BotCon '98 - Robert Jung

Well, I'm back at the office after yet another fun weekend of transformin' robot love than we call BotCon. While my boss thinks I'm hard at work pounding out some very boring documentation, I'll scribble down some random meanderings from the convention instead...

NOTE: All of the following was written from memory, with no notes or references or whatnot to work with [okay, maybe a few]. I've tried to assign names and details where possible, but given how lousy I am with names to begin with, that's a crapshoot. Don't expect Reflector-quality recollection here; I'm sure there are lots of other TransFans who will be glad to give out names, addresses, and what Bob Forward's Sunday-morning breakfast was. Just take this as a hodge-podge of impressions, memories, and opinion.

Capsule Summary

Not as manic or intense as BotCon '97, but still a very good show. Three cheers to 3H Enterprises for delivering yet another terrific convention!

Friday

Setting the Stage

The Anaheim Convention Center is one of the nicest places to ever hold a BotCon. Not that previous years were shoddy ('95 and '97 being especially neat), but '98 was certainly among the tops. It wasn't perfect, but it was a roomy, comfortable place to have a convention at.

BotCon '98 used three rooms at the convention center -- a speaker/panel room, the video room, and the dealer/art/display room. The panel room and the video rooms were *sweet*; ample seating, terrific sound, and (for the video room) a videotape projector that beamed pictures over 20' tall. You could sit anywhere in those rooms and not miss out on the action.

The dealer/display room was a large auditorium, with a bright stage for toy displays, and a dimly-lit dealer floor and art contest area. Though there was a lot of floor space, it seemed like there were slightly fewer dealers out this year than there were last year. The dim lighting on the floor hurt the art display the most, and it was hard to see the detail on may of the pieces. The best lighting was on the stage, which was occupied by Tony Preto's MASSIVE toy collection and Kenner's 1998 toy assortment. Again, it wasn't perfect, but it was pretty darn good.

Going outside was not so sweet, though. The closest hotels to the conventon center were the Mariott and the Hilton, but I'll bet their high prices kept most fans away. The cheaper hotels/motels were on the same block, but it's a LARGE block, and walking between them and the Convention Center was not trivial. The real stinger, though, was all the construction in the area; between Disneyland's "California Adventure" renovation, Anaheim's Katella Avenue "beautifying" effort, and CalTrans' years-long project widening interstate 5, the neighborhood around BotCon was one big frenzy of roadblocks and dust. At least there were a number of decent restaurants nearby, and a 7-11 that probably got a lot of convention business...

Pre-Registration Check-In

I just wanted to say that this was a *terrific* idea. My wife Jade and I got to the Convention Center early Friday evening, and got checked in, saving ourselves from standing in a VERY long line on Saturday morning. This is a small but important thing, as Saturday morning proved to be a feeding frenzy in the dealer's room (more on that below). This is definitely something that I hope will be repeated for future conventions.

Botcon T-Shirt

Okay, I'll probably get lynched for saying this, but I don't think the BC'98 T-shirt was as neat as last year's. I know it's by Andrew Wildman and all, but something about the art style seems ... wrong, IMO. It's not an ugly shirt, but it just didn't move me. Just chalk it up to personal preferences, I guess. Though someone (M Sipher?) did tell me that he was glad to see that it was a "Decepticon" T-shirt, with Megatron et al being prominently visible.

And for some reason (probably to keep cost and organization more managable), all of the shirts were available only in white and extra-large -- which was undoubtedly a bit annoying to folks who wore other sizes.

Friday Night Party

The Friday night party (delayed from 7:00pm to 9:00pm to accomodate the VIPs) was fun. It was a low-key punch-and-cookies affair that allowed the preregistrants to mingle with each other and the celebrities, and served as the convention's opening ceremonies. After everyone got in and chatted a spell, Jon and Karl and Glen held opening remarks, introduced the guests, announced the convention-exclusive toys, and allowed folks to grab 'em.

