First Class subscribers are starting to get their G.I. Joe Collectors’ Club newsletters in the mail, and while there doesn’t appear to be an update for the Convention Exclusive items, the Collectors’ Club does say that the first three Adventure Team figures will be available at JoeCon 2010! I for one am really looking forward to these, especially the Doctor Venom. It’s been too long… it wasn’t specifically mentioned which three figures would be available, but the three we’ve seen images for so far are Dr. Venom, Air Adventurer w/ FANG Helicopter, and the Land Adventurer with a Battle Blitz repaint. Check out the gallery from the G.I. Joe Collectors’ Club Panel at JoeCon last year:
Following in the footsteps of the Transformers Collectors’ Club, Fun Publications is revamping the size, style, and format of their monthly newsletters going forward! No longer wrapped inside the MasterCollector Newspaper, the Collectors’ Club newsletter will now ship in a much more durable, snazzier, and more enjoyable comic book format that will certainly please Joe fans.
The official Press Release is below, and as always, if you’re interested in joining, just jump on over to GIJoeClub.com! For going on three years now, I’ve been producing an exclusive Dio-Story only for newsletter subscribers, so perhaps there’s some added incentive for folks who are not aware… Fun Publications announces NEW Magazine for the G.I. Joe Collectors’ Club Fort Worth, TX – January 27, 2010 – Fun Publications, Inc, licensee for the Hasbro G.I. Joe Collectors’ Club announced today the all-new G.I. Joe Collectors’ Club Magazine. The monthly G.I. Joe Magazine will offer a wide variety of articles and features, including information on new releases, Hasbro team interviews, historical articles, product reviews, G.I. Joe character profiles as well as many exciting stories that feature the G.I. Joe Collectors’ Club exclusive toys.
The G.I. Joe Magazine will now be the primary printed offering from the GIJCC. “We think both fans and collector’s alike will love this new format,” said Pete Sinclair, Marketing and Creative Specialist for Fun Publications. “ While we have put out a lot of great printed material in the past, the Club Magazine takes us to the next level and allows us to present the G.I. Joe Collectors’ Club to the fan base in a new and exciting way.”
The G.I. Joe Magazine will be printed using standard comic book size dimensions and paper stock. The first issue debuts this month. For more information on the G.I.Joe Collectors’ Club and all of its offerings, please visit www.GIJoeClub.com. About HASBRO
Hasbro, Inc. (NYSE:HAS) is a worldwide leader in children’s and family leisure time products and services with a rich portfolio of brands and entertainment properties that provides some of the highest quality and most recognizable play and recreational experiences in the world. As a brand-driven, consumer-focused global company, Hasbro brings to market a range of toys, games and licensed products, from traditional to high-tech and digital, under such powerful brand names as TRANSFORMERS, PLAYSKOOL, TONKA, MILTON BRADLEY, PARKER BROTHERS, G.I. JOE and WIZARDS OF THE COAST. Come see how we inspire play through our brands at http://www.hasbro.com. (C) 2009 Hasbro, Inc. All Rights Reserved. About FUN PUBLICATIONS, INC.
For over 15 years, Fun Publications, Inc. has been a Hasbro licensee offering fans and collectors of pop culture memorabilia news, exclusive product and family events through different print offerings, websites, collector clubs and brand specific conventions such as GIJoeCon and BotCon. Located in Fort Worth Texas, Fun Publications reaches a large audience, serving the United States and many other countries such as Japan, Great Britain, Brazil, Australia and Canada. For more information visit www.TransformersClub.com, www.GIJoeClub.com, www.GIJoeCon.com, and www.BotCon.com.
Dammit. Yes, dammit. I’ve got enough stuff to spend my money on these days, and now Hasbro has to go and reinvent Transformers again, and once again make them bad ass.
I’m kind of a backwards Transfan…sure, I was fascinated with Generation 1 like any other kid of the 80’s, but my addiction to the toys began with Beast Wars, mostly due to the fantastic animated series that was running at the time. I managed a pretty close to complete domestic release collection of the Beast Wars line, and it remains one of the prides of my collection.
So, when Beast Wars morphed back into the more familiar vehicles and robots, while most Transfans cheered, I shrugged and moved on. The new stuff just didn’t seem to have the same magic to me. It started losing it during Beast Machines, and by the time the next run came out, I was surprisingly uninterested. Armada, Cybertron, Energon…all looked pretty neat, and I always stopped and looked at them in the stores, but ultimately passed.
Then, of course…came Transformers Classics. And once again, the hook was in me. I got an entire domestic run of the Classics figures (yes even the Botcon Seekers that enraged so many at the time)…and then came the movie. That damned movie. Actually, I liked the movie, but the movie designs did absolutely nothing for me, so I quickly let my Transformers fandom fade to the background yet again.
THEN… then came Transformers: Animated. Now, believe it or not, even though I loved Classics, I never got into Universe. For some reason, they just didn’t “wow” me. The Transformers: Animated stuff, though, that really captured my attention, and yes…I now have pretty near a full run of the uniquely tooled Transformers: Animated figures. No, I didn’t go for all the repaints and off-scale stuff, but I have one of every unique character from the show. Then Revenge of the Fallen arrived, and Animated slipped away (with the exception of Arcee, who is the last “hole” I consider in my collection). So, once again, my Transformers interest is satisfied without any cash leaving my wallet.
Now I’m sure everyone knows what comes next… yeah. The War for Cybertron. Dammit, Hasbro, why must you do this to me?
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I mean look at those! Well, don’t focus on Megatron too much, he’s kinda crappy, but Prime and Bumblebee are both fantastic. They take some great elements from the classic looks, yet manage to soup ’em up and change them up to fit a more modern space-age aesthetic. THIS, my friends, is how you reimagine. Mike Bay… take some notes. 😉
If you’ve been in a cave and haven’t seen the trailer for the War for Cybertron video game, feast your eyes:
While obviously still in the very early stages (since voice actors are still just auditioning for the roles), the G.I. Joe animated series is plugging along. Hisstank.com board member Eric Bauza (who is also a veteran voice actor) recently read for the part of Tunnel Rat. If he gets the part, it would be no big stretch, as he also starred as Tunnel Rat in G.I. Joe: Resolute (not to mention did fantastic work as Destro and Storm Shadow as well).
Check out Mr. Bauza’s WikiPedia page here. Always love hearing news about this! Unlike a lot of folks, I don’t think we’ll hear much about this at Toy Fair, since it’s still very early on, but perhaps some info will be available at JoeCon…whereever we find out some details, I’m really looking forward to it. Hopefully it’s closer to G.I. Joe: Resolute than Sigma 6. Don’t get me wrong…there is NO chance this is an ongoing Resolute series, not when it’s being conceived and produced for the channel that was formerly Discovery Kids. But as long as it doesn’t insult the intelligence of the viewers and tries to be a bit more sophisticated than Sigma 6, I’ll give it a watch. Heck, I forced myself through all 26 episodes of Sigma 6, just because it was G.I. Joe based…
According to a thread on the GIJCC Message Boards, we should expect the 2010 G.I. Joe Convention Brochure to appear this week. This is the following post from GIJCC staffmember “The Commander”:
“Finally, there will be no more clues – as the full 2010 Convention Brochure will be available this week!”
