I heard that someone else went and made a report here somewhere. But this is my report and some photos of it. Mostly the new stuff Sigma 6, art works and a few other things. So here it is: GI Joe Convention Saturday June 25th, 2005 The convention was held at the Marriot Hotel on fourth floor. When Bob and I was on the main floor with a few other people, we were all pointed in the right direction by a bellhop. Had no problem finding the convention after that and the line for walk-ins only took fifteen minutes to get thru. Very neat and organized. We met our friend Jeff there in line. He only got there a couple of minutes before us. While in line we watched a man remote control a four foot tank in the room. Tickets were $9 and before we went into the dealer room, we saw the Master Collector’s dealer table offering several things from this year’s sovernirs to previous years’ convention sets. At the door we got our hands stamped with a American flag. Quite appropriate since it’s the convention for the American Hero. I wonder what the walk-ins for BotCon will be? We entered, saw another table for MC and their GI Joe merchandise. Not only was this room for dealers, it was also the room for the Hasbro booth and art room. I took some pictures of the art exhibits and some of the new toys from Hasbro coming out later this year. I felt like this room was small and I hope that MC does not gadge by Joe Con for BotCon. The dealer room was smaller than any BotCon dealer room. Also the room were panels were held was also smaller. Found out quite a few things. I talked to Devil’s Due who was there. They had a booth with GI Joe comics for sale and a couple of their artists there. I did ask the president of the company about the last issue of Voltron since it was never done. He said the script for it was somewhere but doesn’t know where precisely. He said it was regretful about the comic since they enjoyed working on it but the comic was not pulling in the money to keep it going. They do have an agreement with WEP since a new cartoon is in the works, that when the cartoon launches they will be given the job of doing a new Voltron comic for the show. A few words about the future for Devil’s Due and GI Joe is that Lady Jaye may get her own series in the future. Saw McFarlane Toys there and they had their own booth. They had out lots of their new Military line. I didn’t buy any since they don’t interest me at all. I can see why people would like them but it holds nothing to me. I talked to Dion Bozman and two attractive ladies from McFarlane company. I believe one of them was an accountant. We walked around the dealer room. I picked up some “new” TF toys that I didn’t have: Headmaster Weirdwolf, Grostuque, 3 Micromasters, Octane with box, instructions, sticker sheet and weapons; and a purple ½ inch tall Starscream. Then we went to the Hasbro panel. Not a big room but we found out that a panel was held the day before for pre-registrators. Bob, Jeff and I got a seat with no problem for the Hasbro panel but we found out that another panel by Hasbro was held the previous day for attendees. But when the audience asked how many were there the day before, about ¾ of the room’s hands went up. Found out lots of neat things from the panel. Next series of Joe toys coming out are called Sigma 6. They are aimed more at kids so they are going to be around 6 to 8 inches tall. But some parts of it will cross over with the 3 ¾ figures. I did take some photos of the toys and I think they look cool. Motorcycles are also made for Snake-eyes and Stormshadow toys. I also saw conceptual artwork at the Hasbro booth for Sigma 6. I did take photos of this. Then they showed about 10 to 15 minutes of unfinished animation of the new Sigma 6 cartoon which looked awesome even undone. The audience provided sound effects for the show. No cameras were allowed to be taken out during this time cause of the agreement that Hasbro made. I may not be a Joe fan but I’m excited about this cartoon. The animation was great. Very anime-like. I think it is being done by a Japanese company. And American voice actors will be doing the voices so there will be no voice overs. This series is scheduled to be released this fall. As all know, Hasbro got a lot of its licenses for its products back in house. Among them is GI Joe for a video game. Right now a company to produce and make it is being found. Not much more on that. Its appears that the cost of making Joes (old and new) isn’t much so when fans asked why new weapons and other stuff is not being made its due to money. They try and switch weapons around to get the most out of each mold and try to make each figure and its weapons unique in some way or another but they are still on a budget. Sounds very tight. A couple of problems which Joe and TF fans share is the official toy site and prototypes. One person mentioned in the panel was about how slow the Hasbro toy site for Joes are and how he goes to different sites to figure out what is coming out. The same thing can be said about the Hasbro Transformers site. Also prototypes from Hong Kong are also leaking out for GI Joe. The fans in the room were told that Hasbro is working on the security. The panel took about an hour. Before we left we saw a message board by the bathrooms. It was a large board with postings by different people. It had posted in bolded letters in the middle “Room to Room/Message Board by Master Collector” in the middle. All over were postings by different people like “for sale: stuff. Room #”. Some listed what the stuff was. This would be a great idea to post at BotCon. I know in the past that people sell stuff from their rooms especially on Friday night and post signs in odd places to advertise. This seems like a neat idea. During and after the convention, both Bob and I felt why GI Joe has stayed so popular so long. Looking at the new toys, seeing the new cartoon and everything made us feel the excitement that we feel when seeing Hasbro-booth new Transformer toys at BotCon. We both agreed it would be easy to start but due to space, room and dedication. . . no. [/IMG] [/IMG] [/IMG] [/IMG] [/IMG]
Really! Wow! If I knew what you look like or anything, I would had said hi! I remember meeting another McFarlane fan by the McFarlane booth In the photos above is a picture of me standing in front of the action figure card.
Great report, thanks for sharing. I'm not a close follower of GI Joe, but what's the deal with all the sharks in that diorama? Are those actually Joe toys they'll be selling or just a really neat custom battle scene somebody did?
The sharks are part of a cool diorama in a custom battle scene in the artshow. The artshow consisted of mostly dioramas, photographs and kitbashes. SOme of the photographs had scenes of toys acting out battle scenes. I thought that was great.
That nautical diorama was unbelievable! And I forgot to have my photo taken in front of the card, that would've been a great souvenier. Nice review!
