Shortpacked! by David Willis

Discussion (22) ¬

1. 
   Noble Bear

   May 6, 2010 at 2:53 am | # | Reply

   Niice.
2. 
   MisterTeatime

   August 15, 2010 at 1:51 am | # | Reply

   Just remember, anyone who disagrees with you in a comic is a flicking Clint.
3. 
   MissKmae

   October 5, 2010 at 5:36 pm | # | Reply

   I think that her computer isn’t fixed yet…
4. 
   Billy

   January 5, 2011 at 5:18 pm | # | Reply

   If Clint was a GI Joe fan in the 1960′s, that means he was a child in the 60′s, and perhaps a teenager in the 70′s. Ya’ know, DURING the Vietnam war. So, exactly what “wars” has he fought in?

   Also, Hasbro actually “changed GI Joe completely” from the 12″ line in the mid 70′s with the advent of the 8″ Adventure Team line. Not only did they change the scale, they changed GI Joe from a soldier, to a civilian adventure.

   When that line ended a few years later, Hasbro put GI Joe on hiatus for a couple of years before re-launching it in 82′ with the 3 3/4″ Real American Hero line. So Sigma 6 was hardly the same thing.

   • 
     Tristan J

     January 8, 2011 at 10:38 pm | # | Reply

     Either a) He started collecting as an adult, (crazy, I know) or b) he fought in a war after the Vietnam War.

     • 
       Billy

       January 26, 2011 at 9:12 am | # | Reply

       Re-a) — In the 60′s? I don’t think adult toy collecting existed much back then. I remember the stigma against adults buying toys for themselves in the 80′s and early 90′s. One would think it would have been far worst back then. His parents would have surely trashed his collecting while he was off in Vietnam. But I suppose it’s possible. Clint would have been regarded as a freak at the time though.

       Re-b) — Which was my original question. What war? Or rather “WARS” as Clint insists he fought in multiple ones. After Vietnam, America avoided getting directly involved in another full blown war until the 90′s, and Operation Desert Storm. A decade later, we have the current Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Clint COULD have fought in them. But the whole point is that he’s old enough to have collected the original 12″ GI Joe.

       How old is Clint exactly? If he was a kid in the 60′s, he’d be about 50 when this was originally published. If he was indeed an adult collector in the 60′s be may have fought in Vietnam, but he have been in his 50′s at the time of Desert Storm, and in his 60′s in 2005. And as many GI Joe fan insisted to me when DDP had the comic licence, guys that old do NOT serve in active combat.

       But in all honesty, I’m just being snarky here because this is what gets thrown in the face of GI Joe fans every time they complain about anything Hasbro does with the franchise. So much is often made of 12″ fans being left disgruntled by the advent of the 3 3/4″ line back in 1982, but it’s just not true. The 12″ line was NOT canceled to make way for the 3 3/4″ line. It was replaced by the 8″ Adventure team line in mid 70′s.

       Both those lines had been long gone from store shelves — for years in fact — by the time the 3 3/4″ Real American Hero line came out. Further, it’s not like any “classic” 12″ or 8″ character were being replaced, or had their gender, race or nationality changed. Quite the contrary really. The 12″ and Adventure Team lines were paid homage to in the pages of the RAH GI Joe comic book, with the introduction of Joseph Colton and his wife Jane.

       This finally gave a name and back story to the original GI Joe line — which it had not had previously — and tied all the previous incarnations of GI Joe up to that time together in one continuity. Thanks to that, 12″ fan even got to see THEIR GI Joe return to toy shelves in the 90′s. With all that in mind, how angry about the 3 3/4″ figures and their fans can 12″ fans be?

       • 
         David Willis

         January 26, 2011 at 9:56 am | # | Reply

         Clint is based on the very real demographic that attends G.I. Joe Con every year for the 12-inch collectors set (versus the RAH-themed one). I’m not sure why you try to claim that they don’t exist. And after I put up this comic, I sure got lots of emails from people from that very demographic for being absolutely correct. They thanked me. These people who apparently don’t exist.

