TFCon 2013 Preview

You're listening to All Things Transformers,

version 2 .0. So welcome to All Things Transformers

version... I almost said 4 .0, holy crap. Version

2 .0, I am one of your hosts, TF2 and Mike, and

you'll be wondering why the hell am I introducing

this show? Well, this was my idea to set up a

TFCon 2013 pre -show. ATTF is taking over the

convention coverage that we normally used to

do on Toycast, since Toycast is going to be,

or already is, retired. uh... we're gonna bring

the convention coverage over to all things transformers

joining me is the show creator steve megatron

hello hello is it weird to have someone else

introduce your own damn show no considering i

gave permission no i i know that god this is

gonna be a fun night alright and joining us uh...

As he does almost every year for a pre and post

show, we'll have a post show maybe two days after

TFCon, which is July 26th, 28th. It is the goddamn

Protoman! Yeah, you're doing people! I am back.

Yes, you are back. Alright, so forgive me since

I don't have time to look at the entire history

on the website. It's fine. Is this the 11th or

12th convention? Well, it's technically like

the 11th year. Like it's funny because when we

were discussing like anniversaries, you know,

like how does one really do it? Because it's

like it's our tenth year, but it's it's like

our tenth convention, but it's our Ninth anniversary,

you know, technically it's our 12th. That's what

it is because we started in We started in in

the late 2011 excuse me 2001 when the convention

was actually Ironically done in a hockey arena

Doesn't get more Canadian than that Because that

was the cheapest rental we there was apparently

there was this gigantic like Convention space

at the back of a hockey arena. So we did it there

and then Evolution and success unexpected success

led to it being in smaller hotels and then into

large fancy hotels Yes, and this year you guys

are at the Delta Meadow Vale hotel and conference

center Mississauga, Ontario. Freaking amazing

hotel. It just, what we like about it and why

we stuck with it is the setup really leads to,

it's a good social kind of atmosphere because

it's like you have the convention center area

where the dealer room is and where the cars are

and everything and just the panels, it's all

in that one area. But then it all siphons to

where the hotel bar is. And the hotel bar, it's

not like a closed off bar that you go into, it's

an open bar. that while it's labeled, I use air

quotes here, a bar, it really is just the social

gathering of anyone of any age. And this is,

it's where everyone is at the convention off

the hours. And that includes guests. Like if

people have been to TFCon in the past, it's always

where all the other guests are hanging out because

it's kind of like the place to be. And then on

top of that, you keep going in that direction,

and then you got a swimming pool with water slides.

It's just fun. That's what I... Swerve would

love that place, wouldn't he? Again, it's the

Delta, Meadowdale and Resort. It has a lot of

resort -related stuff on it where I always suggest

to people, if you're coming to TFCon and you're

someone who's not a local, even if it's not...

For me, it's a six -hour drive. But if you're

someone who's really doing a plane flight for

it, take a couple extra days off, bring the misses

with, make a week out of it. You know, there's

a lot to do in that area that's very close by.

And Toronto, well, it's not as historical as

my hometown, Montreal. It has a lot of also touristy

kind of stuff there too. Especially if you like

hockey, the hockey hall of fame is there. That's

one of the biggest selling points. I know Optobotamus,

who's a big hockey fan, that would be one of

his destinations he'd love to go to if he came

to TFCon. Yeah, that's if he came to TFCon. That's

if he came. If he came, and he wasn't calling

it Golboticon. Hey man, we went with our theme

and we're sticking to it. Alright, so what is

the theme for this year's TFCon? The funny thing

is that when we were tackling our exclusives,

what we always do is we always say, what molds

do we have at our disposal? And we go to different

third party companies and go, what will you give

us and what are the limitations? And then we

could be creative and shoot back and forth with

them. iGear we've had a really good relationship

with for the past two years. And when we did

the Shafter last year, it was a huge success.

And they were very happy with it too and they

wanted to continue. this relationship that we

have with them. So they right away told us the

two molds that would be, and you have to realize,

exclusives are planned literally nine months

in advance, maybe even more. Oh, yeah, they would

have to be. Like, the thing is that while there

is tons of iGear molds that are available right

now to all of us, like, you know, the Sea Spray

and the one that's based off of Outback and Gears,

you know, and Beachcomber, all of those are available

now. Nine months ago they weren't available.

What? Nine months ago they weren't available.

Yeah, well, not even in... prototype form like

back then it was just the hench which is the

like the knot brawn and the UFO which is the

knot Cosmos that was all that was literally like

on the the factory floors of availability You

know and when we're shooting ideas back and forth

they have to color test They have to mold test

all kinds of stuff because stuff is gang molded

to it's it's all done on model trees It's it's

a long process but We find out first what we

have available to us, which is okay. Here's UFO

and here's hench. And then the brainstorming

begins. This is where we literally all staff

sit down and go, well, what do you do with the

cosmos mold? And there's always, you know, the

obvious ones where it's like, well, we could

do e -hobby, like, you know, Pathfinder, or we

could do, and then like, you know, like one of

them was like, hey, maybe some kind of Omega

Supreme. And then it was like, nah, not really.

And then one of them, which I thought was kind

of clever, but it would be kind of obscure if

you're familiar with the character Scratch. There's

a character, Scrouge, from the UK G1 comic books

who is a character that transformed into a wheel.

The thing is that Cosmos, on his side, he's kind

of like a wheel. We were just trying to be really

creative with that mold because it's a very limited

mold, what you could do with a Cosmos mold, a

spaceship with that very iconic Cosmos design

to it. You know, there's not many repaints, you

know, you have a jazz that turns into a sports

car with a little creativity You could do practically

anybody You know, I mean look at movie jazz,

you know movie jazz has been turned into you

know, erotimus character has been turned to a

smokescreen character There's no limits that

that could be done with that mold and it's the

same thing In the case of cosmos where it was

just it was the opposite where it's like there's

not much you can do and then at the same time

you're looking at the hench and it's well, you

know, hey, he's he's like a He's kind of a Jeep

thing with his iconic wheel on the roof. And

that wheel really hinders things because there's

only so much you could do with it. And we were

going back and forth. And then me, I was like,

man, I really want to do a GoBots homage. Because

people have been to TFCon in the past. I used

to do panels on GoBots and their true history,

like what they really were and where they came

from. And I've been wanting to get my favorite

character from GoBots, which is a Vanguard, into

any kind of Homage and the funny thing is is

that if you look at the original Vanguard toy

it has a it has like a kind of MV on the hood

of the car was the van and Just by design and

coincidence Because all the minibots were microman

toys. They all have that M somewhere on them

So it was kind of a cool. It was a coincidence.

So first we had Vanguard Coming from that hench

and it working really well as we started playing

with the idea it started to really work out But

then as time progressed we were like, you know

what? Let's go with the Roswell like we came

with the name Roswell that was came up by one

of our guys Super Megatron he came up with the

idea Roswell and also because the anniversary

of the Roswell landing was how it was it kind

of like flowed all together really nicely and

we could do that as the Pathfinder homage through

developments in everything people are saying

like oh it's gonna be a pathfinder homage was

going to be the hobby colors is going to be the

original uh... go bach colors which are more

of a gray uh... and people are and we're looking

at the threads and people like wanting one or

the other literally like almost fifty fifty and

it was like oh boy what are we gonna do like

you know either way we do it there's gonna be

a big group of people they're not gonna be happy

and so we kind of the diffusion of both And the

thing is, also, if you want a really true Pathfinder

homage of the eHobby one, buy the UFO toy that

comes with all the yellow parts from Cosmos,

and you could actually unscrew and swap the pieces

and have that perfect eHobby Pathfinder. And

if you want to just have your normal Pathfinders,

just buy the normal TFCon exclusives. We try

to make everyone happy, essentially. Right, yeah.