It was amusing to see the mob of TransFans run and form a line for their toys, and it was nice to see that that same mob could also be orderly enough to form a single-file line and friendly enough to avoid killing each other for places...

And for the record, here's the list of guests at BotCon '98: Doug Parker, Scott McNeil, Susan Blu, Gary Chalk, David Kaye, Larry DiTillio, Bob Forward, Simon Furman, Andrew Wildman, Rob Tokar, the Kenner representatives (Andy and Jen), Vince DiCola, and Bryce Malek. Ron Friedman was unable to make it due to a change in his schedule.

The Convention Exclusives

As other folks have mentioned by now, the BotCon '98 exclusive toys are Vice Grip (a dark blue and grey repaint of Powerpinch) and Antagony (a black and purple repaint of Inferno). Both are Predacons, though Antagony is a female, with art provided by ex-TF-comic-artist Andrew Wildman.

Vice Grip was the "low-end" toy, for those who wanted an exclusive without shelling out lots of bucks. As such, he came in a clear plastic baggie with a tech-spec card; even then, he was priced at $15 at the 'con. I've never played with a Powerpinch toy until I broke out Vice Grip, but I have to say that I'm unimpressed. The color scheme is nice and the tech-spec is great, but the toy itself didn't move me. This is hardly the fault of 3H, though, since I hear Powerpinch is just as unimpressive (and continues to warm the pegs at my local Toys 'R Us .

Antagony, on the other hand, is an AWESOME convention exclusive, easily the most impressive ever. The black and purple color scheme is VERY spooky, and the tech-spec character is intriguing. What really makes Antagony an impressive toy is her packaging -- the box includes a flip-up lid (revealing the toy, and nicely introducing the conventions-long story arc that 3H is planning), and the toy is packaged with a computer-generated mountain backdrop. It looks *really* nice just sitting in the box (I'm keeping mine unopened), and it's just as solidly built and impressive as the BW Inferno toy. Even with a convention price of $50(!) each, Antagony was moving fast...

The last convention exclusive (not mentioned at the party, oddly enough) was a two-disc CD set of the BotCon 1997 Stan Bush/Vince DiCola concert, with the case art being a minor variation of the BC'97 "'Til All Are One" art. I didn't bother to get it, myself, but I did get one for Phil "SkyJammer" Zeman.

Saturday

Dealin' And Wheelin'

Okay, so now it's Saturday morning. Jade and I get up bright-n-early, hit the freeway, reach the convention center at 8:30am ...and run into a huge line of people.

We find a place with Ben Yee, and start chatting. While we're waiting for the doors to open, the line grows. And grows. And grows...!

Fortunately, since all the pre-registrants checked in Friday afternoon, there's no reason to fear -- when the doors finally opened, everyone streamed in very quickly and got quick cracks at the hot toys.

This is a Very Good Thing(tm), because those hot toys disappeared FAST. The Japanese Beast Wars 2 Galvatron and Lioconvoy ($80 minimum for each) were the most popular dealer items, and Antagony and Vice Grip were just as in demand -- all of those toys sold out less than an hour after the convention started. The Antagony shortage was especially painful; when 3H announced that seven more toys were found, they had to hold an impromptu raffle just to sell them fairly. I'm sure that part of the reason they sold out so quickly was because there were NO limits on how many toys one could buy; I heard rumors that several fans bought entire boxes of Antagonies...

I was surprised at the size of the BW2 Galvatron and Lioconvoy toys -- they were bigger than I expected (slightly larger than Inferno/Antagony), and the bigger size boosted Lioconvoy's coolness factor in my book. Fumihiko (the organizer of BotCon Japan, and an infamously popular Japanese dealer) was mobbed many times during BotCon by folks who were chasing after those toys, and I'm sure he did a brisk business selling Japanese BW Vs. sets and playsets.

