BotCon 2002 - Daniel "Suspy" Suh

Part One: Heaven Is A Line Called Armada Or My Elevator Ride With Neil

Thursday

Woke up around 7AM, showered, dressed, did a last-minute baggage check, then went out and picked up my hotel roomies Gordon (who's been my roomie for three years now) and Tyson AKA Dexius_R. We spent the bulk of the day driving down to Windsor to pick up Bryce AKA CoolSlider. We then crossed the border into Detroit and made the first of many shopping stops. Bryce and Tyson got Megabolts and Wave Three Spychangers at Kaybee, I got Armada Cyclonus, Demolishor, and Megatron at Meijer's and Laserbeak at TRU, and Gordon got Supreme Optimus Primal and all four small Playskool TFs at TRU. Also visited my first Hot Topic store, which was brimming with, among other things, Spongebob Squarepants merchandise. Gotta love American commerce. BAHAHAHAHAH!!!

We finally stopped off at a Marriott outside Toledo where the only non-smoking room was a king-sized bed. Gord and Tyson shared the bed, Bryce got the cot, and I ended up sleeping on a armchair, footstool, and desk chair laid end to end. It actually would've been a good sleep had it not been for Bryce's incessant snoring. Ah well, sleep and Botcon weekend generally don't go hand in hand.

As for the Armada toys, here's how it boils down:

-Demolishor and Cyclonus rule.
-Laserbeak is cute and fun, even if he is orange. And he's VERY well hung.
-Megatron would be perfect if only he had properly working leg joints

Friday

We slept in till 9AM, ate breakfast at McDonald's, then headed on over to Ft. Wayne. En route, I picked up Armada Starscream and the Berserk Fury from the Zoids line. We made it into Ft. Wayne at around noon. After taking a wrong turn onto one of the city's accursed one-way streets, we found the Hilton and entered the parking garage. At this point, Bryce jumped out and scampered off like a puppy who just saw his master. I found him on the second level and attempted to run him down, but Recharge, Lith, Tim, and Walky were with him, so I just parked the Jeep and got out to greet everyone. Bryce headed over to his suite at the Holiday Inn and Tim accompanied Gord, Tyson, and I up to our room in the Hilton. I considered passing the time before registration by starting to assemble the Fury, but lost heart as soon as I saw how many pieces there were. Instead, I took out Starscream, and soon discovered that he's the coolest Decepticon of the bunch.

So I took Starscream and headed back downstairs to find Walky by himself in the lobby, apparently abandoned by his comrades. Eventually, the rest of the crew arrived: Bryce, Charge, Lith, Finback, Hooper_X, TonyFitz, SwiftEagle, Quez, Robert Powers, Monocle, Megatron33, Robowang, Thylacine2000, Windchaser, Rapido, Dalmation, Trixter, LV, Picard42, Perc, Phil Zemen, Mouse_Pad, Trent Troop, Brax, Quag Prime, and Jackpot. Siph appeared briefly as well. Quez offered me a piece of Danish candy that was burning the mouths of other people, but it didn't bother me too much. It was very hard to chew though.

We sat around for some time playing with our assorted toys, then Jackpot, Quag, and I went and registered. Jackpot, whom I'd never met before, can best be described as a big, totally bald dude who'd actually be kinda scary were it not for his perpetually goofy smile. The registration exclusive turned out to be a green and grey Cliffjumper keychain called Tap-Out, which disappointed me initially, since I was expecting a BM-era toy.

After a bite to eat at Arby's, we returned to the lobby and hung out until the semi-formal dinner attendees trotted off to get ready. At one point, Hoop directed my attention to the arrival of Skyflight. And holy shit, had he ever lost weight. We're talking in excess of 100 lbs here. Needless to say, we were all very impressed. Skyf was still Skyf though, and I resolved to say a little something to him before the weekend was over. But what to say? Also, we sighted the famed individual known as Capething, and were amused to see that he had apparently absorbed the bulk that Skyf shed. He was more like Tentthing now.

Us non-dinner attendees ended up heading over to Charge's suite Holiday Inn. There was me, Spy, Charge, Bryce, Hoop, Wang, Lith, Jackpot, Quag, Robert Powers, Pic, and a couple others whom I forget (sorry!). We hung out, ate pizza, and drank Faygo (which I'd never had before) until we felt enough time had passed for the semi-formal to be over. Not so. We ended up sitting around in the Hilton lobby, chatting away while drinking pitchers of beer and drawing. I drew a cartoon T. rex taking a dump on a Spinosaurus only for Hellbat to add a ginormous manservant to it. As time passed on, we began to suspect that those lucky bastards upstairs were getting to watch a preview of Armada. I decided to try and confirm those suspicions. The first thing I saw when I arrived on the second floor was Raksha standing around outside, which added to our theory, since we all know how she feels about anything after 1985. And sure enough, when I opened one of the doors a crack, I caught a glimpse of Armada Prime with a bunch of kids. Then someone jerked the door shut and I went back downstairs to join the others.

Finally, the dinner began to let out. I was absolutely thrilled to learn that Garry Chalk and David Kaye were back as Prime and Megatron respectively. It is SOOOOOOOOOOO right, people. Oh, and that little gnat Particle Man appeared at the balcony, telling everyone to come to his Parts Party. Hoop's response? "FUCK YOU, PART!" The crestfallen expression on Part 's face was nothing short of priceless. Oh, and the dinner exclusives turned out to be nothing more than Supercons and Mini-Cons, which didn't sit well with a lot of people. 3H would later explain that, at the time they made the decision, Hasbro had informed them that Armada wouldn't hit shelves until after Botcon.