That was our first two exclusives. Then... We

have two other exclusives, which are at -show

exclusives, kind of like what Bakhan does with

the Sylvanières. And we started doing that three

years ago, too, where we have two that you pre

-order, and then there's two that you have to

actually come to the show and get. And these

ones actually happened by accident, which was

Auto Assembly, our fellow convention across the

pond in the UK. They wanted to do, finally, after

all those years of being in business, they wanted

to do their own exclusive. But auto assembly,

because it's not a humongous convention, and

how it works with exclusives is that it's very

hard to convince a company to make your exclusives

and your actual color waves and that unless you

give them a big sum of numbers, like a thousand.

It has to be around a thousand or so. Otherwise,

it's not worth it. And how it works is actually

the more numbers that are done, the cheaper it

is to produce it per number, like per piece,

if you will. So auto assembly, which is a convention

that barely gets a thousand people, how would

they be able to have a thousand exclusives under

the assumption that every single person is going

to buy one? So in order to kind of cover their

butt, they talked with us and they said, hey,

would you be willing to split 50 -50? So we ended

up getting and the funny thing is these exclusives.

They're actually based off of the right there

It's the I believe they're called wrecking crew

is the third party name Which it's the top spin

and twin twist third party ones which are great

molds by the way And these ones are special repaints

based off of these obscure These obscure UK colors

that they got which was a salt man X and Like

there was a very weird G2 UK colors for these

two molds that existed back then that was only

exclusive to the UK. If you Google it, you'll

see what I mean. They're very weird colors. So

these are homages to that. But when it came to

writing the fiction, I kind of like tackled them

and I wanted to make something that was, you

know, again, it's, you know, it's something that's

a homage to the UK market, but now it's in the

Canadian market. How do we do a spin on this

that will make people in the Canadian market

and the Americans are going to be flying in?

uh... interested in buying this so i wrote this

whole story and like uh... you know tied it into

the tfcon fiction and they're going to appear

in tfcon comic book also which kind of greases

the wheels to make people interested a little

bit uh... i made it a little bit of actually

a homage to megaman character one of them, because

the colors kind of reminded me of a Mega Man

character. Plus the name, Salt Man X, I mean,

come on. Well, yeah, that's just it. You'll see,

I don't want to spoil anything, but it's going

to be public when it comes out. Because the thing

is, when you look at those two molds, there's

not so much you could pull from it from a Transformers

standpoint, because even the actual characters

of Top Spin and Twin Twist, what exists of those

two? the base characters, let alone repaints

of them. So I kind of pulled from other fiction

and did like little homages here and there to

that. And it will be on there. And it's kind

of cool because how it works with auto assembly

was that we did it that if you fold the card

back one way, you get the profile for TFCon.

If you fold it another way, you get the profile

from auto assembly, which from what I was told,

their profiles are completely UK fan wank. like

making references to like United Kingdom dry

comedy shows and stuff so that's kind of also

why we went with having our own profiles because

if we would have stuck with what they had a lot

of people would have been scratching their heads

going uh you know what's all what's are you being

served you know or like a really obscure UK stuff

so that's also why we went that angle but they're

those two toys Like, even the original ones,

I heavily suggest you pick even the original

ones up, because they are like the masterpiece

classics versions of Top Spin and Twin Twist,

if that means anything to people. Yeah. So that's

two other exclusives we have. On top of that

too, we always have specific artists in the artist

alley that are responsible for our exclusive

lithographs. I was going to say you guys have

a huge alley this year. The thing is that we've

always had a really good relationship with IDW

because before IDW was IDW, a lot of their former

artists and workers used to work for Dreamwave,

which was a Canadian company. well, at least

Canadian based in a sense. So Alex Milne, who

has been a friend of the convention, a very close

friend of mine, has always been a very, very,

very influential guy helping us with the convention

in its early years. And then when he started

really becoming a name for himself when the Transformer

conflicts really launched with Mortimer meets

the eye, we really got that pull. all of a sudden

we're getting the writers, the colorists, the

writers for small stuff, the colorists for small

stuff. We have literally a humongous chunk of

IDW in that artist alley. And some of those artists

are gonna be making exclusive prints just for

the show related to... Like, a good example,

Joshua Perez, who's in charge of the coloring

for all of the Robots in Disguise comics, but

he's also, he's better well -known for, like,

the Drift comics. He's a guy that really, he's

a super -talented dude. Like, he could draw,

too. He's a colorist, but he's a very good, he's

very good at inking and penciling, too. He's

doing this great lithograph, and he's a very

clever guy, because what he does is he looks

what the guests are. And then he does lithographs

related to the guest, but he always puts stuff

that's obscure together. So a good example, we

have Dick Gautier, who's the voice of Rodimus.

And interestingly enough, if you do - Ladies

and gentlemen, you can just stop right now, because

Proto Man's just gonna kidnap him up to his room

and just - Well - You won't even see him the

entire weekend. He's no Judd Nelson, but it's

still pretty cool that - Oh, stop. But it's still

pretty cool that we're getting him. But the thing

is is that - If you do a little research on Di

Goce, he also was the voice of a rock lord named

Brimstone. So he did this crazy lithograph where

it's Rodimus Prime fighting Brimstone. And it's

a really high quality IDW print of... Rock Lord

fighting Rodimus Prime like and again you buy

this the intent is to get the the the voice actor

to sign it But there's tons of those kind of

wacky prints that are gonna be there also the

interesting thing really quick about what Gaudier

is that I'm I could not believe this I was on

our Knight Rider review show He I believe it's

the chameleon episode. Yes He has starred on...

I heard the voice first before I saw the face

and I'm like, hey, wait a second, what's Rodimus

doing on Knight Rider? Yeah, and the thing is

too, like a lot of people don't know it, like

one of his big roles that people don't realize

is Get Smart. He was Jaime the Robot, which was

the cyborg, and like if you close his eyes and

listen to the voice, it's fucking... Rodavest.

He did a lot of stuff. He has a big Hollywood

background, him especially. And the fact that

we have him this year is amazing. Because he's

an old guy, he's not young, and that actually

kind of segues into our other guest that we have,

which is also Jack Angel. And Jack Angel, what

a... what a background he has. Him, we're talking

Hanna -Barbera out of the butt, like tons of

Hanna -Barbera stuff, tons of 80s stuff. And

on top of that, like, he was supposed to be at

BotCon 2011, and he had to cancel because of

illness, because he wasn't feeling too well.

And a lot of people were worried, uh -oh, you

know, that's kind of the beginning of stuff,

you know what I mean? I don't want to be a negative

guy, but. So a lot of people were worried, oh

man, like, he's probably sick and stuff. He's

recovered, he's feeling great, and he's going

to be at TFCon. So we got two really old school

voice actors and actors there. You know, imagine

the original voice of season three, Ultra Magnus,

and the original, well, just to go through a

quick list of, because the thing is, the sad

thing with, when it comes to at least Dick Goetje,

is that he only really did Rodimus, and he did,

he did Ape Face. But outside of like Sir Pentor

and stuff There's not really transformer connected

stuff that he's done in terms of voice acting

But Jack angel outside like the the predominant

one a lot of people associate him when his is

ultra Magnus But he did you on smoke screen?