I'm not as big of a toy collector as other fans, so I don't feel too qualified to "review" the quality of the dealer floor. There were at least two dealers selling Japanese toys, and one person had a booth devoted to nothing but European Transformers stuff, including motorized Action Masters and the Marvel UK TF comics -- he was selling a complete set of UK comics for $1000(!). Domestic stuff was in good supply, but there seemed to be fewer G1, first-series toys this time around. Also, oddly enough, there weren't a lot of people selling videos, either; I was personally hoping for an unofficial BotCon '97 highlight video to compliment my official one, but with no luck.

The Art Contest

This was another wonderful collection of fan art this year, marred only by the dim lighting in the auditorium where it was held. The dioramas were more varied this time around, but I think the best stuff was in the figures and sculptures category -- there were a pair of nice BW Ravage figures (from "The Agenda"), and someone did a terrific Transmutate (which ultimately won first prize). Sharon "Tut" LaBorde did a great seven-foot-tall stand-up Galvatron (who wasn't available for poses, unfortunately), and there was a series of "Original Concept" color pictures, showing BW characters with vehicle modes. The variety was also very healthy: stained-glass etchings, fan-made underwear ("Predacons enter here!" is what you think it is... , home-made animation cels, even computer-animated short clips and a stop-motion mini-movie. Raksha did another great job with the display, though I hear there was a BIG shortage of auction bids -- apparently a lot of people were having a hard time pairing ballots to art items in the dim light.

Larry DiTillio/Bob Forward Panel

I don't really know what to say here; I sat through the entire panel, but I didn't get any new-and-stunning information out of it. Part of this is probably because much of the ground was covered by Bob Forward at last year's convention, and part of this is because they're being VERY guarded. Bob and Lar are really tight on spoilers nowadays -- they were surprised at how fans took the titles of the second-season episodes and guessed many of the major plot twists from them. That's one of the reasons why the titles for the third-season episodes are more esoteric... At least I finally got to see the Mainframe "BW zingers" video in its entirety.

The Trivia Contest

I missed this completely. They had one contest per day, at noon -- right when I went out to get lunch. I hear it was a Family Feud-style affair, though, with teams of four fans competing for prizes, and new ideas such as multimedia questions ("Name the episode where this clip comes from...") and other stuff. As one of the folks who was suggesting ideas for upgrading the trivia contest, I'm very interested to see how it went and what folks thought of it...

Kenner Representatives Panel

The Kenner panel, on the other hand, was a biggie nobody wanted to miss. The reps, Andy and Jen, are from the marketing and PR end of the company, so they were IMO a more valuable source to tap. It's not that I didn't like hearing about the toy-design process from last year, but this is the end that influences WHAT toys get made, how the characterizations are done, and so forth.

Folks, I've been to the Hasbro/Kenner panels at every BotCon since '95, and I have to say that this was the most terrific panel I've ever been to. Anthony Gaud at BC'96 might've stirred up the crowd with enthusiasm about new toys and news, but the BotCon '98 panel gave me something I *never* got before -- hope.

No, the Kenner reps didn't say much -- as experienced fans know, they *can't* say much, to protect their corporate advantage from other toy companies. Some people will complain that the panel stunk as a result; I think they're missing the bigger picture.

What's gotten me so excited now is that it seems Kenner is finally ready to RESPECT the long-term Transformers fan base. In previous years, we collectors have often been dismissed as a loud but uninfluential part of the Transformers market -- we made a lot of noise, but we were outnumbered by the millions of eight-to-twelve-year-olds who buy the toys en masse. Why cater to the die-hard fans, whose needs are often different from what the kids want?

Well, NO MORE. Jen, one of the Kenner reps, is now working as their "fan liason." While she didn't spell it out in those terms, in summary it looks like Jen's job is to follow along with the fan base, find out what we -- collectors AND kids alike -- all want, and try to give it to us (within reason, of course). All of Kenner's toy lines are getting this treatment (Jen will be covering Transformers, Batman, Starting Lineup, G.I. Joe, and Star Wars, IIRC).

