Still Discovering

[Pit Viper]

Only thing i can figure is that they thought the long hair made him look too much like a girl (I say this as a guy with long hair) and thought kids were confusing him with Zarana (though her hair is shorter) and thus altered the artwork but stupidly forgot to change it on the front of the front of the card. Anyone know if the short haired artwork shows up on the cardback of any other figures?

[troynos]

That is very weird.

One reason could be that the original art from 86 was damaged and they fixed it (short hair, facial tats) when went to reuse for 87. But that wouldn't explain why the front is the same.

Unless there were different proofs used for the art for the front and the filecard and the original art for the filecard was damaged in some way.

[mizak23]

I actually found another similar variant last week. I was at a comic book store by my grand parents, and I was going through a box of filecards. There are two differently cropped Airborne (1983) filecards, and the big difference is how the "New Swivel Arm Battle Grip" was advertised. I should have bought them, but there were other filecards I wanted more.

[Tolan]

I actually found another similar variant last week. I was at a comic book store by my grand parents, and I was going through a box of filecards. There are two differently cropped Airborne (1983) filecards, and the big difference is how the "New Swivel Arm Battle Grip" was advertised. I should have bought them, but there were other filecards I wanted more.

Yep there are a few others that are cropped like picture for Airborne is .

[mizak23]

It makes me wonder how many variations there are in filecards, on front and on the back.

[troynos]

Airborne's my favorite Joe. I need to dig out my vintage cards and see which one I got and then go track down the other.

[FireFox91]

Only thing i can figure is that they thought the long hair made him look too much like a girl

I would have thought the pink bandanna would have pretty much covered that one.

All 1986 releases (36 Back with Swivel, Sgt. Slaughter offer, and Body Transfer offer) had the long hair artwork on the filecard.

All 1987 releases (34 back with Swivel, Battle Ribbon offer, and Fridge offer) had the short hair artwork on the filecard.

I got a MOC Zandar in the past year and it is clearly the 1987 version. It has several 1987 characters on the back as well as the Fridge offer. It also has the filecard variation that is being talked about here. Of course I didn't notice it until reading this thread. But another thing I find unusual about this is that only the filecard has the variant artwork. The card art is exactly the same with the longer hair. Which again goes back to the question, why did they feel the need to change the art? Very strange.

[nickvree]

That's really interesting. Ever since meeting Goggles and talking with him about the process, prototypes, and such, I've become much more interested in it as a whole. What would possess Hasbro to change this from one year to the next? Did they lose the original copy or something and had to make a new one and just zoomed in weird? Just didn't like it? What? Very strange indeed.

[smarchitelli]

All 1983 releases (20 Back with Swivel) had the full pic of Airborne on the filecard.

All 1984 releases (32 back with Swivel) had the closer cropped pic of Airborne on the filecard.

Yep there are a few others that are cropped like picture for Airborne is .

[tarz_an2003]

You'd think that after 15+ years of having this website, we'd have uncovered all the little secrets these toys have to offer. I mean, there are some things we'll never truly know - who sculpted this figure, who painted that artwork - but for the toys that were released, you'd think we'd know the ins and outs of them by now. And yet, we keep finding new things. Don't believe me? Then take a look at these scans from Zandar's filecard:

Attachment 13572

The hair's different! Not only that, but the facepaint is actually slightly altered as well. This was first brought to our attention through a post on our Facebook page. (By the way, like our page! We're very insecure and need to know people like us. ) It's a strange variation to see - not only was the card art altered for no reason, but it was only the art on the filecard! According to the person who made that post, the card art on the front stayed exactly the same. What's the point in this change? When did it occur? Imagine my surprise when I unintentionally bought a second Zandar filecard a few weeks ago. (I forgot I already had one!) Turns out, I bought the variation. As near as I can tell, this picture with the longer hair came first - the other side of the filecard only had the "Swivel Arm Battle Grip" in the corner, while the shorter hair filecard had the Fridge mail-in offer there.

But why change it at all? The figure itself is probably more accurately depicted with the long hair artwork, and that's what's used in the front of the card. It's hard to imagine the hair length and extra facepaint would cause any sort of public outcry, even in the 1980s. Yet here we have it. Was it some sort of error? Why would they bother reconstituting the card layout to do that? We may never know.

Thank you so much for sharing this with us! I had no idea, this one in particular was NOT as obvious as some. It's truly fun seeing these types of discoveries ツ

All 1986 releases (36 Back with Swivel, Sgt. Slaughter offer, and Body Transfer offer) had the long hair artwork on the filecard.

All 1987 releases (34 back with Swivel, Battle Ribbon offer, and Fridge offer) had the short hair artwork on the filecard.

And THANK YOU good kind sir, for clarifying which card these cool variations can be found on! You guys truly rock and are one of the biggest reasons why I love this GIJOE community..