Recruiting Drive: Battle Plans (Issue #2)

"Battle Plans" happened from the question I left myself in "Convoy": What the heck was on the spy satellite that Cobra wanted GI Joe to access?  My first idea was a computer virus, but I discarded that pretty quickly.  Maybe Cobra /had/ footage on the video that they didn't want GI Joe to see?  Or maybe, Cobra used the idea to substitute video... 

"Battle Plans" starts with a memo.  The original document looks beautiful, with a seal of the Army letterhead that I created... but I couldn't get the text redaction that I wanted. The memo is the start of my running joke - Psyche-Out is possibly the most-mentioned character in my dio-series, but I still have not come up with a suitable custom of him.  

I just couldn't bring myself to do the funny headgear and all the radar dishes.

The memo is really my first major foray into CSS too, which apparently doesn't translate when you copy and paste the pate into Blogger. Feh. So, "Go go gadget Snipping Tool."  I did have ideas for a scene three that never got scripted, much less filmed.  I had created a custom "Quickstrike" (Think the Army's M1126 Stryker ATV) that was for the Joes' civil engineers, but I couldn't work out what I wanted them to do, or how to shoot the photos.

That, and the "Power Rangers" front-end loader remained an annoying shade of yellow even after being boiled in dye.

Mission personnel for the scene that never was: Zap, Tollbooth, Tripwire, Hard-Drive, Tunnel Rat.

I started introducing other elements and deviations. Side conversations are in a different color to separate them from the main conversation. Spoken dialogue in a non-English language has a different font.  Meta digs like Wreckage's facemask.  An element that gets explored later is that in my Joe-Verse, Firewall is still back to a Cadet. Production values are still very beginner here, but I'm proud of the shot of Short-Fuze firing the mortar. That one I researched - they toss the mortar down the tube and turn away like that to avoid the blast.

"Battle Plans"  was originally published by me on 6/3/2005.  GI Joe, Cobra, and all named characters are copyright Hasbro, IDW, etc.

Scene 1

Scene 2

PS - on Copyright

I actually took the time to write the current publisher of GI Joe comics, Devils Due Press, in regard to my dio-stories.  Like what I did with the original Marvel Series, I set a jumping-off point in DDP's Red Shadows arc.  One comic in particular, I wanted to recycle a lot of the dialogue -- which I felt went beyond simple fair use and required permission.  Here is the email I received in reply:

Subject:	Re: Dio Story
From:	Sam Wells <(email address hidden)>
Date:	Wed, Feb 21, 2007 10:45 am
To:	midgarn@midgarnstales.info

Hello Bob,
   Thanks for taking the time to write for permission to use our story
line as a jumping off point.  Please feel free to use that book to start
off your dio-story going in your else-worlds direction.  You may
consider this your written permission as long as the end result is free
as you stated and remains free.  No portion of our comics may be used in
order to generate sales for other merchandise.  Also send us a link when
you have everything completed, we'd love to see it.  Thank you again for
going through the correct channels.  Take care.

-Sam

--
Sam Wells / Assistant Publisher
Devil's Due Publishing, Inc.
www.devilsdue.net / www.devilsduestore.com
www.myspace.com/devilsdue / www.pullboxonline.com
DDP 5 years strong!

Recruiting Drive: Convoy (Issue #1)

"Convoy" was my first foray into serious dio-story writing and 1:18 scale theatre.  The Cobra Command briefing room is a "black box" theatre, using construction paper and double-sided tape to line the walls and floor.  Outdoor dio shots were in my backyard, where we dumped two bags of playground sand to make the coastline.

I wrote "Convoy" as a stand-alone piece, which meant I had to figure out what where I wanted to go when I started making my second dio-story.  I didn't even think of cover images or identifying my custom Joes at this point. 

"Convoy" was originally published by me on 2/28/2005.  GI Joe, Cobra, and all named characters are copyright Hasbro, etc.

Convoy

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3