The PopCulteer
October 18, 2024

As promised, this week we bring you another big batch of photos from JoeLanta, the fun toy convention that your PopCulteer attended last month, mainly as a civilian. However, I did grab a few photos, and we’re bringing you the last big batch of them this week. We’ll get a look at a great diorama and a some of the custom figures, and we’ll meet some more of the cool people who attended the show.

The show took place at the Gas South Convention Center in Duluth, Georgia, right outside Atlanta. This will be the location of next March’s ToyLanta show, too. It was a nice venue, the first time the show has been held outside of a hotel. There’s a lot of room for growth here.

There will likely be one more small batch of photos from JoeLanta, but those will be tied in with one our picks for The PopCult Gift Guide, so you’ll just have to be patient with me being cryptic.

Apologies for it taking so long to get these edited and posted, but life has gotten interesting and busy around Stately Radio Free Charleston Manor of late. You can see the first batch of JoeLanta 2024 photos HERE.

Let’s just dive in with the photos.

Not content to dance to “YMCA,” The Astro Commando show exclusive figure was also walking like an Egyptian.

Here we see the Astro Commando/Adventure Commando cousins of the show figure at Steve Stovall’s table. We’ll be seeing more of them at Kentuckiana’s Winterfest in January.

Some of the offerings from White Elephant Toyz, Steve’s Partner in bringing Adventure Commandos and Astro Commandos  to life. He’s also the man behind Strike Force Alpha.

Jason Schiermeyer from White Elephant Toyz, who has collaborated on some of the coolest limited-run toy projects in several different scales over the last couple of years. We picked up the Bigfoot set, as well as a limited-run “Childhood Heroes” figure for a friend.

Random current action figure stuff. This was also all over the place.

The main desk where you got your tickets. That screen was a true pain to photograph.

A few of the amazing custom and kitbashed sets from master cusomizer/designer Paul Knapp.

Paul’s epic-looking repaint of the Adventure Team Training Tower.

Paul’s Even-more-epic transformation of a Barbie camper into a GI Joe Adventure Team Mobile HG.

And we have Paul Knapp himself, posing with some of his diorama masterpieces.

You can follow Paul’s toy adventures on his incredible YouTube channel.

For the sake of rhyming, here we see Jason Mapp, who sells vintage toys at great prices at shows all over the South as “Mapp of the Lost Treasures.”

More random cool toyness.

Even more random cool toyness.

I have to admit, I have absolutely no use for the He Man and the Masters of the Universe toy line. Still, this 1/6 scale Castle Grayskull was mighty impressive.

I think the hinges worked, and it was a near-perfect recreation of the massive playset.

The inner details were spot-on. I did find myself wondering why they didn’t include any of the 1/6 scale figures that have been released. Still, good job.

The big diorama, weirdly tucked away in a room far away from the rest of the show, was built by Matt Kimsey, and was used to display some custom outfits made by Chuck Chiriaco, whose work I’ve shown you in the past.

Looking like a 1970s action movie, this scene depicted The Adventure Team battling Sgt. Simba, The Savanna Commando…which is the name of the custom outfit set that Chuck created for the show. I need to interject here again that the diorama was built by Matt Kimsey, and apologize for the confusion. I was not in full-tilt journalist mode, and did not get all the details.

Chuck was selling the costumes right off the figures in the diorama. I was happy to add one to my collection, and you’ll probably see it in PopCult once I find the time to start doing posts on my kitbashes.

This seriously brought me back to the glory days of giant JoeLanta dioramas when Steve Bugg and Mike Gardner were knocking themselves out each year. Matt really did a terrific job.

Here is Chuck with the diorama. . You can follow Chuck’s customizing adventures at his website. He may even have a few of the Sgt. Simba outfits left.

Chuck also designed and sewed the outfits for these four figures, three of whom are inspired by a specific 1970s movie.

There was a great smaller dirorama by Scott Wilde (who got away before I could get his photo) based on a fantasy reimagining of a scene from the movie, “Battle of the Bulge.”

There’s great detail, and a clever twist.

Some characters have been switched out from the movie scene.

Scott explains.

Finally, your civilian PopCulteer finds himself fairly relaxed after not shooting tons of video, and had a great time at the show.

And that is this week’s PopCulteer. Check back for fresh content every day and all our regular features.