BotCon 2001 - Malin

Welcome to my somewhat abbreviated review of BotCon 2001. I just don't have as much time to type these things out anymore, y'know?

BotCon, Maximize!

- The exclusive toys: beautiful. Tigatron - A repaint of a Japanese exclusive which a majority of fans probably don't have. Arcee - a repaint of a semi-rare Beast Wars figure, as a popular character who's never had an official toy before - plus a variant of said figure, with a voice chip of Susan Blu. These should be the most sought after exclusives yet.

- Dinner Exclusives, take 1: These beautiful posters showing (almost) the entire cast of Beast Wars seasons 1-3 almost make up for narrowly losing the trivia contest prints back in '99... See Terrorize.

- The hardback Titan comic collection. Hopefully Furman prevails and a hardback 'End of the Road' will make it to market, and UK collections.

- Guests: All of them, just terrific. A very nice cross section, from G1-BM, from TV-Comics, each contributing something special.

- Optimus and Megatron costumes. These shiny, on-stilts costumes were fantastically done.

- Generally good behavior and good panel questions this year.

- Many old familiar faces, and a few new friends made.

- Vince Dicola. The guy takes a little flak in some circles for showing up every year, but as a musician, I can tell you - you find a group of patrons who like your art, you stick with them. He'll keep making music for TF fans as long as we keep listening to it.

- Beast Wars on the big screen. After popping in for a few episodes through the weekend, at show's end, I sat down in the video room and soaked in the last two episodes, Nemesis. I caught things at that picture size I'd never seen before. Even with some lost opportunities of Beast Wars' final season, what a great finish.

BotCon, Terrorize!

- The credit card 'technical difficulties' that postponed the opening of the dealer room for over half an hour. The natives were restless, not to mention becoming a mighty fire hazard.

- No Hasbro panel. It wasn't personal, but not finding out the panel was canned until the last second was unfortunate.

- The organizers' panel dragged on a little too long.

- Too bad the first ep of Robots in Disguise wasn't ready in time to show.

- Dinner exclusives, take 2: No Inferno? $(*&^(! Yeah, I know, he was in the CR Chamber, after getting blown apart AGAIN....

- Eric asking Simon Furman my 'ultimate fangeek' clone Megatron question from the UK Comics. I begged him not to...

- Trivia show. This year, I hadn't trained. Hadn't studied. Hadn't meditated for a spell. Too bad Rob and I got a question you either knew or you didn't... And I didn't. I don't mind losing but I would have liked to play longer. It's Jon's fault for not letting us ask the audience if there 'was a Brawn in the house!'

- Rising exclusive costs. I mention this every year -- not so much a whine as a suggestion. I have been fortunate enough to typically have cash when I come to the show, but I can imagine younger fans, some with parents, who don't have $200 to spend after getting there, even for the coolest exclusives in the world. Forgoing the usual fancy packaging, etc., a smaller exclusive figure would be lovely for those folks.

- If I hear one more comment about Big Daddy...

Random bits

Some random bits, in more detail.

The Guests

- All the panels were very high quality this year.

- The G1 voice actors panel - after 17 years, you never know how these guys are going to be... But all 3 this year were friendly, seemed genuinely pleased to be at the show, and had a surprising amount to say.

- Michael Bell was a pleasant surprise. He seemed very pleased when presented with a Swoop from ColdHardSlag. He was a crackup - he has the distinction of making the most phallic references during any BotCon yet...

- Greg Berger and John Stephenson were both also quite engaging. Grimlock is one voice that you really have to hear live. I had completely forgotten that Stephenson was Devcon... Too bad I didn't have time for their autographs this year.

- All the G1 actors talked at length about "the business" and their philosophies about the industry, acting, and their own careers. Very interesting stuff, and you didn't even mind the obligatory 'How can I become a voice actor' questions because their answers were so good.

- Garry and Scott were very funny. We finally got to hear Garry's version of the 'Coke' story, and more hijinks with Scott talking to himself in 5 voices (a few Wolverines sneaked in with the Beast Wars cast.) Garry strolled through the organizers' panel on his way out.. "Bye, everybody," he waved, the lovable boss monkey that he is.

- Paul Davids was a nice surprise. His comments on the production side of the G1 cartoon were interesting, especially on how many errors were *caught and fixed* in the animation. He was obviously very attached to the show and it was an important part of his career. Too bad most of those outtake cels were probably junked in Asia somewhere...

- Simon Furman was great as usual, wandering around the convention all weekend nonchalantly like another attendee. One interesting revelation which I recall hearing some of before involved the original proposal for Nemesis - which was that the ghost of the original Megatron would be haunting BW Megatron as a result of sharing his Spark, essentially berating him for 'getting it all wrong.' It would have been great. Nice to see the Furman/Wildman 'The Engine' project is finally almost up and running. Check it out at http://www.whorunstheengine.com.

The Merchandise

- Both toys are terrific, and very appropriate for their pre-existing characters. I feel bad for people who traded their voice-chip Arcees for store credit to dealers before finding out they were a variant...

Ah, that marvelous, maddening voice chip. I was almost afraid to check the box containing my Arcees on the plane, for fear that the chip would go off at the wrong moment and bring down the wrath of airport security.

As I've unpacked them, I've learned about her... (I shouldn't say it... OK, I can't resist, I'll say it.) ...much like females of the human variety, Arcee talks when she feels like it, not necessarily just when you want her to!

- Kudos to Rob and Dan for their work on the convention comic. My only complaint is that there's so much going on plotwise, you feel like you've missed something even if you've read every BotCon story and followed it for years. It's not the character portrayal, the dialogue, or the art - there just needs to be about 10 times as much of it to do justice to everything that's going on.

Dealer Rooms

- As for the discussion of why the Hasbro panel was canned. I don't think it was the *stolen* Transtech design art *on sale* in the dealer room to blame... Though I'm pretty sure they just *might* have had something to do with its disappearance on Sunday...

- Interesting selections this year. Lots of Japanese Beast Wars Neo deals to be had. Quite a bit of loose stuff, and boxes of parts/junk toys. Stacks of US/UK comics. Some nice custom made merchandise and art. I especially liked the Matrix jewelry (I was going to buy, but it slipped my mind toward the end... Next year!) and Trent Troop's Optimus 'scan' print.

- A decent cross section of older Japanese stuff, though prices continue to rise. $500 for a set of dino-cassettes?! I didn't see a single Victory Leo.

- The Unicron prototype for sale... who bought that thing for over $12,000? And what was the point of the seller not allowing pictures of it?

- Randomness: Don't be surprised if JRX is NOT called Astrotrain in the US, as was reported on the net recently.

Art Room

- The Wreckers -- one word: Devcon. I want that little blue and red, hockey stick wielding badass. For nostalgia reasons, of course. OK, the others are nice too.

- Cryotek. Say his name. Say it again. Hopefully things will go as planned and this royal blue TM2 Megatron will make it into Targets later this year.

- Some nice stuff in the art room again. I particularly liked some of the dioramas, like Primal/Megs playing pool and Night at the Autobop, and the nice, nice custom BM Silverbolt made from BM Silverbolt / Night Strike Cheetor.

This was the first BotCon I've flown to, being a West Coast dweller now, and it made a big difference in a positive way. Other than getting up at 2 am PST to get into line on Saturday morning, it was great- I didn't arrive exhausted, or have to drive home the same way.

Thanks for the memories, all. See you next year.