Did anybody snag me a Grandus?
BotCon 2024: The 30th Wreckoning
- Thread starter LBD "Nytetrayn"
- Start date
My haul from BotCon 2024:
BotCon 2024 exclusives:
Past BotCon exclusives
Beast Wars Metals
Universe (2003)
Cybertron
Legacy
BotCon 2024 exclusives:
- Yolopark "House of Magnus" 2-pack of Sunstorm vs. Delta Magnus
- BotCon Unlimited issue #3
- "The Sewer-Side Squad" poster (the white tube on the right edge of the pic)
- "The Sewer-Side Squad" postcard
- Early-bird registration lapel pin of Fire Guts Ginrai
- BotCon 30th anniversary preregistrant cloisonné pin (not pictured, forgot to include it)
Past BotCon exclusives
- BotCon 1999 Sandstorm
- BotCon 2001 Tigatron
- BotCon 2001 Arcee
- BotCon 2002 CatSCAN
- BotCon 2002 Glyph
- BotCon 2002 Tap-Out
- BotCon Europe 2002 Rook
Beast Wars Metals
- Metals Megatron
Universe (2003)
- Razorclaw
Cybertron
- Dirt Boss
Legacy
- Breakdown
- Nova Prime
- Axlegrease (Japanese release)
- Devcon (Japanese release)
Did you win the lottery or something? Holy cow.
The Hartmans and Transformerland had some really good deals. The Hartmans were really trying to clear out their stock of old BotCon stuff. They were even selling MISB Shokaracts for 400.
Sandstorm was the only one that was hard to get, because the Hartmans sold out of theirs and I had to get mine from a Japanese vendor selling tons of rare Japanese G1, Japanese BW, Japanese UT, and Brave toys.
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BotCon 2024 report (split across three posts)
BotCon 2024 has come and gone, and what a weekend it was!
Thursday
Thursday began with the first custom class of the weekend at 9:00am, with the first of three custom class figures. I didn't go to any of the classes, so I'll just cover the three class figures here in one go. The three figures were as follows:
Jungle Shadow from Retro G1 Hound
G1 Side Burn from Retro G1 Hot Rod
Bumblebeast from Legacy Beast Wars Buzzsaw
Jungle Shadow was the figure for the first custom class, and he included a special new accessory in the form of a custom-made 3D-printed Targetmaster and an adapter meant allow this Targetmaster to attach to the G1 Hound mold in vehicle mode and to be held in hand in robot mode (though, since I didn't take the class or see the figure in person, I sadly couldn't get any pics of this custom Targetmaster). The idea behind Jungle Shadow is that he is a third Autobot Targetmaster meant to go with G1 Stepper and Artfire from 1987.
G1 Side Burn is pretty self-explanatory, being a G1-molded version of the Robots in Disguise 2001 character of the same name, in homage to the 2011 TCC Side Burn figure that was a redeco of Classics Rodimus (though, the homage isn't as strong here since the G1 Hot Rod mold doesn't have the exposed car engine on his chest like the Classics mold did, which reflected the exposed car engine that was on the robot mode chest of the original RID 2001 Side Burn figure).
Bumblebeast fulfills the longtime fan wish for a "Beast Wars Bumblebee" toy that actually turns into a bee (complete with a new 3D-printed headsculpt), something that Hasbro/Kenner never did make because they never could have made it, what with the name "Bumblebee" having been unavailable during the Beast Era and un-trademarkable on an actual bee toy since it would have been considered a description rather than a name (much like how there can never be a toy of Hound that turns into an actual hound dog; a hound named "Hound" or even "Autobot Hound" is too generic to pass legal).
Anyway, 10:30am began registration for vendors and exhibitor hall setup.
At 11:00am, Jesse Wittenrich started giving out tickets for a special event that was to begin later that evening. To go along with this event, he also showed me some copies of a third volume of the BotCon: Beyond the Convention guidebook.
However, unlike the first two volumes, the contents of this book are not actually BotCon-specific. Rather, the pages of this book cover a sprawling array of vintage 1980s Transformers memorabilia and other non-toy merchandise, ranging from bedding to clothing to books to games to video tapes to costumes to cookie jars to stationary and so much more. Here is a sample of its contents:
Jesse also told me that there is actually going to be an enhanced version of this book (a "Volume 3.5", so to speak) set to be released later to Amazon, which will have even more Transformers memorabilia coverage within it. So while the book is BotCon-related in name only, I'd still very much recommend folks checking out this book to see such a grand collection of Transformers history compiled into one tome. If nothing else, the Amazon version coming later will definitely be the one to get, as this BotCon 2024 version is just preview of the main edition yet to come.
2:00pm started the sign-up for Energon Toss Tournament, which was a bean bag toss competition that was held throughout the entire weekend. I didn't participate in it, but I saw so many people of all ages, from young little kids to full grown adults, having a blast tossing bean bag into target holes set up in the convention center's main lobby.
Starting at 4:00pm, registration package pick-up opened for both Premium and Premium Plus attendees. I went with Premium since the extra perks for Plus didn't appeal to me. I was actually surprised to see so many more registrants in the Plus line than there were in the Premium line, so I guess many more really wanted those extra perks.
At 4:15pm, the BotCon Store opened. Most of the items available were leftover stock from the previous two BotCons of 2022 and 2023, as well as a few new items. Namely, the Shattered Gullwing from Ramen Toy (a Shattered Glass take on M.A.S.K.), a BotCon legacy box set containing four BeastBox figures from BotCon 2022 (Ligerstrike, Dark Klawd, Boxx Monkey, and Dragonfire) as well as a green/black/purple version of the custom-made Targetmaster meant for Jungle Shadow (once again, I failed to get a pic of this too), some new T-shirts, and some other new odds and ends. Anything left over after the convention should be put up for sale on Agabyss's website eventually.
The main exclusive of the event was the new "House of Magnus" 2-pack from Yolopark, consisting of Sunstorm and Delta Magnus. This was the only brand new exclusive toy set for this year, so there were no souvenir figures or even an attendee freebie. The reason for this is because it took a whole lot of doing in order to get the license with Yolopark to make an official exclusive for this year. All the money went into the 2-pack.
At 5:30pm, registration opened to Weekend attendees.
