JoeCon 2017 - Kirk Bozigian

Kirk Bozigian has been one of my cultural heroes for quite a few years. He worked for Hasbro back in the early days of the Real American Hero line. He was instrumental in getting GI Joe back at retail after the few years of absence after the Super Joe years.

I've had a few interactions with him via social media and the FlagPoints podcast. I had been on episode 19 of FlagPoints and had commented something about what GI Joe meant to me. I don't really recall exactly what I had said, but Dave and the FlagPoints crew were able to talk to Kirk on episode 20 and he agreed with my sentiment.

A couple years ago, I friended Kirk on Facebook and I quickly found out that he's quite the conservative. I'm always impressed with his strength of character and commitment to his conservative ideals.

One recent Facebook interaction involved Kirk mentioning his brother in law's name. I noticed that his name was used as a basis for the character Taurus from the GI Joe sub team, Sgt Slaughter's Renegades. Cool moment!

Kirk and Larry Hama hosted a panel at JoeCon 2017 about their involvement together in developing both the toy line and the comic. I've heard much of it before, but there were a few bits of insight of the development. Larry would see the plans for next year's toys and he would work them into the comic and almost coincide with the release of the toys.

 

Kirk also acted as the moderator of a panel with four other members of the GI Joe development team from the early days of the line. Very cool historical moment of all of these men gathered together. Interesting little bits of history in the development of the line. $3,000,000.00 to develop and tool the Defiant Shuttle Complex. Kirk considers the Defiant as the greatest play set ever created - past, present, and future. Probably nothing like it will ever happen again.

There was also a brief discussion of the Cobra Island play set which unfortunately never made it past the presentation stage.

The initial presentation of GI Joe was a failure and the top executives gave them two weeks to revamp their idea. Plans were made to work with Marvel and create the comic about the toy line. The rest is history.

Mark Pennington, Bart Sears, Greg Berndston, Ron Rudat, and Kirk Bozigian.

I was very pleased to have been able to be a part of this experience, a great moment in GI Joe history!

GI Joe Con 2017, Here I Come!

The last official GI Joe Convention that I went to was back in 2006 when the GI Joe Collectors Club brought the convention to Atlanta. I went for the day and maybe only picked up a few things from the dealer's room. We were in the process of getting ourselves out of some serious financial crap, so there wasn't a whole lot of extra disposable income.

Eleven years later, life has changed quite a bit. My wife and I are much wiser financially than we were in the past. Plus we're a few years older, so it's time to live a little and enjoy life. Plus that whole heart surgery thing from last summer kind of puts things in perspective. (yeah, I brought it up... again... suck it up, that story ain't going anywhere)

The fact that this year's convention is in Orlando helps a great deal. It's just one state away! An added bonus will be the use of a relative's condo in Ormond Beach, just north of Daytona. Okay, sure, I'm going to have to drive quite a bit, but at least I'm not paying Disney hotel prices.

This year's convention set is not without controversy. The Club chose to go with Battle Force 2000 vs Cobra BATs. To me, BF2000 was always going to be a tough set to somewhat duplicate in the modern form. The original BF2000 figures from 1987 were all unique figures that used all brand new construction. This was going to be a tough challenge.

Personally, I've always thought that the whole BF2000 concept, figures and vehicles, was a great idea, but it just seemed like it was rushed by Hasbro. Stuff just didn't quite fit together. Even the figures were just... odd. But they were still so cool to me. 

Larry Hama did a great job introducing them in the comic. He used the team several times before their untimely death. What was the reason behind wiping out nearly the whole team? Perhaps I'll ask him at the Convention.

The figures from the Convention set have all been revealed,much to the ire of many GI Joe fans. Personally, I think the set looks great. I'm sort of a Club apologist, so I like the work they've done. The key, when looking at these figures, is to understand that you probably have no idea about how the Club goes about deciding on figure construction. The essential element is that they have to work with what Hasbro has available. I'm hoping that Hasbro is putting forth at least some effort to help out the Club with tooling resources, but it's hard to say, especially with GI Joe's current sad status in the toy aisles of the retail world.

As far as the six core members of BF2000, I think the Club did a decent job of replicating the overall look of the original figures. Sure, there are issues, but what exactly did the Club have to work with? Seriously, how much extra money would have been needed to tool up Blaster's face mask and Blocker's visor? And who really cares? Not me. Later releases of Blocker didn't even include the visor. 

