The PopCulteer
October 4, 2024

Okay, so I said I was going to JoeLanta this year as a civilian, and I did. I did not have a camera on me at the Friday early preview night and I did not shoot any video at the show.

But we did go back Saturday morning and I grabbed a few photos. Not a ton, but enough that I’m going to be spreading them out over the next week in a series of small photo essays.

The main reason for the smaller photo essays is that I’m still dealing with some technical issues with the graphics here at PopCult, and smaller photo essays are easier for me to wrangle into the blog.

The show itself was loads of fun. We saw some old friends and caught up and I did get several new additions to my already-oversized collection. The weather put quite a damper on attendance, understandably so. Several vendors and a few guests had to cancel at the last minute due to the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. But the show was still fun for those of us who were able to make it.

The entire trip down South for Mrs. PopCulteer and yours truly was fun, but a little scary. The path we took managed to keep us just out of the path of the Hurricane, but we had lots of gloomy, drizzly weather to drive through. We stopped overnight in Caryville, Tennessee, before heading to The Alabama Dish Outlet, and then to Senoia, Georgia, before heading to the show, just outside of Atlanta. We managed to have quite the blast and even did something totally unscheduled, which you will hear about later.

I’ll be posting more photos and other stuff from our trip over the next week, in addition to our regular PopCult features. But now, here’s the first batch of JoeLanta photos…

The Gas South Convention Center, JoeLanta’s New Home For 2024

There was a cool view from the panel room, above the vendor floor. They could have done a better job of directing people to it.

Sgt. Slaughter, as seen from above

Ace Allgood, doing his traditional pose in front of his amazing vintage rarities…

…and Ace learning the dangers of posing in front of his vintage rarities.

Sgt. Van (you’ll hear him on next week’s RFC) and Steve Stoval of Kentuckiana and Astro Commando/Adventure Commando fame.

Marten Jallad, JoeLanta Head Honcho Emeritus and the proprietor of Retroville Collectibles. Partly visible just below Marten’s left elbow is the ROM Spaceknight that came home with me.

The show exclusive Astro Commando showing off his dancing skills.

The Valaverse folks, who are bringing the UK’s Action Force into the realm of GI Joe: Classified showed off their epic Vanguard vehicle.

Available in many styles and colors, the Vanguard was tempting, even though I don’t collect figures in that scale. We first saw these folks last year at PowerCon in Columbus.

Of course,there were tons of cool toys and other things all over the show.