At 7:30pm came the aforementioned event for which the 11:00am tickets were given. The vintage 1980s merchandise covered the third BotCon guidebook was actually all brought to the convention and laid out on a long table. Those who had gotten tickets were given first access to look over this collection and pick out specific items that they wished to purchase. Anyone who didn't have a ticket could do so as well, just after those with tickets who got to stand at the front of the line. While the items were sold on a "first come, first serve" basis, they were all given limits as to how many per person could be purchased, so as to give everyone a fairer chance to pick and choose what they wanted.
I myself had a good look over this collection, and while a few items did catch my attention, none of the ones I took interest in actually worked anymore. Since they were essentially non-functional paperweights, I decided to instead just save all my money for the dealer room instead, and chose nothing from this collection of memorabilia. That said, everyone else seemed to get whatever they wanted, and there was plenty of merch to go around.
By 9:00pm, registration and the BotCon store closed, as the merchandise sale ended. But, that wasn't to be the end of things for the evenings, for a special screening of certain Beast Wars episodes was to begin shortly after. These episodes were to be Tarantulas-focused ones from the show's first two seasons, with Alec Willows playing emcee for the screening and providing commentary on the episodes. However, the screening was unfortunately canceled due to two unforeseen factors. First, there was some equipment failure that prevented anything from being played. They had to order all new equipment that wouldn't arrive until the next day. And second, Alec Willows himself couldn't make it to the convention center because of some sort of personal issue at the airport that he had to take care of.
To make up for the cancelation, those who had come to the screening were given the exclusive lapel pin of Fire Guts Ginrai that was given only to early-bird registrants, as well as BotCon 2024 postcards featuring the Transformers Animated artwork "The Sewer-Side Squad" drawn and colored by Josh Perez.
Friday
8:00am was late package pick-up for anyone who couldn't make it to the con the previous day, followed by walk-up registration at 9:00am for anyone who wasn't able to register online ahead of time.
At 9:30am, the dealer room opened for Premium and Plus attendees. To my surprise, I had gotten there early enough to be first in line for the dealer room. Weekend attendees were later let in at 10:00am. Also at 10:00am was the late sign-up for the Energon toss tournament.
The dealer room was absolutely packed with an impressive amount of vendors, carrying figures from virtually every single Transformers series, as well as a few third-party items (most notably at Agabyss's booth) and some non-Transformers items from various anime and tokusatsu series or other sci-fi/comic book series. A massive gallery of photos showing every booth can be found in this Facebook post from BotCon (Official).
One of the most notable booths was the one hosted by Jon and Karl Hartman, the original organizers of BotCon from 1994 and the 3H years of 1997 to 2002. They had a TON of old-school BotCon items from the 3H years and were priced very reasonably, considering what these items tend to go for on the secondary market.
At 11:00am began the first panel of the day, "The Art of Transformers", hosted by Robby Musso and Josh Perez. They talked about many of their Transformers works and answered many questions from fans. Some notable points I observed during this panel were some Transformers art credits that haven't yet been acknowledged:
Also at 11:00am was the qualifying rounds for the Energon Bag Toss tournament. Then at 11:30am was general admission and the customization class for Side Burn.
At 12:00pm was the next panel, and it was both something special and something... recycled. It was a repeat of a panel previously held back at BotCon 2015, the "Origin of Transformers" panel that was originally hosted by TakaraTomy designer Kojin Ohno. This time, however, Ohno was not present, so Derek Bigesby of Agabyss hosted the slide presentation himself.
But, if I recall correctly, the first time this panel was given back in 2015, no photography or video recording was permitted. This time, anyone could take pics or video of the slides, so that was a great benefit. The presentation consisted of concept sketches, prototype pics, and artwork of old Diaclone, Micro Change, and Generation 1 toys all originally designed by Kojin Ohno. It was quite an eclectic range of Transformer design history.
Continued in the next post...
BotCon 2024 has come and gone, and what a weekend it was!
Thursday
Thursday began with the first custom class of the weekend at 9:00am, with the first of three custom class figures. I didn't go to any of the classes, so I'll just cover the three class figures here in one go. The three figures were as follows:
Jungle Shadow from Retro G1 Hound
G1 Side Burn from Retro G1 Hot Rod
Bumblebeast from Legacy Beast Wars Buzzsaw
Jungle Shadow was the figure for the first custom class, and he included a special new accessory in the form of a custom-made 3D-printed Targetmaster and an adapter meant allow this Targetmaster to attach to the G1 Hound mold in vehicle mode and to be held in hand in robot mode (though, since I didn't take the class or see the figure in person, I sadly couldn't get any pics of this custom Targetmaster). The idea behind Jungle Shadow is that he is a third Autobot Targetmaster meant to go with G1 Stepper and Artfire from 1987.
G1 Side Burn is pretty self-explanatory, being a G1-molded version of the Robots in Disguise 2001 character of the same name, in homage to the 2011 TCC Side Burn figure that was a redeco of Classics Rodimus (though, the homage isn't as strong here since the G1 Hot Rod mold doesn't have the exposed car engine on his chest like the Classics mold did, which reflected the exposed car engine that was on the robot mode chest of the original RID 2001 Side Burn figure).
Bumblebeast fulfills the longtime fan wish for a "Beast Wars Bumblebee" toy that actually turns into a bee (complete with a new 3D-printed headsculpt), something that Hasbro/Kenner never did make because they never could have made it, what with the name "Bumblebee" having been unavailable during the Beast Era and un-trademarkable on an actual bee toy since it would have been considered a description rather than a name (much like how there can never be a toy of Hound that turns into an actual hound dog; a hound named "Hound" or even "Autobot Hound" is too generic to pass legal).
Anyway, 10:30am began registration for vendors and exhibitor hall setup.
At 11:00am, Jesse Wittenrich started giving out tickets for a special event that was to begin later that evening. To go along with this event, he also showed me some copies of a third volume of the BotCon: Beyond the Convention guidebook.
However, unlike the first two volumes, the contents of this book are not actually BotCon-specific. Rather, the pages of this book cover a sprawling array of vintage 1980s Transformers memorabilia and other non-toy merchandise, ranging from bedding to clothing to books to games to video tapes to costumes to cookie jars to stationary and so much more. Here is a sample of its contents:
Jesse also told me that there is actually going to be an enhanced version of this book (a "Volume 3.5", so to speak) set to be released later to Amazon, which will have even more Transformers memorabilia coverage within it. So while the book is BotCon-related in name only, I'd still very much recommend folks checking out this book to see such a grand collection of Transformers history compiled into one tome. If nothing else, the Amazon version coming later will definitely be the one to get, as this BotCon 2024 version is just preview of the main edition yet to come.
