While other brands and toylines were revealing their coveted San Diego ComicCon exclusives, G.I. Joe fans were sitting on their hands saying “what about us”?!

Well, no longer!  USA Today writer and geek extraordinaire Brian Truitt reveals today via USA Today that the 2013 San Diego ComicCon exclusive G.I. Joe set will contain a Skystriker redeco into Autobot Jetfire, a VAMP redeco into Autobot Hound, as well as Snake Eyes, the Baroness (with Ravage) and Bludgeon!

At JoeCon 2013, John Warden mentioned that this year’s set would “fill in some gaps” of past ComicCon sets and indeed it has, finally giving  us some Autobots to battle against the Decepticons of the past two years.  The USA Today article also posted a great gallery of all of the necessary images as well.

Check out the great USA Today article for all of the juicy details, and take a peek at the mirrored images below.  That Jetfire looks GREAT.  Awesome retooled thrusters on the back…and that Ravage?  Woah.  Another fantastic entry into the G.I. Joe/Transformers ComicCon Lexicon!

EDIT – Thanks to the crack staff at YoJoe we now have much larger images of the exclusives!

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We talked about it quite a bit leading up to the 2013 G.I. Joe Convention in Indianapolis, and now the episode is online for all of our listeners to enjoy!  The What’s on Joe Mind crew held a panel at JoeCon where we interviewed Brian Savage from the G.I. Joe Collectors Club, took input from the audience, and generally had a great time.

Check out this Special Edition episode on our Podbean page, or the embedded links below.  Show Notes are at the bottom.

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During this year’s JoeCon, WOJM was allowed the very unique opportunity to host a panel for the attendees.  Thus, “WOJM Live!” was born.  Join Mike, Justin and Gary as they interview the GIJCC’s own “Headman,” Mr. Brian Savage himself.  Yes, for the first time ever, the club submits to an interview…what will they say?  Following the interview, we send Mike out into the crowd to talk about your one-word issues.  What will the randomness result in when our own “Roving Mike” put a microphone in front of a stranger’s mouth?  So in case you’ve missed it (like Chuck), here is WOJM on-stage debut at the 2013 JoeCon in Indy!  Enjoy!

The 2013 G.I. Joe Convention is now behind us, and What’s on Joe Mind is prepared to move forward into the bright future of the G.I. Joe brand.  In this episode we tackle G.I. Joe Convention news and notes, talking about the concept case, take reader mail, and get generally pissy about various things.

But hey, if we weren’t a little pissy, you guys would wonder what was wrong with us!  In all honesty, it’s a great, very up front episode with a LOT of straight-up G.I. Joe talk.  Nothing fancy.  Check out the latest episode on our Podbean page, or through the embedded players below.  Show notes are after the jump.

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The time has come!  We are just about two weeks removed from the 2013 G.I. Joe Convention in Indianapolis, and I finally have everything together to post the review.  I’m doing something a little different this year, rather than a single combined review, I actually separated everything into a whopping eighteen separate reviews.

Yes, eighteen.

In times past I’ve pushed the reviews out a day or two at a time, but I think this set is so intertwined, it would be very tough to do that.  All of the reviews are cross referenced in a single hub page for the overall look and feel of the Convention Set.  Check out the main hub review at the link below, and the other reviews are linked as well:

• 2013 G.I. Joe Nocturnal Fire Convention Boxed Set
  • Convention Boxed Set “Hub”
  • Charbroil
  • Cobra Mortal
  • Crimson Asp
  • Frag Viper
  • Hit & Run
  • Letal
  • Muskrat
  • Psyche Out
  • Repeater
  • SAW Viper
  • Spearhead
• 2013 G.I. Joe Nocturnal Fire Convention Extras
  • FLAK w/ Steeler
  • Chuckles
  • Freestyle
  • Lady Jaye
  • Night Boomer
  • Kre-O 6-Pack and Hit & Run ParaDrop

These reviews will, of course, also be linked at the G.I. Joe Collectors Club exclusives page as well.  Enjoy!

Man, consider me impressed.

Last year when I launched the concept case surveys for the 2012 JoeCon, I was impressed by the turn out… within the first week I’d gotten about 600 responders, and kept the survey open an additional week so I could capture around 1400 all told throughout the period of… three weeks I think?

Well at this point the 2013 Concept Case survey has been up for about 3 days and there are already over 700 responses!  You guys ROCK.

If you haven’t participated yet, please do so!  Please note, this survey is completely and totally unofficial and not endorsed by Hasbro, but as mentioned at the Hasbro seminar at JoeCon, they are looking for any feedback they can get.  YOUR VOTE MATTERS.

