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04-30-2011, 05:49 PM | #16071 |
Hog Driver
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Georgia
Posts: 12,224
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Quote:
Mark Bellomo went into this in his book. "Virgil M. Carmody" was what Hama wrote but it got changed to "Paul Latimer" (who was a Hasbro employee at the time). Hasbro going in and changing the content of the filecards after Hama had written them and without his knowledge apparently happened all the time -- not that they couldn't and shouldn't, it was work-for-hire stuff, after all -- but there was one filecard in particular mentioned in Bellomo's book, and I'm blanking on whose it was, where the final product was nothing at all like what Hama had submitted, and Bellomo made particular note of it in the book.
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04-30-2011, 06:01 PM | #16072 |
EQ-Viper
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 4,343
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Quote:
It's a great book and one of the most informative "behind-the-scenes" resources regarding the ARAH era, hurt only by some poor production values manifesting in the form of iffy page layouts and a serious lack of professional proofreading and editing (the systemic grammatical errors and typos in there will awaken your inner Grammar Nazi if you have one lurking inside you). Last edited by zuludelta; 04-30-2011 at 06:26 PM.. |
04-30-2011, 06:22 PM | #16073 |
Hog Driver
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Georgia
Posts: 12,224
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Yes, I probably would be annoyed by the grammatical errors but the bits of history and awesome catalog of photos might more than compensate for those mistakes.
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04-30-2011, 06:34 PM | #16074 |
Crimson Guard
Join Date: May 2007
Location: England
Posts: 1,230
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I agree, lots of nice in depth info in the book. The recommendation is to go for the 2nd Ed. as this has better (professional) photos. The other plus is that it's pretty cheap as far as books go, definitely worth a look (though in my case you'll then get to look at all the vehicles/playsets you missed out on as a kid and start wanting them..... )
On to other random things, and not quite sure how I got here - probably was looking at an old custom of SE v5 (i.e. Ninja Force) and decided to re-read some of the comics. I see that in Marvel ARAH #138 (Unfoldings) SE, SS, Destro and the Baroness make their escape from the top of Destro's Trans-carpathian castle using a Fulton/STAR rig. But it's called a STABO rig in the comic, which is a different type of extraction device designed for helicopters and jungle canopies (and this caused me some significant confusion at the time trying to work out whether the depicted contraption really existed at all using the material of the day - i.e. paper books!). Probably not much to say about this, other than that the two rigs are obviously rather different, so Hama made a mistake in his naming, but it is far easier these days to look up what a STABO or a Fulton rig is, so for Hama back in '93 I can understand that it might well be easy to get wrong. Not much discussion I'm afraid, just something I remembered spotting as a kid and thought I'd share |
04-30-2011, 06:37 PM | #16075 |
EQ-Viper
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 4,343
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Quote:
The photographs in the book are okay, but keep in mind that they are pictures of Bellomo's own collection. In some cases, the figures appear to be well below mint/near mint quality (and I think some are missing accessories, although he does give a complete accounting of the accessories in the text), so if you're thinking of using the guide to value your own collection, I think it would still be important to double-check the accessories and paint applications on YoJoe.com. I haven't actually checked if the prices in the price guide are accurate or if they reflect recent actual market values, but since I'm not really a serious collector, the price guide aspect of the book isn't all that important to me, and I wouldn't be disappointed in the least if Bellomo took out that feature altogether in a future edition if it means making room for more behind-the-scenes information. |
04-30-2011, 06:51 PM | #16076 |
EQ-Viper
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Canada
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Probably not much to say about this, other than that the two rigs are obviously rather different, so Hama made a mistake in his naming, but it is far easier these days to look up what a STABO or a Fulton rig is, so for Hama back in '93 I can understand that it might well be easy to get wrong.
