The hallmark of good journalism is to strike when the proverbial iron is hot, which makes this... pretty bad, from a purely journalistic standpoint. You'll have to forgive me. Sometimes, after an event like the 2013 GI Joe Convention, real life has to be readjusted to a lot quicker than I'd like, even if it's in a good way.
Suffice to say, the Con was an absolute blast. Some personal highlights:
- If any of you know me at all, you know me as one of the hosts of "What's On Joe Mind?" We got to do a live show as a panel on Saturday afternoon, and it was a blast. We got to sit down with GIJCC head honcho Brian Savage and find out a little bit about his past, what makes him tick as a collector, and some of his interests outside the world of GI Joe. He was a great sport and I hope he had as much fun as Gary, Justin and I did. We'll have information about where you can see or listen to a recording of our panel as soon it's available.
- I also got to help David Tree with his outstanding Action Force panel Saturday morning. Dave made the long trip from England this year and put on an outstanding panel. He's been a great friend to us at WOJM for a long time now and it was my pleasure to provide an assist. Hopefully, the finance gods will throw a little help my way so I can return the favor and fly out to Roll Out Roll Call, the premier international GI Joe and Transformers convention, sponsored by Dave's shop, All The Cool Stuff.
- I spent a little time manning booths for Joe Declassified, COIL Club and (way too little time with) Yojoe! Joe Declassified brought even more hidden corners of the fandom to light, the COIL Club revealed some (not all!) of its exclusives for August's COIL Con IV, and Yojoe! was signing even more collectors for Yojoe! Pro, which may be the easiest way to catalog a collection... ever. One of these years, I'm going to actually take some time and actually shop on the sales floor.
- If you listened to WOJM Special Edition #30, you heard me remark that I thought the Convention Souvenirs may have been stronger than the Convention Set itself. You can get blow-by-blow reviews from lots of places (most notably GeneralsJoes.com) and I won't belabor this post by trying to mine them for new material. However, a week later, my favorites from the show are still Chuckles, Freestyle, Steeler and the Night Boomer, with Repeater and Muskrat joining them from the Set. I still like last year's Operation: Bear Trap set a little more overall, but Nocturnal Fire will still be regarded as one of the Club's stronger offerings as time goes by. Many thanks to the Club staff for putting together such great toys.
- If you ever get the chance to see a GI Joe movie in a theater full of GI Joe fans, go see that movie.
- KIRK BOZIGIAN AND BILL RATNER RECOGNIZED ME BY VOICE. How cool is that? And Mary MacDonald-Lewis gave me a hard time for missing her interview with WOJM. Plus, any weekend you can chat with The Godfather Larry Hama is a good one.
If there was one lowlight, I missed out on seeing this year's Hasbro concept case (it was shown during the WOJM panel), so I do have some catching up to do there. Sadly, I was also unable to convince Derryl DePriest to repeat his Battle-Kata demonstration during Hasbro's panel. Maybe next time, Derryl.
Wherever the GIJCC decides to hold their 2014 convention, it'll be a tall order to top 2013. I can't even begin to list all the folks I was happy to see this year. Be safe, and God willing I'll catch you again sometime soon.
Looking forward, what do you want to see in upcoming Convention sets? New characters? Established characters in new decos? New-sculpt era characters? Con-goers, what did you ask the Club for?
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