"I haven't been very good about updating the 'work' section of this site lately (so much of what I've done in the recent past is app coding, which doesn't show off very well)" is what I wrote in 2013 as introduction to a post promoting the first postcard design I'd made to promote a local Halloween event.

Well, I've still got that job.

As you can see, zombies are taking a bit of a back seat to super heroes these days. As well they should.

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The single greatest comic book page ever published:

Seems that Stallone's Rocky was in talks to join Sgt. Slaughter and William "Refrigerator" Perry as a Joe in 1987, but negotiations fell through, leading to the publication of the above totally-awesome page in 1986's G.I. Joe: Order of Battle comic book. Details can be found here and here.

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G.I.Joe's latest relaunch, G.I.Joe: Resolute, aired on Cartoon Network this weekend, and it suffers from all of the same problems as modern comics, I'm sorry to say. (No surprise: it was written by Warren Ellis, once of the writers most responsible for the modern bloodlust of mainstream comics.)

What's new about this G.I.Joe? Not much. Despite a clear and present danger to the governments of the world by terrorist organization Cobra, only the G.I.Joe team does anything about it. It remains unexplained how Cobra thinks they can take control of the world when none of their soldiers can hit the broad side of a barn with a gun. The Joes stay in "uniform" at all times, even if that means that Beachhead wears his balaclava inside an aircraft carrier. No Joe performs the mission for which s/he is most qualified: (Scarlet, not Ripcord, performs a HALO jumps into enemy territory, and Tunnel Rat, not Payload, goes into space to jury-rig a satellite). And Duke is still a quitter and all-around douche.

What's different? Other than the anime-influced style: death. Exactly 10,362,756 die in the first 5 minutes. (How's that for a specific number, eh? That includes the onscreen death count when Moscow is vaporized by an ultra high-tech Cobra particle cannon.) Eighteen deaths later, we see the supposedly heroic Roadblock laugh maniacally as he guns down 7 Cobra guards from behind. And Duke, shortly after ordering his own subordinates to abandon him to die, decides that the solution to the episode's conflict is the assassination of Cobra Commander. (Take note, Duke; if you kill your principal antagonist, it's harder to sell accessory packs for all the environments that you didn't show in the episode.)

No matter how you slice it, that's a lot of animated death for television designed to sell toys. "The new G.I.Joe, now with more armageddon!"

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Ah, Christmas, a time of year to put aside my daily troubles, spend time with family and friends, and beg for phat loot from Santa.

I was always kind of pissed that Santa never gave me a 7-1/2 feet long G.I.Joe U.S.S. Flagg Aircraft Carrier, but maybe he was doing me a favor. I'm not sure that I've ever been "ready for action" with a navy's worth of sailors. (Look, kid, you better be careful what you Wishbook for.)

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My brother and I have a debate raging about whether it is possible to sell just about anything on eBay. Check out my listing for a human arm!

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Selling my old 3-3/4" G.I.Joe figures on eBay has got me thinking: What the hell was Cobra Commander doing?

The stated goals of Cobra were to destroy the American Way of Life on their way to total world domination. I'm not exactly sure how those two goals go together. To rule the world you have to overthrow Coca-Cola and Apple Pie? Rednecks and hillbillies are crucial obstacles to global monarchy? Microsoft seems to be doing fine, and Bill Gates doesn't wear a stupid blue handkerchief on his head.

On TV Cobra Commander was a coward with a speech impediment, which sort of explained why he would want to take over the world. But why did this loser have any followers? You can understand how Dr. Mindbender could combine a bunch of corpses to create a more charismatic leader. And worse yet, in the comics Cobra Commander had a son ("Billy"). Who would sleep with a freak like Cobra Commander? I'm sure Billy had some great genes; 1/2 from a sociopath megalomaniac, 1/2 from a blind, alcoholic hooker. We'll definitely be seeing Billy on Dr. Phil one of these days.

Could Cobra really have been so powerful that the entire U.S. military couldn't stop them? The solution: create a very, very small band of quasi-elite soldiers in useless specialized fields (Muskrat on Swamp Patrol?) to combat the titanic global juggernaut that was Cobra. Regular U.S. hardware and hundreds of thousands of well trained soldiers weren't good enough so the brass hired Canadians to help out in the fight. They never turned to any other country for help. (I always thought that Dial Tone looked a little French with his little mustache, but that's beside the point.) Other countries had to fend for themselves against a cohesive global menace. Russia had it's own anti-Cobra force, the October Guard, who employed even fewer members than the Joes did. Great military powers no doubt think alike. World War 3 breaks out, and the countries of the world decide that 100 soldiers with specializations in "Deceptive Warfare" and "Pirate" are going to hold the line. I feel safer already.

On a side note, the well-groomed chrome-domed Destro was supposedly a master weaponsmith and exclusive weapon supplier for Cobra. You would have thought that he could have made a laser rifle that could hit something. And yet the genius that Cobra Commander was, he kept buying from him.

I played with these toys for years and never once realized how ridiculously stupid it all was. To think that I simply accepted all of this at face value during my formative development. At least no one ever tried to pitch me on the concept of an omnipotent but impersonal universal architect when I was a child. *shudder*. Knowing is half the battle.

Yo Joe!

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