BotCon '97 - Robert Jung

Another one in a zillion BotCon '97 reports. Why not...

Summary

This was one *MONSTER* convention -- easily the best Transformers convention ever, PERIOD. Glen Hallit and the Hartman brothers delivered all the goods, making BotCon '97 a weekend jam-packed with fan-focused activities and events. Anyone who thinks BC '97 was a disappointment is showing signs of serious mental problems, IMO.

The only thing wrong with BC '97 (and it's almost a quibble instead of a complaint) is that it was COMPLETELY filled with activities. Between the panels and events and everything else, there was almost no time to shop, eat, or rest. It was impossible to attend everything, which is a shame, because everything was so cool. If the number of events was reduced by a third, it would have still been a terrific convention, but attendees would have had time to go shopping and socialize and rest as well. Still, I'd rather have too much than too little (making tough choices is not as painful as having no choices), so I can't fault the BotCon folks much for this.

Rob's Rambling Rating: A- ...D*mn, let's do it again!

Rob's BotCon Report

(or, "Flying to Los Angeles with Stan Bush")

[NOTE: This report of my BotCon activities were compiled from notes scribbled at 35,000 feet after a weekend of frantic running around, sleep deprivation, irregular meals, and the sheer sensory overload of BotCon '97. If I've omitted details, got some events mixed up, or screwed up my verb tenses, pick any or all of the above excuses. Corrections are welcome.]

Thursday

Get up early Thursday morning, head out to LAX, and catch my flight to Washington-Dulles airport. I know that Sharon "Tut" LaBorde and Darryn Broussard are also planning to be at Washington at around the same time, so I get ready to look for them as I approach the gate for my connecting flight.

I turn my head to one side, and there they are -- AGGGGH!

We exchange greetings and hugs, then compare travel itineraries. We have the same flight up to Rochester -- AGGGGH!

And we have the same flight out of Rochester on Sunday afternoon -- AGGGGH!

Awesome karma.

So we three fly up to Rochester, swapping dirty jokes and prawn crackers along the way (I packed a few bags with me; prawn crackers are cool, and they beat airline food any day). We land at Rochester after 6:00pm, but we can't find a hotel shuttle, so we grab a taxi instead. It takes 20 minutes to board -- not only did Tut and Darryn pack a *lot* of luggage, but the cab isn't handicapped-accessible -- but we eventually make it to the Four Points Sheraton. This is the first BotCon and first big vacation for Tut and Darryn, so I have fun watching them get overwhelmed.

We check in, I stash my luggage (one bag and one Unicron art project), then help Tut-Darryn get their stuff stowed. In Tut's room, there's a phone call for me(?!?). It's Doug Dlin, one of the guys I'm sharing the room with, and he's just shown up. I go grab Doug, store his bags in our room, then I introduce him to T&D.

Much sitting-around-and-chatting occurrs. By 9:00pm, we decide to go grab dinner. We wander several blocks around the hotel area, but the few restaurants nearby are all closed (grrrrr...). Giving up, we return to the Sheraton and have dinner in the hotel restaurant instead. The food is overpriced and the service is slow, but we don't care any more, and the food is very good, so it evens out. Lots of food and dirty jokes later, everyone says goodbye and splits up.

Crossing the lobby, I run into Greg "M Sipher" Sepelak, fellow friend and the mastermind behind BotCon's MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 showing of TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE (aka TFTMMST3K) -- very fortunate, since Doug and I are also doing the show with him. Sipher was supposed to be staying with Raksha, but she hasn't shown up yet. I offer him a room for the night, and he accepts. So I go with Sipher; we move his car to the Sheraton, then unload his boxes of toys and get him stashed away. We head upstairs and meet Doug. After Doug does a quick comparison of MST3K scripts (Doug has version 0.98, Sipher has version 0.99), everyone goes to sleep.

Friday

Dopey me; I left the room curtains open the other night. So when the sun rises, guess who gets awakened with sunlight-in-the-eyes? Figures. Doug and Sipher are still sleeping, and I can't fall asleep again, so I wander the neighborhood a little and study the hotel-close-restaurants situation.

Doug and Sipher eventually awake, and we decide to skip breakfast. To kill some time, we head over to the convention center, to check on the status of the video room for the TFTMMST3K. Convention security turns us away (nobody has anything set up yet), so we walk up to a nearby drugstore and buy some penlights for the MST3K show, in case we need to read our stuff in the dark.