2:00pm started the sign-up for Energon Toss Tournament, which was a bean bag toss competition that was held throughout the entire weekend. I didn't participate in it, but I saw so many people of all ages, from young little kids to full grown adults, having a blast tossing bean bag into target holes set up in the convention center's main lobby.
Starting at 4:00pm, registration package pick-up opened for both Premium and Premium Plus attendees. I went with Premium since the extra perks for Plus didn't appeal to me. I was actually surprised to see so many more registrants in the Plus line than there were in the Premium line, so I guess many more really wanted those extra perks.
At 4:15pm, the BotCon Store opened. Most of the items available were leftover stock from the previous two BotCons of 2022 and 2023, as well as a few new items. Namely, the Shattered Gullwing from Ramen Toy (a Shattered Glass take on M.A.S.K.), a BotCon legacy box set containing four BeastBox figures from BotCon 2022 (Ligerstrike, Dark Klawd, Boxx Monkey, and Dragonfire) as well as a green/black/purple version of the custom-made Targetmaster meant for Jungle Shadow (once again, I failed to get a pic of this too), some new T-shirts, and some other new odds and ends. Anything left over after the convention should be put up for sale on Agabyss's website eventually.
The main exclusive of the event was the new "House of Magnus" 2-pack from Yolopark, consisting of Sunstorm and Delta Magnus. This was the only brand new exclusive toy set for this year, so there were no souvenir figures or even an attendee freebie. The reason for this is because it took a whole lot of doing in order to get the license with Yolopark to make an official exclusive for this year. All the money went into the 2-pack.
At 5:30pm, registration opened to Weekend attendees.
At 7:30pm came the aforementioned event for which the 11:00am tickets were given. The vintage 1980s merchandise covered the third BotCon guidebook was actually all brought to the convention and laid out on a long table. Those who had gotten tickets were given first access to look over this collection and pick out specific items that they wished to purchase. Anyone who didn't have a ticket could do so as well, just after those with tickets who got to stand at the front of the line. While the items were sold on a "first come, first serve" basis, they were all given limits as to how many per person could be purchased, so as to give everyone a fairer chance to pick and choose what they wanted.
I myself had a good look over this collection, and while a few items did catch my attention, none of the ones I took interest in actually worked anymore. Since they were essentially non-functional paperweights, I decided to instead just save all my money for the dealer room instead, and chose nothing from this collection of memorabilia. That said, everyone else seemed to get whatever they wanted, and there was plenty of merch to go around.
By 9:00pm, registration and the BotCon store closed, as the merchandise sale ended. But, that wasn't to be the end of things for the evenings, for a special screening of certain Beast Wars episodes was to begin shortly after. These episodes were to be Tarantulas-focused ones from the show's first two seasons, with Alec Willows playing emcee for the screening and providing commentary on the episodes. However, the screening was unfortunately canceled due to two unforeseen factors. First, there was some equipment failure that prevented anything from being played. They had to order all new equipment that wouldn't arrive until the next day. And second, Alec Willows himself couldn't make it to the convention center because of some sort of personal issue at the airport that he had to take care of.
To make up for the cancelation, those who had come to the screening were given the exclusive lapel pin of Fire Guts Ginrai that was given only to early-bird registrants, as well as BotCon 2024 postcards featuring the Transformers Animated artwork "The Sewer-Side Squad" drawn and colored by Josh Perez.
Friday
8:00am was late package pick-up for anyone who couldn't make it to the con the previous day, followed by walk-up registration at 9:00am for anyone who wasn't able to register online ahead of time.
At 9:30am, the dealer room opened for Premium and Plus attendees. To my surprise, I had gotten there early enough to be first in line for the dealer room. Weekend attendees were later let in at 10:00am. Also at 10:00am was the late sign-up for the Energon toss tournament.
The dealer room was absolutely packed with an impressive amount of vendors, carrying figures from virtually every single Transformers series, as well as a few third-party items (most notably at Agabyss's booth) and some non-Transformers items from various anime and tokusatsu series or other sci-fi/comic book series. A massive gallery of photos showing every booth can be found in this Facebook post from BotCon (Official).
One of the most notable booths was the one hosted by Jon and Karl Hartman, the original organizers of BotCon from 1994 and the 3H years of 1997 to 2002. They had a TON of old-school BotCon items from the 3H years and were priced very reasonably, considering what these items tend to go for on the secondary market.
At 11:00am began the first panel of the day, "The Art of Transformers", hosted by Robby Musso and Josh Perez. They talked about many of their Transformers works and answered many questions from fans. Some notable points I observed during this panel were some Transformers art credits that haven't yet been acknowledged:
- Josh worked on the package art for the Generations Comic Edition figures, doing the ink and colors for the art drawn by Marcelo Matere
- Robby did the early package art for Bot Shots, the package art for Titans Return Kickback and Brawn, and did early development work for Cyberverse Rack 'n' Ruin.
- Robby also designed the Earthrise Battle Masters that turned into roads. He even named Soundbarrier.
- Robby designed the Transformers/X-Men Collaborative figure Ultimate X-Panse. He had originally wanted the head to be based on Professor X wearing his Cerebro helmet, before the head was changed to look like Cyclops instead.
Also at 11:00am was the qualifying rounds for the Energon Bag Toss tournament. Then at 11:30am was general admission and the customization class for Side Burn.
At 12:00pm was the next panel, and it was both something special and something... recycled. It was a repeat of a panel previously held back at BotCon 2015, the "Origin of Transformers" panel that was originally hosted by TakaraTomy designer Kojin Ohno. This time, however, Ohno was not present, so Derek Bigesby of Agabyss hosted the slide presentation himself.
But, if I recall correctly, the first time this panel was given back in 2015, no photography or video recording was permitted. This time, anyone could take pics or video of the slides, so that was a great benefit. The presentation consisted of concept sketches, prototype pics, and artwork of old Diaclone, Micro Change, and Generation 1 toys all originally designed by Kojin Ohno. It was quite an eclectic range of Transformer design history.
Continued in the next post...