Check out the Concept Case Survey right here and let your voice be heard!

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Down the road a little bit in New Jersey, they have been building a really great collectors convention, and the 2013 NJCC is preparing to hit us at the end of the month!  One of the coolest things about NJCC has been the evolution of their exclusive custom figures.  HISS Tanks kicked off the exclusive give away program, but that has evolved to some really great exclusive figures, using customized parts cast only for the show!

The last exclusive was an amazing 30th Anniversary update of Metalhead, and now Kevin Watts, the brainiac behind the design and implementation of these exclusive figures, dips back into 1990 and pulls out Salvo!  Salvo has been a long time favorite character of mine, and this update is pretty inspired.  A great new helmet, and an excellent modded rocket launcher highlight this great looking figure, which even has a customized armored vest.

Information on the NJCC show is below:

New Jersey Collectors Con

Holiday Inn Cherry Hill – New Jersey
2175 West Marlton Pike (Rt. 70), Cherry Hill, NJ 08002
Sunday, April 28th, 2013

And you can find the NJCC on Facebook as well.  Full details on the figure give aways at NJCC can be found on HissTank.com.

Granted this one is a lot more low key than the infamous Concept Case survey that  GeneralsJoes helped lead last year, but with some more new concept figures being shown in Indianapolis last weekend, it seemed like a good idea to kick another one of these off.

There were only a handful of new figures shown, and those figures will be the focus of this round of surveys.  However, depending on the results of this one, expect another round at some point to take the winners of the 2012 survey and the winners of this survey for a more all encompassing look at every concept figure shown thus far.

You can hit up the Survey at the SurveyMonkey page itself, or embedded below.  This one should be a quickie.

Holy crap when did this go up?  Either I wasn’t paying attention the past few days, or I forgot entirely, but apparently Special Edition #30 of What’s on Joe Mind has been posted!  We recorded this episode straight from the JoeCon sales floor, bringing in a few of our favorite people for on-the-spot interviews, and even got cameos by some show regulars!  What the heck was Chuck’s mom even DOING there?!

Check out the latest Special Edition on our Podbean page, or through the embedded players below.

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So were our trio drunk or not for Special Edition #29…or did they lead you to think that?  Well if you think that is controversial, wait until you hear this report, “LIVE” from the sales floor.  Join Mike, Justin and Gary as they record directly out of the COIL Club’s booth, which is dead center of the sales floor.  The guys will report on what has happened thus far to this point in the show and interview friends and listeners as they stroll by.  You will also recognize two of the personalities we talk to as regular show “contributors”.  Who could they be?  You have to listen and find out.  No beers were consumed during this recording, but if you hate the consumption of donuts, you may want to skip this one.  Enjoy!!

• GeneralsJoes 2013 G.I. Joe Convention Coverage

Okay, hear me out on this one.

I know the rumbling through the online community has been somewhat negative in light of Hasbro’s lack of new product to be shown at the 2013 G.I. Joe Convention in Indianapolis this past weekend.  In fact, not only were people bothered by a lack of new product, when Hasbro showed some more concept items, some fans got visibly upset, thinking that this was just a “tease” for items that would likely not be offered.

Let me once again put on my “Hasbro Apologist” hat and tell everyone…  don’t be so quick to be discouraged.  I think there are some simple explanations for why Hasbro presence was down this year, and I think there are some reasons to be looking forward to the year ahead for G.I. Joe fans.  Click the Read the Rest of the Story link below for more.

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Announced on Facebook a short while ago, the canvHISS Project promised to be a very intriguing experiment by long time collector and G.I. Joe fan Kevin Watts.  Always having a fascination with the HISS Tanks, basing many of his custom vehicles around it, Kevin has now brought it more into the art spectrum.

Working alongside a few collaborators, Kevin presented the first ever demonstration of the CanvHISS Project, which takes the HISS Tank template and uses it to create unique forms of art.  Sometimes that art is a custom vehicle, but sometimes it is something completely different.  John from JoeCustoms submitted a very unique Wizard of Oz project, while Nova presented a fantastic homage to Knight Rider, with a real strobing red headlight.

Your imagination is really your only limit, and the exhibit is quite fascinating.  It premiered at JoeCon, and you can see the gallery below.  The next time this awesome experiment will be debuted will be at New Jersey Collectors’ Convention April 28, 2013.  Check out more details on this great project at the CanvHISS Project Facebook Page, and some images are mirrored below.

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