An exciting announcement from the folks at Roll Out Roll Call! Attendees of the show in London Heathrow will get a special opportunity to own Transformers vs. G.I. Joe #13 with a special exclusive cover by Robert Atkins and Joana LaFuente.
There will be a run of only 250 of these exclusive covers featuring a number of characters played by convention guests Morgan Lofting and Neil Ross. Your best chance to get this exclusive comic is at Roll Out Roll Call! Along with this, they’ve already announced exclusive availability of previously sold out Botcon exclusives!
The show is July 8th – 9th at London Heathrow and is a favorite show for many fans. Boss Fight Studio will be there, likely with a bunch of product in hand to sell!
There’s going to be lots to love about this year’s Roll Out Roll Call, and you can find all of the great details over on their Facebook page. Tickets are on sale now, so don’t wait!
Even though the written reviews have wrapped, there’s still more Vitruvian HACKS goodness over on the GeneralsJoes YouTube Channel! I’ve just posted video reviews for the NJCC Exclusive Ultimate Spartan and Kokomo Toys/All the Cool Stuff Amazon (Elite Warrior)!
More HACKS video reviews soon to come, but until then, check out these two additions embedded below. As always, please let me know if there are things I could do to make this better.
Okay, I approached these reviews a little differently. I wasn’t going to break down every individual blank or every individual skeleton or every individual accessory pack. That felt like overkill.
So instead, I’ve framed these reviews at a more high level, looking at these three elements conceptually, with how well I think they were executed overall. There are no real review scores for the blanks or accessories, and while I did use one for the skeletons, I’m not sure it really works.
None of these are individual characters, nor are they really designed to come with accessories, and the paint applications are purposefully simplified, so it didn’t feel appropriate to judge the success of these items on those prerequisites. That being said, I still took a ton of pictures and gave my opinions on the themes as a whole. They’re all posted on the Vitruvian HACKS Review Page or you can check them out individually below.
G.I. Joe fans have been asking, and we’ve been hearing…it’s been a while since the What’s on Joe Mind Podcast was updating regularly, but us and our esteemed editor are working hard to get back on track!
Episode 103 has just been posted to our What’s on Joe Mind Podbean page, and while it’s still lagging a few months, we are making our way back to cover all of the latest G.I. Joe news and toy hobby discussions. Check out Episode 103 on Podbean, or the embedded player below.
It’s the Christmas in…May edition! Yes, yes, this is another one of those episodes we recorded months ago and are just now getting around to finish editing and posting it. In this episode, we have a hearty discussion about the Joes from 2003. In the news we spend a lot of time talking with Justin about working with Hasbro for the Fan’s Choice Kindle World’s Character voting process. Justin also asks Joe about her pie. Yes, it is the truth. It’s a little more than 90 minutes of fun, so have fun listening!
Things look to be getting somewhat quiet on the IDW G.I. Joe comic front as we move towards the end of summer. IDW Publishing has released their solicitations list for August, 2016 and there is essentially just a single new entry on it (with the other being the final TPB collection of Transformers vs. G.I. Joe) Check them out below.
Transformers vs G.I. Joe, Vol. 3
Tom Scioli & John Barber (w) • Tom Scioli (a & c)
The biggest space battle ever grows to universal proportions! Will the G.I. JOE team and the AUTOBOTS make peace—before COBRA and the DECEPTICONS end the war… the bad way?! Collects issues #10–13.
TPB • FC • $19.99 • 120 pages • 7” x 11” • ISBN: 978-1-63140-693-5
Bullet points:
The series you never thought would happen comes to its thunderous conclusion!
Offered Again!
Transformers vs G.I. JOE, Vol. 1 • FC • $19.99 • ISBN: 978-1-63140-190-9
Transformers vs G.I. JOE, Vol. 2 • FC • $19.99 • ISBN: 978-1-63140-270-8
G.I. JOE: A Real American Hero #231: Snake In The Grass, Part 2
Larry Hama (w) • S L Gallant (a & c)
Duke reckons with the most difficult choice of his life… while COBRA scrambles to contain the dangerous new agent in their midst!
FC • 32 pages • $3.99
G.I. JOE: A Real American Hero #231: Snake In The Grass, Part 2—Subscription Variant
Larry Hama (w) • S L Gallant (a) • John Royle (c)
FC • 32 pages • $3.99
Bullet points:
Betrayal might bring the end to G.I. JOE and COBRA!
The carded figures have all been reviewed! The only character toys left are the Vitruvian HACKS Exclusive offerings. With the first Kickstarter batch I’d already covered Talos, and other exclusives (such as Eternal Struggle Undead Warrior & Ringneck Gorgon, Ultimate Spartan and Amazon Elite Warrior) are cataloged already as well.
That just leaves the Celestial Battle, Ghosts of the Battlefield, PreCurse Medusa, and the Tartarus Guard left. Every single last one of them is on the docket today.
Is everyone else as amazed as I am with the sheer amount of product with this Kickstarter? I haven’t even talked about the Accessory Packs, Blanks, or Skeletons yet. Good grief. Check out the latest reviews on my Vitruvian HACKS Review Page or the links below directly.
If you’ve hung around the Facebook groups dedicated to Boss Fight Studio and Vitruvian HACKS, you’ve likely seen some folks customizing their Medusas to lengthen her tail. The process is actually a lot simpler than I originally thought, and I whipped up a YouTube tutorial to check out the process, with thanks to Chris from The Full Force podcast!
Essentially, the most key component is that each of the tail segments are helpfully numbered (1 is the long lower body, 8 is the tip of the tail, and all other numbers fall between, in order).
Thanks to Brian and Randall over at the Boss Fighters group, the best order of the tail enhancement appears to be as follows: 1-2,3-2,3-4,5-4,5-6,7-6,7-8.
If you’re still confused, check out the YouTube video embedded below…it’s less than 10 minutes and will make life easy!
Not one to shy away from an ambitious product launch, the folks at Boss Fight Studio Kickstarted four entire waves of product all at once, not to mention a number of exclusives, accessory sets, blanks and skeletons. It’s almost insane to look back at the sheer amount of product involved in this initial barrage, while at the same time being very appreciative of that, because now we have a lot of fun stuff to take our time while we patiently await future product news. 🙂
I’ve been eagerly anticipating reviewing this particular wave of figures, mostly due to the inclusion of Stonefist, a character that I have some personal stake in. The reviews for Wave 4 are now complete (as are reviews for all of the standard carded release figures so far) and you can find them on the Vitruvian HACKS Review Page or directly linked below.
To continue the HACKS Week celebration, I worked with Chris at The Full Force to remaster some of the first Kickstarter videos now with some awesome history and a look back at the mythology behind some of these characters.
Now this train is moving… I covered the first four figures (Wave 2) of Vitruvian HACKS carded figures yesterday and it was just a precursor to the great stuff in store in Wave 3. I’ve already covered Black Racer, who was one of the Wave 3 figures, but the remaining three (Myrmidon Warrior, Leonidas, and Eurayle) are now posted on the Vitruvian HACKS review page!
Among these three figures is probably my favorite figure of the entire HACKS run so far… you may be surprised at which one it is. Check out the reviews below.