The next panel began at 1:00pm. Hosted by Jesse Wittenrich and Pete Sinclair (who, I repeat, is NOT in charge of BotCon; Hany Agaby of Agabyss is), the panel was a rather brief one for the convention comic, BotCon Unlimited #3.
In the lead-up to the convention, the revelation of the Yolopark 2-pack led many to hope/believe that the convention comic would be a Transformers story starring Delta Magnus and Sunstorm. Alas, that was not the case. Having said that, one might then think that the comic would simply be the next chapter of the BeastBox storyline begun in 2022 and continued in 2023. It was not that either (though, a couple of character from that storyline did make single-panel cameo appearance on the last page of this year's story, which was a collage of multiversal images).
What, then, was this year's convention comic story? Well... It was a Mickey Mouse comic. A parody of Steamboat Willie titled "A Mechy Mouse Picture Cartoon: Steampunk Willie". Yes, it was a steampunk take on the classic Mickey Mouse cartoon with lots of easter eggs and cameos of exclusives from BotCons past thrown into the background (with art drawn by Josh Perez). And, of course, it was unlicensed, with a full disclaimer noting that it has no official affiliation with The Walt Disney Company.
The premise for this story was actually first conceived by artist/filmmaker Lance LaSpina, who had originally pitched the idea to Disney years ago. When doing research to see if the steampunk idea for this take on Mickey had been previously thought up by anyone else, Pete and Jesse found Lance's concept art online and reached out to him. Working things out with Lance, they were able to get his permission to use his character designs for Mickey, Minnie, and Captain Pete in this comic. A retail version of this comic is even set for release later on, with cover art drawn by Lance himself (the convention cover is drawn by Robby Musso). The convention comic is a heavily abridged version of the original cartoon's story; the retail version to come later will be a much longer, more expanded version.
Of note to Transformers fans was the presence of a certain Transformers character found on both the convention comic's cover and on the final page of the comic's story: Gaea.
One might wonder how BotCon was able to use her since the comic isn't a licensed Transformers work. Well, it turns out, Gaea isn't actually owned by Hasbro at all. Rather, she is a character that is fully owned by the BotCon brand. While Gaea made her first official appearance in the TCC magazine's 2015's Shattered Glass storyline "Another Light", she had actually made her first debut at the unofficial BotCon convention way back in 2004 (the official con that year was OTFCC 2004), appearing on merchandise like T-shirts, art prints, and the back cover of the BotCon 2004 program guide.
Because of this, BotCon is free to use her as they please, placing Gaea in a similar position as the likes of Circuit Breaker and Death's Head in regards to legal ownership of the character.
At 2:00pm was the cosplay panel. I did not go to this one.
3:00pm was Aaron Archer's panel, the final one of the day. He brought with him a slide presentation consisting of preproduction and production documents for the Transformers: Armada toyline. Lots of fascinating design stuff to be found in this.
After that panel, a Transformers Animated script reading was planned to start at 4:00pm, but had to be postponed until the next day, as some of the voice actors hadn't made it to the convention just yet.
Also at 4:00pm was the first customization class for Bumblebeast. The vendor room then closed at 5:00pm.
Another movie screening was set to begin at 9:00pm that night. This time, they were able to play it. Gregg Berger was the emcee for this screening, and he provided commentary on it. What movie did they play? Why, none other than the seventh Police Academy movie, Police Academy: Mission to Moscow. Why? Because Gregg Berger was in it, of course!
...Oh, you meant, why that movie instead of a Transformers film? Well, because BotCon legally cannot screen any of the Transformers movies. Because the convention is a paid event, if they were to try screening a Transformers movie, Hasbro would intervene with a cease-and-desist. BotCon doesn't want to get in trouble with Hasbro and Paramount, so they opted to instead pay tribute to Gregg Berger by showing a movie that he was in.
Now, I have to confess that I actually did not go to this screening because I was too tired to stick around for much longer after the dealer room closed. I instead left the convention center to go get some dinner and go back to my hotel to wind down, relax, and prepare myself for the next day. But from what I heard, those who did go to the screening had a lot of fun.
Saturday
The dealer room opened for all registered attendees at 9:00am. Once again, I got there early enough to be close to the front of the line; third or fourth if I remember correctly. General admission was let in at 9:30am.
At 10:00am, "how-to-draw" classes and the kids-only customization class for Bumblebeast began. I didn't do the drawing classes, so I've nothing to say much there.
At 11:00am, a panel for the non-toy merchandise was hosted by Pete Sinclair, since he was the one who put the collection together for the convention. People mostly just asked him questions about the memorabilia and what all else might be put into the "Volume 3.5" BotCon guidebook.
Also at 11:00am was Round 2 of the Energon bag toss tournament.
At 12:00pm was the Yolopark Q&A panel. This panel was hosted by Derek Bigesby of Agabyss and gave an overview of Yolopark the company and their Transformers products before going into the "House of Magnus" exclusive 2-pack featuring Sunstorm and Delta Magnus. The main takeaways I got from this panel were these two points of interest:
1:00pm marked the first voice actor panel of the weekend, hosted by Animated Bumblebee (and more) himself, Bumper Robinson. Most of the questions asked of him were about his long acting career, dating back to when he was a child actor in the 1980s. The few points of interest I gleaned from this panel were:
At 2:00pm came the Robosen panel, hosted by a sales representative from Robosen and the voice of Grimlock himself, Gregg Berger. These were the interesting parts I picked out:
Also at 2:00pm was the Cosplay Contest, held in the main lobby right outside the panel room. I was at the panel so I didn't go to this, but I and everyone in the panel room could hear on the yelling and cheering going on at the contest.
At 3:00pm was the Product Reveal panel. Back at BotCon 2022, this panel was mainly about third-party items and a few officially-licensed items. At BotCon 2023, it was about evenly split between third-party and official licensees. This year, however, it was predominately official licensees, with only a single third-party item shown off (which was the already-revealed Overture from Mastermind Creations, offered exclusively at Toy Dojo's booth in the dealer room).