As far as the Cobra side of the set, "fans" have been in a frenzy. There's basically two figures for the Cobra side, one BAT leader and eight BAT soldiers. Eight of the same exact figure. Maybe not a good choice, but then again, I don't know the reason why this choice was made. Perhaps, just perhaps, since the 2017 Convention wasn't supposed to happen after the 2016 Convention until Hasbro made a change, maybe the concepts weren't worked out fully for the set? Maybe BF2000 was in the design stage and the original Cobra opponents weren't? Maybe since the BAT mold was recently used by Hasbro, maybe they were available and could be cranked out quickly enough to get the sets ready? I don't know, I'm just speculating.

So here's the figures from the 2017 Convention set. I'm excited that I'm going to be there and am looking forward to this set and whatever exclusives are available at the show.

Avalanche & the BAT leader

Blaster & Blocker

Dodger & Knockdown

Maverick & BAT soldier 

Share your thoughts in the comments! Are you going? If so, see you there!

FSS 4.0: Law & Order and Nunchuk

Well, the first two figures from the FSS 4.0 have finally arrived!

***SPOILER ALERT***

Not really, nearly everyone who is a part of the FSS already have their figures. So the first shipment includes Law & Order and Nunchuk. I thought that I would post my thoughts about these two figures. My reviews are very surface level, just general impressions.

First up is Law & Order. The Club used the base figure from the Renegades version with an older style vest. The colors reflect the original color palette of the original figure.

I do like this figure, but I'm not really sure that I want to open it.I've already got the Renegades version of Law & Order and I don't really need another. I suppose I could do a head swap and turn him into another MP. The new version of Order is painted quite differently and can easily pass as another dog.

I've read other opinions that many collectors want to keep their figure mint on card and eventually get Kirk Bozigian's autograph. Kirk Bozigian, formerly in charge of Boys Toys at Hasbro and instrumental in the early success of the ARAH line of the 80's, served as the "model" for the original Law figure. Many other people at Hasbro also served as the face "models" for various GI Joe figures.

My problem with this, is that this new version was not based on Kirk's head. It would have been very cool for the Collectors Club, Boss Fight Studio, and Kirk Bozigian to collaborate and do a proper update to Law's head. So why hope for an autograph one day?

The art work? Basically the same as the original artwork and that's Kirk Bozigian's face. My chances of getting Kirk's autograph are probably pretty slim. I generally don't go to Joe Con and he's never made it down to Joelanta yet. For now, I'm going to keep him mint on the card in hopes of one day getting Kirk's autograph.

Next up is Nunchuk, another ninja. Originally, Nunchuk was from the sub-group, Ninja Force. There has been a bit of complaining about the general plainness of the figure. Really? Remember how this guy looked originally? The original figure was pretty plain and kinda' dull.

The original seems to have a more traditional style of web gear on the figure. That seemed to be an issue when the concept designs of Nunchuk were first shown by the Club. Bitch, bitch, bitch.

The Club chose to go with the current modern gear most commonly associated with the various ninja figures that have been produced. So what? Not really a big deal.

The Club gave Nunchuk some nice color coordinated weapons. A green backpack for his green handled swords. Green nunchucks and green handled sai's. Plus there's the little dart shooter thingy with the nearly pre-lost tiny little dart. Hmmm... Those nunchucks and the very long string between them. No thanks! 

There's a bit of an issue, at least to me, with the backpack. The post seems a bit high in the pack and sits up pretty high on Nunchuk's back when it's plugged in.
The swords look pretty cool, but I may need to figure out a new scabbard set. 

I decided to try a different set of web gear for Nunchuk. I used the web gear that originally came with the PoC Jungle Duke and has been reused many times. This web gear rocks! This particular version came with the Alley Vipers from Retaliation - they sucked. I like Nunchuk's new look. I suppose he's my GI Joe "Combat" ninja.

That's about it for this first set of figures. Two decent figures, but I don't think they are the best of what is to come. I'm looking forward to seeing which figures are arriving next!

FSS 4.0 Reveals: Law & Order

Next up from the GI Joe Club FSS 4.0 reveals is Law & Order. The Club stated in the reveal of the list that Law would be more similar to the colors of the original o-ring figure.

My first thought was that the Club would use everything about the modern update based on the Renegades character of Law & Order.

Nope.

It looks like the Club is going with the vest that first appeared on Wild Bill (who desperately needs a modern update w/o a pin head). Looks pretty good to me. He matches the vintage figure nicely and fits in right alongside the Renegades version.

So Law has a different set of gear to wear. Do the members of GI Joe always have to wear the same uniform?

