Art of GI Joe ARAH Omnibus

[nacho]

Just an FYI....the kickstarter for this book still has a week to go, and it blew through the funding goals, stretch goals, and has made the 3DJoe guys dig deep to make the volume extra special. The funding goal was 35K and it's approaching a quarter mil, so they're going all-out.

I backed some of their earlier softcopy editions of various years, but this collects everything from ARAH ('82-'94) into one huge 500pg 13"x13" slipcase hardcover, with every figure card fully restored and archival printed at 1:1 scale. Also includes vehicle packaging artwork, other merch artwork, process sketches, unreleased designs, interviews with Joe creators, etc... it kinda seems to have it all.

Most comic book omnibi from Marvel/DC have $125-$150 cover prices these days, so if you're an ARAH nostalgia wank like me, $100 is a pretty fair price for a massive tome like this. I highly doubt that anything this comprehensive will be compiled again, just due to the staggering amount of work. Would hate for anyone that cares to miss out.

 

[ThunderDan19]

Cool stuff! Not something I’m in the market for, but I’m still very happy to see it got so much support. Hasbro should take note...

 

[nacho]

All that painted art is pretty special. These days, the package art for most toys is very... unsatisfying. Even the artwork on the sides of Classified figures is by a million different artists with wildly different styles. There is nothing cohesive/coherent about it, and no kid is going to remember it fondly in 40 years. It's all a big "meh".

But that painted stuff (mostly by Hector Garrido at the direction of Ed Morrill), in the style of classic guys like Earl Norem or fantasy guys like Boris Vallejo, it tells a story by itself. I look at some of those painted pieces and I wonder, just like I did as a kid, what kind of crazy story I just dropped into the middle of. Nothing is static, there are no mugshots, just action. Pretty cool.

 

[ThunderDan19]

Indeed. That artwork was something special. I don’t know of anything else quite as unique or iconic in the world of toys and collectibles. I suppose that I’m just spoiled having the Internet to look up the vast majority of it any time I want to look at one of the characters in all their original glory.

 

[nacho]

Agreed, looking them up is simple enough. I really appreciate the artwork from the other stuff... the posters, the covers of the choose-your-own-adventure books, the mail-away pamphlets that came with the vehicles, the magazine covers. It'll be nice to have all that stuff in one place I can look at offline, especially in a decade when Joe is cancelled for (insert SJW cause here) and it gets memory-holed on the interwebs.

 

[ThunderDan19]

Lol, I was going to say “I’ll wish I had jumped on this when the internet dies along with the rest of our society” at the end of my previous post, but didn’t want to bring the thread down with that kind of serious content, but since you brought up SJW cancellation...

 

[nacho]

Yeah, I like paper books for when the chinese/russians/ISIS destroy our power grid and we have to live in the dark for a couple of years while society implodes.

Forgive me, I just finished the Vince Flynn thriller Total Power, where that is a prominent plot point.

 

[ThunderDan19]

In the past couple days I've run across a couple videos where some of the creators I follow have just gotten their copy and, with my recent acute bout of nostalgia, I am starting to significantly warm up to this:


Since there's currently a lull of Joe CS figures I'm expecting or have PO'ed, I may just give in and order one, once tax refund time hits.

My only hesitation is that I have little interest or nostalgia for anything past 1989. But, the price being about the same (if they ever even stock them again) to get the separate volumes to that point anyway, I'll likely just suck it up and get the full omnibus.

I guess we'll see if I'm still as infected with the nostalgia bug and into it by the end of February...

Either way, from the video reviews I've seen, this offering is extremely impressive, even at the non-kickstarter price!

 

[nacho]

I got mine before x-mas and it's MASSIVE. I looked at it for hours and I'm nowhere near halfway through. Like you, I mostly care about the front half, but it's so thorough, so comprehensive, you feel like you're getting a PhD in Joe.

Totally worth the money, IMO. It's one of those things where if you passed it up and then saw one in person, you'd kick yourself hard for not grabbing it when you had the chance.

 

[ThunderDan19]

Weird that this has just made it to BBTS as a pre-order (considering they still have like 2200 remaining), but hey, a win is a win!

The Art of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero Omnibus Hardcover Set

The Art of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero Omnibus Hardcover Set

toynewsi.com

 

[nacho]

I think it only hit BBTS because they have so many leftover. If I put as much work as they did into this, I'd over-order too. But financial realities mean that they need to sell more to break even and get rid of excess stock.

They wouldn't include a middleman if they didn't have to. I think the PO is just because BBTS is probably waiting on a bulk/freight shipment from 3DJoes, i.e. it's not in stock for shipping but it's not like they're waiting on a new print run or anything. A couple hundred big-ass books probably just moving from one warehouse to another.

