This morning, the mailman stopped by to drop off a package. Not too big, but very thick.
Compendium One – Front Cover
Collecting the first 50 issues of the G.I. Joe Marvel comic cook series, this massive book comes in at around 1160 pages of not only exciting stories, but also real pieces of art.
Compendium One – Back Cover
They state that Pop culture changed forever, and I fully agree with that. This series has had an impact on so many of us. It’s only fitting that it gets a prominent place in our collections. I couldn’t financially get in with the Kickstarter for the Hardcover books, but when I saw this pop up online, I tried to get my hands on one. My local comic book store couldn’t order them for some reason, luckily I was able to find one online.
Compendium One – Side view
I’ve put in a Classified scale Snake Eyes, so you can get a feel for the size of book. It really is a thick one. The paper itself is quite nice, almost like the original floppy comics. I just hope that the spine is strong enough not to tear over time.
That’s all for now. I have some reading to do 🙂 See you again soon, until then… Happy Collecting and YoJoe!
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.
Maximum Action – Tome 1-2-3
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).
Tome 3 – To infinity and beyond!
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!
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.
200 pages of action
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.
Facebook copied this!
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.
Salute!
With this salute, we’ve reached the end of this post. See you back soon and until then, Happy Collecting and YoJoe!
Convince me otherwise. You can’t. I know. Don’t sweat it. Give in to it and become an art collector as well.
In preparation of the previous blog post on the Marvel ARAH Special Missions #1, I came across the website of artist Mike Zeck, who did the cover art for that issue. As it happens, he is selling some Joe prints in his shop and naturally I placed an order. Below you can see the prints I got. They were shipped in very sturdy packaging and very fast considering they had to travel halfway across the globe to get here.
Anyway, check out his site and shop for yourself and order some of these gorgeous prints for your mancave, study, living room or art wall. Visit the site on https://www.mikezeck.com/shop.
This is just iconic! Check out the last post where I go into more detail about this Special Mission.
Spot Roadblock?
Snake and Scars… A better couple than Kim & Kanye if you ask me.New comic book, still great cover art!
Let me end by saying that this post is not sponsored in any way. I’m doing this all for the love of Joe (boy, that doesn’t sound as good as I thought it would) and my love for fine art! Support your local comic book shops and the artists bringing you joy and fun every Wednesday!
This is just iconic! Check out the last post where I go into more detail about this 
Spot Roadblock?
Snake and Scars… A better couple than Kim & Kanye if you ask me.
New comic book, still great cover art!