Tag Archives: Fandom

TheBreauxShow.com celebrates 200 videos with Sgt. Slaughter!

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One positive aspect about being part of an online community is giving a shout-out to your buddies.  In this case, my good friend Mike Breaux of TheBreauxShow.com has hit a milestone– his 200th published online video.  To celebrate, he’s decided to “get back in shape” with the help of a very special personal trainer.

If you’ve not checked out TheBreauxShow, you really should.  Featuring (near) weekly episodes, the series highlights toy reviews, news, and my favorite– “This Week in Geektastic History” segments.  So, if you’re looking for something to watch during a break or at home, check out the BreauxShow.com and follow @TheBreauxShow on Twitter.

Here’s the 200th video:

3DJoes.com update: 1983 and swivel arm G.I. Joe figures added!

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3DJoes.com

3DJoes.com is back with more G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero figures added to their already impressive archives!  The latest addition encompasses one of my favorite years of the classic Generation 1 Joes: 1983!  Featuring Gung-Ho, Duke, Doc, as well as as the 1982 “fixed” figures that we re-released with the now signature “swivel arm battle grip.”

If you liked the 1982 update you’ll LOVE the 1983 additions!

Check out www.3DJoes.com today!

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Check out some more preview images below!

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3DJoes.com – a whole new way to view your G.I. Joe figures…

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3DJoes.com

I first got involved in the online G.I. Joe community back in the late 1990’s and eventually became a site admin back in late 2003/2004.  Since then I’ve seen all manner of G.I. Joe sites come and go– review sites, dio-story sites, forums, fanfic, “Release the DiC Series on DVD” sites, etc.  However, I received a tweet yesterday that led me to something that took me completely by surprise.

http://www.3DJoes.com

Imagine being able to look up any G.I. Joe figure or vehicle– and then rotate that piece of plastic goodness 360 degrees to examine every detail.  That’s the concept behind 3DJoes.com.  Currently only displaying the 1982 line-up, the sight offers an unprecedented way to view your favorite Gen 1 ARAH figures in all their 3.75″ glory.  It’s such a fantastic idea it makes me wonder why no one had ever thought of it before.

Seriously– go check it out.  It’s a sight that promises to get a great deal of use from this particular admin– especially when the later 90’s era Joes are uploaded.

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Opinion: “The GI Joe Collector’s Club needs to be immediately disbanded”

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Once upon a time, if a person wanted to voice their opinion about a topic to the general public and and not do so in “real time”, he or she submitted a “Letter to the Editor”.  The author could write up their opinions and position and have it posted for all to see.  Along came technology and this concept evolved: businesses and institutions use social media to better communicate with their clients, fan clubs have forums and message boards, and groups of fans are able to come together in the form of online communities.  All of this breeds a climate where ideas can be freely exchanged and both praise and criticism can be shared.  It’s the “Letter to the Editor v3.0”.

No one can dispute the fact that 2012 has been a year of blunders and missteps for the G.I. Joe Collector’s Club.  Pretty much anything that could go wrong with the Club’s various endeavors has and the organization has been left scrambling to communicate details and a positive message.  However, it would seem that the issues might go back further than that.  Presented below is an item that dropped in my inbox today– an editorial from a long-time member of the Collector’s Club who has had enough.  It is presented in its entirety– with only the author’s identity removed at his/her request.

 The GI Joe Collector’s Club needs to be immediately disbanded: One betrayed former collector’s 11 year long rant

I’m done. DONE. I have enjoyed collecting both 12″ and 33/4″ GI Joe figures for over 20 years now. I’ve enjoyed it with my children.  I’ve enjoyed showing that what Daddy wore when he was in the service, while they were fascinated with characters like Snake Eyes and Destro.  But now, thanks solely to the GI Joe Collector’s Club, an organization who exists only to cater to people like me, I am so disgusted with the hobby as a whole, I am walking away.

Over the last 10 years, the GIJCC has become increasingly greedy, arrogant, mismanaged and unapologetic to the people it professes to serve. I blame it on the dollar signs I saw in the eyes of Brian Savage (the Club owner, directer, patriarch, resident Kool-Aid mixer, der Fuhrer, etc) when he got the OK from Hasbro to take over the Transformers Collector’s Club several years ago. The Transformers brand is a worldwide seller, with many more members with much, much deeper pockets. The GIJCC has been a small, family run club for many years, so giving them a cash cow like Botcon was bound to turn them into the money grubbing, greed-mongering, carpet-bagging bridge trolls they have become. But as I have watched their slow decline, I held out hope that the core tenets of my precious GI Joe fan club would remain unchanged in the face of it’s more lucrative younger brother, that they would still put on a family friendly event that we could afford, still put out product I can be proud to display and play with, and still make me and my children happy. As of today, I have had enough. Continue reading →

Introducing YoJoe v 2.0 – the original Joe archive site just got better!