He was astro train. He was breakdown. He was

ramjet cyclonus. He was the sweeps He was arcana,

which was one of the headmasters and a big one

that a lot of people forget Ultra Magnus was

also Omega supreme the very famous, you know

monotone Law see I always forget about ultra

Magnus and I bear I didn't even I didn't even

know about Omega the one I go to is that like

astrotrain? He keeps a lot of times when I see

his name come up, especially when other people

are advertising our convention. They always mention

Ultra Magnus which is interesting because he

was the guy who replaced Robert stack So we're

talking about the TF con guests and running down

the list. We've already covered Jack angel and

Dick Gaudier and we've covered the the artist

alley people you guys also I'm really surprised

at this next one because I Haven't I've probably

heard her voice in other things recently, but

I haven't seen this one I haven't even seen her

at BotCon at all. Who's the other reveal that

you guys have for big -name Tia voice actors?

I don't know which one you're referring to because

they're both females. No, I'm not referring to

the GoBot one. Venus Terezo, she has a humongous...

Anime background. That's where she first started

into voice acting like rama one half and stuff

and and when Deke was Deke the animation company

was doing all their low -budget Cartoons the

Hurricanes King Arthur Knights of Justice all

like she was a voice on all of that and the funny

thing is if you go back and watch those shows

Surprisingly, there's Scott McNeil. There's Ian

Corwett like they all worked together like doing

that stuff But she has a humongous anime background

stuff and then she started getting into live

-action. She kind of fell off the radar after

that when she started getting into more live

-action stuff because she's one of those female

voice actors that's also kind of not bad to look

at if you actually Google image her when she

was younger. Now she's in her mid -forties, but

when she was in her twenties and stuff, pretty

easy on the eyes. She's the voice of Blackarachnia

from Beast Wars and Beast Machines. We managed

we managed to get her because she actually is

if you check her background She is a fellow Canadian,

but she's one of those Canadians that now have

broken into more I don't want to say Hollywood

but more of the mainstream American live -action

stuff So she's been all it, you know up and about

she has been to one BotCon But I believe I remember

correctly. It was that Beast Wars anniversary

year in Yeah, I believe she was at that one And

that was it. Like she's only really done one

transformer convention. And it was that one.

Yeah. Cause you know, you know, you look at bot

and I know we're here to talk about that. I mean,

you look at bot con. I know, but you know, you,

if you go through, if you go to bot con .com

and you go through their past archives of their

guests, not Unless it is an anniversary year,

unless it's something special. I was really disappointed

with last year considering it was right near

Hollywood and yet they didn't have nobody. This

year, again, I don't want to sound like the guy

who hates on Bakon. I love Bakon. I've been going

every year for 11 years. You can't say someone

who's a Canadian who drops that kind of money

could hate something like that. Oh, I know. I

was really disappointed with this year. I think

the hotel was great. The location was great.

In terms of having fun with your friends, it

was a great weekend. But the convention itself

was short in every way humanly possible. I mean,

when your big name guest is the guy who was on

Optimus Prime's hand. in season five, you know,

Tommy Kennedy. But I think everybody overlooked

the fact that they had the entire cast of rescue

bots. Jason Marsden's first BotCon, Maurice LaMarche

was there. And the sad thing is I was in that

line. And while people were in line for for those

guys, a lot of people didn't realize that's the

voice of Egon. That's the voice. You know, that's

the voice of Destro from the Deke. G .I. Joe

series. Like some of those voice actors, I mean

yeah Steve Blum, a lot of people were there for

the Starscream, they weren't there for Heatwave.

But I mean the thing is Maurice Wommage, man

this guy's got history and what's hilarious too,

what is hilarious is that when they did a G1

panel And the G1 panel was literally Wally Burr

and that Tommy Kennedy guy. And the reason we

only found out afterwards was that Maurice LaMache

and Wally Burr hate each other because they actually

had an extremely bad experience. Maurice LaMache,

G1 voice, he was only the voice of Sixgun, right?

So how many lines does Sixgun have in G1? Two.

He had two lines. Wally Burr, being Wally Burr...

uh... here's morning swamash comes in okay i

got two lines i'll be able to record these two

lines to get out of here to do my next job because

the secret with voice acting is volume it's not

your jobs how many jobs you can do so he's he

already was scheduled for he's like okay i'm

coming in for two lines uh... what's the most

it could be an hour so he scheduled another voice

acting gig afterwards for like three o 'clock

he was going to come in at one thirty get it

set it up wally kept them there the whole time

repeating the same lines over and over. Maurice

was furious. He got into a fight with him. And

then the funny thing is that exact same episode

was the episode that Casey Kasem walked off the

set, which was, I believe it was the car bomb

episode, which is again, the episode that Six

Gun has his lines in it. So it was a whole lot

of drama there. But the point is that there you

have also, it would have been great to have here

someone who actually worked on G1, which was

Maurice Lamage, with Wally Burr. They didn't

even want to do a panel together. So there was

a lot. It was very weird. It was very weird.

There was a Transformer movie panel with Glenn

Morschauer, the guy who had one line in the movie.

You know what I mean? Well, no, he has more than

one line. He has about 20 in all three combined.

Exactly, so you can talk about the trilogy. We're

not talking Tyrese Gibson here, or Shia, or even

like whatever his name is there. You know, Leo

from Revenge of the Fallen. We're talking the

guy who really didn't have really any ties to

the movies in actual fiction. But you gotta think

though, Hasbro has been using him. Oh yeah, it's

not Hasbro, it's Michael Bay likes using him.

No, well... Is Michael Bay doing the ride? I

thought that was Hasbro's day. I don't know.

I guess now they're running. I could have sworn

that Moore Shower was like the narrator. Like

I saw something might have been a video or something

where he's narrating something or guiding you

through something outside. I mean, I'll tell

you one thing though. He's definitely riding

this out as much as he can. Well, what has he

done before this? He's done 24... He does inspirational

speeches according to him. That's his part -time

job. He does inspirational speeches. And motivational

speeches. Anyways, we're kind of getting off

TFCon. Yeah, I know. Between Jack, Dick, and

Venus, I would love to go this year. And then

we threw a wild card into this. And we're like,

you know what? We did some research and we found

out that the original voice actor for one of

our exclusives Pathfinder and the original voice

actor of crasher. It was the same voice actress

She lives in Toronto all this time It like locally

near TF con and she's a lot right now. She's

just a librarian and it's just like or she works

at like one of the Toronto archives or something

and we're just like wow Why don't we give her

a call? you know, and see what happens. And again,

if you actually do research on her, she did a

lot of 80s stuff too. Her name is... Her name

is... Marilyn Lightstone. Thank you. I always

say Lighthouse. I don't know why. And the thing

is too, like, hey, crazy thing, we got a GoBot

voice actor. You know? So here's something that

Dick Gautier actually worked with also, because

they both worked together when they did, what

do you call it? Battle of the Rock Lords. They

worked together briefly, but they worked together

on that movie. We got a lot of guests from different

walks of life. I mean, on top of all of that,

even though we mentioned the artist, I didn't

really go through All the artists that we have

but I'm just gonna try to pull up a list because

it's a big list like and Well, you've got James

Roberts who is right around more than meets the

eye. You've got I Lit Livio Remondelli Yeah,

we got we got James Roberts who like he he did

a lot of the writing for more meets the eye and

a lot of people are loving Loving that to death

Livio Livio is known for he's the guy who kind

of does What I call painting comics meaning like

whenever there's a very Like important or epic

scene, which in the ongoing especially like in

the chaos ongoing Anytime there's a scene that

was really important Olivia would always do like

the the painting for that which is if people

from the kingdom come which was a Or the marvels

which were two really big Marvel DC comic books

where it's a painting instead of a drawing Like

he does that kind of style and he's a very talented

guy and he doesn't get enough work for what he

is uh... casey car all right now here's a guy

i love casey caller uh... this dude is amazing

i think he should be doing a lot more transformer

stuff i do we worked on like uh... that the spotlight

drift spotlight blur of the cliff jumper one

and everything else he does is covers he's a

cover guy And the thing is when you're a cover

guy, a cover guy means that you put a lot more

effort into your art because you're the cover.

