough” and not “professional and very stressful to obtain.”
I tried the hotel hallway that connects to the convention, but the challenge with this piece is it’s got an acetate overlay. Those chandeliers in the distance showed up in the plastic cover. I noticed I was standing next to a door. The summer light outside was diffuse and not yet sunset-colored, so I tried a few shots outside. Those might work. Before I could head back to my room, I noticed one of those tiny phone booth closets without phones that hotels sometimes have, and propped the art on that narrow desk. Those might work. And then I took the art back to my room, and tried a few configurations, with the overhead lamp probably being the winner. None of these were as bright as I wanted, but I think with some light Photoshop work, I can finesse the image without blowing out the dark areas or upping the gain in the white paper background. Also, Sauer will have a go.
We four finally met up in the Marriott lobby to head out to dinner at Taco Cat. A fifth gent joined our group as we crossed the street and got a table. That would be Brian Buchanan, who makes custom cards for loose 3 3/4-inch G.I. Joe figures. Find him online as 618 Joes. Mark got a photo of me enjoying dessert, a chocolate ice cream sandwich from the freezer case.
While we were eating, the Friday night “G.I. Joe Trivia Showdown” was taking place in the panel room. Earlier in the week Mark and I had briefly thought about attending, as it seemed like fun (I’d had a good time at AR’s trivia some months earlier) and it might be the main thing/a main thing going on, between leaving the showroom and dinner the timing didn’t work out. Mark did get a photo, though. If you attended, let me know in the comments.
After dinner we went back to the hotel, and in the upper lobby a loud crowd of Joe fans had gathered to talk, buy-and-sell, and drink. At one table a series of speed contests unfolded, which of two people could assemble a 3 3/4-inch figure faster. On the left is Greg Crowcourt, who had won eight bouts in a row, including against me.
Doug Dellow, with whom I’d played the G.I. Joe Role-Playing Game at a previous con, set up in the far corner of the upper lobby, along with Julian Wolfe and one other gent, to play Renegade’s G.I. Joe Deck Building Game. I kind of wanted to join them, but I needed to be talking to people over where the action was.
I poked my head downstairs in the lobby proper to see if there was anyone else to say goodnight (or hello) to, and there was G.I. Joe animation producer and writer Michael Charles Hill. I had missed his original script reading at the DFW show a few weeks earlier, but I told him I look forward to watching it in a year when the nice DFW folks put it on YouTube. Hill is hopefully helping me track down a photo for my book.
Setting up camp in front of the elevator, Mark had his spread of UK Action Force toys for sale, as well as a run of the Battle Action Force comics that have never been reprinted. (They come chronologically after the 3-hardcover BAF book set from last year.) Brian Wilk and Derryl DePriest approached, I asked DePriest about parting with some of his collection (potentially — it’s a consignment) for the big Heritage Auction. And then he surprised Mark by buying those Battle Action Force comics. I found it delightful that a) Mark made a couple hundred bucks near midnight, b) that someone who didn’t have those comics got them, b) that that someone was a well-known G.I. Joe collector, and d) that that collector is simultaneously (hopefully) offloading some of his collection to make space, and yet also at this convention buying up new stuff!
It was past midnight. I retired to my room.
———-To be continued in Part Two: Saturday!
A Real American Book! 