Brian Savage interview on General Joes

[Dominic]

He talks a bit about BotCon as well.

http://generalsjoes.com/2013/05/03/what ... is-online/

[JediTricks]

He talks a bit about BotCon as well.

http://generalsjoes.com/2013/05/03/what ... is-online/

No text means no care. I like to read interviews, not listen through them. What is the pertinent intel you gleaned from it?

[Dominic]

I tend to agree about reading rather than listening.

The relevant bits start at just past the 10 minute mark.

Savage points out something that most of us have probably noticed. Specifically, he points out that Joe fans are in more for the toys and Transfans (dammit, the word is too good not to use) are in more for characters/story. This really is not suprising. Pre-IDW, Joe fans generally eschewed non-Hama content. If they were in primarily for the story, they would have had little incentive to stay in past '94 until about 2 years ago.

The room at large admits that Joe fans are bitter fuck-wits.

And, Savage gives a pretty succinct history of Fun Publications' roots as a toy dealer's newletter.


Dom
-and that might explain why their content standards are so low.

[Gomess]

I have relatively fond memories of GI Joe having decently constructed characters, are they wrong?

Never had any interest in the franchise, but I thought the card bios were nice and detailed when I saw them as a kid.

[Dominic]

Savage was referencing how current fans generally view the respective properties. And, from what I have seen, he is generally right. Most TF fans want toys of specific characters (even if they are non-sensical recolours). And, most Joe fans want toys. ("Cobra Pilot, because....Cobra Pilot.")


I cannot speak to the UK file cards, (as I have only seen a handful of them). But, if they were anything like the old comics, they were likely pretty good. (Going to move this to the Joe thread for the sake of keeping the forums organized.)

[BWprowl]

Savage points out something that most of us have probably noticed. Specifically, he points out that Joe fans are in more for the toys and Transfans (dammit, the word is too good not to use) are in more for characters/story. This really is not suprising.

This is surprising to me, actually. Mainly because Joes, as toys, are rather basic and aren't super compelling (One could even argue that they're all effectively the same toy, over and over. How much more interest is there to be found in 'Cobra Pilot' vs 'Greenshirt Dude'? They both pretty much 'do' the same thing.), while TFs pretty much blow everything else out of the water in terms of play, fiddle, and actually-doing-something value. I'll happily buy a toy of a TF character I know nothing or don't even care about (look at all the TFPrime toys I've amassed) because I know it could still be an interesting *toy* that I haven't experienced before, while I know a figure of a given GI Joe probably isn't going to do anything for me beyond 'be an action figure of some dude I don't care about'.

I dunno, just strikes me as odd.

[Dominic]

Joe figures are traditionally very well detailed. And, the removable bits provide variation. There is also the fact that Joes are (traditionally) more custom friendly than Joes.

Even a well-customized Transformer is still only going to be so different from the base figure. But, Joes allow for more part-swapping. And, it will matter which parts that somebody uses.