It's got to look great. But the thing is that

when he does get a chance to do interiors, he

does everything like a cover. Everything is not

sped through like most pencilers will do and

inkists will do. He actually puts that cover

effort into all his pages and he makes them amazing.

books. Like I always say, read Spotlight Blur.

That's one of his best work in my opinion. Great

stuff. And he also did the Ironhide miniseries.

Another great book. And I'm not a big fan of

Ironhide. I thought this book was going to be

boring. I read it and I was like, wow, Casey

Coller made it amazing. Another good one is Alex

Milne, like I mentioned before. Big name, tons

of stuff. I don't even think he needs to be mentioned

really. We also have Andrew Griffith. He's the

artist for Robots in Disguise. So not only do

we have the head artist for Mortimer meets the

Eye, we also have the head artist for the opposite

book, the sister book, Robots in Disguise, there.

We also have John Paul Bovier. Now him, a lot

of people don't really, you know, they go, well,

who's this guy here? He's the guy who does the

colors for the Transformers Regeneration book.

So he's the guy who's in charge of pretty much

making sure everything looks vintage, essentially,

and he's really good at that. He's a really talented

colorist. Going in the segue of another colorist,

not only do we have the artist for the Robots

in Disguise book, but we also have the colorist,

Joshua Perez. Joshua Perez also worked with Alex

Milne on all the past books that they worked

with together. Any of the movie books Alex Milne

did, Megatron Origins, the Drift miniseries,

all of that stuff. is Joshua Perez's work and

this guy is super talented again like I said

before despite the fact that he's a colorist

he's an amazing artist too and he does a lot

of stuff too he's currently actually working

on the Capcom Bravo Man comic book series which

is based on a based on the new animated series

yeah so you know really really talented dude

And the last guy that we have is Marvin Mariano

and him he actually is a designer and he helped

design Beast Machine designs essentially because

Beast Machines a lot of people don't realize

its history was when Hasbro was working on Beast

Machines They actually cut I don't want to say

they outsourced but they were really shopping

around other design studios when they were like

designing Beast Machines characters, they just

didn't want something that was a that was like

that. So they went to a company called Drexel,

they went to a lot of different guys, and Marvin

was one of the guys on there, and he was the

guy who actually designed and created Obsidian.

And he has tons of what he brings to the conventions.

A lot of times he brings all his scrapbooks of

stuff that he helped design from other series.

He was working on the early stuff of trans tech

too. So like you'll see like here's some transtech

stuff what would have been essentially which

kind of some of it actually did trickle into

Armada specifically the optimist the Megatron

cheetor, which was then used with with blur from

animated but like he's also like one of those

guys like designers are always fascinating because

when you go through your sketchbooks You really

see stuff that you know never happened, but then

it shows up in other things so Really cool stuff

actually there is more guests. I'm actually going

through the list. I'm like, I'm totally forgetting

We also have Matt Moylan of little formers fame

Matt Moylan originally was a webcomic guy He

worked on a series called little formers, which

was just kind of like a little parody series

of transformers done in an SD style I wish you

would go back. Yeah, and they were really good

And then he started doing like, you know more

80s franchises too He even got a shot where he

was his some of his stuff was published with

the club comic for fun publications. But now

he kind of works full -time for Udon comics,

which pretty much is in charge of all of Capcom's

fictional licenses. So he's the guy that if you

bought Street Fighter IV, it came with a comic

book. He was the guy who did that comic. Doesn't

he do Little Gotham by DC? Oh yeah, he does a

lot of parody stuff now in that style. Like his

big stuff right now is that he's one of the,

I think he's like the senior editor of Udon,

which is in charge of Street Fighter, Mega Man,

Darkstalkers, Rivals, any of the Capcom -based

stuff. And I believe, because he's coming hot

off the heels of San Diego Comic -Con, he's gonna

be bringing some San Diego Comic -Con exclusive

books that were exclusive only to San Diego Comic

-Con. They'll be available at his table for sale.

So if I know one of them if I remember correctly

was a special hardcover art book of Street Fighter

a bunch of others You'd have to like tweet him

and ask him exactly but I know that he's bringing

some of those too and One and one of the last

ones that we haven't we have it's it's it's by

demand essentially of people who want to get

into reviewing Chris Ho Vangelis and Benjamin

Dole known as Pia two big toy reviewers of Transformers

and just toys in general, they're also guests

and they're going to be doing a panel this year,

like they did last year, pretty much explaining

how to do YouTube stuff in general, not just

reviews. I actually peeked in a bit of it last

year and I know that PR really, I'm telling you,

for people who are listening, if you want to

get into this, PR really has some very simple

advice. where you literally need almost nothing

to do what he does. Like it's where Vangelis,

he takes it a little more seriously, fancy camera,

tripod, all that, nine yards and everything.

But Piyom, how he does it, it's quite fascinating

what he does. I mean, he's going to explain the

panel. I don't want to like, you know, make you

guys not have to spoil. Yeah, but like, it's

very simple. It's very self -contained, almost

two purchases and you're done. and it's something

that you have in your pocket right now, which

is your phone essentially, but like what he does,

it's very, and he's successful with it. So they're

gonna give advice and everything. It's called

a fan media panel essentially, meaning like,

not just reviews, but anything in general, stop

motion, whatever. And there's still more guests

to be announced. I think we actually announced

another one today. If I remember correctly, let

me just check TFW's front page. The thing is,

we've been announcing guests like crazy. Like...

You guys need to get Marigold Scott. The recent

guest we actually just announced was Silas Zee.

Silas Zee was also someone who originally worked

with Bakhan. He's best known as the Transformers

Cheesecake artist. Meaning that he's a guy who

admittedly will always say... I'm better drawing

girls than I am robots. So if you're someone

who's really into Fembot Transformer characters,

he is the guy because he loves drawing them.

And he's a very talented artist. He's actually

the guy that did the art for our box art for

our exclusives this year because one of them

was a female character. And he's going to have

two exclusive prints at his table related to

our convention this year, two other GoBot characters.

So very talented guy, too. very very talented

guy Silas. I would say that in the future you

guys definitely need to go after Marigold Scott,

one of the writers on Prime Beast Hunters comic

because she is a phenomenal Transformers fan

girl. She was actually at BotCon. I was at her

panel because, well, I was again supporting the

other IDW guys too. Yeah, she really knows her

stuff. She really does. I was quite surprised,

because usually when they bring in writers for

the more mainstream stuff, like the movie stuff

and everything, it's usually a guy that's more

of a science fiction writer than a Transformer

fan. But she actually knows her stuff. And when

she was talking, I was like, OK, yeah, she really

does. Yeah. I dig it. Steve, any questions? No.