Anyway, a few minutes later, I'm riding the elevator up with Thy, Dal, and a guy I didn't recognize, but who kinda looked like Richard Belzer from Homicide. Anyway, I asked Thy what he thought of the Armada preview and this stranger butts in with,"The Armada cartoon has such terrible animation, straight out of the 1960s and in the worst possible way-just two cels being pulled past one another. There's this lousy fake Spanish dialect on that one kid, a lame Sean Connery impersonator as Megatron, and Optimus Prime was totally bland and generic." The hell? Who was this negative jerk bashing David and Garry? "Oh, like we've never had a bland and generic Optimus Prime before?" I shot back. "I mean, RID Prime was just a total imitation of the G1 guy! Now, Optimus Primal, there was a unique character."

Mr. Unknown curtly replied that there was a difference between being an imitation and being totally generic, to which I just shrugged. We came to my floor and as I was exiting the elevator, Mr. Unknown leaned forward and said, rather venomously, "Oh, and thanks for the compliment me on my work." I looked at him baffledly and said "And you are . . . ?" "Yes." He replied. At which point, the elevator closed and I thought no more of the incident for the time being.

After a brief visit to the Parts Party, where I picked up a MISB B'Boom from the same guy who sold me a Target exclusive Magmatron (thanks guy!), I went back downstairs and rejoined the rest of #WiiGii! in the bar, where we chatted it up with Peter Spellos, Simon Furman, Wankus, and some of the other guests. I knew that I liked Peter as soon as I addressed him as "Mr. Spellos" and he responded with "Fuck that 'Mr.' shit, it's just plain Peter, man." My kind of guest. I warned Peter that he would probably be asked tomorrow about how to get into voice acting, to which he actually responded enthusiastically. Indeed, he and Wankus were VERY excited about their first Botcon.

It was around this time that Thy informed me that Mr. Stranger had in fact been none other than Neil Kaplan! Initially, I was embarrassed, but after a second, I realized that I'd done absolutely nothing wrong. First off, I didn't know it was Neil. Second, I didn't insult him personally; I only expressed my personal dislike of a character he voiced. And third, Neil had behaved like a first rate jerk. Talk about being unprofessional. Talk about being petty. Talk about being disgustingly rude, debasing Armada that way, especially since it was practically impossible to back up any of his arguments. So he was upset about no longer being Optimus Prime. Boo-diddly-hoo. You never saw Garry Chalk behaving like an immature jagoff after Beast Wars ended, especially not at Botcon of all places. Because Garry, unlike Neil, actually has class.

I also ran into my old friend Nightwind and her Padded Cell posse. Like Skyf, she'd lost a lot of weight and looked great, even with her new mullet.

At around 2AM, I finally decided to call it a night. Went back to my room, did my best to get ready for bed without waking up my roomies. Gordon had attended the dinner, but I have no idea what Tyson did all evening. I think he just stayed in for the most part.

Part Two: The Real McCoy Or Armada Rocks Your Universe So Shut Up, Sit Back, And Enjoy The Ride

Some Spoilers Ahead...

One thing that I should probably address before anything else is Botcon 2003. Our registration booklet featured an awesome image of a Godzilla-sized Cryotek turning the city of Chicage into his personal walk-in freezer and the announcement that Botcon 2003 would take place on July 26-27 at the Hyatt Regency O'Hare. Also, there was a 1-800 number for reservations and the revelation that hotel guests would receive a free toy for each night. Initially, I thought I'd wait until after the current weekend had ended, but the sight of many, many people dialing on their cell phones scared me, so I went ahead and reserved my room. A good thing, since, while the hotel did NOT fill up over the weekend (the 800 line simply got fragged), I hear it's more of less booked solid as of this week.

Also, if I forget your name in here somewhere, please rest assured that it's entirely unintentional. Botcon is always a test in memory.

Saturday

In keeping with Botcon protocol, we arose at a quarter to seven, showered, and headed downstairs to await the opening of the dealer room. The line was vast, naturally, however I managed to cut in and join Swift, Quez, Mono, Pic, and Co. near the front. Later, Hoop joined us and got some pics of one of his favorite Botcon subjects: people with really, REALLY bad hair. When, oh when, will society learn that mullets are unacceptable? Quex showed us her Playskool Spider-Man books as well as a really freaky book entitled "Robby Really Transforms," written by some quack psychologist who thinks that playing with robot toys makes you a violent person. Swift, in a gesture of kindness that completely rocked, gave me a promotional item from Lego: the Lewa Nuva, which won't even be out until September. Sweeeeeeeeet! It's basically the same as the original Toa figures, but it's got new leg pieces, battle armour, a totally redesigned Kanohi mask, and two machetes for hackin g with extreme prejudice. I ended up acting as a billboard with legs that day, carrying the Nuva around with me and getting lots of jealous looks and comments from other attendees. Later, while I was standing in line to get Bob Forward's autograph, one girl acted like she was going to have a fit when I told that the toys weren't out yet.

9AM passed and fanboys starts to grumble that the dealer room hadn't opened yet. Geez, take a chill pill. Finally, the doors opened and the stampede began. Geeks of all age, shape, and smell thundered forth, their mouths dripping, their eyes blazing, their guts jiggling, and their wallets trembling in fear. Yessir, Botcon was officially in full swing!