We go back to the room and rest for a bit -- Sipher did 14+ hours of driving yesterday and isn't feeling too active, and I figure we'll need the rest once BotCon starts anyway. We get a little work done with TFTMMST3K as we coordinate script copies and gags and highlight cues, but it's very low-key.

Lunchtime. To Arby's we go for some sandwiches and fries and more casual chitchat. We then go to the convention center once more, but the video room is still not ready. This gets us worried; we haven't had a group rehearsal for TFTMMST3K yet, and we better get some work going there. Sipher says he might have an audio tape of the movie in his car, so we decide to go and check.

As we cross the lobby, there's a run-in with more TransFans. Tut shows up wearing a suitable Egyptian/Isis ensemble, and I run into Erin/"Dark Angel," the gal with the Transformers cartoon transcripts web page (and a regular yaps-with-Rob-via-e-mail victim). Tony Preto shows up with a bunch of Rare Toys And Other Cool Stuff(tm), so we join the mob and drool over the goodies.

Sitting is good. Rob likes rest. Rumors of a BotCon L.A. for next year start to surface. I'll believe it when it happens, though I admit that having BC *that* close to me would be neat.

Tut raises a hue and cry -- Raksha shows up! Mad dash across the lobby for hellos and other stuff; I mingle with Raksha and Eva "Magic" Gillmann, while Darryn holds the box containing Avatar and everyone tries to convince the hotel front desk that there isn't a giant snake in it.

Raksha has a lot of stuff in her car -- besides her own stuff to sell, she has other folks' art entries for the convention. Darryn hides with Avatar in his room, while a half-dozen of us help Raksha move her stuff. She's parked a few blocks away, so it's a bit of a hike, but we manage.

While other folks hang out in Raksha's room, I go back to mine -- and there's a message! Phil "SkyJammer" Zeman (keeper of the TF Ring o' web pages, and technical helper for TFTMMST3K) has arrived, where the heck are me and Doug? I go downstairs, say hi to Phil, and help him move his stuff upstairs. We then go visit Raksha again, but she has to leave soon afterwards to pick up Patricia "Vulcana" Wright at the airport.

Phil and I head back to our room, stopping briefly to resolve a lost luggage problem (Phil had one more bag than he should've, oops). Sipher shows up; the dealer's room is finally open for set-up, and he and Raksha are sharing a table. I help Sipher lug stuff over, then leave him to set up as I return to the room for some rest.

Oh, wait. I run into Raksha again; she has a small crowd with her, and they're going to set up the art display/contest room. I make a quick vault to my room, grab my Unicron figure art contest entry, and follow them down. I then help set up the art display room, peeling masking tape, hanging pictures, and herding people as they drop off art entries. The art room is eventually closed, which sends everyone out.

I talk to Sipher some more about the video setup for TFTMMST3K, and how we (me/Sipher/Doug/Phil) need to arrange a rehearsal run or two. Someone suggests asking if the hotel have VCRs for rent. I check with the desk, and get the number for a company called CMI.

Back to the room. I shower and change for the Fan Appreciation Dinner, then call CMI. They're closed, but I get prices from their message service. Doug and Phil show up to change for dinner, and we toss out ideas for TFTMMST3K rehearsals. We go down to the lobby, meet up with our bunch of friends, and head over to the dinner as a large crowd of fourteen-something.

Go over to the convention center for dinner. Long lines, but that's okay. Our crowd splits up and grabs seats at two tables, and I finally get to meet Andrew "Swiper" Frankel (too briefly, tho). Everyone oooohs over their dinner exclusive goodies -- a hand-painted TF decoy from Dave Van Domelen, along with a nifty display stand, and a laminated card from TF:TM pertaining to the decoy character. I get Sunstreaker (mildly grousing about his non-speaking part), and rumors fly about super-rare decoys in the crowd like Artfire and Stepper (Japanese-only toys) and a battle-damaged Ironhide. Someone suggests starting a "Save Dave's Eyes" fund to help Mr. Van Domelen recover from painting 120+ decoys for the dinner.

(I eventually gave Sunstreaker away to a friend who didn't get a dinner exclusive [the Hartmans had run out]. I'm tight for shelf space as it is, and I might as well give the guy an appreciative home, right?)

