Transform Squadron 54- Back in my Day

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This month, what's old is new again! Rob talks about the relaunch of Auto-Update, summer conventions, Gobots back on TV, and even some Code Orange fun!

Another time, Another Place

 

Having almost every show I want to watch availible on in demand is pretty awesome. Things like TokuSHOUTsu and the Transformers Channel on Roku is amazing. YouTube... YouTube is pretty great, I mean, look at all the content I put on this site using YouTube. All this stuff is available pretty much any time of the day and any where (we've all watched Voltron on the toilet). It got me thinking though, just how much we take it for granted and the things I did prior.

I've mentioned before that I worked at Office Max in college. I had rent, a car, and school to pay for while only having McDonald's as work experience. It wasn't easy. Fortunately at 20 you're more willing (and able) to live off ramen noodles. I still was able to enjoy my hobbies, even if it could be pretty limiting due to funds (or lack of). I might not be able to order those Car Robot toys from Japan, but no problem, they're getting released here next year as Robots in Disguise. Gonna prop up with my laptop real late at night when traffic is pretty light on dial up internet and download pirated episodes in Real Media format. 

The video quality is horrible, but hey, I can actually watch it. I'd often make VCD's from them and buy other VCD's online. They usually were pretty cheap, even though the quality was iffy and sometimes there would be a wrong show stuck in randomly. Usually The Tick or TMNT. I also had bootleg tapes thanks to a roommates arrangement with a nearby comic/anime/gaming store. They rented out bootleg and legal gray area sub-titled imports. My roommate had a part time job there and he was allowed to make copies of shows for us as part of the deal. I'd hit up the thrift store and find some G1 and G2 bots. Missing the gun, yeah, but it's a buck. Big Lots has some cool bootlegs. Animorphs are on clearance. I had my fun.

That Office Max I spoke of, well, it was a terrible store. Badly ran and unwisely opened up next to a Walmart. However, it had a copy center. There was a Staples and an Office Depot in the shopping center across from the highway. However mine had that Walmart, Target, Belk, Home Depot, and many other popular stores a person would go to on the weekend. They'd often pop in our crappy store to make copies so they wouldn't need to leave our shopping center. This meant that despite working in the electronics section, I also helped in that copy center. What's a shit head kid with disks full of images going to do with unlimited printing resources? 

Every poster on my wall, every flier for an event, even home work was printed right there in that copy center. If I ever would have made any of those zines I wanted to make (which this site is the ultimate culmination of), I probably would have made them there. In hindsight, I probably should have helped other zine producers out.

One poster I had made for myself somehow survived all this time. It was a promotional image for the Beast Wars 2 movie. One side had Lio Convoy and Optimas Primal, the other side was Galvatron and Megatron. I thought it was awesome. I blew up the image and printed out a poster of it. That poster was stuck on every refrigerator I had for years. Every apartment, there it was. Eventually it did get retired. I still have it though, in a box. Folded up and sorta acting as a liner. It's a little dingy from the years and has that old paper smell. Like it came from a library, not something I made with a floppy disk and a color copier in the 90's. Guess that was over 20 years ago.

Transform Squadron 32: 8 MEGS to harm you with

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This month- Rob briefly talks about the days of zines before going into summer leading into the Halloween season. Then he talks about buying Beast Wars toys on clearance back in the day. At some point the power goes out. I don't know... it was weird.

That Time Smokescreen Became A Decepticon

I've said before that I don't care for things if they felt too much like fan fiction. Which is true, however it's not completely a hill I'll die on. There's been some fan works I like a whole lot. Sometimes so much I think of it as legit fact.

Transformers Chronicles by Hirofumi Ichikawa is one of those that I'm going to talk about today. It's a fan comic released around the late 90's/2000 (little fuzzy on a time stamp) firmly during the beast era of Transformers.

The story pretty much involves the introduction of G2 into a generally cartoon based timeline (there's a little dash of the creation matrix involved). The art is very toy based and it looks fantastic. There's a few different things going on in the book, but one thing in particular that I feel like talking about right now.

Earlier this weekend there was the revelation that the Earthrise Bluestreak toy is exclusive to Walgreen's. So today while I was heading out with the intention to run some errands, stopping by Walgreen's to hopefully find him was on my to do list. Unfortunately I had some car trouble and I'll just have to do that stuff later, including looking for the toy.

Stopping for some lunch after dropping my car off at the shop it occurred to me. It was Bluestreak at Walgreen's, not Smokescreen. I got the two mixed up. It happens sometimes. Which is what brings me to talking about Smokscreen today. Because I was thinking about him. Deep content here folks.

Early in the book, Smokescreen is among some Autobot's who fight Decepticon Sky Scorchers and Predators led by Skyquake. Smokescreen is seemingly taken out in the fight only to reappear later as the Smokscreen from the G2 Dreadwing set. The Decepticons rebuilt him as a new bad guy and he's pretty ok with it.

