Ice Ranger Bio
I’m having a great time with these American Defense bios. They’re just as insane as the figure designs. Ice Ranger continues many of the themes we saw with Yeti. Very—cool.
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Super Joe Cross-Sell
Sadly, the Super Joe packaging did not feature a full color card back. As a result, the packaging looks comparatively cheap compared to Kenner’s Star Wars and Hasbro’s later GI Joe offerings. Even so, it’s great to see many of the team together in one image fighting their foe, Gor. Other cross-sells pictured Luminos, another of the light fighting member
Read moreAtomic Man Comic Ad
In my experience as a kid comic book reader, the advertisements that peppered the four-color pages of my youth fell into three important categories, each with its own unique merits. First, there are the house ads, which served the purpose of touting upcoming new comics or important events. These are interesting from a historic and marketing perspective. Second, we have
Read moreSHARC Art
The SHARC was one of my childhood favorites, due in no small part to the fact that it was a water vehicle. Between the SHARC and Water Mocassin, I was busy playing out Joe and Cobra battles in the pool. The summer of ’84 was legendary! Once again, the art sold the product to me. Not that the toy needed
Read moreVivre l’aventure!
Pulverizer Catalog Spread
How can you make the Pulverizer look cool? How about sticking it in a nice diorama environment and publishing it in a seldom seen international catalog? Sounds about right to me. While it doesn’t measure up to the ludicrous brilliance of the Cobra Rat, the vehicle nevertheless piques my interest for its uniqueness.* And hey–Scoop gets some exposure as well.
Read moreIn Your Local Paper: GI Joe Cartoon Debut
Inspired by the amazing newspaper toy ads that Phillip over at battlegrip.com regularly unearths, I thought I would do a little digging to locate a TV listing circa my favorite cartoon era. Getting more specific, I wondered if I could find a listing for the debut episode of GI Joe: A Real American Hero AKA the MASS Device mini-series. What
Read moreHe-Man Disses the Toy Universe
So you don’t think the toy business can get nasty? Check out this Mattel trade ad from 1982. While Star Wars seems to be the most obvious target of the most powerful man in the universe, you can also spot a couple of straight-arm Joes in the mist, namely Scarlett and Flash. There’s also a figure from Sgt. Rock, and
Read moreSky Havoc Box Art
This stuff has got me seriously hooked. I love seeing the clean art versions of the package paintings. They made even the less interesting vehicles shine (ha!). This painting has me wondering if the collectors club will pull out the Snow Cat mold again and vac-matalize it as a Sky Havoc II for this year’s con set. Sky hope not.
Read more1966 Comic Ad: Inspection Commendation
Whatever happened to Andy and George? The two friends, and members of the GI Joe club appeared in ads for the toys and club during the early years of Joe. I don’t think they made it into the Adventure Team era. The GI Joe figures in this ad look preternaturally realistic. They appear more like scaled-down humans than the toys
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