Book Review: The Ultimate Guide to G.I. Joe Volume 2
Having fallen in love with G.I. Joes again a few years ago and finding The Ultimate Guide to G.I. Joe an indispensable tool for picking up stuff off of eBay and at comic/toy shows, I think it’s fair to say I was damned excited about the prospect of owning Volume 2. Now that it’s in my sweaty nerd hands, let’s see if it was worth the wait.
To be honest, there’s really not much more for me to say about the book than what I said about the first edition, since everything holds true about it’s usefulness both in the realm of a collector’s guide and nostalgia purposes. The biggest improvement is in the pictures. This time you can actually get a better idea of what a vehicle/playset looks like. And while he didn’t do it all of the time, Bellomo placed figures next to many of the vehicles in order to give a better sense of scale to what you are looking at.
I also enjoy the fact that the price guide is again more up to date. While it’s true that you should take a price guide with a grain of salt, but it’s good to have one that’s a lot more recent than the last volume of the book.
There is a lot of added text, so in case you think it’s all a rehash of the first volume it certainly isn’t. Of course, it’s been a few years since I read the last one so I can’t remember where old text and new text meets, but it’s new enough that I’m not wasting my time reading it either.
I can’t that that even with all the added goodness that there aren’t any drawbacks. The biggest flaw is the lack of an index. Now, I heard that there’s an index online somewhere, but that doesn’t help if I’m at a convention looking through a bin of figures. The lack of an index will make it tough for anyone looking for a figure like “Undertow” if they don’t know what year he was made. It’s a shame that it couldn’t be included and I could see some people being a little turned off by it. I can get along without one, but it would be certainly easier if it was included.
As far as other flaws that are in The Ultimate Guide to G.I. Joe, I’m a high level Joe collector so I haven’t spotted any glaring errors nor have I really read anything online that would put me off since it’s stuff I really don’t care about anyway. The only other flaw I can think of is the fact that the pictures drive me wild with desire for Joe toys that I cannot own due to my current financial situation, but that’s not really the fault of the author.
Overall The Ultimate Guide to G.I. Joe was a great book that’s been made even better. Even with the lack of an index it’s a good purchase for a G.I. Joe fan or a nostalgia junkie.
Score: 4 1/2 “Yo Joes” out of 5
Side Note: Krause Publications, please publish a book covering Joe years after 1994. There’s an untapped potential there and a lot of G.I. Joe stuff that hasn’t been written about!
Remember: If you haven’t yet entered the contest to win a copy of this great book, do so now!
July 6th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
I read a book once. And by “book” I mean “nothing”.
July 6th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
I never owned too many of the original joes, but I am definitely interested in reading this book.
Especially after seeing the behind the scenes stuff from his youtube videos.
July 6th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
If all it does is improve on the first edition with more content then it’s gotta be worth it. The first book is amazing, it’s a great resource, even to someone like me that doesn’t collect the older Joes any more. As such I’d be completely behind a version of the book that covers the years after 1994. I got back into collecting around the time of GI Joe vs Cobra.
July 7th, 2009 at 6:56 am
Bellomo isn’t convinced that a post-1994 book would sell very well to anyone besides collectors. He noted in an interview over at Hisstank that his book is being bought by many non-collectors as a window into nostalgia.
July 7th, 2009 at 8:56 am
It’s a great book just like the first.