The officially-licensed items shown off at this panel were new Transformers products from Blokees, Killerbody, and ThreeZero, all with Hasbro's official company logo in the corner of each slide. This entire panel has actually been uploaded to YouTube and can be viewed in full below, courtesy of YouTuber Deluxe Baldwin
At 4:00pm was the 40th Anniversary panel hosted by Paul Eiding and Gregg Berger. They talked a lot about their careers, their history with the Transformers brand, and the 40th anniversary table reading that they did for the theatrical screening of the first episode of the G1 cartoon. Of note, the two were the only voice actors in that table read who did not reprise any of their original voice roles, as they filled in for the dearly departed Casey Kasem, Don Messick, John Stephenson, and Ken Sansom, as well as the absent Corey Burton and Victor Caroli. Other points of interest I observed were:
Concluded in the next post...
In the lead-up to the convention, the revelation of the Yolopark 2-pack led many to hope/believe that the convention comic would be a Transformers story starring Delta Magnus and Sunstorm. Alas, that was not the case. Having said that, one might then think that the comic would simply be the next chapter of the BeastBox storyline begun in 2022 and continued in 2023. It was not that either (though, a couple of character from that storyline did make single-panel cameo appearance on the last page of this year's story, which was a collage of multiversal images).
What, then, was this year's convention comic story? Well... It was a Mickey Mouse comic. A parody of Steamboat Willie titled "A Mechy Mouse Picture Cartoon: Steampunk Willie". Yes, it was a steampunk take on the classic Mickey Mouse cartoon with lots of easter eggs and cameos of exclusives from BotCons past thrown into the background (with art drawn by Josh Perez). And, of course, it was unlicensed, with a full disclaimer noting that it has no official affiliation with The Walt Disney Company.
The premise for this story was actually first conceived by artist/filmmaker Lance LaSpina, who had originally pitched the idea to Disney years ago. When doing research to see if the steampunk idea for this take on Mickey had been previously thought up by anyone else, Pete and Jesse found Lance's concept art online and reached out to him. Working things out with Lance, they were able to get his permission to use his character designs for Mickey, Minnie, and Captain Pete in this comic. A retail version of this comic is even set for release later on, with cover art drawn by Lance himself (the convention cover is drawn by Robby Musso). The convention comic is a heavily abridged version of the original cartoon's story; the retail version to come later will be a much longer, more expanded version.
Of note to Transformers fans was the presence of a certain Transformers character found on both the convention comic's cover and on the final page of the comic's story: Gaea.
One might wonder how BotCon was able to use her since the comic isn't a licensed Transformers work. Well, it turns out, Gaea isn't actually owned by Hasbro at all. Rather, she is a character that is fully owned by the BotCon brand. While Gaea made her first official appearance in the TCC magazine's 2015's Shattered Glass storyline "Another Light", she had actually made her first debut at the unofficial BotCon convention way back in 2004 (the official con that year was OTFCC 2004), appearing on merchandise like T-shirts, art prints, and the back cover of the BotCon 2004 program guide.
Because of this, BotCon is free to use her as they please, placing Gaea in a similar position as the likes of Circuit Breaker and Death's Head in regards to legal ownership of the character.
At 2:00pm was the cosplay panel. I did not go to this one.
3:00pm was Aaron Archer's panel, the final one of the day. He brought with him a slide presentation consisting of preproduction and production documents for the Transformers: Armada toyline. Lots of fascinating design stuff to be found in this.
After that panel, a Transformers Animated script reading was planned to start at 4:00pm, but had to be postponed until the next day, as some of the voice actors hadn't made it to the convention just yet.
Also at 4:00pm was the first customization class for Bumblebeast. The vendor room then closed at 5:00pm.
Another movie screening was set to begin at 9:00pm that night. This time, they were able to play it. Gregg Berger was the emcee for this screening, and he provided commentary on it. What movie did they play? Why, none other than the seventh Police Academy movie, Police Academy: Mission to Moscow. Why? Because Gregg Berger was in it, of course!
...Oh, you meant, why that movie instead of a Transformers film? Well, because BotCon legally cannot screen any of the Transformers movies. Because the convention is a paid event, if they were to try screening a Transformers movie, Hasbro would intervene with a cease-and-desist. BotCon doesn't want to get in trouble with Hasbro and Paramount, so they opted to instead pay tribute to Gregg Berger by showing a movie that he was in.
Now, I have to confess that I actually did not go to this screening because I was too tired to stick around for much longer after the dealer room closed. I instead left the convention center to go get some dinner and go back to my hotel to wind down, relax, and prepare myself for the next day. But from what I heard, those who did go to the screening had a lot of fun.
Saturday
The dealer room opened for all registered attendees at 9:00am. Once again, I got there early enough to be close to the front of the line; third or fourth if I remember correctly. General admission was let in at 9:30am.
At 10:00am, "how-to-draw" classes and the kids-only customization class for Bumblebeast began. I didn't do the drawing classes, so I've nothing to say much there.
At 11:00am, a panel for the non-toy merchandise was hosted by Pete Sinclair, since he was the one who put the collection together for the convention. People mostly just asked him questions about the memorabilia and what all else might be put into the "Volume 3.5" BotCon guidebook.
Also at 11:00am was Round 2 of the Energon bag toss tournament.
At 12:00pm was the Yolopark Q&A panel. This panel was hosted by Derek Bigesby of Agabyss and gave an overview of Yolopark the company and their Transformers products before going into the "House of Magnus" exclusive 2-pack featuring Sunstorm and Delta Magnus. The main takeaways I got from this panel were these two points of interest:
- The Yolopark 2-pack took five and a half months of planning in order for it to get officially made and released at the convention.
- They originally considered doing a set of BotCon characters, but then decided against it because they didn't want to do a set of characters that most buyers wouldn't know or care about. So they went with the more familiar Delta Magnus and Sunstorm. For Sunstorm especially, they went with him because there hasn't been a new toy G1 Sunstorm in a long time.
1:00pm marked the first voice actor panel of the weekend, hosted by Animated Bumblebee (and more) himself, Bumper Robinson. Most of the questions asked of him were about his long acting career, dating back to when he was a child actor in the 1980s. The few points of interest I gleaned from this panel were:
- When he auditioned for Animated Blitzwing, he had to come up with all three voices for him on the spot, having been surprised by voice director Sue Blu at the audition that Blitzwing would have three different voices. He auditioned doing one voice, then was told that he would have another, and then another.
- While this isn't Transformers-specific, he confirmed for everyone here that, despite what the Internet may claim, his middle name is not "Clarence" (he did not say what it really is, though).