Dinner gets started with a little speech from the Hartmans, where they talk about updated guest status (a few folks couldn't make it to dinner due to delayed flights), introduce the VIP attendees, and show off the convention goodies -- three versions of the T-shirt, a dual-CD soundtrack, and the exclusive toys with pack-in comic book(!!!). AWESOME stuff. Strangely, though the pre-convention impression was that photography wasn't allowed, the Hartmans didn't raise an eyebrow when some folks started taking pictures. Since I have my camera with me (heh), I took their acceptance as open season on photographs and start snapping away (anyone who's been around me will testify that I go nuts with the camera .

Dinner was nice -- good food, good company, lots of enthusiasm. Folks are free to mingle with the guests and goodies, and everyone took advantage of that, especially after having eaten. I snap more photos, briefly gushed over Simon Furman and Andrew Wildman (my big guest faves), looked at other people's decoy grabbings, and join the crowds enthusing over the convention goodies. Eventually, everyone gets herded out, and folks stagger back to their rooms.

Me and Doug and Phil go visit Sipher and David "Hex" Tashjian in their place. We confer over the CMI situation, agree to rent the TV/VCR, then goof off making silly jokes about Uranus 5-in-1, a shrunken toy knock-off of Fortress Maximus. Eventually, me/Doug/Phil wander back to our room and fall asleep.

Saturday

We get up at 6:30am, not wanting to miss the opening ceremonies. I make a call to CMI, leaving a message asking for the player, and head out to the hall.

The opening ceremonies were neat, with a sneak listen at the convention CD and the introduction of the guests currently present (the others were due to arrive later that morning). The niftiest surprise was an audio greeting from Frank Welker -- "Megatron" sneered at the puny humans attending a convention, and talked about how he could destroy all of us "...and Peter Cullen." (crowd laughs, and Peter looks *very* surprised). "Megatron" and "Soundwave" banter a bit, then Megatron spares the fans, wishes everyone a fun time, and explains that he got held over by Men-in-Black (the movie or the TransCon organizers?), while Soundwave advises folks not to eat too much bacon (huh?). According to the BotCon folks, the tape was sent by Welker without solicitation, which raised his coolness factor among the attendees.

After the ceremonies, folks go over to registration and get checked in. Pre-registrants got an envelope full of neat stuff:

• The BotCon '97 booklet, which has a collection of bios and messages from the VIPs and absent guests, and tech-specs for the convention-exclusive toys.
  
• A full-color picture card of the BEAST WARS battle scene on the back of the convention toy box (drawn by Andy Wildman!), each one autographed by Wildman(!!) and personalized with the attendee's name(!!!).
• Vouchers for discounts on the convention CD, toys, T-shirt, and to-be-released-later video.
  
• Cash refunds(!) for the differences in registration costs due to changes in plans.

I get registered, then run over and get a full load of convention goodies -- making things faster by using the shorter credit-card-only line. I then check out the smaller dealer room, and IMMEDIATELY snap up two BotCon Japan T-shirts and a BotCon Japan poster (a battle scene of the G2 TF toys, rendered by computer).

After talking briefly with Jon, Karl, and Glen about the TFTMMST3K video setup, I go to my room to get my camera tripod. I head over to the art display room, snapping photos of the various art pieces -- lots of neat stuff everywhere, but I didn't have the time to admire them slowly, so I'll have to admire them after my film gets developed.

I return to the hotel room and drop off my tripod, playing phone tag with CMI again -- I wait a half-hour for a response to my page, but there's nothing (grrrrr!). As a result, I missed the Peter Cullen panel entirely (which is a pity, since I hear it was great -- I hope it'll be on the BotCon video so I can see what I missed).

I soothe myself by joining up with Stan "Marauder" Lui (keeper of the TF Encyclopedia) and Lia "Mad Praetor" Brown. We go to a nearby Chinese buffet restaurant for an early lunch -- the food was merely passable, but there was good company, so I don't mind.

Back to the convention. More talks with the Hartmans and Sipher about TFTMMST3K. Zilcho. Sipher's too busy selling stuff to deal with it, and leaves the matter to me. Oboy. I chat briefly with Sipher and Hex -- folks with stuff to sell are really frantic, since they're stuck manning tables while all sorts of cool things are happening. I'm glad I don't have a table...

I then sneak into the second half of the Bob Forward panel. Bob asks folks on alt.toys.transformers to introduce themselves when they ask a question. So when I get picked for a question, I introduce myself -- and suddenly every optic in the room swivels on me. Geez Louise...

