The truth is I've been very busy, both professionally and personally. I've got a son on the way this fall, and that's been chewing up time and mental energy, and I've got several books I'm working on.
Still,I feel remiss. I know that animation models are a big focus of this blog, and here I am sitting on a metric ass-ton of them for G.I. Joe and not sharing them. Well, that's all going to change. While I've more-or-less exhausted my horde of G1 TF models (took a few years but I did) for Joe I'm just getting started.
Which brings me to my point. The G.I. Joe Field Manual V2 is hitting stores now. It covers animation models for the G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero cartoon season 2, the Sunbow commercials from 1987-1989, and the DiC cartoon. 208 pages chocked full of goodness, including the S2 bigwigs like Serpentor (four pages!), Hawk, Sgt. Slaughter, Lifeline, Leatherneck and Wetsuit, Dial-Tone, Doctor Mindbender, Zarana and more. Plus I sneak in some earlier characters with new outfits, including virtually the whole Cobra command staff in formal wear (Cobra Commander, Zartan, and Destro in tuxedos. The Baroness in a stunning evening gown!) and the DiC take on Duke and Snake-Eyes. Throw in tons of minor characters and you've got a pretty neat offering, I think. With all that just coming out, what better time could there be to start spelunking into my archives of Joe models?
The question becomes, what to start with? Last night I did another episode of the What's On Joe Mind podcast and Mike Irizzarry reminded me about how much fun some of the guys had at JoeCon looking at material cut from the Field Manual V2. In particular, on a two-page spread of ancient Greece, the guys thought it was HILARIOUS that I had a set of models labeled 'Sick Kids.' So, I share them with you now in the inaugural G.I. Joe Field Manual Addendum.For those wondering, there are models for these ancient warriors, sheperds, and, yes, sick kids because an alien artifact sent some of the Joes and Cobras back in time in the episode G.I. Joe and the Golden Fleece. I've got another couple of pages of models to share from this episode too, plus tons more covering the entirety of the Joe Sunbow tv show. So, what say you, Joe fans. Should I next week continue with G.I. Joe and the Golden Fleece, or visit another episode? Any particular requests for what I should do next? Let me know, I aim to please. And pick yourself up a copy of the second G.I. Joe Field Manual if you haven't already.
Please post every single joe item not included he field manuals. Especially any storyboards.
ReplyDeleteAck, I can tell you that storyboards would be impossible to do outside of a few sample pages. Each episode for these kinds of series back then would average about 300-400 (or more) 3-panel ( or 2-panels per page)storyboard pages. That's just ONE 22 minute episode.....and there's several dozen episodes for this series.
ReplyDeleteThe drawings would have been done on anything from 8.5X11" sized pages, to 11X17" storyboard template pages, so to clearly show the 'board pages in the Field Manual's format would mean maybe one to three storyboard pages per book page. That would add another 100 minimum pages to the Manual for just ONE episode's storyboard.
Now that said, I do have my own "impossible request" that maybe be a tiny bit more likely: in Volume one there were the montages of the director's notes and series bible material on the inside from and back cover. From my experience as a storyboard artist and animator, these kinds of notes are where the real "meat and potatoes" info and insight can be found.
There's bound to be a lot of these notes in the course of a production, but the tid-bits shown in the montage showed some interesting stuff.
This will likely be dry reading stuff for most folks that would get this kind of book--the model sheets are the main attraction, but the REAL "behind-the-scenes" info is often in the directors notes, and I'd personally enjoy seeing this kind of stuff in a subsequent volume.
BTW Jim, check out this:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.allspark.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=93711&st=0&start=0
:)
I've seen that stuff, D.M. Pretty neat material!
ReplyDelete