The books not official story telling, but I occasionally forget that fact. I just love it so much. The art is really great and the story is pretty cool too. Hirofumi went on the do official work on Transformers not long after this. If you've enjoyed the e-Hobby exclusive bios or the Binaltech fiction, then you've seen some of the great stuff he's done for Transformers. I wish he had something to do with the Walgreen's Bluestreak that I got confused for Smokescreen earlier. That would have gave me something to end this with.

Transformers and their Armada

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Transformers Armada was a series I enjoyed a whole freaking lot and had a ton of fun while it was going on (despite the poo-poo pants of some poopy corners of the fandoms poopy efforts to poop on it). A super cool fanzine dedicated to Armada was available last weekend at TF Nation (I'd really like to go one year, that show really seems to match up to stuff I'd like in a convention) and is now online as a PDF for us who missed the show. I'd check it out if I were you, it's a good fun read by folks who enjoyed the series like I did.

Living in the past

It's silly how my mind works. I often think of older Transformers conventions as better automatically. Which isn't fair to newer shows, but I guess that's just me doing a stereotypical "things used to be better" and feeling all smug. Though, those older BotCons had something that the later ones didn't have and it's extremely hard to describe if you were never there. A vibe, a mojo, a something. Not that's not saying newer shows don't get it, Charticon in 2013 had it. My friend Don compared Toylanta (the show where the Botlanta panel track I organize is) to the most similar any con he's attended to the first BotCon (he went to the first and yes that was flattering). Not to mention, I see pictures online of smaller TF shows around the world, and they seemingly have it. I don't know if it was just a moment in time, or me being younger, but there was a certain something about those older shows that I've never let go.

BotCon 01, the hair since has migrated from my head completely to my face

So, if I may relish a bit in old convention videos I found on Youtube. Wait, I can. I totally can. So I'm going to do that. If you follow the links on the video, you can go to the respective poster's page and check out their other work. That's my way of giving a catch all credit to the content. But really, go check them out.

BotCon 1995, the second BotCon. I would have loved to go, unfortunatley I was just a kid in high school and only knew of them from ads in Lee's toy magazine (or was it Tomart?). I used to love that old back section full of classifieds. Pre-internet, that was the main way for people to advertise their toys stores, or zines, or fan clubs, or conventions, or really anything that we easily do on Facebook now and take for granted. I'd often see them in toy, video game, and horror magazines. I'd regularly send in an envelope with a few dollars and enjoy the onslaught of random catalogs and various zines and pamphlets I'd get in return. You'd be surprised at the amount of detail that goes into a book  made at a local copy center.

At about 5:59, that's me in the fire bowling shirt walking up to a table. Oh yea, that's also the same shirt I'm wearing in the pic a little up at BotCon 2001. It was the first BotCon I was able to go to. As a broke community college student, they all seemed so far away and out of touch. Though in 2001, I was on my own and just barely making ends meet. 2001 was in Durham North Carolina, which is about 4-6 hours away from here. My Mom called me one morning to check on me, and while we were talking I brought it up as I was trying to figure out how to go.  She actually woke me up and the Toyfair issue opened to the page with the ad was open laying right next to me. When I asked her how far away Durham was, she offered to take me. We went Friday night, and came back Sunday with the main day of fun being Saturday. Of note, we hit every difficulty imaginable and the trip there took over 12 hours. I wish I was kidding.

OTFCC 2003, despite all the organizers drama that led to the 3H split, I went to OTFCC 2003 (there was a name change) and had a great time. It was a really good show and if you watch that video or as you can see in the preview there was a dance party. I was there a few minutes when some friends and I went to discover it after the line died down. I fondly can remember Brian Kilby making a nervous smile that pretty much said it all and Ant not appreciating the remix of Metallica and TFTM audio clips. This was just before Hooper X launched from our group and started punch dancing to the derision of others.

The following year was OTFCC 2004 and BotCon 2004. I wanted to go to both, but could only go to one. So I went to OTFCC 2004 and had a great time. It really was a good time and the last 'old style' BotCon. Outside of the at show memories, and not in this clip, was Ruben Studdard. There was a wedding going on in the convention center (as well as a few other cons) and they apparently hired him to sing at it. Later in the hotel, I got to witness a drunk Ruben Studdard in the hotel resturant, a well as his entourage get into a fight with the bridesmaids in the lobby.

I didn't get to go to BotCon 2004, I could only choose one, and OTFCC was closer and a lot of my friends went as well, so the draw for what makes a con fun was there. I did order a non attendee pack though, really wish I could have went. I couldn't find a video of the 2002 show which was also a great deal of fun. I'm not doing any travel this year for conventions, I'd love to check them all out though. Hascon is coming up and it looks neat. There's TFCon of course and I've enjoyed those a lot. Pete Sinclair has his new Robot Convention I'd like to check out, ignoring any drama (I try my best too, it has zero to do with why I'm going to a convention anyway), there's going to be some cool displays there and I'd love to go to Fort Wayne again. Botlanta was earlier this month which makes the year wait until next year feel like an eternity. I went to a good deal of the Fun Pub BotCons and always had a good time, though eventually got priced out as the costs started going over what I could justify. There's just something special about these older shows. That's what I want to do with Botlanta, and I hope I can find at other shows. That vibe. It's hard to describe, but once you feel it, you know it.

