Way back in 1982, I was just a kid collecting toys. With everyone else, Star Wars was about it for 'action figures'. The 12" weren't my thing. They were dolls to me and they still are. That X-Mas, I got a slew of 'em along with the 1st comic and it was just so cool. Sure, it was a military toy but I loved the articulation. When swivel-arm came out the next year, it was still hella dope. But by the end of the Cobra War and DiC coming in, I gave up. The comic wasn't doing it for me either. Things were getting too weird, I was getting older and 'playing' w/ toys just wasn't cool.

2002 rolls around the nu skulpts show up. I told myself that THIS time, I'd have a full collection cuz I had a credit card(s). These weren't just toys. These were things I grew up with. I don't necessarily see a piece of plastic w/ paint and remotely in a human form, I see a character. Transformers, SW, everything else, I just don't see it quite the same.

I found myself, either at the end of Spy Troops or during VvV that a lot of the stuff coming out was junk. I had gotten sucked into buying 'the flavor of the week'. Missile Storm Copter anybody? That POS vehicle Grunt came with? The anti-tank thingy w/ Big Ben? The Fang 3??????? Luke said it best. "What a piece of junk!"

Also during that time, I was doing more and more dios. A few people might remember my 1st dio, "The Ultimate Weapon". But I did a lot of shorts and ads that are now gone from my hard drive. Deciding that I don't need EVERY figure out there, it freed me to items I wanted. Also, I came to the conclusion that I wanted to do GI Joe dios and I buy what I need for them. Just like Luke does.

In the end, I'm stuck w/ Joe because it's the best medium for me. BBI can't touch it, y'know whatta I mean? I'm not as militaristic as Craig or TG, but at what time, I was. I've decided that I want to see the Joes in different situations that aren't necessarily grounded in our reality. I'm not going totally off the rocker but not all futuristic military movies are utterly weird, y'know? Aliens might be too far out, but what about Soldier or to a degree, Stargate? Like I tell people, I want to be the Paul WS Anderson of dios. Luke can be George Lucas. Justin can be Steven Spielberg. Shane can be James Cameron. I bet if Craig did a dio, he'd be the John Tiernan of dios. (Clear and Present Danger)

I just want to be the guy who does the niche stuff. (Anderson did Mortal Kombat, Aliens vs Predator, etc)