The PopCulteer
August 8, 2025

As I mentioned yesterday, I’m way behind with posting photos and video from last month’s Kentuckiana GI Joe Toy Expo.

A surprise pre-birthday trip to Cinncinnati sprung up this weekend, and your humble blogger will be, by the time you read this, enjoying some cool museums in a city that we’ve never really visited much (except for a trip to the outskirts to visit a Barbie convention a few years ago).

I still have dozens of photos and loads of video to process from Kentuckiana, and I hope to have all that wrapped up by a week from Sunday, but today I’m going to bring you a dozen or so photos of some of the friends I got to see at the show. Some folks didn’t make the cut because yours truly has to deal with occasional shakiness from Myasthenia Gravis, and the photos were too blurry to use. In other cases, I had so much fun catching up with old friends that I forgot to whip the phone out to snap a picture.

Part of the reason for this photo essay is that, in the past, I have been guilty of focusing too much on the toys at the toy shows and didn’t remember to get enough pictures of humans.

For those of you who actually preferred things that way, expect a gigantic toy-only photo essay next week. There was several tons of rare, exotic and ultra-cool toys at Kentuckiana this year.

Our header image this week is a bunch of folks I don’t know, and that selfie shot of me at the top right is yet another example of better living through Temu.

But now…let us meet some Joe folks…

Spotted working security, mere weeks before his triumphant return to hardcore music in Dunbar, the man…Dana White!

Speaking “the man”…it’s the man behind Kentuckiana (and Adventure Command figures) Steve Stovall, hamming it up for the camera

Also hamming it up, as always, is Ace Allgood, who can be counted on to have the most astounding vintage items at the show.

Ace also had a very special limited edition custom figure set, and Mel just happened to catch him telling me about it right before I bought the last one he had at the show…

Brad Curry, of Bee Active Toys fame, a 3D-printing wonder!

The man behind  Mattsquatch Customs, Mat Stevenson

Legendary (and colorful) GI Joe dealer, Dean Morrison

The GI Joe Land Adventurer, Still Kung Fu Gripping after all these years

Our old Johnny West buddy, Dave Roth

Still hard at work repairing Talking GI Joes, and almost over the trauma of working on mine a few years ago, it’s Scott Wilde!

Tearle Ashby and Scott Ferguson with their incredible custom uniform sets for the show. You can catch up with their amazing work HERE.

Who’s got two thumbs, co-runs ToyLanta and has been seen playing guitar on the Radio Free Charleston video show? It’s Alex Massey!

Finally, it’s the arms and glasses of my lovely wife, the very camera-shy Mel Larch, snapping a photo of Plankton commandeering one of Greg Autore’s Ghost Tanks to send to our friend Pixie.

With that, we call a close to this week’s PopCulteer. Check back for fresh content every day here at PopCult, even when we are running so ridiculously behind schedule that we’ll probably still be sharing photos from Kentuckiana a month after the show ended.

Heck, I still have photos from June that I haven’t run here yet.

But we’ll also have all our regular features, even if I have to finish them on the road.