G.I. Joe – Page 2 – European Joe's

The more the Frenchier

A few posts back (see here), I talked about finding a French Trade Paperback from Vestron that celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Marvel G.I. Joe comic books. In it were some advertisements for other TPB’s they were going to release. I tracked them down and here they are.

The first book in the series contains the Marvel issues 123 (Shots in the dark), 124 (Triptych), 125 (Diptych) & 126 (Firefly!). After that story arc, they print issue 127 (Playing with the big boys) and parts of issues 128 & 129 (Winds of Change & Standoff!)

Tome 1 – Eco Warriors, DEF and Snake-Eyes

The cover art for this TPB is inspired on the original art for issue #123, but they added a crosshairs in front of Cobra Commander’s head in sludge green.

Book 2 boasts the Ninja force and continues the continuity with issues #130 (Point and Counterpoint), #131 (Last Stand), #132 (Bump in the Night), #133 (Recon by Fire) & #134 (Throwdown in the Citadel). In the back of the book, they now added the original covers as well.

Tome 2 – Storm Shadow representing the Ninja Force

The cover art looks familiar, but I can’t recall where I’ve seen it before. If you know, let me know and I’ll put it up here. It’s depicting Storm Shadow sitting perched or jumping, sporting his camo G.I. Joe look.

UPDATE: I’ve received help from within the Joe Community on this one. The art comes from within issue #112. It was drawn by John Statema, inked by Randy Emberlin and colored by Bob Sharen. Thanks to Justin Taylor, Jeff Bohn, Gavin Regnaert and Rob S Foster for confirming this on Facebook. Special thanks to Rob Arts from G.I. Joe Nederland for reaching out and adding some extra information.

Next up is Tome 3 which jumps a few issues and features the Star Brigade. It tells the stories of issues #145 (Threads and Resolutions), #146 (Immovable Objects), #147 (Oblivion Express!) and #128 (Irresistable Forces).

For this TPB, they used the cover art of issue #146 without any modifications, aside from the addition of the Maximum Action Tome 3 and the change of the header.

Normally, I’d say that’s all. Not this time though. What is printed in the back of TPB 3? An announcement of Tome 4 of course! And as if that wasn’t enough, there’s also a mention of a Maximum Silence issue! In case you would wonder what that could be about, stay tuned because there may be a post about it in the not so distant future.

Tome 4 – To be released in September 2024

Now that’s really it for this time. See you again soon, until then, Happy Collecting and YoJoe!

A Very Astute Mailbox Parcel

Don’t drop the Clutch and keep on reading to find out what just came in the mail.

To be honest, I never really liked the angular shape of the VAMP. I didn’t have it in the original O-ring (3.75”) line until I got one of those Funskool models a few years ago. In the larger Classified scale though, it looks better.

The VAMP comes with a machine gun emplacement at the back, 2 extra gas tanks, a fire extinguisher, an axe, a shovel, a gun, a bigger gun,2 helmets, a wrench and a Clutch.

Clutch is beautifully painted in green and brown colors. It really gives the good military vibes and with all the accessories, it truly is a nice figure. His colors and deco are a true testament to the original figure.

That’s all for now. See you back again soon for new figures or paraphernalia. Until then, Happy Collecting and YoJoe!

The same goes for the French.

Our small country is in fact 2 small countries that were fused together in 1830 to function as a buffer between the Netherlands and France. The northern part is Flanders and we speak Flemish (Dutch) here. The southern part is Wallonia and they speak French. For the longest time, the upper parts of society, the nobility and thus the ruling class, have spoken French. This caused a lot of issues during the 1st World War when the officers were only speaking French and the regular soldiers were Flemish farmers and laborers. The officers would declare their orders in French and would say ” et pour les Flamands, la même chose.” which translates to “and the same goes for the Flemish people.” which they didn’t understand and caused a lot of unnecessary hurt and deaths. To this day there are still tensions between the Flemish and the French speaking people. One benefit to all this is that we get taught Dutch & French in school (and even some German since a part of Germany was given to Belgium as retribution for the war). All this to get to my point, that I bought another French G.I. Joe comic book.

