The Great Atlanta Toy Show

- Frankenstein by Ben Boling

- Robots by Buddy Finethy

- Orange crowd scene and
robot by Brad McGinty

I have had the pleasure of first just helping and then partnering with my pal Buddy Finethy and now David Lane and the rest of the core Atlanta GI Joe club to put on JOElanta the biggest GI Joe & Action Figure show coming close to rivaling the national GI Joe show.

Starting in 2005 Buddy and I conceived a plan to put together a quarterly Toy shows in town since the only other general toy show went bust some years earlier. Not being satisfied to just find a venue, create promotional materials, find a variety of different dealers and then just open the doors we both agreed that there needed to be more "show" to entertain our patrons. Carrying on the JOElanta tradition of unveiling a great new diorama at each show a number were created over the year and a half and 4 shows we did. Each show also had a concept to them with costumed guests.

Our 1st show happened to be on the same day as the quarterly comic book show on Super Bowl Sunday 2005 and was a huge success. The concept was that of an "Antiques Roadshow" for toys with various dealers designated as experts by large signs. This concept that was written about in an article by the AJC brought droves of folks in with treasures pulled out from attics and basements. They had their choice of GI Joe, Hot Wheels, Barbie, Star Wars/Transformers and a few others. Everyone was greeted at the door by a life size fiberglass Spiderman and had a great time!

Show #2 was our STAR WARS show that coincided with the release of with a special "Jedi Jam" room including: a hilarious performance from improvisational group "DAD's Garage" with various characters from STAR WARS films, a how to draw your favourite cartoon characters by Kyle of Galactic Quest comic stores, various fan films and more! The main room had plenty of dealers, a display from show sponsor LEGO, a photographer taking shots with ominous looking Darth Vader impersonator Vader Painter(see me next to him in an earlier post on this blog) and numerous storm troopers meandering about. The shows diorama was a scene from Los Isles space port.

Show #3 went in another direction with "Monster Mayhem" featuring an emphasis on monster and horror toys. Packed with everything from posters to CREEPY magazines to all types of monster toys the shows patrons were again wowed by the diorama.

Our last Great Atlanta show took place on May 21st and was just a plain old toy show. The diorama at this one was "Zombie attack" a weired look at tons of mutant zombies chasing folks around town.

All in all they were great fun and we are still asked to do more of them to this day although our emphasis over the last few years has been to put all our efforts to growing JOElanta to benefit the Cody Lane Foundation and have a Toy and Diorama Museum, a place where people of all walks of life can come and see all these marvelous works of art (Dioramas) and check out tons of toys.