Planet Comicon 2016
We were fortunate to be able to cover Kansas City’s Planet Comicon for its fourth year in a larger venue. 2016 was even bigger than previous years, in terms of size and scope. Along with vendors, artists, writers and guests, there was a large contingent of cosplayers, including the GI Joe costume group The Finest. They returned with their life-sized bivouac setup, and also featured a variety of characters including a female Cobra trooper and Cobra-turned-Joe Mercer. The group as always is great fun to stop and talk GI Joe costuming in the midst of Jedi, Stormtroopers and Deadpools of every stripe. Joe A Day contributors KansasBrawler and Twitziller were also in attendance, and it was great to hang out in real-life with Joe buds.
Also at the con, my other project (plug plug) the Toy Department Podcast presented a panel about the history of the action figure. It was a fast-paced overview of the subject crammed into 50 minutes. Of course, GI Joe was a key figure (pun intended) in the timeline. The panel prep was the reason why I’ve missed a few days in the last few weeks. I’m a bad blogger. Anyway, the panel audio will be posted to the podcast page at ttdpod.com very soon. Planning has already begun for next year’s panel–maybe it’ll be about the psychological toll of maintaining a daily action figure blog.
It’s got to be fun to talk about the hobby like that. It’s awesome you’ve got a hometown forum to do so. How did this come about? Was it something you approached the con organizers with?
The convention takes applications for panels. This is my third year presenting. In 2014 I did a 50 years of GI Joe, and last year had a panel about comic book heroes merchandising in the years before the current trend.
”G.I.Joe is here to stay.”
Sounds like a blast Rob.