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YoJoe.com figure archive

If you’re like most Joe fans, YoJoe.com is domain that you visit fairly often.  It’s the original and most comprehensive database of G.I. Joe-related materials on the internet with every figure, vehicle, and accessory cataloged and photographed for reference.  Sometimes it was a bit cumbersome to navigate but that was just part of the YoJoe experience.  After all, the site’s basic format has been unchanged since the late 90’s.

However, the staff over at YJ wasn’t content to just sit on their collective status quo.  Enter: YoJoe 2.0!

Introducing YoJoe! 2.0

Concise, Streamlined Pics and Information

Archive updates have been pretty quiet around here over the last few months, but it’s been busy behind the scenes. Today we’re excited to announce the beta rollout of a brand new version of YoJoe.
The first part of the rollout is the 3 3/4″ Action Figure Archives. It’s a totally new index layout that lets you navigate by text-link or thumbnail, with fewer page loads to get to the figures you want to see and a lot more information all together in one place.

Figure version lists are easier to navigate and all relevant pictures are on the same page. Filecard images? Card backs? All Geared Up pics? You no longer have to navigate away from the archive entry to view them.

And this is only the start. Over the coming weeks and months, we’ll continue to overhaul the other sections of the site, until every corner of YoJoe is up to date. Faster loading pages, clean and sleek layouts, and better images.

We’ve already added in new figure entries for you to look at. Take a look at the new archives and let us know what you think. Remember, this is a beta. If you like it, let us know. If you see a problem or a mistake or ways to improve it, let us know. If you have better pics, send ‘em in. You’ll get full photo credit if we use them.

Welcome to YoJoe! 2.0

Congrats guys!  The cleaner navigation and instant access to figure thumbnails is a HUGE improvement!  I can only imagine how many hours of blood sweat and tears went into this but the hard work has paid off.  The site looks great and will continue to be my default online reference until the last o-ring in my collection snaps!

Podcast: What’s on Joe Mind #39

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Back with a new logo and a new episode… here’s the official (albeit lengthy) synopsis:

Where do I begin with this one?  What could have gone wrong DID in this one.  What started out to be a quiet standard episode turned into a 7 man battle royal.  I guess people will say, “Well, it wasn’t THAT bad,” and that might be true.  Editing removed a lot of the audio “cyloning,” coughing (i.e. check out the 01:20:31 mark for a doozy), wheezing, bickering and wayward topic discussion, you could clearly tell that most of us were simply not on our “A-Game” for this one.  First on the guest list was Chris Sims of ComicAlliance.com and War Rocket Ajax podcast.  OK, no big deal, standard podcast for us, right?  Well, we picked up a surprise host right before starting the record (now 6) and then Mike chimed in on an ill placed show entrance by Gary which interrupted our guest (now 7).  Sigh…this was not good.  Then the fun poking began as everyone targeted in on Gary for some reason.  Now Gary is a good guy, he can take a good ribbing, but when the night begins to spin out of control, well, everyone’s temper becomes a little salty.

Here’s a lesson in podcasting folks, don’t irk the editor. When we were done embarrassing ourselves in front of our guest, we read a listener’s letter and listened to some voice mail from friend of the show James Kavanaugh, Jr.  In the second half we talk about the two new guests for Roll Out/Roll Call 3 and transitioned into the unfortunate news that no Movie 2 merchandise was shown at UK Toy Fair.  We also talk about the upcoming HissTank.com March Madness thread where you can submit what characters you want to see in modern era contrux.  Last year’s bracket had some interesting names in the Sweet Sixteen that are now possibly in your collections.  Worth a look for sure.  Anyways, not sure how this episode will go down in the annals of Joe podcasting lore, but like our very bad pilot episode, you can stomach at least one full listen of the episode.  So send all hate mail care of Justin B. to GeneralsJoes.com – he’ll enjoy it!

As always, you can listen to the episode in the embedded player below:

 

Podcast: WoJM #38 is up with a Renegades special guest!