I mean, it sounds like it's going to be awesome.

I wish I was going this year. That's always the

case. Where's the theme was Beast Wars versus

go -bots? That would be amazing have the beasts

kill the go -bots Well, you know what the funny

thing is we like we have a comic this year, too

Like always we do and it's gonna be go -bop based

and we again how I always write it I'm the writer

for all the fiction of the stuff and I do the

tech specs and everything I always try to tie

everything together without him being too convoluted.

So You'll see how this all kind of works together

with the past TFCon exclusives with these GoBots.

And luckily, GoBots have clashed in the past

with Transformer characters with even BotCon

fiction. So I try to pull from that and use that

with the story. So yeah. Interesting. So what

else do you guys have for this year? Oh, God.

Well, why don't we pull up the schedule, which

is absolutely Usually, in the past, I used to

have to do panels because there was an empty

hole somewhere, and they always just say, just

put Protoman on stage and get him to talk for

an hour. Honestly, I could totally do that. Just

go, Protoman, Ironhide, one hour, go. All right,

Ironhide was originally a Daikon Toyota One.

I could literally do that. But this year, because

we have so much... They've never like I do have

stuff like I do have panels planned But it was

more because it was stuff that they really wanted

to do and get me to do but like starting with

the Friday We're gonna start off the entire convention

after registration after you pick up your exclusives

The first thing we're gonna start with is the

Battle of the Rock Lords movie Just to get people

up to speed with go -bots the Battle of the Rock

Lords movie was kind of probably the best animation

fiction of go -bots Not to mention it also features

the voice of Dick Goche and a lot of our other

voice actors, so it kind of works out well. And

it has all our exclusives in there, so for people

that are like, who's Vanguard? Who's, you know,

Pathfinder? Watch it, you'll get it, and it's

not too bad, the Rock Awards movie. It's actually

quite enjoyable compared to most GoBots stuff.

And again, I like GoBots, but yeah, like most

of it is, you kind of have to have thick skin

for it. Then after that, we have the opening

ceremony at 8 o 'clock, which is we pretty much

let everyone know what's the big stuff planned

this weekend, any surprises, which we usually

have surprises at the opening ceremony, any stuff

that needs clarification, because a lot of times

there's people that are like, oh, I'm here to

cosplay. Where do I go? So the opening ceremony

is kind of for that. We're going to explain specific

stuff, because we have a charity auction, so

we're going to explain that in person, who's

going to be running it. Explain it here since

we're talking I'm not the one that's in charge

of it So I like I'll leave that to Ian at essentially

because we were gonna have two kinds of auctions

we're gonna have a silent auction and a And a

actual physical auction for the charity auction

And there's gonna be we're gonna be debuting

like what some of those big prizes are and we

have a lot when we went to BotCon A lot of the

big stores that were there big bad toy store

TF source ages three and up, a lot of those guys

donated stuff to TFCon because they knew we were

there at BotCon for the charity auction. So a

lot of big prizes were donated. Let's just put

it that way. And the good thing with the charity

auction is 90 % of the time, from what I've seen,

you get the items a lot cheaper than what they

actually are worth. And then on top of that,

the money that you give goes straight to charity.

It's pretty awesome to win a masterpiece Grimlock

for $100 instead of $300 and all that money goes

to charity. Really awesome stuff. Honestly, there's

tons, tons of stuff in that auction. Minimum

60 items. Minimum. It's nuts. Last year too was

nuts. There was actually stuff left over because

there was too much. We didn't have enough time.

So we actually prioritize the high -end items

over the smaller end items. And even the smaller

end items, Minton Box Japanese G1 Reissue Rodimus.

Someone's going to want that. Maybe me, but you

know. Once you already have six of those. Yeah,

well, there you go. But I'm just saying, like,

you know, someone would have wanted that for

20 bucks, but we just didn't have the time to

get to it. You know, like there was there was

Masterpiece toys and and big play sets and not

all of it is Transformers. There's there's autographs

too. because when we go to BotCon we try to get

autographs from all the guests and then we auction

those too because there's people that would love

to get an opportunity to get Wally Burr's autograph

or something but just miss the opportunities

because of location or they can't travel. So

they get those chances also. And those sell well.

And the thing is, again, not just Transformers.

Last year we had David Hasselhoff, we had a lot

of wrestlers. So we always do well with that.

And it's all for a good cause too in the end,

which is the sick kids found. Yeah, I know. I

think it's Auto Assemblies Charity, whatever

they're doing for their charity. I had pointed

out to Sumley Montano uh... voice of rc and prime

hey look you're on a comic cover yeah and she

actually went out and had a comic shop hold her

a couple copies of it and she sent one of them

over to auto assembly so that's another one i

know you guys are i know most of these and you

know no offense to tfcon but like botcon up until

this year their guest list at least the last

two years didn't really impress me because hey

it's let's see what g1 person we can get today

that you know let's see what what more we can

just squeeze out of the g1 bloodstone and this

year they i know a lot of people complained about

the the kid but i i was really surprised with

that you know what it is to also in in our case

we really wanted to get these two guys because

again no offense to them they're not getting

any younger So I think that it's it's best to

like, you know Peter Collins still pretty young

a lot of those guys are still pretty young But

Jack Angel Dick Goche these these guys are in

their 80s. No joke, you know, yeah Yeah, it's

actually to my knowledge. I believe Dick Goche

is pushing 90s. So So just to give you an idea

We kind of want to give people those opportunities

now before they'll regret not getting them later

I mean, it's like gee, I'd really like Scott

Meneal Don't worry, Scott McNeil will be around

for a long time, as long as he doesn't coke overdose,

you know, but... Well, Waspinators close enough.

But the point is, is that like, yeah, Scottie's

great. So is David Kay, a lot of those Beast

Wars guys, but they'll be around for a long time.

And don't worry, they'll be like a lot of them

have been to TF, almost a lot of that I've just

mentioned have been to TFCon in the past. Yeah.

So there's nowhere we're trying to really target

those guys that... You know, like, I'm so glad

that last year Bakon got Buster Jones. You know,

also a dude who's not very young. You know, the

voice of the original G1 Blaster. You know, so,

I always appreciate those efforts. You know,

I always do. And same thing, that's why TFCon,

we wanted to get those two guys. We actually

have Judd Nelson's contact info, but there's

priorities that we kind of had, so. Yeah, no,

I actually got that Derek Wyatt actually I'll

give a shout out Derek Wyatt a good friend of

mine actually hooked me up with Judd Nelson's

contact info because Judd Nelson was doing voices

for Ben 10 the series that he's currently working

on and he's like, you know who'd really love

Like the contact info and I got a text message

from Derek Wyatt, you know, would you like to

talk to Judd Nelson? It's like yeah, so we got

in contact with him But it's just we were kind

of wanted because to get a Judd Nelson would

be kind of not having any other guests That's

well, you know, it'll be awesome is if next year

you guys could do something special where? For

the 30th anniversary. We'll see of the No, I

want to say not 30th anniversary of the brand

You could have Judd versus Dick Gaudier, the

Rodimus off. We could bring in Peter Cullen and

Judd. That'd be great. Oh, yeah, that would be

so awesome. We'll see. We'll see. Again, we'll

talk about that a year from now, and we'll be

gushing about whatever we get. Other panels,

again, like I mentioned before, the fan media

panel with Pia and Vangelis, as I said before.