         3 3/4″ collectors certainly really really want to believe that the various bones thrown in the 12″ collector’s direction were really awesome and totally made the peace. But that’s not how things work. That’s never how they work. If it were, then toy collecting would be entirely different today. Unless you think you can point out to a 1984 Transformers fan that hates the live action movies that, hey, Revenge of the Fallen had the Matrix of Leadership in it!, and that suddenly he’d realize he was being pandered to and that would make him like the live-action movies. No, that’s never how it works. It will never be how it works.
       • 
         newHelm

         August 25, 2012 at 5:45 am | # | Reply

         He could just be some one who fought in wars, likes G I Joe, and hate when people complain about stupid stuff. Kinda like me, but just in the one war. Sure people like the originals better, I like the originals better. I have huge fan issues over TF Armada but I still watched and liked it. So its more that a hole needs to shut it. By the by, G I Joe got me to want to join the military and I feel the same way when some one openly insults any version of it like that, movie included and I disliked the movie a lot.

         • 
           newHelm

           August 25, 2012 at 5:48 am | # | Reply

           And roadblock is one of my favorites so I’m loving the fact I got that gravatar
         • 
           Petre Pan

           January 26, 2013 at 3:42 am | # | Reply

           Sheez, all you guys in the past, it was just a joke. You got like frikkin essays goin on there

           • 
             dcmeserve

             February 19, 2013 at 12:04 pm | # | Reply

             Hello! Internet!
       • 
         Lis

         May 12, 2013 at 9:55 pm | # | Reply

         Note that amber said He currently collects the original dolls not that he was collecting them at the time. There are a lot of adult collectors who collect things from before. He looks like the age of a korean or vietnam vet to me, possibly both.
     • 
       L

       November 7, 2011 at 7:18 pm | # | Reply

       Or he was born in the late 50′s and drafted when he was on his late teens and the war was winding down. Or he fought in one of those police actions and brush wars like the Grenada or Panama invasions.
5. 
   Billy

   January 27, 2011 at 7:44 am | # | Reply

   I’m not saying that I don’t think that 12″ who don’t like the 3 3/4″ line don’t exist. Far from it. I know they do. I’m just being nit-picky here about Clint’s claims because I’ve always found the comparison of 12″ fans’ reaction to the end of their line and the advent of the RAH line, to the 3 3/4″ inch fans’ reaction to stuff like Sigma 6 and the live action movie — which is usually to say that 12″ fans have a lot more to be angry about then 3 3/4″ fans do, so we have no right to complain — to be bullshit.

   And I call BS on it because I really haven’t seen that much anger and resentment from 12″ fans at all. And I have to think, why would I? As I said, the 12″ line wasn’t canceled to make way for 3 3/4″ figures. It have been canceled for years, and in fact, by 1982. Not like the 3 3/4″ line was canceled to make way for Sigma 6. Now admittedly, as a 3 3/4″ inch fan, I don’t hang out at a lot of 12″ boards, but is there really the kind of bitterness Clint seems to be spewing here? I don’t know.

   Still, I admit that you’re probably right about many of the 12″ Joes we got in the 90′s and early 00′s being seen as little more then bones thrown to 12″ fans. It’s the way I feel about the occasional classic Joe character that was thrown into the movie line as a bone to fans who missed the Anniversary line. On the other hands, I’ve loved the various classic G1 characters thrown into the Transformers movie line like Bludgeon, Brakedown, Axor and Sea Spray. So what do I know?
6. 
   Dave who hates bad pet owners

   December 5, 2011 at 10:20 pm | # | Reply

   Sigma Six featured a tank with helicopter blades on the top that flew.
   Fuck Sigma Six.

   • 
     David Willis

     December 5, 2011 at 10:21 pm | # | Reply

     Dude, that is AWESOME.
7. 
   dragoonchris

   December 28, 2011 at 4:59 pm | # | Reply

   Don’t you love how idiot haters think they know everything when they really don’t.
8. 
   Stephen Bierce

   January 6, 2012 at 12:30 am | # | Reply

   I think Clint needs to be tagged. I bet we haven’t seen the last of him by a long shot.
9. 
   maggPi

   August 31, 2012 at 10:07 pm | # | Reply

   Well, regardless of argument A), B), C) or D), it’s a funny comic.

   Pretty universal for any subject where there’s an annoying, whiny twit.
10. 
    maggPi

    August 31, 2012 at 10:10 pm | # | Reply

    Huh. It just occurred to me that the whiny guy looks (and sounds) a bit like Mike from S*P. …Before donning the Pythagorean’s cape, that is.
11. 
    FishFinder

    April 14, 2013 at 10:35 pm | # | Reply

    He looks like Senator Armstrong from Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance!
12. 
    Calvin

    April 30, 2013 at 6:31 pm | # | Reply

    Its GI Joe………Every time you play with them you fight in “WARS”….no further “WARS” need be mentioned