Earlier this year I attended my first large-scale toy show in the name of it being the annual GI Joe Collector’s Convention and brought out the big names from the comic series, TV show and obviously toylines. It made it possible for me to finally meet one of my all-time heroes in Larry Hama who essentially created the Joe Universe as we know it today and enjoyed it as kids. I was always a little apprehensive about attending this type of event but I had so much fun, and thankfully I have a supportive girlfriend (or a girlfriend at all as most that share this interest do not ? that was interested in joining me.
DFW GI Joe & Action Figure Festival – October 4th – Grapevine Convention Center – Grapevine, TX
This was by no means on the scale of how large and impressive the big show in May was nor did it need to be. It was just one of those small get-togethers in an even smaller suburban town that you see from time to time. Really its just an organized communal garage sale with local sellers displaying their merchandise and having a few guests from the genre to attract customers.
The draw for me naturally was Buzz Dixon who wrote a large chunk of the GI Joe cartoon series in the 1980s as well as the story consultant for 1987’s (much alligned) GI Joe: The Movie –
Buzz gave a detailed, comprehensive overview timeline of his work and career and participated in a Q&A that was (excellently) moderated by one of the guys from the GI Joe Collector’s Club. Though I didn’t ask any questions, most of what I would have asked was answered anyway. I was wildly fascinated and Buzz was very gracious afterwards and he added his signature to my GI Joe Box set –
Like I explained in the post about the show in May you have to look at this in two ways – positively, but still realistically.
On one hand we were spending a nice sunny day in a depressing, airless, windowless room with about a dozen or so obese, unfuckable men (Jess was the only girl, go figure) still obsessing over something from their childhood because they never found anything in adult life worthy to replace it, listening to a man in his 60’s who looks like he still gets pushed into lockers that in the twilight of his career can only attract a dozen or so of the aforementioned brethren in a small town in Texas.
But positively it was just a great chance to hear directly from one of the creator’s of my fave shit ever that I still quote like scripture and an inside look into the production of the movie that has polarized fans since it came out in 1987. He also wrote the Thundarr the Barbarian cartoon, another all-time fave of mine and today was actually the 34th anniversarry of its debut (but only a geek like me would know that).
Afterwards we ventured out onto the showroom floor where we met and got to speak with Tom Feister who does pencils for the GI Joe: Origins book and again I’m not an autograph guy unless it comes to shit that has to do with anything before I turned 18, than it all good haha
As I turned the corner I see my buddy Rich (who was largely responsible for what an unforgetable experience the show in May was for me) who is a toy dealer/collector and I should have known he was going to be here. Here’s the fox in all his glory –
Dude is seriously one of the nicest, most instantly likable human beings you will ever meet and I always enjoy our time together. Ironically Feister was a doing a sketch while we were talking and unbeknownst to me, it was for Rich! I told Rich of a plan that I have for a fun and Joe related event in 2015 that he immediately had great ideas for (
stay tuned).
The showroom was small but still enjoyable and I was able to pick up a huge stack of Joe graphic novels for a fraction of their cover price and Jess got some
My Little Pony stuff (
she’s a geek too). I would say with that, the autographs, the Q&A, getting to meet and talk candidly with Buzz and Feister and to hang with Rich, today was a good day.