Check it out. It's really cool. At nine o 'clock

is going to be the customization tutorial panel.

This is actually ran by BotCon award winning,

this guy won at BotCon 2008, Dak Duncan. He went

to BotCon 2008 and won the custom competition,

and then he got runner up the past years, although

I believe it was rigged, but anyways, the years

that he lost. Very talented dude, and he teaches

people how to do crazy, crazy, crazy customization.

He's really, really, really... good like he the

thing about him is that he teaches people how

to uh... do customization with very little stuff

to work with because he's the kind of guy that

he'll go to uh... value village and he'll see

uh... my little pony playset And you'll be like,

oh god, it's a My Little Pony playset, Value

Village, 50 cents, it's garbage. But he looks

at it and he'll be like, you know, those horns

on the top of the tower, those would make great

horns for a character. And he's an amazing customizer.

He'll show you figures and you'll be like, where

did you get this from? Like he made a IDWing.

And if you look at it, you'll be like, that's

an amazing figure. And then when he tells you,

yeah, did you know I made that out of two G1

Galvatrons? and then you start looking at it

and you go, oh my God, you know, he literally

gutted two G1 Galvatrons and made it IDW Thunderwing

out of it. If I showed you the picture and now

that you know it, you're going to see it, but

you would have never made the connection before.

Like, and we're talking like super articulated

from that bulky crappy toy, you know. And so

he teaches people that. And he's also going to

be assisted by Nemesis Predaking, another great

customizer, and Chanceformers, a TFCon award

-winning customizer who's also insanely talented.

After that, at 9 .45, is one of my panels. Coming

back due to popular demand, last year I did the

Challenge of Convoy video game panel. which amazingly

was a lot more entertaining than I thought it

was going to be. People were horrible at the

game. And it was a competition that the person

who would beat the level, like level three, would

get a prize. It was so bad that I had to give

it away to whoever could just get the furthest,

because that game is very difficult. But I didn't

think it was going to be that difficult for people.

Challenger of Convoy, isn't that the one you

did? That's one for Nintendo that's like ridiculously

hard. I've played that before. Right, but isn't

that the one? Yeah. Isn't that the one where

it's the movie characters? You play as Ultra

Magnus, pretty much defeating oversized versions

of different characters. And it's one hit, you're

down. Yeah, and it's one hit death. And what

I did was last year, I put it up on the big screen,

hooked up an old Nintendo system with the Famicom

adapter so you could play the original Japanese

game. Huge lineup big big turnout Vangelis actually

has video footage of it. It's that hilarious

He's gonna post it one day if you guys ever get

a chance to see what happened last year. It was

hilarious because the whole Crowd got behind

people because when one guy would get a little

bit further Everyone would be all excited and

then boom that one hit that kills you and that's

that You know, so there but it was it was great.

It was it was so great. So this year I'm coming

back with it I don't want to say which game it

is because that's the thing. All right No, I

don't want people I don't want people like just

thinking of the of the one his challenge of Convoy

is is that the one with all the animation stuff?

in it there was one that you had done that was

a game i don't know if it was even a game that

was ever made or ever released over here it might

have just been the japanese game but it's cg1

there okay what you're referring to you're referring

to transformers for the playstation 2 um that

was called i believe the because it was just

called transformers but the japanese name for

it i believe was called uh battle of the space

star or something Yeah, that was that was a Japanese

only game that had English dialogue in it because

I guess there was an intent to release it at

one point here That was kind of a beat -em -up,

but it had a lot of cinematic scenes that were

really impressive and that's the one you're referring

to So it's not that one though But what it is

is the game that I'm going to be using. Again,

it's another game that it has a competition level

to it. And I will be giving away prizes. We were

donated a bunch of prizes by BTS Toys, which

is a third party company. So there's going to

be, again, big expensive prizes for just playing

a video game. So make sure you guys show up and

try to win. i want to see which game it is always

because i like to i like it that's surprise that

way we don't have one guy who like when he hears

this is going to stay at home training all day

it's going to be a surprise that everyone has

a chance you know oh yeah no i know i completely

i i just want to make sure i was i was clear

on what i was thinking of this that that one

Oh man. Oh yeah. The one with all the cutscenes

is just awesome. Yeah, it is actually a really

awesome game, and it actually addresses a lot

of issues about the characters, too. At 10 o

'clock is the karaoke night. That's a new thing

that's been added. It's going to be ran by Oasis,

one of our female staff members. I have no idea

what's planned for that, so I can't really tell

you much. I assume it's going to be just generic

karaoke, not just like transformer -based karaoke,

because I think that would get dry really quickly.

um yeah there's only so many times people can

sing the touch yeah i'm saying to myself are

you gonna play like pretty handsome awesome from

like the first movie you know which like no one

knows what that is what i just said it's it's

the song that was playing when barricade was

chasing bumblebee in the first movie but oh the

funny thing is all the songs that were used in

the movie none of the lyrics were used it was

just the the the the tunes yeah so like that's

just i'm just kind of like what really could

you use that so i think it's going to be just

generic karaoke and it's just organized but that

that's that's that's a 10 o 'clock and again

the bar is a crazy place to be and the guests

are already in the bar at on the friday night

chilling you know making jokes again if anyone

who is there during the Gary Chalk. You had Gary

Chalk playing the guitar. You know, Paul Iding

and Simon Furman with their wives, like just

hanging out, making jokes, laughing. Paul Iding

is a great guy because he always has stories.

Last year with Scott McNeil, Scotty, oh man,

him at the bar was jokes. And then you had Scott

McNeil was at the bar hanging out. And then you

had on top of that Joshua Perez and Derek Wyatt

doing sketches for everybody, you know, at the

bar. So it was, again, TFCon, that's where we

get our biggest rep, is that the convention has

some of the most memorable stuff that is really

personal, because you get right in the face of,

and I guess that's kind of the good thing, and

I don't want to say we're a small convention,

we're not, but because we're not BotCon -huge

of 10 ,000 people with walk -ins, we're able

to pull off stuff like that. Oh, yeah. Yeah,

that's always been the... the greatest thing

about Ural's convention. Now, are you guys gonna

have... I don't know the complete alcohol list

yet but I remember last year we had like we had

a great one called the hate plague which was

a red drink that burned I don't know what was

in it exactly and there was a great one last

year oh man it was it was called the mage okay

you had You had, it was a drink called the rhodomus,

which was a red drink, and then it had, I don't

know if you're familiar with the drink, it's

called a sake bomb. What a sake bomb is, it's

a alcoholic drink, and then you drop a smaller

shot glass of sake into it, and then it has a

reaction with that alcoholic drink and changes

the color. We did one that was called the rhodomus,

which was it was a red drink, and then when you

dropped it in, It was like a bluish orange. When

you dropped it in, we called it the Matrix, and

it changes the whole drink orange. So it would

turn into hot from hot rod to Rodimus. It was

a sake bomb that was the matrix. So you put the

matrix in the drink and it becomes Rodimus. We

were being really creative with the drinks. I

think there was another one called the Waspinator.

I don't remember them all. This year we have

a whole bunch of new drinks. Again, we're going

to be revealing them actually at the opening

ceremony. And again, because we have a really

good relationship with the bar. We get all the

sexy bar waitresses to wear Autobot buttons and

everything. All the drinks are transformer based.