Bob asks me not to ask about Predacon characterizations on BEAST WARS, so I lob him an easy question about long-term story arcs instead. Nice to know he hasn't forgotten the matter, though.

I duck out of the Forward panel when it's autograph time, checking out a few more dealer stands, buying videos of previous BotCons, and giving the unfinished version of the BEAST WARS video game a test run. Looks promising, at least, though it's still too early to tell. I then go over to the Trivia Contest and catch the first round of that. Not much that's different from previous conventions' games, though due to time constraints, only contestants could win things -- audience members were left out (awwwww).

I go back to the room again for another round of phone tag with CMI. Success! I talk to the rep, arranging delivery of the player while I'm gone, then run back down for the Simon Furman/Andrew Wildman panel. Major cool stuff; the Brits are absolute gentlemen, and I was thrilled to hear Furman lash out (politely and indirectly) at Marvel Comics' DEATH'S HEAD II bastardization. I run back to the hotel room as autographs begin to get some stuff, and I'm one of the last folks to get stuff signed by Simon and Andrew. I make it up by giving Simon Furman my home-made Death's Head figure, and got the fun of saying, yes, it's for you to keep, give him a good home...

Back to the hotel room. The TV/VCR is there, but no notes or anything. I go downstairs; the van is still in front of the hotel, so I try to find the CMI rep so I can settle the bill. No luck. Even the hotel staff can't find him. I talk briefly with Naomi "Nightbird" Novak while I wait, but cut the conversation short when I dashed out to try and catch the rep (and I failed anyway). *Sigh* By the time I get back to the lobby, Naomi is gone.

Off to the room again. By now it's 5:00 or so. I rest by watching the BotCon videos I've bought. Phil Zeman staggers in to rest a bit and take a nap. And the day isn't even over yet...

At 7:00pm, I get two phone calls. First one is from Vulcana, who tells me that they're going to gather a small group for pizza in Ben "Wonko" Yee's room, and that me and Doug and Phil can join 'em. The second one is from Dark Angel, who was wondering if there were any plans for dinner, and if she could tag along. I tell Doug and Phil about dinner, then took the liberty of getting D.A. for dinner -- one more person can't hurt, right?

Wrong.

We walk into Ben's room, and there's 25+ people there, jammed wall-to-wall and occupying every space available. Vulcana is yelling at folks for crowd control as she tackles the unenviable task of ordering enough pizza for all those bodies. Me, I'm wondering when hotel security will tell us to clear out due to the fire hazard. The pizza idea is eventually abandoned when Dominos refuses to answer the phone. Vulcana, having heard me talk about the Chinese buffet restaurant before, tells me to lead everyone there.

I get started doing so, bringing a crowd of fourteen down to the lobby. We wait for the others, but no one else shows up -- someone says, "Forget it, they've broken off, let's go." I proceed to do so, leading my small(er) party to the restaurant, muttering all the while, "This was not my idea." Buffet dinner was like lunch -- it gets the job done, but I wouldn't mistake it for quality food. We have fun anyway, yapping away about random stuff and enjoying the company.

By 8:30pm, we decide to head out for the concert, quickly settling the bill with a flurry of bills and quarters. The convention center is sharing part of the place with a dance group called Wu-Tan that night, and the cops are out en masse for security (who is Wu-Tan, and what kind of a reputation do they have???). Me and Ben Yee and Dark Angel enter the convention center, hooking up with friends briefly before filing in.

I lose Ben in the crowd, while Angel spots open seats on the front row(!). I throw caution to the wind and grab the seats; nobody tells us to move, so I congratulate myself on a bit of initiative. We are soon joined by Phil, Vulcana, Tut, and Darryn. I tease Tut and Darryn about using Darryn's handicap to weasel good seats and better access to the VIPs, and they give me a "stop being so jealous" grin. I also promise to send them copies of some photos I took of them talking to Peter Cullen after the opening ceremonies.

The concert was great. Vince DiCola floored folks with musical scores from the movie, and Stan Bush started off with some easy-listening ballads from his other albums. For a while, I was worried that Stan would be upset at the response he was getting (he got polite applause, while Vince got floor- stompin' whoops of frenzy), but that ended in the second half -- Stan brought out his rock songs, which whipped up the crowd to a more appreciative level. "The Touch" and "Ground Zero" (the BotCon '97 theme song) were awesome, and the concert ended with an extended version of "Dare." By the end of the night, there were two standing ovations and a chant for an encore (which wasn't fulfilled, darn). Whoo!