Since I really didn't have a specific want list this year, I spent the first few minutes casually wandering around the room, admiring all the tables and running into old acquaintances. There was Raksha's table, complete with Straxus, Skyf, and a cardboard cutout of the world's only walking toaster (Didn't say anything to Skyf, even though it was tempting). There was Big Bad Toy Store, selling Storm Jets for $40 (which was probably the best deal for a SJ in the entire room, sadly). ToyFare, shilling their monthly dirtrag. Hydra and Tori Amos, whom I bought nothing from. Harold Tietjens and the always loveable Doug Dlin, with copies of Cybertronian. Doug had told me the other night that there was a slim chance that #6 would arrive on time, and sure enough, it came later that day. I ended up getting #1, #5, and #6 off them, but I'm sad to report that #1 and #5 are now coming apart. Doug, help?

I also saw the same guy who'd sold bootleg porn tapes at Botcon 2001, but I didn't learn until after the weekend that he was selling them at his table AGAIN. What the spotted heck was with that, 3H? I thought you guys were cracking down on smut like that.

The highlight of the dealer room had to be Hasbro's Armada line, proudly displayed in a glass case. There was Sideways the double agent, with partners Crosswise and Rook. Blurr, who was hand-painted. Smokescreen, packaged only, sadly. The Mini-Con Destruction Team and Race Car Team. The big boy, Supreme Optimus Prime. And there were some real surprises: Megatron and Starscream repainted by hand as Galvatron and Thundercracker; the Mini-Con Space Team, consisting of a satellite, a rocket, and a carrier truck; and the Mini-Con Car Team, which included a green Cadillac. Scavenger, one of the Hasbro reps informed me, was not in attendance due to the fact that he was en route to ComicCon. Sure, leave out one of the two toys I was most interested in seeing. Jetfire was around somewhere, but they hadn't located his box yet.

Later, I returned to the display to see that Hasbro had beefed it up considerably. They had another Blurr in car mode, Galv and Thundercracker in robot mode, Delux-sorry, Supercon Optimus Prime, who came with a new jet Mini-Con and looked like a real winner, and Jetfire, the white, gray, black, and red Autobot space shuttle who features opening bay doors, firing missiles, a Mini-Con moon rover, lights and sounds. His robot mode looked very bulky, but in a powerful, imposing way. Looks like he could flatten the original Jetfire in a brawl. One of the shuttle's thrusters becomes a bigass handheld cannon, very cool. But what no one knew up until now was that Jetfire can actually MERGE with Supreme Optimus Prime's cab, creating a super robot that looks a lot nicer than the one formed with Prime's trailer. I came away from the display more convinced than ever that Armada is the gift Almighty God Himself gave us. Let the fans rejoice and let the naysayers shut their holes. It is SO right.

Said hey to M_Sipher and purchased his kickass Mugshots 2 poster, which features TFs in both robot and beast mode, as well as Dreamwave's biggest loser, Lazarus, chained and being consumed by the technovirus. Sipher also got to play with my Lewa Nuva after I foolishly left it at his table. It was one of two such incidents that weekend.

At the appointed time, I got in line with other green badge wearers for the writers' autograph session. Trent had managed to persuade me to buy one of his group battle posters that had most of the RID characters on it, so I got Tom Wyner, Richard Epcar, and Steve Kramer to sign it. I was also able to chat a little with Bob Forward, who was by far the guest I'd been looking forward to seeing the most. He is, after all, the story editor of the greatest TF series of all time. For his part, Bob seemed very pleased to meet such a major fan. I resolved to talk to him some more at some point during the weekend.

Afterwards, I rejoined the #WiiGii! crew and we all headed over to Arby's for lunch. It just wouldn't be Botcon without eating tons of salt-fried grease all weekend long. I even went so far as to cheat on my diet by eating french fries.

At noon, the dealer room closed for inventory check, which would've sucked had it not been time for the writers' panel. The RID team explained how all the G1/BW/BM references had indeed been mandated by Hasbro, and that they had actually put their foot down a couple of times on the grounds that they felt the references were too obscure. It was apparent that they weren't too thrilled about what they probably considered interference.

I asked Tom and Richard to do a skit with Devimon and Myotismon. They each commented on their respective characters, however, they either forgot or declined to do the skits, those bastards. Bob explained how towards the end of BW, they talked with Hasbro over the possibility of either expanding the show to outer space or simply letting it end, which as we all know was what ultimately happened. He described how he and Larry DiTillio tended to work independently from one another of script writing, and even had a little fun trying to redirect each other's ideas. Also, he elaborated on the nature of the Vok-how they are the final step in the evolution of humanity and the self-appointed guardians of space and time. Larry, OTOH, wanted to tie them in with the Swarm from the G2 comic.

Simon Furman reminisced about his failed plan to bring Ramjet, Dirge, and Thrust into the final episode of Nemesis. He also professed a love for killing.

After the panel let out, Thy and I stood in line for our exclusives for about five minutes before deciding the line was too long. In the mean time, I actually started buying things: recolours of Mechatron and TM2 Dinobot to replace my old broken ones.

Just as Hasbro's Armada display was the highlight of the dealer room, so too was their panel was the highlight of the entire day. There were three men and two women: Michelle Field(marketing director), Aaron Archer(primary US designer), Joe Matico(senior product manager), Amy Agnew(marketing), and Andrew "Swiper" Frankel(exclusives director and all-around lucky bastard). There was also a designer from Takara who didn't speak but sat in the front row of the audience. They came fully prepared with a nice computer presentation that showed artwork and photos, and they had answers ready for some of the most persistent/annoying questions.