How are they going to do this? Details are still murky at this point (again, competitive edge and corporate secrecy), but I think that Kenner is finally starting to reach out and respect the fans. The reps, for instance, KNEW that the "Animorphs" line would piss off a lot of us if they'd made it part of the TF toy line -- so they didn't. Yeah, they're sticking the "Transformers" name on it to sell to the retailers, but that's as far as it's going to go. Kenner knows that there's a big following for the Transformers mythology ("It's a thousand-page history, and we've only written the first hundred pages"), and they want to make us ALL happy.

(Between the panel and some hallway-chitchat, I got a tiny hint into what some of these ideas are. All I can say is that this *isn't* a snow-job, folks...)

Maybe it's premature, but if things work out as planned, I think we're heading into a new and better era of Transformers fandom. Yes, Beast Wars is a popular toy line, and Kenner will (rightly) continue to make new toys for it, but they know that's not all there is to TransFandom -- and they don't want to force us that way. If we look ahead five years from now and find that the TransFan-HasKen relationship has gotten a bit nicer, I'll bet that 1998 was the turning point.

And I should comment that the Kenner representatives were refreshingly frank. These folks are toy fans and collectors, just like we do -- their enthusiasm and energy was very obvious. Yeah, they work for Kenner and have to protect the company's interests, but they KNOW how cool Transformers are ("I had nothing to do with Pretenders, don't blame me!" , and how much fun it is to just PLAY with the toys (I saw Andy "ooooh"ing over the Japanese Niagara BW playset, with its cool battery-operated waterfall).

If they can't say something, they'll tell you why -- no hedging, no weasel- speak, just an honest answer. And they're NOT afraid to bite back if you give them an unjustified hard time, either. It was funny when Jen briefly berated David "Hex" Tashjian for not listening to her while she was answering his question...

And to answer the question that a lot of people were asking, yes, Kenner knows about the fans on the internet -- they spend a lot of time surfing web pages and skimming the newsgroups. They are not clueless.

The Voice Actors Panel

This was, quite simply, a fun panel. Doug Parker, Scott McNeil, Susan Blu, Gary Chalk, and David Kaye fielded questions and were VERY funny and entertaining. Susan and Gary did most of the talking (Gary was a very take- charge kinda guy), and Susan and Scott got most of the questions. There were a few embarassing fanboy questions ("Ms. Blu, when you did the voice for Arcee, who did she like more, Springer or Rodimus?"), but it was still fun. Scott McNeil got a *lot* of ribbing about doing more voices -- and making more money -- than the others.

The only problem with this panel was that it dragged on; it was the last panel of the day, so they ran MUCH longer than an hour. After a while, some of the questions seemed like they were bottom-of-the-barrel material, just an excuse to get the actors to keep talking. It'd almost be easier if they opened up the panel to "audience requests" instead...

The Script Reading

The Saturday-night script reading was a lot funnier than I had expected it to be. Bob Forward's script (advancing the conventions-long story arc that 3H is planning) was a zany comedy that played fast and loose with Beast Wars, toy collecting, Mainframe animation hassles, and TransFandom. While Vince DiCola provided opening/closing music and sound effects, the featured voice actors read their lines and hammed it up. It was a very entertaining performance, but it was VERY short -- about ten minutes long -- and left many people wishing for more.

Regular members of the on-line TransFan community will get the most of the jokes, but there were plenty of laughs for people even if they didn't know why Raksha despises the Beast Wars Megatron. Copies of the script were

handed out for free after the event, and I'm sure it will be posted on the internet by now. Unfortunately, that's probably the only souvenir of the reading available; recording was absolutely prohibited, and the word is that the official BotCon videotaping was destined for the lawyers, not the highlights video...