It looks like Order is a very different color pattern as well. Why not two dogs?

Good job by the Club on Law & Order!

A Fond Farewell of Sorts

Once upon a time...

When I first saw the Defiant Shuttle Complex in the 1987 catalog, I was just blown away. I had started collecting the Real American Hero line at the "mature" age of 19, so I was around 24 when the Defiant first appeared. And married. Fortunately, my wife was very tolerant of my hobby, but it really wasn't going to happen that I would ever own the Defiant Complex.

So I watched the massive boxes show up at the local Toys-R-Us and sit and sit and sit. I suppose a few sold, but there always seemed to be one or two that just sat around and never left.

It was either late 1989 or early 1990 that I came into a little bit of money and I knew that there was one thing I needed to do with just a small amount of new funds - the Defiant Complex.

By this time, TRU had already begun the mark-down process on the Defiant. I think that it had originally retailed at around $129.00. Maybe more? I don't remember. All I remember was that it had been marked down to $99.00 by the time I was able to get mine. Fortunately I drove a small pick-up truck at the time, so transporting the beast wasn't an issue.

I know it took me a couple of days to finally put the whole thing together, because unlike the kids who had this set, I had a job, a wife, and a young son.

I was always so impressed by just the massive size of the complex. Such an amazing feat of toy engineering. Sadly, my complex never really had a place of prominence in my collection, mainly because it was just so damn big. The perils of being a home-owner.

For a while it was stored in an attic subject to the heat of the summer and the cold of the winter. It was eventually moved to a non climate controlled detached garage/shop. Wonderful, right?

Heat and just life took its toll. Something in the shop fell over and smashed the crawler's cockpit. Not too badly, but bad enough to need some obvious repairs. Plus the fact that it was stored near a window with direct sunlight during a good chunk of the day so the front half of the booster faded into a lovely shade of ugly yellow.

So what else happened to my Defiant?

• The springs broke free from the raising mechanism - probably an age/plastic fatigue issue.
• I tried to repaint the booster and damaged the cockpit windows. Ugh. I learned about the use of peroxide treatments for yellowed plastic from Dave at Flag Points, but only after I repainted the thing.
• The forward gun emplacement was broken off at some point. Repaired, but still damaged.

Flash forward to a new home with a man-cave of sorts. Not much of one, but still some space just for me. 

And there sits the Defiant Complex, up on a shelf and basically out of reach. For the past couple years, I've considered selling the whole complex at Joelanta. After talking to a couple dealers and describing its condition, I knew I wasn't going to get much for it, at least not as much as I had seen some go for on eBay.

Recently, I decided to begin taking it apart and selling it for scrap basically. The good news was that I was helping fellow collectors restore their own Defiant Complex sets and the even better news was that I was making some decent money off of the parts.

I sold Payload and Hardtop during the summer of 2013; their sacrifice allowed me to buy the wave 3.5 and 4 figures from Retaliation without an impact to the family budget - always a good thing!

So my Defiant Complex is a collection of loose parts right now. The gantry doors are gone - thankfully they had survived the years in excellent condition. Other bits and pieces from the crawler and the booster are gone.

I'm keeping the Defiant itself intact right now. It's really not that big and I just want to hang on to that last chunk of the whole Complex. It's in pretty decent shape, just yellowed with age. I'll be talking to Dave at Flag Points for details about the 2(HO) treatment.

As I've gone through the process of taking apart the Complex, I've been amazed at the amount of engineering that went into this thing. I've heard Kirk Bozigian discuss the Defiant Complex on several different GI Joe related pod-casts. Kirk is the former project manager at Hasbro during the Real American Heroes era and offered some amazing insight into the whole marketing phenomenon that was the GI Joe line in the 1980's. Hasbro put a million dollars into the tooling of the Defiant? Holy crap!! It definitely shows!

I've created a page on this silly little blog of mine with a bunch of pictures of various bits and pieces of the Defiant Complex. Some of it may go up for sale, some may just hang around and become set dressing for a future diorama idea stored up in the back of my brain. Check it out here.

At some point, the empty shell of the booster, the broken crawler cockpit, and maybe even the base of the crawler may just find themselves in the trashcan, waiting for that final journey. I'm keeping the main gantry wall because that is still such an amazing piece and great as a background for taking pics of figures.

I suppose I'm a bit melancholy about the state of my Defiant Complex, but life goes on. 

In the end, it's all just stuff. 
Feel free to leave me a comment with your thoughts.