At 2:00pm came the Robosen panel, hosted by a sales representative from Robosen and the voice of Grimlock himself, Gregg Berger. These were the interesting parts I picked out:
- Robosen Megatron took about 4–5 years to develop.
- Robosen has two more Transformers in the pipeline. One to be announced by the end of the year, and one to be announced next year. Those of us in the room were the first to hear about this. The sales rep hinted that the two forthcoming Robosen Transformers will be "expanding the universe on both sides," suggesting one Autobot and one Decepticon.
- Robosen gave Gregg something like 150 lines to record for Grimlock. During the recording session, Gregg added some lines and some dialogue edits of his own, to better enhance his performance, knowing how the character would speak these lines. Though, neither Gregg nor the sales rep could remember any of the lines that Gregg added himself.
- Also during the session, Gregg ad-libbed some lines for the intelligent Grimlock from "Grimlock's New Brain", much to the surprise and confusion of Robosen who had no idea about that episode or why Gregg was suddenly giving Grimlock a British accent.
- Gregg also did about three takes for every line, recording for four hours straight just to get the lines right.
- It was confirmed that there will be no Elite versions of Grimlock or Megatron, just the Flagship versions. This is because Robosen's market tends to prefer the "bigger and better" versions.
Also at 2:00pm was the Cosplay Contest, held in the main lobby right outside the panel room. I was at the panel so I didn't go to this, but I and everyone in the panel room could hear on the yelling and cheering going on at the contest.
At 3:00pm was the Product Reveal panel. Back at BotCon 2022, this panel was mainly about third-party items and a few officially-licensed items. At BotCon 2023, it was about evenly split between third-party and official licensees. This year, however, it was predominately official licensees, with only a single third-party item shown off (which was the already-revealed Overture from Mastermind Creations, offered exclusively at Toy Dojo's booth in the dealer room).
The officially-licensed items shown off at this panel were new Transformers products from Blokees, Killerbody, and ThreeZero, all with Hasbro's official company logo in the corner of each slide. This entire panel has actually been uploaded to YouTube and can be viewed in full below, courtesy of YouTuber Deluxe Baldwin
At 4:00pm was the 40th Anniversary panel hosted by Paul Eiding and Gregg Berger. They talked a lot about their careers, their history with the Transformers brand, and the 40th anniversary table reading that they did for the theatrical screening of the first episode of the G1 cartoon. Of note, the two were the only voice actors in that table read who did not reprise any of their original voice roles, as they filled in for the dearly departed Casey Kasem, Don Messick, John Stephenson, and Ken Sansom, as well as the absent Corey Burton and Victor Caroli. Other points of interest I observed were:
- Gregg and Paul were brought into the voice acting business by Hanna Barbera casting director Gordon Hunt, who saw them both in a stage production of Cloud 9.
- Gregg's favorite version of Grimlock that he's played is actually the Fall of Cybertron video game version. He loved how much darker, dramatic, and more cinematic that version was, and always wanted to try taking the character in that kind of direction.
- People often think that Gregg and Paul get warm feelings of nostalgia from getting to see their old friends and fellow voice actors from the G1 cartoon, but the truth is that they actually don't get any such feelings of nostalgia because they both always see everyone so often all the time, both at various voice acting jobs and at many other conventions. They never spend enough time apart from everyone to miss everyone because they're always seeing one another at different gigs.
Concluded in the next post...
The voice actor panel ended around 4:45pm to let the previous day's rescheduled script reading commence. It was a Transformers Animated story set after the events of Season 3, titled "Bee in the City 3: The Sewer-Side Squad" (the "3" in the title was a goof because they had forgotten that there were two other "Bee in the City" script readings at last year's BotCon, in addition to the two official ones from back in 2008 and 2012, respectively). The story featured a motley crew of criminals banding together to save Cybertron from the multiversal machinations of Tarantulas. It ended with time being reversed and all events of the story being undone and erased. The cast for this script reading included the following:
5:00pm was when the vendor room closed again. The script reading ran past then, so those of us at the reading were already out of the room when it closed and couldn't get back in until the morning.
7:00pm marked the final round and awards for the Energon bag toss tournament, as the other intervening rounds had been held earlier at 2:00pm and 4:00pm. Like every other round, I didn't witness any of the tournament.
9:00pm was another movie screening. This time, Bumper Robinson was the commentary provider, as the movie was one that he was in: The 1996 made-for-television movie Generation X, based on the Marvel Comics team of the same name, which was itself a spinoff of the X-Men. Like the previous night's screening, I didn't stick around for this one either, as I was too hungry and tired again. Like before, I left to get some supper and went back to my hotel.
Sunday
Sunday began with the dealer room opening for everyone at 9:00am. Once again, I was first in line, which was very unusual for me since previous years typically had the line form well before my arrival. Still, I'm not one to complain about getting enter the dealer room first.
There were only three panels this day, and the first was at 11:00am. It was Alec Willows's panel, where he talked about Beast Wars, his time voicing Tarantulas, and much about his acting career both on the screen and the stage. Of note, around the time he was recording for Beast Wars's first season, he was also busy with a stage play that was touring the United States during the same time. The man was a real trooper, even fighting health problems he was having back then, too.
At 12:00pm was actually a pretty fun panel. This was a panel hosted by a fan who went over the history of the live action Transformers movies and the effects they had on the brand overall, including some fairly light jabbing and firmly tongue-in-cheek remarks about the movies and Michael Bay's particular contributions to each film.
Once that presentation was over, another man stepped up to host the panel. This man was one of the prop guys who worked on both Age of Extinction and The Last Knight. He brought with him some actual props that were used in those movies for everyone here to see and even wield in hand. He brought with him three swords that were used in the King Arthur battle scene at the beginning of The Last Knight, and the actual Cemetery Wind bag that was used to carry the Seed in Age of Extinction. I myself got to hold two of the sword props. They were really heavy and really cool. Me and two others all held them and did some Three Musketeers poses with them. Here's what the swords looked like:
I didn't get any pics of the bag, but it was really high-quality material and had a mean-looking Cemetery Wind logo on it.