More than the paucity of easily found references though, I think it was also the short turnaround time between issues that contributed to many of these errors (has any Marvel title given out more No-Prizes than GI Joe did back in the 1980s?). IIRC, the GI Joe creative team had to hand in their work a week or a week-and-a-half earlier compared to creative teams on other books because of the Hasbro approval process... Hasbro had their "suits and haircuts" (as Hama used to refer to them) go over the contents of every issue before it was sent to the printers to make sure none of it violated terms of Hasbro's licensing deal with Marvel, and they would sometimes send them back for minor or major changes very late in the publishing schedule, causing everybody down the line to scramble. One also has to consider that the artist may not have been supplied by the editors or Hama with the appropriate reference materials or that the artist just plain got the visuals wrong. Last edited by zuludelta; 04-30-2011 at 07:06 PM.. |
04-30-2011, 07:49 PM | #16077 |
Crimson Guard
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Hope, ME
Posts: 4,732
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It would be great if they did that, but since IDW also purchased the rights to the DDP Joe books, I have a sneaking suspicion that they'll fill out the last CLASSIC JOE trade with the first GIJOE Declassified mini-series, which is a direct continuation of issue #155 and could be used to bridge the continuity gap between the end of the Marvel series and the beginning of the IDW continuation of the Marvel/ARAH timeline.
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04-30-2011, 08:05 PM | #16078 |
EQ-Viper
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To continue the theme of my most recent post though, it's amazing to me now to read that none of Marvel's big names wanted anything to do with the GI Joe comic book, even when it was the best-selling comic book in the Western world and smashing monthly sales records month after month. Part of it was because of the schedule that I mentioned... it was particularly demanding to satisfy both the editors and Hasbro's executives and have enough time left over for re-writes and re-drawing. Marshall Rogers will always have my respect for the job he did in issue #61... after Marvel's editors rejected the awful pages up-and-coming "superstar artist" Todd McFarlane did for that issue, the veteran Rogers got the call to do a rush fill-in job and he turned in a full issue's worth of excellent visual storytelling in about a quarter of the time it took McFarlane to originally draw the issue (and that issue started out one of the best and most memorable storylines in the main GI Joe title). But a large part of it was also because a lot of the artists and writers didn't think too highly of working on a licensed title. Nobody wanted to draw or write what they considered to be glorified adverts for children's toys. And I think Hama, Trimpe, Vosburg, Whigham, Rogers, Wagner et al never really shook off that stigma within the industry, that they were successful only because their comic book was a tie-in to a popular toy, that they "sold out," and not because their work had any real artistic merit. You would think that writing or drawing the best-selling comic book of the 1980s would have gotten editors lining up at their doors with various offers to work on Marvel or DC's "A-list" titles, but it didn't work out that way. Yes, Hama was offered the regular writer spot on Wolverine, but a lot of people forget that Wolverine was on the brink of cancellation when he was brought in, and he was there primarily to tie up any leftover loose threads before they brought the hammer down on the book (funny how that turned out). Of the artists who worked on GI Joe during its prime, I think Ron Wagner was probably the only one who was able to parlay that success into anything approaching a high-profile gig, serving brief stints in the early 1990s on titles like Daredevil and The Punisher War Journal. Of course, one has to consider the timing of this, too. By the early 1990s, the "old school" approach favoured by the classic GI Joe art teams was out of vogue, and the flashy "Image-style" was all the rage. I remember feeling more than a little sad seeing Herb Trimpe (a 20+ year veteran of the industry by that point) deliberately aping Rob Liefeld's style in the mid-1990s because it was the only way editors would even take a look at his submissions anymore. The offers for comics work absolutely dried up for Trimpe in the late 1990s, IIRC, and he ended up going back to school in his early 50s (I remember reading an article from a few years ago stating that he teaches art to grade school and high school kids now). Last edited by zuludelta; 04-30-2011 at 08:25 PM.. Reason: added links |
04-30-2011, 09:33 PM | #16079 |
Iron Grenadier
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: San Antonio, TX
Posts: 590
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Thanks zulu, for taking the time to answer that for me.
I agree the more I hear about the book, the more I want to look for one. |
05-02-2011, 09:08 AM | #16080 |
#voteblackjack
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Northwood, NH
Posts: 35,754
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I like Bellomo's book. It also gives all the different test code-names that went with the figures. Lots of names to use for customs.
Zulu, are you referring to Low-Light? If I remember right I think Hama wanted to make him a Navy SEaL sniper.
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