In France (and thus also for the French speaking part of Belgium), Vestron owns the rights to publish the G.I. Joe comics from the Marvel era. They are specialized in movie comics and trade paperbacks. This book contains a selection of G.I. Joe stories and trivia to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the comic book series in 2022. I just recently was able to find one. They have released and are releasing several other TPB’s from the Marvel run as well, mostly the later issues with Star Brigade and Ninja Force. They’re still on my want list.

The back even shows 208 pages! And Battle Force 2000.

The format of the book is slightly smaller than the U.S. trades we are familiar with, but bigger than a Japanese manga. The actual size is 23.5cm by 16.2cm (about 9.25 x 6.38 inches). Small but powerful, filled with action.

The stories they selected are: (in print order):

Issue #1 – Lady Doomsday
Issue #34 – Shake down!
Yearbook 2 – Triple play
Issue #21 – Silent Interlude
Issue #60 – Cross purposes
Issue #80 – Rolling Thunder
Issue #82 – Weeding out
Issue #152 – … just fade away

For each story, they have a short description, and a Do-you-know section (as we know, that’s half the battle).

We are here to follow orders, to try the impossible and make it look easy.

Speckled in between the stories are several filecard pages and the beautiful overview of the Pit.

At the end, they have placed a commercial for their next installment, a second compilation with unedited stories. The origin of Snake-Eyes and Storm Shadow, The creation of Serpentor and many more. They’re calling the books that follow the Maximum Action Super Special series.

With this salute, we’ve reached the end of this post. See you back soon and until then, Happy Collecting and YoJoe!

G.I. Mo?

As I’ve discussed on this blog many times before, I’m always on the lookout for the more “weirder” G.I. Joe stuff that is out there. Recently I came across an offer I couldn’t resist because of the rareness, and the fact that I have never seen this before. Let me present to you, 2 (out of 4) G.I. Joe comics that have been released in Arabic.

These comics are to be read from right to left – as they are printed like that :-). They were released in the early to mid nineties. Issue one was printed in black and white. The other 3 issues were in color. The ones I got, are issues 2-3. They match up with the Marvel issues #128-129 I believe.

There’s not a lot I could find on these comics. The fact that I can’t read Arabic is part of that, but since it was just such a small series that got released – I wonder why there wasn’t an audience in the Arab world for A Real American Hero comic book series? Pardon the sarcasm. The comics were probably released in the East part of the Arab countries (Iraq through Egypt), because the numerals on the cover are used there, in the Western part, they use the numbers like us.

There is a spread page with some interesting facts in each comic book. And near the end, there even is a crossword puzzle included (with the solution on the next page). There is also a lot of advertisements for other comic book series.

That’s all for now. See you soon. Until then, Happy Collecting and YoJoe!

Snakes in 3D

In my free time, I’m often browsing the web for G.I. Joe toys or G.I. Joe paraphernalia. Last week, I came across someone selling 2 3D printed busts of Serpentor and Cobra Commander online. I struck a deal and now they are here!

The Serpentor statue is displayed on a matching golden Cobra logo. Did I mention already that they are hand painted by the artist? It’s very nicely done and if you ask me, top quality stuff here.

Up close, you can see the typical lines left by the 3D printer, but it really is a smooth figure when you feel it. The details are very finely done.

The Cobra Commander bust is a bit smaller and is resting on a small round pedestal. The colors here are sublime!

Here as well, on the image you can see the lines, but in person, the statue is smooth and looks stunning.

If you’re interested in getting one for yourself or maybe you’ll find other prints you like, go and check out the artist’s Instagram page over on www.instagram.com/Frenchy3D. There are a lot of Comic Book figures, movie characters, a Nike shoe, Funko Pop logo, … hundreds of very cool prints.

That’s all for now. See you again soon, until then… Happy Collecting and YoJoe!