• First up, Laserbeak was introduced to give kids a sense of inclusion in the storyline, and his hot orange colouring was quite, quite necessary in order to meet safety standards.
  
• G1 Megatron has as much chance of being re-released as Steve-O Stonebraker has of becoming Playmate of the Year, even if he were coloured shiny blue and hot orange (Meggy, not Steve-O).
  
• Fortress Maximus has been delayed for failing to pass Hasbro's new drop test-any broken pieces will leave sharp edges that could potentially harm children.
  
• There will not be any beast TFs for awhile, sadly.
  
• Ball joints are lacking in Armada not because Hasbro's purposely trying to avoid them, but because they don't work well with the toys' designs.
  
• Tech specs are absent from the packaging due to the new tri-lingual rule, which would've reduced them to being short and banal.
  
• Trans-Tech never made it past the concept stage and RID was never anything more than filler.
  
• There is no movie in the works.
  
• The lack of Canadian exclusives is the fault of Canadian retailers, not Hasbro(Thank God for having friends in the States!).
  
• For all you old fuddy duddies, there will be more G1 reissues in the future. Just expect them to have slight modifications in order to meet current safety standards.
  
• There will be 52 episodes of Armada showing on Cartoon Network in the States. I was greatly relieved to hear from Michelle that a deal with YTV is in the works so that Canadian Transfans won't be left in the lurch.
  
• There are no female characters planned for the Armada line, which is unfortunate to say the least.
  
• Michelle refrained from confirming that Garry and David were playing Prime and Megatron, so Glen Hallit happily stepped in to confirm it for her.
  
• There are no plans to make The War Within toys, not unless the comic is a MAJOR hit. Pray.
  
• When asked about the issue of name reuse, the reps cited all the exact same reasons that have been discussed ad nauseum on ATT: they've got a Final Fantasy thing going on where each new series will take place in a different continuity; they don't want some other company using a TF name, as was the case with Hot Rod; the names were great then and they're great now, and they allow each new generation of fans to grow up with their unique versions of Prime and Megatron; there's more than one Aaron in the world, so there can be more than one Megatron. Hey, no argument here.

Finally, Michelle showed us that they had actually changed Hot Shot's face from a happy one to a fairly bland one in order to show "we're listening." Ye gods, and people still insist that Hasbro's just a faceless, money-driven corporation that doesn't care about the fans. As of now, anyone who feels that way is officially an idiot. Hasbro loves us. End of story.

We also got to speak to Swiper on more casual terms in the dealer room after the panel let out. Turns out he's responsible for Cryotek as well as Air Attack Optimus Primal, Scourge, Megabolt, and the Laser Cycles. And his image was incorporated into the GI Joe line as "Sideswipe." AND he informed us that we may be seeing a toy in the future with either the name Bludgeon or Big Daddy. YES! THERE IS A GOD!

I finally went and picked up my exclusives. First up was Cyclonus, whom everyone knew was a gorgeous recolour of Ultra Jetstorm. The front of his box featured character art by Pat Lee, while the back art was obviously Dan Khanna. A series of small pictures showed how Cyclonus' Spark was extracted from his old body by Cryotek and then inserted into his current, much cooler form.

Next up was CatSCAN, a red, white, and black recolour of Night Slash Cheetor. He came in what had to be the coolest packaging EVER: a blue-green box with a large front flap that flipped up to reveal a lenticular motion card showing CatSCAN being "scanned." Created by Apelinq to function as the Wreckers' medic, CatSCAN is more of an AI program than a true Cybertronian. Think Data from The Next Generation. Also, it was neat how, while CatSCAN's box featured Armada Autobots, Cyclonus' featured Armada Decepticons.

The last and smallest exclusive was Glyph, a blue and silver recolour of the Bumblebee keychain and the fourth female TF toy to come out of Botcon. As with Tap-Out, I was again disappointed at first, since I was really expecting a BW or BM-era toy. Since then, however, Glyph and Tap-Out have grown on me, and it is nice that we no longer have to deal with people bitching about how there's never any G1 exclusives.

As for Wreckers#2, well, it simultaneously rules and sucks. The Beast Mutants, the Dinobots, the Deployers, Spittor, and Sonar all die meaningless, cruel deaths, which irked me to no end. The Mutants are NOT "unmarketable product," people. 3H Productions explained at their panel that it was done so that they could focus on the remaining characters, but that didn't make the mass slaughter any less crappy. Packrat dies as well, but he more than deserves it. Primal Prime is a major fool, which blows a big hole in the "wisdom of all the other Primes" thing. There were Hammerstrike drones with the Sharkticons and Alligatorcons. Fractyl has the hots for Arcee, CatSCAN is a neat addition to the cast, Rotorbolt DOES have a personality, Ramulus has his original colour scheme now, Cyclonus turns out to be the traitor (big surprise there), and Devcon had all the best lines (again, big surprise). Lines like:

"I liked her better when she had that kid in her head."

"You're living on my clock now, Cyclonus-run while you still can! The day you stop running will be the day I cut out your Spark!"

"I did have a partner once-for about fifteen cycles. He gave me some hard data on where my target was headed-heh-and I left his little green hide floating in space."

