Over the weekend the GI Joe Collecting community (of which your blogger is a proud member) was saddened to learn of the passing of James DeSimone. He’d been dealing with health issues for years, although he had recently been well enough to make the trip from California to Louisvile, Kentucky for Kentuckiana. He recently lost his wife, and that seems to have been too much for him. He was around 70 years old.

DeSimone was a key person when it came to convincing Hasbro that there was a viable market for GI Joe nostalgia in the early 1990s. He’d published a couple of books, and had started a “club” newsletter, and Hasbro honored his contributions to the hobby by including his name on the back of the box for the GI Joe Hall of Fame series, which restored Hasbro’s Man of Action to his original 12″ height. It was largely through his lobbying efforts that Hasbro brought the 12″ GI Joe back to toy stores in 1992, after a fourteen-year absence.

I only met the man once, at Kentuckiana, and our meeting was brief, basically just an introduction and a handshake, but the fact that there was a Kentuckiana GI Joe Toy Expo, and JoeLanta and before that The Official GI Joe Club Convention is all because of the initial efforts of James DeSimone.

He was a powerful advocate for the hobby, and he was also a tireless self-promoter, which rubbed a few folks the wrong way. He could be a controversial figure in some circles, but it was his tenacity that kept the first ever action figure from disappearing into obscurity.

After Hasbro granted the license for the Official Club and Convention to Brian Savage and Fun Publications, DeSimone concentrated on creating replicas of the GI Joe Race Car and Panther Jet, as well as a “gray area” 1/6 scale version of a vehicle made famous by a certain caped crusader.

He also wrote a few books about GI Joe, including a licensed photo guide, which for years served as the bible for the hobby, before it was supplanted by more comprehensive books and websites. His book, The new official identification guide to GI Joe and accessories, 1964-1978 is still held up as the standard by many.

We can’t overestimate how important James was to the GI Joe collecting hobby. He wrote the first major book, organized the first conventions and created a newsletter that, in the days before the internet, was the only way for fans to keep up with what was going on in the hobby.

PopCult sends its condolences to his family and friends.