I could go on and on, but I figure now's a good time to stop inserting videos and help the wife make supper. I've got some TF's to open, I should get to that.

Where it all began

Often, people tend to ask what got me into Transformers. My answer tends to confuse them, as it's always pretty simple.

"They came out."

It's pretty simple, really, but I guess it does need further explanation. You see, when I was a kid, Star Wars was everywhere. Literally everywhere. It was on our lunch boxes, school supplies, clothing, cereal, our everything. As one could expect, it flavored everything. The package art for video games sure did seem similar. Fantasy and sci fi entertainment was everywhere.

Robot toys were already on shelves, Shogun Warrior leftovers and random Japanese toys that found their way to store shelves. As Star Wars was winding down, these robot toys started appearing more heavily as well as robot cartoons started filling the airwaves.

One of my favorites, was a Saturday morning cartoon called "Mighty Orbots" that had the best music, the coolest robots, and just the funnest show. Voltron and Gobots were beginning to be a thing, and then it happened.

As more kids did back then, after school I had came in from playing and was watching my cartoons before dinner when this new robot toy commercial came on.

I was mesmerized. I was transfixed. I was glued to the screen. Who are these guys? Can I have them? The next day at school, I was in kindergarten and we had some sort of standardized testing going on. The teacher made us put up these paper barriers so nobody could see your work. When you were done with whatever section you were working on, you had to sit in silence until the teacher called for time to stop. I have always been a daydreamer, so it was no problem keeping myself occupied during that silent time.

I found myself fantasizing over those cool Transformers things I just saw on tv. I had imagined I found a box of them on the side of the road and had them all. For some reason, I remember thinking Thundercracker was the main character. Time went on, and as children do, I would get toys of all these new robots. There were plenty of cheap copycats, and bootlegs. Gobots and Convertors were much cheaper, so I ended up with a lot of those in particular. Being from a middle class blue collar family, Transformers were a little too expensive for a weekend allowance toy. But I still managed to get a real Transformer on occasion. 

One week, my brother and I had to stay the week at our Grandmothers house. My brother being 6 years older than me would often roam the neighborhood while I was pretty much at Grandmas playing with my Jeeper Creeper Gobot and reading issues of the all new Transformers comic that was starting to pop up while Gilligan's Island reruns were playing in the background.

One day, shortly before we had to go back home, my brother got me and made me go with him down the street. A kid who had gotten Optimus Prime had set him up in his garage and was basically showing him off to all the kids. 

I was already hooked, now I really needed more.

Before I knew it, the Transformers had a cartoon show that came on in my area in an afternoon block with GI JOE. Not to mention, another channel would show it on Sunday. Topping of off, Bozo the clown began showing episodes. I didn't have a chance, Transformers fast became my favorite cartoon. It was a good time for kids entertainment and I was fortunate to have such cartoons as Transformers, GI JOE, He-Man, Voltron, Robotech, M.A.S.K, Robotix, and so many more on tv regularly. While not from the most wealthy family, was fortunate enough to really delve into all my interests. I had a subscription to He-Man and GI-JOE magazine, an Atari (later NES). Tons of cool toys, and always had my nose in some monster book.

As I got older, Transformers went away (we had no clue it was just in America) for a few years. I still read my old comics over and over regularly. As middle school marched on, despite my best attempts to be cool and play sports, I slowly accepted that they just were not for me (though I did buy baseball cards for a while, turns out I liked collecting things). I was a regular reader of Fangoria, video game magazines, and other similar publications. In those days, they'd have several pages of random classifieds and ads for mail away stores. I often would send in a dollar to some of these ads to get on mailing lists.

Oh man, the random catalogs, newsletters, and homemade magazines (it took a few years to learn they were called fanzines) I would receive. Often I'd get great little books made from Xerox copies full of stories based on all sorts of cartoons and games (I also didn't know yet what fanfic was), including Transformers! This went on for a few years and before I knew it, Transformers G2 had started. Reruns of my precious cartoon came on in the morning before school and it was great. I'd occasionally get a G2 toy, usually from the local Goodwill that managed to get recent toys really often. New comics started back up and oh man, that was awesome. Of course now I was in high school and at my school peer pressure pretty much meant to keeping such interests secret.

Time went on, and I was a community college student, Beast Wars was going on, and I started using the Internet. First in my high school library, then my college library, but the minute I was able to use it at home, I was in heaven. For someone with my interests, I had a hard time meeting others who had similar interests. Now, I was in touch with people who liked Super Mario, liked watching old horror movies, liked cartoons, and hey... look at all these people who also like Transformers. Neat. I had a part time job at Office Max and before I knew it, the occasional toy purchase became regular purchases as now I had this thing called 'disposable income'. 

Turns out, I was a 'fan' and 'collected Transformers'.

I thought I just really liked them and bought toys.

*shrug*