On August 10th and 11th, the folks at JoeCanuck hosted the 2012 Canadian Joe Convention at the Sheraton Airport Hotel in Toronto.
The Con was pretty well attended by both guests and vendors. The dealer room was packed with everything from loose complete straight-arm figures to vintage boxed vehicles to the latest exclusives from San Diego Comic Con and the G.I. Joe Collector’s Con ($200 carded FL). There are few things that make me feel like a kid as much as being surrounded by walls of vintage ‘80’s vehicles box artwork.
JoeDeclassified had a booth, filled with pre-productions, cancelled, and (hopefully) soon-to-be-released figures, including the elusive Kwinn. They also opened up the panels with some pretty interesting Joe history. They showed some early concept artwork for Roadpig, who looks like he was meant to be more of sword-swinging martial artist than a muscle-bound thug in the early design stages. JD then showed some true amazing early artwork on Gnawgahyde. Apparently, he was originally designed to be more ethnic (Native American? Aboriginal?) and with psychic powers.
Gary “Goggles revealed some early sculpts for a truly bizarre line Hasbro was kicking around in the ‘90s. Piggy-backing off the Star Brigade line, Hasbro was going to introduce a Replicator line: “cloned†Joes and Cobras who’d be controlled by tiny but intelligent alien invaders. For some figures, their chests would be hollowed and covered with a thin translucent membrane, and a play feature would involve a tiny alien in their chest pressing against that membrane, as if it were about to burst out, a la Alien. There were also tiny alien “face-huggers†too, as part of this line. As Gyre-Viper pointed out, as much as some of us complain about the crazy figures that Hasbro has released over the years, we should be grateful that some ideas that never made it.
The highlight of the CJC was meeting Robert Atkins. I am a huge fan of his work, and while I’ve heard a couple interviews with him over the years, it was still great to chat with him in person. What a friendly, and funny, guy! I bought some sketches from him as we discussed humor in comics, podcasting, and his upcoming collaboration doing a graphic novel with Larry Hama. He presided over a great panel, too, in which he talked about some of the behind-the-scenes aspects of the comic industry. Atkins also talked a bit about his take on designing characters for the IDW run, including introducing the Dreadnoks in these latest issues. It was great to hear someone who is still so genuinely enthusiastic about his work with G.I. Joe.
The biggest disappoint was the lack of Hasbro Canada. They were scheduled for a panel near the end of the day, but reportedly they cancelled that about a week ago. According to the CJC administrators, Hasbro Canada pulled out due to a corporate-wide policy of minimizing the dissemination of information to the public for the immediate future. Supposedly, this is because of delay of the Retaliation movie, which disrupted their original plans for Joe's future. The CJC staff told us that, while Hasbro International re-evaluates the future strategies for G.I. Joe, contact between Hasbro and the public will be minimal. Hasbro did show up to the CJC and set up a booth with figures and vehicles from upcoming Retaliation waves, but the representatives left early in the day, so there wasn't much of an opportunity to interact with them.
The Con was pretty well attended by both guests and vendors. The dealer room was packed with everything from loose complete straight-arm figures to vintage boxed vehicles to the latest exclusives from San Diego Comic Con and the G.I. Joe Collector’s Con ($200 carded FL). There are few things that make me feel like a kid as much as being surrounded by walls of vintage ‘80’s vehicles box artwork.
JoeDeclassified had a booth, filled with pre-productions, cancelled, and (hopefully) soon-to-be-released figures, including the elusive Kwinn. They also opened up the panels with some pretty interesting Joe history. They showed some early concept artwork for Roadpig, who looks like he was meant to be more of sword-swinging martial artist than a muscle-bound thug in the early design stages. JD then showed some true amazing early artwork on Gnawgahyde. Apparently, he was originally designed to be more ethnic (Native American? Aboriginal?) and with psychic powers.
Gary “Goggles revealed some early sculpts for a truly bizarre line Hasbro was kicking around in the ‘90s. Piggy-backing off the Star Brigade line, Hasbro was going to introduce a Replicator line: “cloned†Joes and Cobras who’d be controlled by tiny but intelligent alien invaders. For some figures, their chests would be hollowed and covered with a thin translucent membrane, and a play feature would involve a tiny alien in their chest pressing against that membrane, as if it were about to burst out, a la Alien. There were also tiny alien “face-huggers†too, as part of this line. As Gyre-Viper pointed out, as much as some of us complain about the crazy figures that Hasbro has released over the years, we should be grateful that some ideas that never made it.
The highlight of the CJC was meeting Robert Atkins. I am a huge fan of his work, and while I’ve heard a couple interviews with him over the years, it was still great to chat with him in person. What a friendly, and funny, guy! I bought some sketches from him as we discussed humor in comics, podcasting, and his upcoming collaboration doing a graphic novel with Larry Hama. He presided over a great panel, too, in which he talked about some of the behind-the-scenes aspects of the comic industry. Atkins also talked a bit about his take on designing characters for the IDW run, including introducing the Dreadnoks in these latest issues. It was great to hear someone who is still so genuinely enthusiastic about his work with G.I. Joe.
The biggest disappoint was the lack of Hasbro Canada. They were scheduled for a panel near the end of the day, but reportedly they cancelled that about a week ago. According to the CJC administrators, Hasbro Canada pulled out due to a corporate-wide policy of minimizing the dissemination of information to the public for the immediate future. Supposedly, this is because of delay of the Retaliation movie, which disrupted their original plans for Joe's future. The CJC staff told us that, while Hasbro International re-evaluates the future strategies for G.I. Joe, contact between Hasbro and the public will be minimal. Hasbro did show up to the CJC and set up a booth with figures and vehicles from upcoming Retaliation waves, but the representatives left early in the day, so there wasn't much of an opportunity to interact with them.