At 1:00pm came the final panel of the day, the BotCon panel. This was hosted by convention organizer and Agabyss owner Hany Agaby, as well as Derek Bigesby. They took plenty of feedback from everyone in the audience and asked us questions as well. Questions were asked about exclusives, about third-party vs. official product, about convention dates and times-of-year, and more. This year's BotCon was very well received with good times and good relations had all-around. They even announced where and when the next year's con would be:
After that panel, there was one more hour before the dealer room closed at 3:00pm. I ran back inside to make some final purchases, and to talk with Aaron Archer at his booth about a few things.
First, I was requested by an online acquaintance to ask Archer about a statement he had given way back in 2003 at Orson's World on TFW2005. In this original statement, Archer had stated that the original color scheme for Armada Powerlinx Demolishor was planned to have been based on G1 Sixshot, before it was ultimately changed to the red color scheme the final figure ended up having.
Over on TFWiki, the toy write-up for Powerlinx Demolishor suggests that Archer might have meant Six-Gun instead of Sixshot because Archer apparent said that Demolishor's gun hands made him think of Sixshot, when Sixshot doesn't have gun hands while Six-Gun does. When I asked Archer about this, he explained to me that, back when he was working on Armada during that time, he was not a big enough fan of Transformers to know all that much about Generation 1, and assured me that he would not at all have known about Six-Gun back then. He said that he had known about Sixshot back then only because Takara had recently reissued the G1 Sixshot toy back during 2002, so Sixshot was fresh on Archer's mind at the time.
He also rationalized that the most likely reason Powerlinx Demolishor's original Sixshot-based deco was changed was due to Powerlinx Cyclonus having already had a green color scheme, and his bosses at Hasbro possibly felt that there would have been too much green for that part of the toyline's Super-Con range. He also suspected that the green deco for the later Energon Demolishor release was possibly recycled from Powerlinx Demolishor's original deco.
Relatedly, we also talked about how Tidal Wave's original purple deco was changed to the green one the Hasbro toy ended up having (as opposed to how the Takara toy kept the original purple deco). In addition to the notion of there having been too much purple in the line at the time, Archer told me that Tidal Wave's deco was changed by request of Samantha Lomow, who was his boss at the time. Back then, Transformers was still primarily targeting boys, while the color purple was still kinda felt by Hasbro as being a "girls' color", so there being "too much purple" in a "boys' brand" was a concern of Hasbro's at the time.
And finally is something really special, involving the mystery of what might very well be a discarded exclusive proposal. Back on Friday, I had previously approached Archer's booth to find him talking to three other attendees, who had just purchased some unpainted test shots of older Transformers toys from one of the vendors at the convention (one of which was a red test shot of ROTF Deluxe class Lockdown). But, among these production items they had with them was a most mysterious curiosity.
Rather than a test shot, this item appeared to be an officially-painted Transformers figure, but with a different color from the final version. It was Alternators Decepticharge, but with all of its flat yellow colored shiny metallic gold instead. It also even had the full-length gun barrel from the Binaltech Overdrive version instead of the barrel-less weapon of Alternators Windcharger/Decepticharge. The guy who bought this item showed it to Aaron Archer in hopes that he, Archer, might be able to identify what it was.
Archer examined it and looked it over thoroughly and meticulously. He was absolutely certain that it was not a fan custom, as he recognized the paintwork as being identical to the official in-house paintwork for the toy. In other words, the yellow was painted gold, but all of the black paint details were painted over the gold in all of the same places and patterns found on the official yellow version. Archer then grabbed his phone and contacted several of his colleagues, both former and current Hasbro employees (including Mark Maher, whom Archer said had been a painter for Transformers way back then), to try to figure out what this mysterious gold Decepticharge really was.
It wasn't until Sunday afternoon that I got back to Archer's booth to hear about his findings. After consulting several individuals over his phone, he had determined that this gold Decepticharge was most likely a marketing sample made in-house at Hasbro for a potential retail exclusive, a physical example that would have been shown off to various retailers for the offered proposal. What really tipped him off about this was the fact that all of the figure's joints were left unchanged from the normal retail version, as the joints would have been left unpainted yellow for this kind of proposal sample.
Evidently, no such exclusive was made, which according to Archer means that no retailer accepted the offer proposed. Exactly how this marketing sample got out of Hasbro and into the hands of the vendor who sold both it and the test shots to these guys is anyone's guess. And while I was not able get the names of the three who had purchased this gold Decepticharge, nor did I ever find out which vendor had sold it to them, they did allow me to take photos of it in its plastic Ziploc wrapping:
Archer also felt that the gold would have originally been much brighter back when it was first applied to the sample, and that it has since dulled over time. Also notice that the underside of the car is left unchanged too (save for, again, the barrel on the weapon). Such an extraordinary discovery was completely unexpected and a delightful surprise.
The show closed at 3:00pm to give everyone the rest of the day to themselves, to wind down and pack up for the return trips home, or to do whatever else anyone needed or wanted to do before going home. There was no movie screening that night.
Overall, this was a great weekend, with a great show in a great venue. It was just all-around great.
- Bumper Robinson: Blitzwing, Erector, Bumblebee Prime
- Alec Willows: Tarantulas, Rattrap (though, I think they meant *Rattletrap* instead, since this was an Animated story)
- Paul Eiding: Perceptor, Beachcomber
- Gregg Berger: Sky-Byte, Toxitron, and a surprise out-of-universe appearance of G1 Grimlock at the end (singing a mocking parody of the "I Love You" song from Barney and Friends that poked fun at David Kaye having been cast as Animated Grimlock instead of him)
- Katie Lastra (fan participant): Number 2
- Derek Bigesby: Narrator
5:00pm was when the vendor room closed again. The script reading ran past then, so those of us at the reading were already out of the room when it closed and couldn't get back in until the morning.
7:00pm marked the final round and awards for the Energon bag toss tournament, as the other intervening rounds had been held earlier at 2:00pm and 4:00pm. Like every other round, I didn't witness any of the tournament.
9:00pm was another movie screening. This time, Bumper Robinson was the commentary provider, as the movie was one that he was in: The 1996 made-for-television movie Generation X, based on the Marvel Comics team of the same name, which was itself a spinoff of the X-Men. Like the previous night's screening, I didn't stick around for this one either, as I was too hungry and tired again. Like before, I left to get some supper and went back to my hotel.
Sunday
Sunday began with the dealer room opening for everyone at 9:00am. Once again, I was first in line, which was very unusual for me since previous years typically had the line form well before my arrival. Still, I'm not one to complain about getting enter the dealer room first.