Sunday

Transformers: The Movie -- MST3K Version
(or as we called it, "TFTMMST3K2")
A Behind-The-Chair View

Okay, so now it's Sunday morning. I drive back down to the Convention Center, and it looks like this year's MST3K-spoof-performance of "Transformers: The Movie" will be a great one -- we've got a great video room, more elaborate props, fancy opening and closing clips, some new jokes, an enthusiastic team ... everything feels good.

We're running a preview of Lord Xiphos' computer-animated Transformers- based Star Wars parody for a sound check, when...

So we did.

The results were ... mixed. Folks who weren't sitting up close couldn't hear all the gags, but they did seem to enjoy what they COULD hear. The skits worked better, since we were all facing the audience then and it was easier to project, but I still wish we had microphones. It's not the fault of 3H -- they had been promised clip-on microphones by the Convention Center management, but never received them.

Oh well. Hopefully people enjoyed the show, despite the technical difficulties. I was personally glad that folks liked the videos, especially the "Think Transformers" commercial parody and the ending credits (they were laughing at the right times, at least). If nothing else, maybe this can be motivation for us to try Yet Another Transformers MSTing, and get it right next time...

(Hey, at least our show lasted longer than the script reading.

The G1 Comic Book Panel

I missed most of this due to fatigue, hunger (my Sunday-morning breakfast was a Twinkie and a bottle of Mountain Dew), and the sense that it'd be similar to the BotCon '97 comics panel. I was half-right; according to the folks who were there, Messrs. Furman and Wildman didn't deliver any major bombshells, but former Transformers comic-book editor Rob Tokar told a lot of funny anecdotes about life at Marvel comics. I hope most of it survives on the highlights video...

Bryce Malek

The G1 Cartoon Panel

BotCon's last-minute surprise guest was Bryce Malek, one of the story editors for the original Transformers cartoon series. Though he couldn't answer everyone's questions (he didn't do any work on the movie or the post- movie episodes, for instance) and claimed to have forgotten a lot about the cartoon, Bryce proved surprisingly memorable once the TransFans started prodding him. There was a fair amount of trivia gleamed from this panel (example: "Enter the Nightbird" had to be revised five times due to difficulties animating some scenes), and he was impressed with the amount of fan devotion that Transformers still has. He even brought along his original G1 series "bible", but refused to sell it to anyone (Darn! .

Convention-Closing Panel

I had never stuck around for the BotCon closing panel before, but I did this year because (1) I had the time to do so and (2) I got volunteered to help the BotCon video team record it. After Raksha announced the winners of the art contests and awarded the prizes, Jon, Karl, and Glen took questions from folks about the convention. Random recollections...

• Final BotCon attendance was around 850 people.

  * Final expense was $50,000 (vs. $200,000 for BotCon '97). BotCon '98 still left 3H in the red, though not as bad as BC'97 did.

• Antagony and Vice Grip were made in limited numbers because they didn't want to have too many leftover toys(!) when the convention ended (they had several hundred Packrat/Fractyls remaining from BC'97).
  
• Organizing BotCon '98 was MUCH easier than BotCon '97. BC'97 was an uphill battle because Kenner was *very* skeptical of their plans -- Dennis Barger failed to deliver most of his proposed events for BotCon '96, and Kenner was afraid of a repeat. After BotCon '97 delivered everything that 3H had promised to do, Kenner was MUCH more supportive and accepting of their ideas.
  
• Other proposed convention exclusive toys: a black Manterror as a Predacon ninja, and a recolored Spittor -- beast mode was to be a poison frog, function was psychological warrior. His name? "Lick me."
  
• Cities are being considered for BotCon '99, but a decision won't be made until the dust settles from BC'98 (and 3H sees what their financial situation is).
  
• If the fans want to help support BotCon, REGISTER EARLY. The sooner people register, the sooner they have money, and the easier it is for them to plan events. It's very hard to make plans when you're out of cash...
  