Obviously, Tengu intended to take full advantage of his opportunity to do justice to his all-time favourite character, but I couldn't help feeling that his Devcon was just Depth Charge in Mirage's body. Mind, it's been about seventeen years since I last saw "The Gambler," so my memory of Devcon is sketchy to say the least. And then there's Cryotek. I'd figured that his appearance in the comic would simply depict his betrayal by Megatron, but instead I was surprised and pleased to see that Cryotek is the major villain in the Wreckers storyline. This guy is every bit as brilliant, conniving, and ruthless as his famous pupil, if not more so. He's chilling in every sense of the word. Oh, and his dialogue in the very last panel is boldfaced to the point where it's a real challenge to make out what it says: ". . . IN CONTROLLING TIME ITSELF!" Cryotek kicks ass and then some.

The last item on the official Botcon agenda was the voice actors' panel. Since the actors were still busy signing autographs, the audience participated in an impromtu trivia game where the person who answered one question got to ask the next one. I correctly identified the ep in which BW Megs' rubber ducky first appears and asked who is famous for saying "Save your ammunition, Autobots! Superior forces are taking over!"

Almost immediately, Mike McConnohie set the record straight by telling us that Tracks wasn't gay. He also singled out Rik Bakke from the audience as someone whom he obviously respected and considered a comrade. No argument here: Rik's one person in this fandom for whom I have nothing but admiration and affection for.

Hoop asked Peter how a budding young actor could get into softcore porn. Without missing a beat, Peter proudly described his humble beginnings, how he'd been in a ton of Roger Corman films, and that "I've got lots of skeletons in my closet and I'm proud of every single one." How could anyone NOT love this man? I myself hit up Peter for a round of "Who's The Greatest Shark In Town?" which got a great response from the audience.

Dick Gautier remembered absolutely zilch about Hot Rod, however, he and Mike spoke warmly of the late Scatman Crothers and Chris Latta. Mike remembered Scatman as a very kind, wholly selfless individual, while Dick lamented how Chris apparently harbored a lot of demons and was far too hard on himself. Mike also described Frank Welker's incredible talent for mimicking non-sentient objects like a payphone.

As for my soupy friend Neil, he actually seemed in good spirits and came off as funny. He was clearly very proud of his work, especially as RID Optimus Prime, which helps explain his seething resentment of Armada. I came away from the panel thinking that perhaps my last impression of Neil would be a positive one. Alas, I was wrong.

After the panel, I ended up hanging around outside with about half the #WiiGii! crew, just playing with toys and milling around for an undetermined reason. Gordon came by and I invited him to the #WiiGii! party, but he ended up declining, citing fatigue. Through some bizarre twist of events, it ended up that the bulk of the #WiiGii! crew went to Wendy's while Hoop, Bluestreak, Mouse, and myself headed over to Burger King. Afterwards, Blue let us visit the GI Joe vehicle graveyard in the back of his van. A pity I don't kitbash, since there were some good pieces (a nearly complete Pulverizer, a submarine from the Cobra Hammerhead, a chassis from the Thunderclap, etc). We returned to the Hilton, met up with our would-be abandoners, procrastinated some more, then trekked over to the Holiday Inn for the annual #WiiGii! party. Who says you don't get any exercise at Botcon?

We gathered in the lounge outside Charge's suite on the 14th floor: the entire #WiiGii! crew, plus Doug Dlin and a couple of people whose names entirely escape me. We conducted our own little impromptu MST3K panel with Lith narrating the 1985 picture book "Decepticon Hijack," and Doug providing the heckling. Mono broke out his homemade beers: Optimus Prime Porter and Blackarachnia's Cyber Venom Kiss. I had two bottles of the former, which was surprisingly strong. Hell, Trix drank the slightly weaker Cyber Venom Kiss--and she ended up passed out on the floor at one point! I showed off my one Stupid Beer Trick, as seen in this fine photo taken by Bluestreak7: http://bluestreak7.iwarp.com/cgi-bin/i/bc02/suspsy.jpg

After getting a call from downstairs asking us to simmer down, we crowded back into the suite and watched some REALLY SCARY STUFF. First we watched a film by Walky and couple of his buddies that spoofed "Run Lola Run." Then Lith's "Stayin' Alive" music video featuring Ginrai getting fragged by Overlord. Then a dub of "Headmasters." Then an After School Special starring Mr. T. It was scary as hell, people. It had Mr. T breakdancing, playing the standup bass, singing, directing kiddie fashion shows, and generally being humiliated to the point of madness. BE SOMEBODY!

But the scariest show of them all was definitely "The Eltingville Club," an animated pilot that I think appeared on Adult Swim a few months ago. Basically, it's about four loser geeks(one of whom bears a slight resemblance to Swift!) and how two of them end up in a trivia contest of irrelevant proportions over a Boba Fett doll. It was scary because it hit far too close to home, ESPECIALLY since I actually knew two of the trivia answers. Afterwards, my first urge was to sleep with a bunch of women to reassure myself that I wasn't as far gone as those horrific creatures.

Once the beer was all consumed and the scary shows were all watched, we all traipsed back to the Hilton for even more fun. The voice actors had again decided to hit the bar and we wasted no time in joining them. Neil, apparently eager to outdo his previous fiasco in the elevator last night, launched into a lengthy and sad diatribe against Armada, the Canadian voice acting industry, and the entire world in general and how it had screwed him over, pausing only to take swigs. Most of it was rehashed from the elevator: lousy 60s' animation yadda yadda yadda bad voice acting yadda yadda yadda FYRE TRUKK NOT SEMI TRUKK. I calmly but firmly pointed out to him that it wasn't Canada's fault that American companies were turning to us for quality work at a lower cost, and while he acknowledged this point, he continued to indulge in self-martyring rhetoric. To call him childish would've been an understatement. Overall, Neil's antics that weekend constituted the most repellent behaviour I'd ever had the displeasure of witnessing at a Botcon. Good riddance, Mr. Kaplan.

