Just wanted to drop a line to remind folks that the Concept Case Survey is still rolling along, and Round 1 will end Friday, July 20th. Responses from Round 1 will be tabulated and I will post the actual SurveyMonkey charting to ensure 100% transparency.
Based on those results, I will set up Round 2 of the Survey to kick off, most likely next Monday, where the winners of Round 1 can face off against each other to get an idea of what the fans want!
Meanwhile, propaganda has started appearing online…the political machine is already at work. Ladies and gentlemen…Joe fans…I encourage you to vote with your hearts. But if you’re easily swayed…
Please be aware, as a neutral party, I believe in equal opportunity…if you have a candidate you want to endorse, find a creative way to express that, and let me know!
From one Convention right into another. Fresh off of our return to normal broadcasting schedule from the 2012 G.I. Joe Convention, the crew from What’s on Joe Mind immediately jumps to the next convention, this time the familiar ComicCon in San Diego.
With not much G.I. Joe news likely there, we bring in Arune Singh to talk about Marvel’s presence there and what we might expect from the House of Ideas. We also bring in Moira Hunger to talk in more detail about the IDW seminar at JoeCon and comic nerdery in general.
But it’s not all about Comics, there is a healthy helping of G.I. Joe talk as well. Check out our latest episode on our Podbean Page, or via the embedded players below. Show notes as always are after the jump.
I can already sense the rage coming… What?!? Number six?! How dare you!
Many folks might wonder why this guy got pushed so far back in my list, even though cracking the Top Ten is a great thing in the first place…and honestly, I can’t really explain it, other than to say that a lot of this figure’s tooling is appearing elsewhere in the line already, and even though this is a very cool new concept, I have found other things in the case that I feel like I want (or need) to see more.
That’s not to say I don’t like this figure, and I’m dying to see this guy released. Of course I am. He’s obviously very high on my list. But there are other figures that are higher. Judging by the responses I’ve been getting in the Concept Case Survey, I would say many of you would disagree with me, however. As a list designed to spark discussion, though, that works for me.
6 – G.I. Joe: 30th Anniversary Data-Viper
Ahhh, yes, the Data-Viper. Anyone who says this new concept figure is amazing, I would not disagree. He has a very unique and captivating design with a perfectly sculpted uniform, a very interesting new concept, and some incredibly cool accessories. I love this head sculpt, I really like the helmet, and the Predator-launching backpack with control gauntlets are a work of brilliance.
So, why #6 and not cracking my top 3? Mostly because as we’ve seen with the Wave 2 3-Packs, much of the Data-Viper tooling is going to be used for the G.I. Joe: Retaliation Sgt. Airborne, and the Predator drone is coming with the Wave 3 Ultimate Duke. That still leaves a lot of cool elements to bring to the Data-Viper, like the helmet, backpack, and gauntlets, but I still can’t help but want to see a few other things more.
Don’t get me wrong, this is a hell of a figure, and I will rejoice with the rest of you when he is released, but if nothing else, the concept case convinced me there are even better things out there that I’m also eagerly awaiting. Check out the images from JoeCon below.
Continuing my “Top Ten” countdown of the items we saw last weekend in the Concept Case at the G.I. Joe: Convention. With my number 10 entry, I focused on the G.I. Joe: Renegades Scrap Iron with his melted face and awesomely animated body style.
For my ninth entry, I went back into the archives… generally I’m not a fan of simply re-releasing figures as they appeared two decades ago, with only minor alterations, but the figure I saw in the case made me rethink that idea. Besides, I’m a huge fan of those crazy 1989 army builders, so I couldn’t help myself.
9 – G.I. Joe: 30th Anniversary HEAT Viper
HEAT Viper is just one of those crazy figures you can’t help but love. Bright yellow, purple, and with his trusty missile-boots he has all the earmarks of the wacky Cobra Troopers of the late 1980’s. I was actually pretty amazed at just how well Hasbro translated that crazy design to the modern style.
Using the 30th Anniversary Airtight tooling and what appears to be a resin sculpted HEAT Viper helmet, Hasbro is able to replicate the look and feel almost perfectly. It does appear that some sculpting modification was done to get the purple strip down the front of the figure, but beyond that, this would be a pretty straight forward kit-bash. In talking to Dave, one of the genius sculptors for Hasbro, the HEAT Viper head was sculpted and appeared in his display case at the Convention, but it has not been “tooled” yet. However, he also had sculpted a Crimson Guard head for a tour in Providence a few years back, and that head ended up getting tooled and used.
Anyway, since we have Alley-Viper, and will soon have Night-Viper, it seems only appropriate that we add HEAT-Viper to the growing ’89 trooper ranks. Can Frag-Viper be far behind?
Twitter friend of GeneralsJoes Twitziller has provided an awesome service to folks who are pounding through the Concept Case survey I posted this morning! I’ve been hearing folks complain a bit about having to check an image, go back to the Survey, navigate through the gallery…
Well, Twitziller designed an entire Excel Spreadsheet with embedded mouse-over images, and sent it along for GeneralsJoes readers! This will hopefully make it even easier for folks to compare images and document the rankings before answering the survey questions.
A huge thanks to Twitziller and check out the Spreadsheet below. Use the Download link to grab it for yourself!
That’s right! With a huge thanks from GeneralsJoes reader Chris, who greatly assisted in setting this up, we have launched a SurveyMonkey survey based on what Hasbro showed in the Concept Case at the G.I. Joe Convention last weekend.
Please keep in mind, this is not a Hasbro sanctioned poll or an official data gathering system! This is all being done by GeneralsJoes, and is simply a way of gathering some empirical data to send off to Hasbro. According to Marketing Director Joe DelRegno, Hasbro will likely be launching their own online polling system as well, but rather than wait for that to be coded (I believe they only made the decision to do it last weekend, based on the overwhelming response from G.I. Joe fans) we figured we’d get a leg up and start this sucker early.
As we’ve seen many times in the past, toy collecting is very much a “what have you done for me lately” scenario, and with a desire to strike while the iron is hot, GeneralsJoes is doing their own survey while emotions are raw and at the surface. You can either click the banner above to check out the survey page, or click right here.
Linked on the survey page is also a very easy to follow gallery of all of the unproduced items shown with clear identification. Chris and myself worked hard to make this as simple and straight forward as possible. Please check it out, and please take a few minutes to answer. I know this isn’t official, but the data from this survey will be gathered and sent to Hasbro, so there WILL be a voice. Let it be yours!
