Greetings and welcome. This blog is my response to the generally shoddy state of the one-sixth hobby. As I look around, 12" GI Joe is history except for the GI Joe Collector's Club, and even they are having a hard time selling the 40th Anniversary sets. Beyond that, there are a few 21st Century Toys vehicles with figures showing up here and there, some cool but sometimes hard-to-find offerings from M&C Power Team, some licensed figures from Sideshow and others, K-9 Corps (and some bottom-tier military stuff) from Lanard, and that's about it. It seems grim.
Yet what is especially disappointing is the poor morale among 1/6th collectors. Everywhere I look, I see people selling collections. Posts on the various forums and the Sandbox are down. People sit around and bash Hasbro (with and without reason) and generally act like it's the end of the world.
Well now, let's look at the up side of all this. I think in many ways, there's never been a better time to be in this hobby! There's a ton of 1/6th product out there, new and used, often at fire-sale prices! And now that we aren't all spending out time chasing the latest and greatest product, we actually have time to look at some of the stuff we've been buying for years. We have time to play with stuff, kitbash, and customize. And yeah, now you can put a lot of work into a custom without the fear that Hasbro or some other manufacturer is going to come along tomorrow and put your custom work to shame.
And what's really nice is, with the big-boys moving aside, we're starting to see customizing reappearing like in the old days. It's just great seeing things like hand-made vehicles, metal weapons, and detailed leather holsters, that these talented folks are putting out.
So what are we doing here? Well, I love photos. I love sharing photos of my stuff, and I love seeing photos of other people's collections. Unfortunately, the on-line Joe community, once focused on Usenet's "Sandbox" (alt.toys.gi-joe) is now scattered all over multiple forums, many of them on Yahoo. Yahoo no longer makes it easy to share photos in large quantities, and sharing photos over Usenet (only some servers allow posting and viewing of attachments on alt.toys.gi-joe, and alt.pictures.toys.gi-joe isn't carried on many servers, and has become clogged with porno- spam of late).
So, this is a place were I'm going to share my considerable archive of 1/6th photos taken over the last several years, and of course, any new stuff I have time take. My goal (and we'll see how it goes) is to post at least one new picture every day (unless I'm away from my office). My hope is that you'll be able to come back here an any given day with the assurance of seeing something new, and possibly interesting.
Are you a Sandboxer, and having trouble posting photos so people can see them? E-mail them to me at j-steven-york@sff.net, and (within bounds of taste, I'd like to keep things PG here) I'll be glad to post them here as well.
So what's with today's picture? Well, this is a graphic I created early this year in response to the cancellation of the 12" GI Joe line. I suggested we have an "Angry Joe Day" on Feb. 1 and post pictures showing how angry Joe was about being given the 12" boot. Well, I still think it's a good idea, so I'm hosting "Angry Joe Day 2006." Send me your best Angry Joe photos (or a link) and I'll post them here. I will pick my favorites (no voting, though you are welcome to argue for your favorites by posting favorable comments). There will be prizes, to be determined. There may be some more rules, when I think of them, but your photos should include at least one 12" GI Joe in some form.
Anyway, welcome to One-Sixth. Check back tomorrow for new photos!
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