Masters of the Universe Paint & Playset

At Retro Con I found a one of the He-Man Die Cast Miniature figure sets I've been hoping to find. Grenadier Models released four sets of miniatures for Mattel in 1983. As a kid I collected an painted miniatures from many different manufactures. When I was in elementary school I focused on fantasy miniatures. Eventually in middle school I started painting more Sci-Fi miniatures. The front of the Battle Ram Attack Force set box has a great illustration on the top and a photo of a painted set. This set contains several miniatures, a set of paints, and a little plastic terrain piece.

Below is a another pictures of the painted sample of the set from the back of the package.

 

The Battle Ram miniature is actually made up of two pieces. It looks spot on to the vintage toy.

 

The He-Man figure is posed as a rider for the Battle Ram. Unfortunately this miniature came with a broken ax. The past 30 years has been rough on these soft metal figures.

 

Zodac is also a "rider" figure for this set.

 

Here are the two riders posed with the Battle Ram. It would be really cool if the Jet Sled 

could disconnect from the wagon portion of the Battle Ram.

This set also includes the Laser Cannon from Castle Grayskull

Like He-Man, the Skeletor figure in my set is damaged. The ram's head on his Havoc Staff is broken.

(and missing... bummer)

 

Beastman and armed with his whip and Tri-Klops with his sword.

 

 Faker with his sword and shield. In true Faker fashion, he looks almost like He-Man, 

but you can see he is wearing the Skeletor style armor.

Teela wearing her snake armor while posed in an interesting crouched position.

 

The Battle Begins!

 

I'm tempted to paint these little guys. I know that painting them will kill their value, but I think it would be fun to do. Since two of the figures are damaged it help me not feel so bad if I do paint the set, but since I have the box and everything I kind of want to keep them as is. Oh well. What do you think?

Retro Con Car Show

Another cool feature of Retro Con 2013 was the (Pop Culture) Car Show. The only thing missing was a Batmobile. There was a Back to the Future Time Machine inside the Expo Center parked by the Tardis instead of outside with the other cars.

Scooby Doo - Mystery Machine

Jurassic Pack - Jeep

 Knight Rider - KITT

Bubble Bee next to Starsky & Hutch

KITT and the General Lee

The General Lee and Daisy Duke's Car from Dukes of Hazzard

 

The Sheriff of Hazzard County's Car

Masters of the Universe Golden Books

My first purchase at Retro Con was four MOTU Golden Books. As I mentioned in my Retro Con overview I was totally overwhelmed by everything early in the morning. There was so much stuff to look at, I wasn't sure what to buy. When I saw these He-Man books for a buck a piece and decided to grab them. I didn't even notice that one of them was a repeat. The books are The Rock Warriors, Caverns of Fear, and two copies of Time Trouble.

I did not have any of these books as a kid, but I have a VHS tape that featured limited animation videos of Caverns of Fear and Time Trouble that were created using the art from the books. I never liked the video as much as the Filmation Cartoon, but long after the cartoon was off the air, I could still watch that video. I have very vivid memories of the video because I watched it so often. The books do have pretty great art work and feature quite a few different characters from the Eternia.

If you want to see the limited animation version of Caverns of Fear check out the video below.

Retro Con Celebrities

Once again this year Retro Con has a nice line-up of Celebrity Guests. The guest list included internet personalities, authors, artists, and actors. The Angry Video Game Nerd, Nostalgia Critic and Mr. Lobo are all pop culture reviewers of internet fame. Larry Hama and Bob Budiansky are both important comic book writers and Hasbro employees if you follow either one of Hasbro's biggest brands. Larry wrote the entire original comic book run for GI Joe and penned most of the file cards featured on their packages. Bob wrote the Transfomers Tech Specs and many early issues of their comic. Neil Ross who voiced many characters in 80's cartoons was on hand as well as Don Fullilove who played Mayor Goldie Wison in Back to the Future.

 

Right inside the main room of the convention Mark Bellomo and Larry Hama had table butted up against each other. Mark is responsible for some amazing toy books like The Ultimate Guide to G.I. Joe 1982-1994 and Totally Tubular 80's Toys. Larry, as mention in the intro is the man behind the personality given to each and every GI Joe figure. I love talking with Mark about all the projects he's got in the works. Larry took time to talk to fan when approached, but most of the day he quietly sketched comic characters for fans.

Larry had a sign up sheet on his table for sketches. All you had to do was write down your name and the character you wanted. Each pencil sketch took about fifteen minutes depending on how often he stopped to sign autographs. He charged twenty dollars for the sketches, but he did not accept money up front. I asked him do draw Beach Head for me. He was always one of my favorite characters. Beach Head was the very first brand new GI Joe I ever got straight out of the package. His role of training the "Rawhides" in GI Joe the movie is such an important part of my childhood.