 

[ThunderDan19]

So maybe BBTS just bought out the remaining at a lower rate to resell? Hopefully it works(ed) out well for both parties, plus the consumer!

 

[nacho]

I think BBTS bought *some* of the excess.

Last update from the kickstarter explained that they were close to breaking even (finally, after selling extras for a year), but the DVD/Blu-ray sets were costing them a bundle. While the whole project was well-done, the entire time, they have been upgrading, expanding, enhancing the endeavor. Classic scope-creep, mostly out of a true love for the project and material. But it cost them more than expected or collected. They could have easily fulfilled the KS at the set rate, but they went above and beyond, hoping that the extra volume would sell, covering the extra costs.

While their actions aren't the best from a pure business perspective, we got an even better product out of the deal. Somewhere along the way, I kicked in an extra $10 just because the domestic shipping was eating them alive, i.e. it was way more than estimated during the campaign because of bidenflation. Just looking at the end product, it's clear they cut zero corners and tried to make a world class, definitive volume, and I appreciate that.

Mostly I think of the sheer man-hours these guys have dedicated to the project for the last four years, and they're going to be lucky to break even in the end. It's a good thing they really love this stuff.

 

[ThunderDan19]

I hope they can set aside the exhaustion of all that work and still take pride in such a beautiful achievement! Not sure what happened on the shipping on mine, I had fully expected to pay somewhere in the neighborhood of $35 (I remember seeing something about that on the website when I first looked into it) and ended up only paying half that.

I see that BBTS added about $10 to the list price, but it also says it qualifies for the $4 shipping. Not sure how they will pull that off and not lose on delivery as well. Maybe they have really good agreements with UPS or something. Anyway, I hope this helps take the load of the creators and all the remaining volumes ultimately go to fans who appreciate them.

I honestly wish they had kept offering the individual softcovers though as well though. The Omnibus is so freaking yuge that I literally have to go to the dining room table to look at it, for fear of damaging the pages if I try to hold it up and leaf through it. I end up having to limit the time I spend with it or end up with a neck ache from looking down for hours at a time. So it actually prevents me from easily discovering all that glorious backstory.

I get that they are a small operation and maintaining both was likely a little too much of a burden. I'll try to remember to check in over there now and then to see if they ever offer those again, once the Omnibus has run its course. They are like unicorns on the secondary market. Maybe that'll change as well, once all the Omnibuses get out there.

 

[nacho]

I have the first 3-4 volumes they did on kickstarter (all the way through '87 for sure), but they weren't nearly as thorough. The big book not only remasters most of the artwork, rescanned from originals, but they included a ton of new stuff too. So looking at the old single volumes will show you the main stuff, the big book will both look better and be far more comprehensive.

And I'm anxious to get all those DVDs to watch the interviews with artists and creators. I know they put a ton of it on youtube, but apparently the video quality was cut substantially for streaming.

Long long ago I bought some of their posters too. I haven't put them up anywhere, but a 24x36 "To the Rescue" is going to look great... somewhere... eventually.

 

[ThunderDan19]

Oh, so the volumes didn’t contain all the background info? That’s good to know. I guess I’ll abandon my search for those and just try to get ahold of a pulpit so I can comfortably read the big boy then! I’ll have to see what we’ve got stored around at church.

 

[nacho]

I don't know what fraction of the book is new material, but every KS update seemed to imply they'd found even more stuff. It's enough that I know my individual volumes are incomplete, but to what degree, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[ThunderDan19]

Whoa. I just stumbled across 3DJoes' next endeavor:

Maybe this is old news, but it's the first I'm finding it. Ambitious!!!

 

[nacho]

Yeah, I remember the Operation Recall kickstarter a year or two ago. I could have sworn there was a thread about it around here somewhere, but I can't find it.

It's a cool concept, especially since they're getting the original Joe creators involved. But without the nostalgia factor, I couldn't get excited about it. I'm old.

 

[ThunderDan19]

I went looking as well, thinking there was no way I was the first to have heard of this. Seems like it was too recent to have been disintegrated in one of the site crashes.

I agree it's a cool way to fulfill Carson's childhood dream (apparently along with that of a number of other fans), but I wonder if this one may be a bridge too far. Like you said, without the nostalgia, and, honestly, without Hector Garrido doing the artwork, I wouldn't consider it any more an extension/revival of OG GI Joe than Valaverse is.

And... I lost interest in O-rings the moment I saw the superiority of the 25th style.

And... I lost interest in 4" scale when I saw the superiority of the 6" figs.

I do wish them the best though!