There were only three panels this day, and the first was at 11:00am. It was Alec Willows's panel, where he talked about Beast Wars, his time voicing Tarantulas, and much about his acting career both on the screen and the stage. Of note, around the time he was recording for Beast Wars's first season, he was also busy with a stage play that was touring the United States during the same time. The man was a real trooper, even fighting health problems he was having back then, too.
At 12:00pm was actually a pretty fun panel. This was a panel hosted by a fan who went over the history of the live action Transformers movies and the effects they had on the brand overall, including some fairly light jabbing and firmly tongue-in-cheek remarks about the movies and Michael Bay's particular contributions to each film.
Once that presentation was over, another man stepped up to host the panel. This man was one of the prop guys who worked on both Age of Extinction and The Last Knight. He brought with him some actual props that were used in those movies for everyone here to see and even wield in hand. He brought with him three swords that were used in the King Arthur battle scene at the beginning of The Last Knight, and the actual Cemetery Wind bag that was used to carry the Seed in Age of Extinction. I myself got to hold two of the sword props. They were really heavy and really cool. Me and two others all held them and did some Three Musketeers poses with them. Here's what the swords looked like:
I didn't get any pics of the bag, but it was really high-quality material and had a mean-looking Cemetery Wind logo on it.
At 1:00pm came the final panel of the day, the BotCon panel. This was hosted by convention organizer and Agabyss owner Hany Agaby, as well as Derek Bigesby. They took plenty of feedback from everyone in the audience and asked us questions as well. Questions were asked about exclusives, about third-party vs. official product, about convention dates and times-of-year, and more. This year's BotCon was very well received with good times and good relations had all-around. They even announced where and when the next year's con would be:
After that panel, there was one more hour before the dealer room closed at 3:00pm. I ran back inside to make some final purchases, and to talk with Aaron Archer at his booth about a few things.
First, I was requested by an online acquaintance to ask Archer about a statement he had given way back in 2003 at Orson's World on TFW2005. In this original statement, Archer had stated that the original color scheme for Armada Powerlinx Demolishor was planned to have been based on G1 Sixshot, before it was ultimately changed to the red color scheme the final figure ended up having.
Over on TFWiki, the toy write-up for Powerlinx Demolishor suggests that Archer might have meant Six-Gun instead of Sixshot because Archer apparent said that Demolishor's gun hands made him think of Sixshot, when Sixshot doesn't have gun hands while Six-Gun does. When I asked Archer about this, he explained to me that, back when he was working on Armada during that time, he was not a big enough fan of Transformers to know all that much about Generation 1, and assured me that he would not at all have known about Six-Gun back then. He said that he had known about Sixshot back then only because Takara had recently reissued the G1 Sixshot toy back during 2002, so Sixshot was fresh on Archer's mind at the time.
He also rationalized that the most likely reason Powerlinx Demolishor's original Sixshot-based deco was changed was due to Powerlinx Cyclonus having already had a green color scheme, and his bosses at Hasbro possibly felt that there would have been too much green for that part of the toyline's Super-Con range. He also suspected that the green deco for the later Energon Demolishor release was possibly recycled from Powerlinx Demolishor's original deco.
Relatedly, we also talked about how Tidal Wave's original purple deco was changed to the green one the Hasbro toy ended up having (as opposed to how the Takara toy kept the original purple deco). In addition to the notion of there having been too much purple in the line at the time, Archer told me that Tidal Wave's deco was changed by request of Samantha Lomow, who was his boss at the time. Back then, Transformers was still primarily targeting boys, while the color purple was still kinda felt by Hasbro as being a "girls' color", so there being "too much purple" in a "boys' brand" was a concern of Hasbro's at the time.
And finally is something really special, involving the mystery of what might very well be a discarded exclusive proposal. Back on Friday, I had previously approached Archer's booth to find him talking to three other attendees, who had just purchased some unpainted test shots of older Transformers toys from one of the vendors at the convention (one of which was a red test shot of ROTF Deluxe class Lockdown). But, among these production items they had with them was a most mysterious curiosity.
Rather than a test shot, this item appeared to be an officially-painted Transformers figure, but with a different color from the final version. It was Alternators Decepticharge, but with all of its flat yellow colored shiny metallic gold instead. It also even had the full-length gun barrel from the Binaltech Overdrive version instead of the barrel-less weapon of Alternators Windcharger/Decepticharge. The guy who bought this item showed it to Aaron Archer in hopes that he, Archer, might be able to identify what it was.
Archer examined it and looked it over thoroughly and meticulously. He was absolutely certain that it was not a fan custom, as he recognized the paintwork as being identical to the official in-house paintwork for the toy. In other words, the yellow was painted gold, but all of the black paint details were painted over the gold in all of the same places and patterns found on the official yellow version. Archer then grabbed his phone and contacted several of his colleagues, both former and current Hasbro employees (including Mark Maher, whom Archer said had been a painter for Transformers way back then), to try to figure out what this mysterious gold Decepticharge really was.
It wasn't until Sunday afternoon that I got back to Archer's booth to hear about his findings. After consulting several individuals over his phone, he had determined that this gold Decepticharge was most likely a marketing sample made in-house at Hasbro for a potential retail exclusive, a physical example that would have been shown off to various retailers for the offered proposal. What really tipped him off about this was the fact that all of the figure's joints were left unchanged from the normal retail version, as the joints would have been left unpainted yellow for this kind of proposal sample.
Evidently, no such exclusive was made, which according to Archer means that no retailer accepted the offer proposed. Exactly how this marketing sample got out of Hasbro and into the hands of the vendor who sold both it and the test shots to these guys is anyone's guess. And while I was not able get the names of the three who had purchased this gold Decepticharge, nor did I ever find out which vendor had sold it to them, they did allow me to take photos of it in its plastic Ziploc wrapping:
Archer also felt that the gold would have originally been much brighter back when it was first applied to the sample, and that it has since dulled over time. Also notice that the underside of the car is left unchanged too (save for, again, the barrel on the weapon). Such an extraordinary discovery was completely unexpected and a delightful surprise.
The show closed at 3:00pm to give everyone the rest of the day to themselves, to wind down and pack up for the return trips home, or to do whatever else anyone needed or wanted to do before going home. There was no movie screening that night.
Overall, this was a great weekend, with a great show in a great venue. It was just all-around great.