Retro Con was the 2nd time I met Larry Hama, but the first time I knew ahead of time. So I had to bring some old issues of GI Joe with me. I own almost every issue of the original comic series. In the photo above you can see I took Issue #21 "Silent Interlude", Issue #1, and Special Mission #1. Larry commented on how great the condition was of my first printing of Issue #21.

I've gone back and forth a few times about buying the hardback GIJoe: The Complete Collection volumes. Since I already own all the early issues of the comics it seems repetitive, but these books are really nicely put together and it saves me digging issues out of comic boxes if I want to reread them. Mark Bellomo had copies with him for sale, since he is compiling the books and wrote a very interesting forward at the beginning of each volume. I figured now was the chance to get them signed my both Mark and Larry so I picked up Vol 1 and 2.

 The other guest I was very excited to meet was Neil Ross. He is know for his work on many 80's cartoons including GI Joe, Transformers, and Voltron to name a few. Shipwreck always had such a great presence in the old cartoon, and most of that was thanks to Neil's Jack Nicholson like voice for the sailor. I talked with Neil a little about working in voice acting back in the day. I told him that Shipwreck was one of my favorites from the GI Joe  cartoon and he said in character, "Well, thanks for saying so Matey!" I had Neil sign a 25th Anniversary Shipwreck figure.

Retro Con Cos-Players

Well there certainly were a lot of people in costumes at Retro Con this year. I didn't take pictures of even half of the people dressed up as all sorts of characters. Many were very clearly homemade while others appeared to be extremely professional. There was a 501st Star Wars group as well as a GI Joe costume club set up in the lobby of the convention.

Sharknado, Flash Gordon, and a Tuskin Raider

Beach Head, Snake-Eyes, (GI Joe comic author Larry Hama is in the background)  and Buzzer

Dr. Who Characters and a Red Power Ranger

Ram Man and Unemployed Skeletor (of Internet fame)

Sgt. Slaughter and Roadblock

Batman, Robin, Harley, and Bane

Retro Con '13 Overview

This was the 2nd year for the Philadelphia area pop culture show, Retro Con. This year was bigger and better than last year. Retro Con has really done a nice job of establishing itself as an annual convention. Last year there were a handful of guests, a costume contest, and lots of toy dealers. This year Retro Con added panels and a pop culture car show as well as expanding on everything they had to offer during their first event.

The ticket table as you came into the convention. One of the show organizers, Tony is seated along with a Ghostbuster and Mike the ticket taker. (I've mentioned Tony and Mike in my posts about the Wayne Toy Show and NJCC).

 

This yarn craft Luigi was my gift for pre-ordering my ticket. I also go a Retro Con 2013 button.

I enjoyed seeing all the families sharing the joy of toy collecting and pop culture . 

Here is a father/son toy dealer that stocked mostly Transformer toys.

 

The Comic Store from Delaware had a huge booth again this year. They had the GI Joe '83 Head Quarters with its box as well as a vintage Skystriker to name a few toys.

Like last year, there were several artists selling paintings, prints, and self-published comics.

There were literally so many toys at the show that I was overwhelmmed. I couldn't figure out what to buy for the first half hour I was there. Don't worry, I got over it eventually and bought a ton of stuff. I know several of the artists, collectors, and toy resellers that were at Retro Con. We had an inside joke thoughout the day focused around the guy in the checked shirt in the picture above. He looks eerily like my buddy Paul's father. We kept talking about the guy Cos-playing as Paul's dad.

Later in the day I bought some of the toys in this picture. 

Toy Book Author, Mark Bellomo also bought some of the toys seen in this picture.

I saw a lot of people having fun playing retro games at the Too Many Games booth. I wish I has my camera on me when a little kid dressed as Mario was playing Super Mario Brothers.

I still can't believe how many amazing toys I saw for sale at Retro Con. Rose and Tony, rest up today because tomorrow it's time to start planning for Retro Con 2014!

I'll be posting about the pop culture car show, costumes, and the toys I bought in the next few days.

Retro Con Report Coming Soon...

I went. I saw. I conquered. I had a blast today at Retro Con. The show was twice as big as last year. I got to meet and talk with everybody I wanted to from authors to voice actors to toy collecting friends. I bought a ton of stuff again this year, and some of it is pretty wacky. My buddy Paul even let me take my 2nd GI Joe Air Craft Carrier to the show and stick it in the back of his video game booth. It didn't sell, but that was the old disappointments. I know it's not the kind of thing that you impulse buy anyway. I'm super tired right now so I'm not going to try to post my overview report tonight.

Just for the sake of randomness I'm going to leave you guys with a picture of me and my construction crew buddies. This pictures was taken while we were working on renovations to the upstairs of my house.