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The king is dead, all hail the new...whomever wants to take over?
I come to bury Fun Pub, not to praise it. I know, I know, I shouldn't go into internet attack mode before the body is even cold. That isn't really the purpose for this post. This is really about what comes next.
The rampant speculation that Fun Publications (formerly Master Collector) aka the GI Joe Collectors Club and Transformers Collectors Club is done after 2016 is still speculation, albeit more than likely. What does it mean and why? I'm sure the eventual truth will surface, but I think it is safe to assume for now that the contractual license with Hasbro has not been extended further.
As one might expect, the news has been met with equal enthusiasm and sadness. It seemed for every good thing the Club did, it also did something equally absurd. Registration has been a fiasco every year. The data breach. The Club that was run like a business with very little membership involvement. The cost. Holding on too tightly to the fading die hard collectors while eschewing the casual fans.Too slow to adapt to the changing times.
Looking back though, from the original o-ring Crimson Strike set to this year's as of yet unannounced theme, the Club put out a ton of product. Some years they put out more product then Hasbro. Let that one sink in for a minute. Between the Con set, membership figures, Club exclusives, and the Figure Subscription Service, the past few years have put the 50th (51st?) to shame as far as quantity goes. They got Boss Fight involved to create new parts. After years of being on the con survey, they are finally releasing versions of both Billy and Pythona. Whatever the reasoning behind the final decision was, it wasn't because the Club couldn't think of anything to do with the Hasbro molds.
Even the newsletter, if you received it, has improved leaps and bounds over the newspaper version. There is real content in there. Most of it contributed by fans in the community. A decade ago colored, full page comics would have been a welcome addition.
Let's not forget the costumer service, the one area where the Club excelled. I say this with the utmost sincerity and appreciation, anyone who ever had the pleasure of dealing with Angie over the years can back me up on this, the Club wanted us to be happy with their product. Even after telling people repeatedly to check their sets during the show for any possible errors or omissions, they would still replace items months afterwards. Over the years, I may not have always agreed with the response I received from the Club, but I at least got a well thought out response. I don't just mean in regards to complaints either. They have always responded to issues that have come up, wherever it has been brought up, almost to their own detriment. A handful of people put a lot of time and effort into making things they thought Collectors would want.
I say all that to say this, if there even is someone else waiting in the wings, and there's no telling if there is or not right now, they will have some mighty big shoes to fill. The direction of the brand isn't clear. Or I'm just in denial, which is also possible. In either case Hasbro's involvement isn't a given. If I can offer any advise it would be this; learn from previous mistakes, communication is key, get a web developer on staff, use the tools at your disposal, do something for the kids, most importantly be careful what you wish for because it might just come true. As fans it also means I our expectations need to change. We'll either get nothing or what we do get will be very different then what came before. I can only hope that someone else picks up the mantle and is able to bring as many of us together again.
Which brings me to this, if 2016 is the last Joe Con ever we should try to be there. All of us. You have 6 months to figure it out. If you aren't stacked 12 people to a room, then you're doing it wrong. Saturday walk in admission is $15, the price of a movie. And this year the Club's "Let's Make a Deal" table should be epic as they blow out everything left in Savage's storage. But more importantly, we'll be there. All of us. Let's do it with gusto and give a proper sendoff, whatever that may mean to you. Let's go out with a bang instead of whimper, not because you want to throw last minute support the Club's way, but because as Yoda put it, "Clouded the future is."
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