And we force them to make all the food at the

bar extremely cheap. That way that weekend, you

don't even have to really travel far to eat good.

We're gonna make it that you could actually eat

within the hotel and not pay hotel prices. Because

essentially one of our staff works for the hotel.

So we have a pull. when it comes to that. So

the waitresses are transformer based, the drinks

are transformer based, the food is easy on your

wallet. Another reason why TFCon is really good

for people who are traveling from far to on top

of that. It's really worth your while. That's

just the Friday. Now the Saturday. Wow. Do you

have anything you want to? No, go ahead with

Saturday. Well, Steve, did you have anything

you wanted to ask him? No. Except I want to go,

you know? Yeah, I wish. Yeah. Hopefully next

year. So Saturday, again, registration for people

who didn't pick up their stuff on the Friday

registration, as we call it, late registration.

And then we have the deal room opens up for early

admission and weekend pass holders. We kind of

did something this year similar to what Bakan

is doing, but it's not really like the golden

ticket. It's just that we kind of wanted to reward

people who do get the weekend pass. So we did

kind of create something that's like a Primus

package, where if you do get the weekend pass,

you are now what's called a premium pass holder.

So you'll get early admission to the dealer room

and you'll be able to get in line before everyone

else for autographs. So there'll be like the

early admission people will also be able to get

the autographs before everyone else essentially

than the weekend pass holders. Pretty much the

people who get just the one day pass just to

meet the voice actor and leave. So we want to

kind of reward the people who are dedicated fans

who do come to the convention shop at the dealer

room Hang out talk cosplay. Those are the people

that deserve those advantages We're usually the

people who just come in for the guest and leave

and not really buy anything or do anything We

make it that there's an incentive to get the

weekend pass essentially Now at 905, we're going

to be starting the art contest registration.

So for people that have their 3D art, which is

customs, and then 2D art, which is Paintings

and everything at 905 at the garrison foyer You'll

be able to register your stuff there There will

be a TF con staff that are registered for you

because people have been asking a lot about that

You'll be directed to it. There's we have tons

of volunteers all over the place wearing Staff

shirts and stuff. So you'll be able to to be

directed to where you need to be At 10 o 'clock

opens for general admission It's 11 o 'clock.

We're gonna have a Q &A with James Roberts. So

and that's probably gonna be filled with spoilers,

but Sure, but if you do want to check out that

amazing writer with that amazing comic book then

in all honesty In my opinion is probably some

of the best TF fiction in a very long time Definitely

check out that panel At 12 o 'clock, we're going

to be starting Jack Angel and Dick Goche's Q

&A panel where they're going to reminisce about

G1 Season 3 and then all the stuff that they

worked on together in the past. So that's going

to be amazing. That one I don't want to miss

at all because to have those two together, and

in all honesty, those two have not been together

since G1. That's the thing. And Jack Angel and

Dick Goche. They have not been together since

G1. So it's going to be pretty crazy, that one.

At 1 o 'clock, the charity auction starts. I

already kind of talked about that. At 1 o 'clock

also is going to be the early signings for Jack

Angel, Dick Goche, and James Roberts for the

autograph signings. Just for the weekend pass

holder, early admission holders. At 2 o 'clock...

we'll begin Venus and Marilyn Lightstone's Q

&A where they're going to talk about voice acting

in the female division and how it takes to get

into it and stuff. So that'll be pretty cool

because you have Venus who's a young voice actor

who, again, she comes from the Deke generation,

the anime generation, which is more of the young

voice acting, and then you have Marilyn who comes

from the 70s. And she did scripting and writing

too, and she's from the Hanna -Barbera era, so

she could talk about how voice acting happened

in that era. So really interesting stuff with

that. It's kind of similar to what happened when

we had Neil Ross and... We had Neil Ross and

Gary Chalk together because Gary, while he's

an older guy, he comes from still the younger

generation of voice acting, which is similar

to Venus, where Neil Ross comes from the 70s

and the 80s. So it was really interesting to

see that contrast with those two of how it was

to get into voice acting back then and what to

do as opposed to today. So it'll be kind of the

same thing with these two, but now from a ladies

perspective. Also, at 2 o 'clock will then be

Jack Angel, Dick Oche, and James Roberts now

signing for general admission. At 3 o 'clock

is the third party product preview panel. Just

like how at BotCon people get excited for the

BotCon preview panel, which is where Hasbro talks,

we have something similar, which is third party.

We get sent stuff, prototypes, everything, images,

all the third party stuff that's going to be

happening in the next year to two years in advance.

We have stuff that are not going to be happening

until 2015 even. Well, that's what happened last

year. Last year, we had stuff that still isn't

going to be coming out until 2014. And the funny

thing is, we're going to kind of be reiterating

some of that stuff in the panel this year, too.

It's like, hey, remember last year we talked

about this? Well, it's still coming. So a whole

bunch of stuff. We have two glass displays that

are going to have prototypes of third -party

stuff that were sent to us from the creators

to show off to you guys. Tons of stuff coming

out. I've already seen all the stuff, so getting

ready for the panel. Let me tell you something,

guys. Stuff that is mind -blowing. Great -looking

stuff. Let's just put it that way. Again, I can't

talk about any of it, really, but that's what

the panel's about, essentially. Check it out.

It's always packed. Be there early. Always packed,

that one. Then at three o 'clock, Venus and Marilyn

are going to be doing autograph signings for

weekend pass, early admission together. At four

o 'clock is the Transformers Costume Competition,

which is going to be judged by, I believe, Cheersian

from the boards and Transformers. So any Transformer

-based costumes show up at the Hazel Room and

they'll begin the costume competition. There's

prizes and everything, so if you have something,

come check it out. At four o 'clock we'll also

begin the general admission for the signings

of Venus and Maryland at 445 is the TF con Awards

and what that is essentially is we're going to

be awarding all the winners from the transformer

based stuff thus far thus the 2d art contest

3d art contest the costume competition and we

actually do have like what we've done in the

past we do have statues that are transformer

based that are done in gold silver and bronze

for the winners So and and if you actually if

you could Google the past ones that we've done

of them. I'll just show you That is so they're

they're amazing actually like I don't even know

how to How to describe them, but yeah, so cool.

I mean it seems to you know I always hear everybody

that goes to BotCon, even you. You say it's a

fun time, but every time you tell us about TFCon,

it seems like it's so much better. You know,

what it is essentially is because, and again,

I love BotCon, but I think that because BotCon

has become more of a business, and that's what

it literally is, it's kind of, TFCon is fun and

it stays fun. BotCon is business and it stays

business. And I think that while you could still

have fun with business, at the end of the day,

it's still a business. And I mean, the sad thing

is, and I know people are making this comparison,

but it's so true, at least when it comes to,

when it comes to BotCon compared to SDCC that

just passed, the sad thing is, is that SDCC still

has the fun. And that's how it manages to be

better than BotCon this year, even as a transformer

convention, where BotCon had all these reveals,

SDCC had all the same reveals and more, and more

on display than BotCon had. And then on top of

that, when you really measure it, the BotCon

box set, which was $360, a lot of people weren't

a big fan of it, but for 150 bucks, it got you

that SDCC Metroplex. which would you rather have

at more than fifty percent less the value? You

know what I mean? But if you say you want to

even it out, okay, which would you rather have?

That BotCon box set for three hundred and sixty

dollars or SDCC Metroplex for one fifty, for

an extra hundred dollars you get the GI Joe versus

Transformers set, and then throw in another fifty

bucks to make it three hundred and fifty even,

and you get the Shockwaves lab. So those three

things against the box set, which would you rather

have? And they're the same price. You know what?