Tom Wyner also expressed discontent with Hasbro, however, thankfully he was nowhere near as vociferous and unreasonable as Neil. He seemed more sad than angry over the conclusion of RID, and I got the distinct impression that he either never knew or never acknowledged that the show was always meant to be nothing more than filler. Particle Man was there as well, unfortunately, and nearly had an aneurysm when I noted that we're only a small fraction of Hasbro's buying audience, the majority being children under the age of 10.

Happily, the gloominess of Tom and the ghoulishness of Neil was easily overshadowed by the greatness that is Wankus and his wacky cute girlfriend Daisy. No amount of description can ever possibly do justice to their increasingly hilarious antics. No words can capture Wankus' quick wit, his unabashed openness, his eagerness to share a dirty joke while downing a few beers, his down-to-earth friendliness and natural charm, and his willingness to offer up some of Daisy's clothing to anyone who bought the next five rounds. Wankus and Daisy were VERY impressed by Bryce's sunken chest, even christening him "Dent Boy." It was a big moment for Bryce, since it was undoubtedly the first time in his life an attractive woman wanted to voluntarily touch his bare chest.

Walky had been drawing incredibly accurate caricatures of everyone on the backs of their BC badges since Friday, and I finally hit him up to draw mine. It ruled. Once I get access to a scanner, I'll post a pic of it. Walky captured my essence perfectly, right down to my trademark evil grin. He also drew a caricature of Wankus in his sketchbook which similarly ruled.

Finally, exhaustion overcame me and I bid my fond farewells and headed up to my room. In doing so, I missed some of Wankus and Daisy's craziest antics, dammit.

All in all, it had been nothing short of one seriously sweetass day.

Part Three: WOOWOOWOOWOOWOO Or Leaving Botcon Sucks More Than Nixtr On His Knees In A Prison Shower

Sorry for my chronic tardiness, folks. And as always, I neglected to include something in Saturday's report, so here it is:

As Hoop, Bluestreak7, Mouse, and myself were heading out of the Hilton to find some grub, we came across a sign taped on the wall that read "Pictures with Armada Prime. Saturday 7-8, Sunday 1-2, Botcon lobby. $5." Disgusted, I tore it down and handed it to Hoop, who immediately taped over his crotch.

With the MST3K panel tragically cancelled this year, I got to sleep in till around 8:30AM or so. Headed on down to the dealer room and pretty much did the exact same wandering and socializing that had characterized the previous two days. Went to lunch at 10:30 with Blue, Megs33, Brax, Spy, Thy, and a bunch of other #WiiGii!ers at Taco Bell(again, my apologies if I didn't mention your name). Then I had to head back to the Hilton at 11 so Gordon, Tyson, and I could check out of our room. Personally, I'd have loved to have stayed another night just so I could socialize more, but I had a whitewater rafting trip on Tuesday and thus had to be back home by Monday night at the latest.

After we'd loaded up our stuff in the Jeep and paid the bill, the three of us went our separate ways again. I went to the dealer room and snagged a MISB BW Inferno at retail price. Blue and I then accompanied Fin, Lith, Windy, and Lynx to McDonald's (didn't get a second lunch, just chatted and played with Inferno while the others ate). Afterwards, we hurried back to the hotel for the Dreamwave panel. Simon Furman was already there, but the other panelists were still signing autographs or something. I took advantage of their absence to shout "YOU RULE, SIMON!" The rest of the room agreed with me. Simon blushed a little and then started talking a bit to pass the time.

Finally, Adam Fortier, Derek Choo-Wing, Pat Lee, and Chris Sarracini showed up. They were clearly nervous about their first panel, but they all seemed enthusiastic and earnest about making a contribution to the TF Universe. They informed us that they were planning an annual G1 miniseries and that they intended to have their own continuity, using the original Marvel comic series and the cartoon as basis. No doubt this won't sit well with some fans. Oh well, I'm sure it'll make DW tons more cash. DW also confirmed that they are indeed making a book of character profiles that will cover all 371 or so G1 characters, complete with new artwork. They may subsequently do a Beast Wars-style book as well, which would be nice.

When asked about why Devastator is so huge, Pat said that being big was what defined him as a character. Adam gave us a more satisfactory answer when he pointed out that many TFs change their size when they transform. Chris sounded the most earnest about doing justice to the G1 characters, describing how he grew up with them as a child and always wanted to write a G1 TF series. Too bad he's doing such a lousy job of it thus far. Initially, I had planned on asking Chris whether he planned the G1 storyline in advance or was just making it up as he went along, but my deductive reasoning told me that it wouldn't go over well. Instead, I asked him which comic he found more challenging: G1, where you have a ton of history that you want to add to without stepping on too much, or Armada, which is a much cleaner slate. He immediately replied that it was G1.

The Armada series will follow the cartoon as well as exploring new ground. And yes, the kids will be in it, so have your whining and your bitching ready.

Simon, as well as expressing a lot of hope and excitement for The War Within, announced that Titan will release the G2 series in hardcover and then the entire G1 series starting from the beginning.