Back to the hotel. I get Doug and Phil together for a TFTMMST3K rehearsal; Stan Lui, Lia Brown, and Vulcana tag along for a test audience. We eventually get M Sipher and Raksha and Magic and Neale Davidson in as well, and try things out. Sure enough, there are some timing problems (some lines run too long and step over later jokes), and I start making further notes on what cues I have to watch/listen for. Folks eventually start drifting out; the day's been too tiring for everyone, and even Sipher gives up halfway through the movie. Phil and Doug and I are still somewhat peppy, though, so we finish a rehearsal run, with Phil taking Sipher's part.

Feeling a bit more confident, we finally call it a night and go to sleep.

Sunday

We are awakened at 4:00am(!!!) by the fire alarm. Mild panic, lots of grousing, everyone starts to look for emergency exits. Descending ten flights of stairs while half-awake is NOT my idea of fun by any means, but there's no choice. We all end up in the lobby, where firefighters roam the aisles. I milk my weary state for a few gags on fans and VIPs alike (where else can I mumble to Stan Bush and Andrew Wildman and get away with it? while we wait for the verdict. The hotel eventually says things are safe -- rumors are that the alarm was sounded when someone pulled out a fire extinguisher on the fifth floor -- and we head back upstairs. I toy with the idea of staying up anyway (maybe doing more rehearsals), since it's almost dawn, but Doug and Phil convince me to go back to sleep.

When I wake up again, it's 7:40am. Bugger. While Phil and Doug head for the con floor, I take a quick shower, then go visit Tut and Darryn, where we coordinate how we'll leave the hotel together later that day. I then visit the hotel gift shop, grab a bottle of Mountain Dew for breakfast, and go to the convention floor.

More fun with TFTMMST3K. Phil is working with the Hartmans to get the microphones ready. Meanwhile, it turns out that the MST3K bit won't be recorded by the BotCon videographer -- they're worried about copyright violations. Well, those of us who are working on the show want a copy of it anyway -- when you've put in all that effort, you want a memory, right? -- so I start looking for a fan with a camcorder we can borrow to make a private recording of the event.

I catch most of the Venus "Blackarachnia" Terzo/David "Megatron" Kaye panel. Fun panel, especially when David does his impressions of people, though I *still* don't know why some folks go ga-ga over Venus. Yes, she's attractive, but she's not *THAT* super -- either I've been living in L.A. too long, or I'm too jaded. Either way, it was still fun.

I duck out as people start lining up for autographs and visit the art room. There are more art entries that weren't there before -- aside from a large-n- detailed wood/paper Unicron (which was placed next to my entry, figures), there were some awesome color drawings by M. Ishibashi, and a Kenner display of the 1997 BEAST WARS toy lineup. I snap a few photos, then make a mental note to get my tripod again later.

I run into Raksha again and ask her about fans with camcorders. She offers to ask her contacts to see what's available, and I tag along with her briefly on the hunt. I then split off, make a last pass through the dealers' room, then peek at the video room setup. Another problem -- the VCR controls and the light switches are at opposite ends of the room; we'll need another volunteer to help Phil (there are intermissions during the show, when the movie is stopped and the lights are raised).

Raksha reports with a camera! Tony Buchanan has a VHS camcorder with him, and will let us use it for taping. As I talk to Tony, Lia Brown walks by. I grab her and explain the situation, and she volunteers to help operate the camera and man the lights. While Tony teaches Lia how to use his camcorder, I go to my room and get my tripod.

On the way back to the video room, I get stopped by Bob Forward. We chat for a bit about the BEAST WARS show, both good and bad, and he thanks me for the constructive criticisms of the show and episodes (even if he doesn't agree with everything I say . I finally break off from Bob, then set up the camera with Tony and run through the lights with Lia.

Due to time constraints, the TFTMMST3K showing and the Stan Bush/Vince DiCola panel are overlapping (TFTMMST3K starts a half-hour after the Bush/DiCola panel). But while us performers have to miss the talk, Phil has arranged with the Hartmans for us to get a few things autographed before their panel begins. We quickly get their signatures (confusing the panel attendees in the process, no doubt , then run off for final preparations and sound tests for TFTMMST3K.