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The gang at “What’s on Joe Mind” are back with their 38th installment!  Here’s the synopsis:

When we started podcasting, our expectations were low.  We didn’t expect to be around very long and we would have never guessed that we would have an interview with anyone associated with Joe media.  Well, it seemed appropriate on the episode that makes WOJM the longest running Joe-only podcast on the internet (possibly in the world or in all existence for that matter), we book our biggest interview to date.  You’ve heard him in our pre-show bumpers, but now we get him for an hour, its Jason Marsden the voice of Duke on the Hub’s GI Joe Renegades cartoon.  We can’t begin to tell you how cool it was to hear him in person talk about his experience with the latest Joe toon rendition!  He reveals quite a bit to us, but beyond that we just had a very enjoyable talk with a very cool dude…who happened to sound like Duke.  To lend us a hand on this landmark occasion for WOJM, we invited AtomicMartian.com’s Jason (yes, two Mikes last week, two Jasons this week) to be part of the interview – BUT, not before being interviewed first about his team’s very popular YouTube toy review videos.  Perhaps you may remember Chuck gushing about them on a weekly basis?  It was a hectic record night, but thanks to a refreshed Greg and the Jasons’, it all turned out to be one of our personal favorite episodes.  A special thanks to Gary Head and all those who called in to congratulate us on this landmark episode.  Oh, and Herb from Rhode Island makes a return.  We put in a lot of hard work in these shows, so it means a lot to hear from you guys.  So who cares if it was a slow news week?!  We don’t need no stinking news (it would be nice though).  We hope you have as much fun listening as we did recording – editing sucked because of Kevin Watts – just listen and you’ll find out what I meant; he set a new bleeping record.

Check it out in the embedded player below!

Podcast: What’s on Joe Mind #33 is online!

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The guys at What’s on Joe Mind have posted their latest episode!  Here’s the “official” synopsis!

What do you do when one Chuck isn’t enough?  You add another, that’s what ya do!  Chuck from the very popular podcast, StarJoes joins us as a guest to double your Chuck power for the week.  StarJoes Chuck gives an impressive performance.  WOJM Chuck, just throws in the “rag.”  From the mailbag we ready Monte’s letter concerning theigh cuts and other items to make it easier to customize.  Hear the reactions from the live Tweet as man-cards were retracted then later reissued.  In the news, wave 3 just got here and it looks like wave 4 is nipping at its heels.  A date for COIL Con III is revealed.  The club debuts some more detail on the FSS figures and cardart, while Justin and Gary give their thoughts on the behavior of the fandom towards the club.  IDW crowns a new Cobra Commander – ample spoilers are given, you have been warned.  Ellen Tigh is still the 13th Cylon; sorry its a 5 year old show, spoiler limitations do not apply.  If you need more Joe on TV, The Hub is now showing season 2 of the Joe toon.  Lastly the crew wraps it up by discussing the Joe-molded Jurassic Park figures that were originally destined for TRU, but are showing up in various Asian markets.  Greg was moody so we ended it short so he could get some sleep.  Shhh, don’t laugh too loud, you’ll wake him.

You can check out the episode here!

RAHC Guide: The first update!

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I cannot stress enough how excited I am about KuuKuuSon’s upcoming RAHC Guide.  It was the GIJoe vs. Cobra era that allowed me as a collector to build up the collection that I’d always wanted.  Many of my favorite characters were modernized with updated sculpts and many of my favorite troop builders were reissued in affordable multi-packs.  Better still, the entire era was still compatible with the classic A Real American Hero era that hooked many Joe fans in the first place!  James’ book is easily in my most-anticipated books list– right up there with this month’s release of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero Classics v10 from IDW.

Check out James’ first update which includes links to all of the discussion threads throughout the online Joe community!

Press-Release-Update_#1

Discuss this item in the JBL forums!

JoeBattlelines Top Ten O-Ring Figures

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O-RING FIGURES

Our last Top Ten ended up being all vehicles and playsets, so you asked for another Top Ten focusing only on figures.  You were asked for your Top Ten figures and you responded with quite a few surprises.  There is not one single Snake Eyes, Cobra Commander or Duke in your final Top Ten!  So let’s get right to it then.

#10.  Storm Shadow V2

Released in 1988 this version of Storm Shadow is a fan favorite, it was his first G.I.Joe Team uniform.

#9.  Baroness

Released in 1984, as Scarlett is the first lady of G.I.Joe, Baroness is the first lady of Cobra, and the only female figure to make into the Tope Ten.

LordEd1976 said – Cobra’s number one bad girl.  In black leather.  What?  You need MORE reasons?

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