Tuesday 15 March 2011

G.I. Joe

I don’t know much about the G.I Joe universe.

I only remember having one of the 12-inch movable figures.

My friend had another and of course brought it over to have
adventures with mine. That was the marketing genius of it I guess.

This is the “Abominable Snow man” action figure. He had snow gear, a gun,
and other snow related accessories to help in the capture of the fearsome
Yeti. I had nothing more to say on the subject, but drawing that little
boot (I always lost one boot) brought back a vivid memory of putting on
and taking off G.I. Joe’s foot wear. I remember that the plastic seam on
the shoe eventually would tear (as it was a tight fit) and I felt
betrayed by the cheap workmanship.

How I wished for Joe to have quality foot wear!

Addendum: Simon's post made me realize I left out my Joe's complete bio and
the reason he is depicted naked here.

I often took the clothes off so I could put them in water
and subject them to freeze experiments in the ice box.
After that they were subjected to heat endurance tests
on the grill which caused irreparable scaring and deformations.
My Joe eventually lost his head riding a metal death slide I built
on the stairs using an Erector set from the 50's. For those
who don't know, Erector sets from the 50's were full of dangerous sharp
metal parts and I often needed band aids after building something with it
or getting my fingers caught in the moving gears of the heavy
electric motor that came with the set.

Thus, poor Joe's plastic 1970's esthetic didn't stand a chance against
the sharp metal toy tools of the cold war era.


6 comments:

  1. A soldier, yet, so fragile, so human.

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  2. Ha! Human except for the (always curious and baffling to 5 year olds) lack of genitalia.

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  3. first, you draw a naked G.I.Joe, then you bemoan its lack of genitalia... I grow concerned, Timothy...

    Also, I am tempted to tie this all into your Sasquatch fixation.

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  4. My "Five year old" self was baffled as to why he
    was made to be so. No bemoaning.

    Your point made me realize I left out much of his story though. Thus, I "O'Connored" out and added many more nouns and verbs to my post.

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  5. G.I. Joe: A Life of Stoic Suffering

    Pixar should do THAT movie!

    ReplyDelete
  6. But did you add adverbs? True O'Connorization rests almost completely in how easily and superfluously you bulk up your verbiage with words that are not necessarily needed, but still are mostly pleasing to the ear. See?

    ReplyDelete