There's a small crowd for TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE -- MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 version, which is encouraging. M Sipher warms up the crowd a bit (with smart-alec ad libs from me and Doug Dlin), then we get rolling. It was a very good showing, IMO, even if I don't have half the vocal talents of Doug and Sipher. Not all of the jokes (scripted and ad-libbed) worked, but people were laughing enough of the time to make it worthwhile, and we covered for each other's goofs with quick improvisations. M Sipher brought down the house when he suddenly compared the filthy Quintesson jail cell with the third floor of the Four Points Sheraton. In return, Doug and Phil and me surprised Sipher by interrupting his "thanks and credits" speech with a videotaped credits reel (Phil's idea, my Mac. . Sipher, being a big MST3K junkie, was clearly thrilled that he could do the show at all, and the *humongous* crowd and encouraging comments he got at the end made his day.

I get things settled with Tony, thank Lia, then grab my tripod and quickly snap photos of the art stuff I missed before. I then dashed over to the Kenner Toys panel with a $2 hot dog for lunch. After barring photographs and recording equipment, the folks from Kenner talked about the toy development process, using sketches and drawings of unreleased TF toys for visual aids. They didn't say much about future plans (though some folks will surely interpret their "no comment" answers as "yes," which is premature IMO), but they did floor the crowd with a sneak peek at the upcoming Transmetals toy line -- robotic animals and semi-organtic robot modes ("BEAST WARS turned inside-out"), and a few photos from a prototype Transmetal Cheetor toy.

Things are getting close to 3:00pm now, and I have a 5:30pm flight. I go to my room to pack, which means I shoved everything into bags according to where I could make room. I also call CMI, hoping to arrange for the return of the TV/VCR, then sat in the room while waiting for CMI to call back.

CMI doesn't call, but at 3:50pm Sipher shows up, looking for a place to spend the night (he wasn't sure if Raksha had her room for Sunday night or not). I brief him about Raksha's room situation, loan him some money for gasoline, then pass the CMI ball to him while I head for the airport.

I go to the lobby, and Tut and Darryn are nowhere in sight. Their luggage is visible, though, so I wait there instead. I tag Phil Zeman and update him on the situation, run into Naomi again, and said goodbyes to a few folks.

Tut and Darryn show up at 4:15pm. The hotel shuttle doesn't have handicap access (apparently, nobody in Rochester knows what handicap access is -- aggggh!), so we scramble for a suitable taxi. We eventually get one at 4:40pm or so and race to the airport. Between the problems of getting Darryn out of the cab and into his wheelchair, checking in Tut's busload of luggage, and re- scheduling their 5:00pm flight to my 5:30pm flight, I thought we'd never make it. We are lucky, however, and get on board just in time. As it turns out, Vulcana and a few other TransFans are also on the airplane, and there's some joking about how we're holding up the flight (yeah yeah, bite me .

We're halfway to Chicago when Tut notices that Stan Bush is also on the flight. She calls out a hello, and considers whether she should try to get a photo of him or not. I mention that it's a touchy situation, and she decides to try and take a photo of him as he leaves the airplane.

Arrive at Chicago, where everyone else gets off first, leaving me and Tut and Darryn for last (so much for preferred seating for handicapped folks, eh?). Tut asks Stan for a photograph, but he defers her until later, for fear of holding up the other passengers. We three eventually get off, and everyone's gone -- except for Vulcana, who wants to stick around and rib me a bit (oh joy). I go to my connecting gate, say goodbyes to Tut and Darryn, and squeeze a seat on the next flight out. Vulcana comes by for a ten-second goodbye before I board.

I get settled and am reading a book while the other passengers are boarded. By one of those amazing coincidences, as I look up from my book, there's Stan Bush (again!), getting into a seat just four rows ahead of me. I manage to catch his eye, apologize for missing his panel, and say a few quick words about how much I really enjoy "Dare." After a few pleasantries, he gets settled down; I behave myself during the flight by not harassing him like a Drooling Fanboy(tm).

Well, almost...

When the flight finally lands in L.A., Stan gets out of his seat to take care of his carry-on luggage. As if that's not enough, who do I see sitting next to him but ... Bob Forward?!? The temptation is too great -- I grab my camera and snap one last photo of the two of them just before they left...

Final notes: BotCon '97 was an absolutely terrific weekend. Not just for the VIPs and the events, but also for the fun of hanging with so many fans and meeting people. Every year, I pick up on a few more faces, and it's always great to talk to the faces behind the .sigs and the posts.

I want to see BotCon '98 top BC '97, though I think it's going to be D*MN hard to do so...