• The price for Antagony went up $10 due to rising costs, especially with the package and the computer-generated background diorama.
  
• Frank Welker was ALMOST available. With his very busy schedule, Mr. Welker simply cannot commit to ANY showing more than two weeks ahead, so it was impossible to grab him any sooner than that (and if Frank Welker ever shows up at any BotCon, he will HAVE to be a "surprise" guest). Unfortunately, he had a scheduling conflict this weekend, and so BotCon was out. Ah, fooey.
  
• "We have big plans for BotCon 2000." 'Nuff said.

Needless to say, 3H Enterprises got several well-deserved thanks and rounds of applause from the convention-goers. And they earned every bit of it, too...

Final Impressions

BotCon '98 was not as intense as BotCon '97, but that's not surprising at all -- BC'97 was simply impossible to surpass (unless you're Bill Gates . But while BC'97 was veery fast-paced and crammed with stuff, BC'98 was a smoother, more mellow, and more comfortable convention. Aside from the lack of a lunch-hour break, you could easily hang out or go shopping without feeling like you were missing anything. Toss in a terrific exclusive toy, a great art contest from Raksha, a jaw-dropping toy collection by Tony Preto, some refreshingly honest and energetic Kenner representatives, and a very funny script reading by the VIPs, and you get one respectably fun Transformers toy convention.

Miscellaneous Notes

* Saw a lot of people at BotCon -- many familiar faces, but a couple of new ones, too. An incomplete list of TransFans I ran across includes M Sipher, Dark Angel, Raksha, Lizard, Tut, Vulcana, Ben Yee, Hex, Lord Xiphos, Charlotte Brogden, Trixter, Megatron33, Liquid Velcro!, Swiper, HooksX, Fortress Maximus, Walkertron, Dan Khanna, and Primus-knows-who-else I've forgotten already. What's bad is that I *know* there were several times where I was chatting with someone, then got distracted with a question or a neat toy, disappeared for "just a minute," and never returned... D'OH!

Apologies to anyone if I abruptly disappeared in the middle of a chat with ya.

• Jade has never been to a convention before, and knows zip about Transformers. But she was enough of a sport to accompany me and watch me turn into a drooling geek fanboy before her eyes. I'm sure she was amused by that, even more than she was amused at the high prices for old toys ("See this? It used to sell for $10, and now they're asking $150 for it...").
  
• Either I'm getting cheap, or the prices for old Transformers is inflating. $125 for an Elita-One model kit? $150 for a MIB Sideswipe? No thanks, I'm not that interested...
  
• I was half-interested in buying a Beast Wars 2 Galvatron toy from Japan; unfortunately, I hesitated, and by the time I decided to do so, all of the dealers were sold out. Yowch. And before I could make a move on a Lioconvoy, they all disappeared too. I spent most of the weekend kicking myself for being so slow...

  ...until Sunday afternoon, when I prowled by Fumihiko's table, and saw a BW2 Galvatron sitting out in the open. After quickly confirming that it was for sale (and *still* at $80), I snagged it. So what if the box was dinged? I GOT MY TOY!

• And let's not kid ourselves here, Charlotte Brogden is a very attractive- looking lady (or to use the technical term, a "babe." . I was very amused to see all the male BotCon attendees who were obviously enamored with her and were trying to be just a little extra nice to her...
  
• Since BotCon '98 was in Anaheim, and I lived in Los Angeles (about an hour's drive away), I decided to save some money and sleep at home instead of getting a room at one of the local hotels. I'm not sure if that was a good idea; while it was nice to sleep in one's own bed, I ended up leaving early on Friday and Saturday nights to avoid driving when it was really late (when all the drunk drivers hit the road). As a result, I missed some time that I could've spent hanging out with fans, and I'm mildly annoyed with myself at that. Sometimes having BotCon near you ISN'T an advantage, folks...
  
• WHY did I decide to go to work on the Monday following BotCon? Urrrgh.