After the DW panel let out, I returned to the dealer room and bought a BM Quickstrike to replace my old one, whose arm snapped several months ago. Now, I have a habit of opening any Botcon purchase right away and fiddling with the toy as I wander around. Been doing so since Botcon 2000. Quickstrike in hand, I headed over to the art room, which I hadn't gotten around to visiting yet. Saw some truly fabulous entries: Robert Powers' "Everything Is Worth Something, Even Me," featuring legions of BM Scavengers, Tony Gray's "Taking Out The Trash," which had an army of Fuzor Buzzsaws dismantling and discarding three Supreme Cheetors with extreme prejudice, Hoop's Spychanger recolours, Walky's "Theft Of The Golden Disk," and Trent's beyond cool music videos. Also, I saw a cheesy cutout of Nightbird holding Arcee's severed head, but unfortunately I didn't have one of those free Autobot stickers from the Hasbro booth.

About ten minutes after I'd left the art room and gone back to the dealer, I realized that I'd lost Quickstrike. Started looking around frantically for him at first, then started to resign myself to the possibility that I might have lost him permanently, along with eight American dollars. Glumly, I wandered back into the art room, ran into Quez and Swift, and began to tell them of my plight. As I was finishing up my tale, I looked over at the Buzzsaw diorama and, lo and behold, there was Quickstrike! I'd put him down to take a few pictures and left him there. Idiot. That's the last time I carry around loose toys at Botcon.

Leaving the art room, I ran into Bob Forward in the lobby and stopped chat with him. I told him more about what a huge BW fan I am, about the Beast Wars Viewing Club (which he was pleased about!), and asked him a few extra questions about the nature of the Vok. Bob lamented to me about the state the cartoon world is currently in, how cartoon writers are frequently doing more for less nowadays, and how Larry DiTillio has unfortunately had less work over the past few years because he refuses to lower his fee. While we were chatting, Tom Wyner came up and started asking both of us questions about the origins of TFs. Turns out he wants to write a TF comic book series dealing with the origins of TFs I explained to him all about Primus and Unicron, upon which Tom asked, "Well, where'd they come from?" To this, I had no answer. Bob recommended that Tom consult with Ben Yee for all the necessary info, as well as advice on what might make fans quiver with excitement and what might make them seeth with outrage.

At one point, the pop music playing in the dealer room was interrupted with the announcement that a Siren head had been stolen from Rose Tursi's table, despite the security cameras she had mounted. Guess someone really wanted to make a comic-accurate Nightbeat.

Finally it was time for the last two events of the day: the charity auction and the 3H panel. Didn't really pay much attention to the auction, since I was engrossed in Swift's book: "Man After Man,"written by Dougal Dixon, who also wrote "After Man" and "The New Dinosaurs." Basically, it's a book about what humanity might evolve into in the far distant future, and it was scary as shit in hell. I'm talking parasitic monkey men who suck blood, aquatic manatee men who use mucus membranes to come ashore, and building-sized mounds of living blubber that are genetically bred so that tiny worker drones can harvest meat from them. Between this book and my viewing of Mr. T, Breakdancing Social Worker and "The Eltingville Club" the night before, I knew I was going to be having nightmares for weeks to come.

Glen and Jon ended up doing most of the talking. It turns out that the scavenger hunt was cancelled at the eleventh hour due to 3H simply not having enough time to plan it properly. Still, with all the events and parties and doings that went down at Botcon, I really don't think it was any great loss. What WAS a great loss, I think, was Primeval Dawn, which was delayed pending approval from Hasbro. It should be on the Botcon site God knows when. Botcon Europe will have five exclusives, so start saving your money.

Glen mentioned having a license for an official Transformers Fan Club, the details of which are still undetermined. He emphasized the need for pre-registrants not to procrastinate in getting their forms in. Because the sooner 3H has an idea of how many people are attending, the more time they have to plan and arrange things. Glen also lashed out at parents who don't take proper care of their small children at Botcon. He's a father himself, so it makes sense that such irresponsibility would infuriate him. Jon noted how the pickings for Botcon dates are very slim, what with avoiding conflicts with other fan conventions and not having it during the fall, when a vast chunk of attendees are in school. Karl refused to dance, but he did express a desire to play his saxophone at next year's semi-formal dinner.

#WiiGii! made its presence known by chanting Red Alert's WOOWOOWOOWOOWOO sound every time we heard something pleasing. I congratulated 3H on another job well done and noted that if it wasn't blindingly obvious before that Hasbro loves us, it is now. I also asked what was up with the mass slaughter in the comic, and inadvertently committed a faux pas by spoiling. Eep! Glen replied that it was done so that the focus could be on the remaining characters, which struck me as a rather weak explanation.

Annoyingly, some questions/comments that people made were ones that could be answered simply by taking the time to read the FAQ on the Botcon page, or were just plain dumb. For example, could Hasbro make for 3H a totally new toy for use as an exclusive? No. Could they get "big stars" like Judd Nelson and Stan Bush to come? No, and those two are definitely NOT big stars. And, never one to hold her forked tongue, Raksha reminded everyone that she hates everything that came after 1985. Sheesh. Where's a mongoose or a secretary bird or a hawk when you need one?

The 3H panel over, I went back to the dealer room and hung out and chatted some more with various people for the remaining hour before departure time. Even bought a BW Neo Rockbuster on a complete whim. I sooooooooooooo would've loved to have stuck around longer! Nevertheless, at 5 PM, I raced around the room in a determined bid to say goodbye to everyone. It was then that I realized I still hadn't said anything to Skyflight. So I marched over to Raksha's table where he was sitting and shouted at him:

"Skyf, man, you look great! You look absolutely GREAT!"

And Skyf grinned.

After some more farewells and group photos, me, Bryce, Gordon, and Tyson piled into the Jeep and bid Ft. Wayne adieu. We stopped off in Northwood, OH, for the night. On Monday, we dropped off Bryce in Windsor and made it back into Ottawa at around seven in the evening. A wiser person would've made sure to get a good night's sleep after such a journey, but between unpacking my toys, making obligatory phone calls, preparing for the rafting trip, and wasting time on-line, I got maybe six hours of sleep before arising at 7AM.

I ended up coming home with the following:

-Zoids Berserk Fury
-Armada Laserbeak
-Armada Megatron
-Armada Starscream
-Armada Cyclonus
-Demolishor
-B'Boom
-BW Inferno
-TM2 Dinobot recolour
-Mechatron recolour
-BM Quickstrike
-BW Neo Rockbuster
-Bionicle Lewa Nuva (free, thanks, Swift!)
-Hydraulic of the Micromaster Monster Truck Patrol(also free, thanks, Irrellius Prime!)
-Cybertronian Recognition Guides #1, #5, and #6 (Had to send #1 and #5 back to Antarctic Press due to quality issues)
-Botcon 2002 Exclusive Cyclonus
-Botcon 2002 Exclusive CatSCAN
-Botcon 2002 Exclusive Glyph
-Botcon 2002 Exclusive Tap-Out
-Botcon 2002 Official Optimus Prime Lollipop (which I refuse to eat)
-Botcon 2002 Official T-shirt featuring Optimus Primes
-Botcon 2002 Comic: The Wreckers #2, "Betrayal"
-Skywarp lithograph by James Raiz
-Primal Prime vs. Cryotek lithograph by Mainframe (free, given to us at the 3H panel)
-M_Sipher's Mugshots 2 poster, featuring among other things, Artemis bonking Moon over the head with her sledgehammer
-Trent Troop's battle scene poster, signed by the RID writers
-Complete set of Sam & Max episodes from Brax (eternal thanks!)
-Two boxes of Peanut Butter Crunch cereal
-Two boxes of Spongebob Squarepants Macaroni & Cheese
-One Spongebob Squarepants postcard which I sent to my brother in Alberta
-A heap load of great memories

I wish I could say I had tons of pics for everyone to see, but it turns out one of my films wasn't installed properly, so I lost the entire reel. Crap.OTOH, I got to go to Botcon for the third time while many other people like weren't able to, so I'd say the loss of some photos really is no justification for getting bent out of shape. Worse things can and do happen, and I'm grateful nothing did during the trip down and back. Besides, my pics from the #WiiGii! party turned out along with a couple from the art room, and I may load them once I can get access to a scanner.

While Botcon 2002 was by far the most fun I've been to yet, much of that fun lay in spending time with good friends rather than the convention itself. Don't get me wrong, Botcon had all the necessary elements: a good dealer room, fun and informative panels, cool exclusives, and a nice semi-formal dinner (I'm told), but there were a number of things which made it less than it could've been:

-The lack of fan panels, although the only one I care about nowadays is the MST3K panel, and that was cancelled due to the participants simply not having enough free time to work on it.

-The constant tardiness, with almost every panel and event starting up to half an hour late.

-The unlucky break with Armada hitting shelves before Botcon, thus screwing up the dinner exclusives.

-The fact that dinner attendees are STILL being admitted despite the fact that they're dressed either casual or like slobs. I strongly urge 3H to really crack down on such riffraff next year, since it detracts from the atmosphere of what is supposed to be an elegant, formal occasion.

-The postponing of Primeval Dawn. After all the hype leading up to Botcon, not getting to see it was a major letdown.

But, when all is said and done, Botcon 2002 was another resounding success, I think. You can be sure that I'll make every effort to be in Chicago next year. Already got the room reserved, natch.

And now for acknowledgments:

Swift, thanks for the Lewa Nuva and "Man After Man."
Quez, that candy isn't bad, just hard to chew.
Walky, your artwork rules.
Hoop, take care of Flame Warrior, and try and find me one too.
Trix, Ant, Spy, Wang, thanks again for the US exclusive toys you sent me,
and for being all-around great people. Oh, and I liked Spoonicron.
Lith, I love your goggles.
Thy, you dress like a mobster.
Dent Boy, you were fun to ride with. Glad I could help.
Waspy, you're scary-looking, but cool.
Blue, sorry for forgetting to mention you in my first segment.
Windy, sorry you weren't feeling well.
Mono, your beer's got a kick like an ostrich.
Brax, thanks for Sam & Max.
Siph, thanks for taking care of Lewa Nuva.
Steve-O, I stand by my contention that sometimes you're just too nice.
Doug & Harold, you make other books cry.
Skyf, keep exercising.

To the other #WiiGii!ers: Billy, Tim, Megatron33, Perc, Pic, Forky, Recharge, LV, Phil, Trent, Jackpot, Lynx, John, Rose, Rob, Monz, Quag, and Ben Yee (who deserves to be on the list), I say that you're all great and none of you suck. To those #WiiGii!ers who didn't make it, I expect to see your asses in Chicago next summer. Especially Hooks and Kilby.

Gordon and Tyson, it was a pleasure travelling with you. Thanks.

This concludes my Botcon report.

Susp

"Devcon, no! You'll destroy the object!" -Apelinq
"I'll buy 'em a new one, 'Linq!" -Devcon