Yeah, those three things. Exactly. And I think

that's where Bachan, the fun is missing. The

fun is missing. And it's just business. Where

SDCC, it still had the fun and all that other

stuff around it. Well, see, that's the thing.

If you're going to... And they were both in San

Diego. So it's like you just had to take one

or the other. I know. Well, if you're going to

go to a Transformers convention, I'm sure there

are plenty of fans, maybe not as much, but plenty

of fans for Machine Wars, but you have to market

to the mass of collectors. Not all collectors

are going to want a Machine Wars set. And I think

that's the thing that really bothered me, and

I remember I mentioned that right when I was

in the panel. was when we were in the Hasbro

panel, they said, oh, by the way, that fan -built

character that you guys were voting for, we're

going to reveal that at SDCC. And then I literally

turned around to all my friends in the panel.

I said, so let me get this straight. The fan

-created character is not going to be debuted

in the convention dedicated to the fans. Instead,

it's going to be debuted at SDCC. That doesn't

make any sense, you know? And it's not like they

didn't have it in time or like everything was

ready. It's just they were going to debut it

at SCCC. That's unfortunately the way BotCon

is going now. I don't want to badmouth it. I'm

going to be there next year, like every other

year. I still love going there. I love the people

there and stuff. But there's a certain vibe to

it that has changed a lot from its early years,

unfortunately. But going back to TFCon, like

I was saying, so you have the awards. Check that

out, you'll get to see those amazing statues.

Deal Room closes at 5 o 'clock, then at 5 o 'clock

we start the script reading auditions. Now then,

you want to do a voice with Dick Goche and Jack

Angel and do a Season 3 story? Hold on to your

pants, man. Let's just put it that way. I don't

want to spoil much about it, but I heavily suggest

people check out that script reading. The auditions

at 5 o 'clock, the actual reading is at 6. It's

going to be crazy. Sure it is. Then we have at

6 .25 is the Canadian Transformers fan group

photo. That's where all the... Fans essentially

get into one big shot and we take a giant photo

Last year Wow we when we actually reviewed the

photo we realized well There's a lot more people

at TF con than we thought it practically filled

an entire parking lot and like it we had to get

a high -res We had to get a high -res photo guy

to take the photo I don't even know where I could

find the photo offhand so quickly, but it was

huge. It was ridiculously huge. And the thing

is too, in the parking lot, we're going to try

to bring them back again for this year, but we

have replicas of Barricade, the Beater Bumblebee,

which is like Bumblebee's first form, Ironhide

from G1, like the original Ironhide G1, like

replica one by one scale functioning cars. We

had a replica of the Tim Burton Batmobile Like

yeah, so like we also get those those are all

outside the conventions They're obviously can't

fit them inside but like those are there too

So like when when you're doing the fan group

photo, you'll notice all of that stuff outside,

which looks absolutely gorgeous and Oddly enough

last year. We also had a impersonator Megan Fox

look alike where you could take a photo with

the bumblebee There was I'm sure she was way

hotter than Megan Fox. She was a good -looking

chick. Honestly, she kind of looked like Megan

Fox, if you squint your eyes, but still a good

-looking chick. She was our Megan Fox impersonator,

so you could take a picture of her with her looking

under the hood. Anyways, just to give you an

idea of the fun that could be had, essentially.

At 6 .30, tradition of TFCon since our inception,

we always play the 1986 movie. As always, of

all these years, Proto Man will be in the front,

screaming like a little girl every time watching

that movie. So be sure to check that out. We

always play the 86 movie. It's always super fun

to watch it with a whole bunch of other fans.

Now, when you guys have been playing it these

last couple of years... I would say since 2007,

are you using the 20th anniversary DVD set? We

would upgrade as we went along. For the longest

time, we used the original Rhino DVD because

when we started in 2001, that was available to

us. And then we started using the 25th anniversary

one because if anyone who's a big DVD perfectionist...

There is no 25th anniversary one. If anyone's

a big DVD purist when it comes to the 86 movie,

there actually was in between the beginning and

the end of the junkie on scene when they first

showed up, the whole DVD turns grainy. And it

was just the original master that they had at

the time, Rhino. When Shout did the 20th anniversary

one, that is missing from it now. It's actually

done in a high DVD quality. Granted, there's

other flaws here and there also, like Rodimus

being more pink than being red. Because the transfer

that they had was not as good, but we go with

that one because it's the newest one It looks

more consistent through and through and it's

it's played on a big gigantic projector our movie

style So you won't really notice the pink anyways

per se, you know, you're watching it on a big

projector. So It's really awesome to just watch

the 86 movie. So we like We have that that's

gonna be in the hazel room on a big projector

with all the other fans have fun doing that.

There's still more actually, just a little more.

At 8 o 'clock is the Faction Feud. What that

is is every year we have a Transformers Trivia

competition. Outside of the Hazel Room there

will be a sign -up sheet that's going to be there

all the Friday and Saturday where you guys could

sign up your teams for the Faction Feud. What

Faction Feud is, it's Transformers Family Feud.

Meaning you and four other guys are entering

a trivia contest, but done in the family feud

style. So it'll be like, and this is hosted by

Vangelis and me. What it is, to give you an example,

it'll be like, and it's very, it's stuff that

makes you think. It'll be like, name eight characters

from Beast Wars that have ridden on each other.

Now it really makes you think. Because then you

go, okay, Optimus Primal on Rhinox, Dinobot on

top of Tarantulas at one point when he was riding

him like a psych, you know, Rattrap on top of

Pterosaur, you know what I mean? Like, it's questions

that are not hard, they're in your brain, the

answers, but you gotta think about them, you

know? You've watched Beast Wars a million times,

you know these answers, but you just gotta think

about them. So, all the questions are not really

hard, but they're good thinking questions. So...

Why am I now thinking of... All the gcrn crew

that are transformers fans me steve kevin optimus

solo Michael wilson all of us going up there

and and Being a team and steve is basically the

sheldon of the group when it comes to beast war

It's always like that though. There's always

there's always like a strong team and then there's

always like that one guy That's like, I don't

know our id You know because the thing is we

don't we cover all across the spectrum toy Comic

book we make sure that they you know, it's not

just one thing So everyone like we do obscure

Japanese stuff and it's all stuff that it's not

too hard It's not like in manga issue number

17 of the Japanese release of Transformers 2010

Who was eating the yellow lollipop? You know,

it's just like no, we're not gonna do stuff like

that, but it's stuff that's it's manageable And

because the way Family Feud works is that if

one person fails, that's a big opportunity for

the other people to steal the points for people

that are familiar with Family Feud. So even if

someone has a really strong team, if they screw

up at the end, it gives the weaker team still

a chance to make a comeback. And it's something

we started about three years ago after our normal

trivia. And we actually have buzzers like Family

Feud style. Check that out really fun and there's

prizes also every every competition has prizes

and they're amazing prizes one of the prizes

was many years ago was One week advanced screenings

to the Revenge of the Fallen movie just to give

you an idea when it was coming out So we have

we always have like yeah, we always have crazy

prizes like that. So Does the do the To see the

buzzers they should it should almost sound like

transform up transform down noises We used to

back in the day when we were really ghetto with

TF con. Oh And you guys gotta bring that back

to use the optimist prime voice box from g2 each

person had one and they would have to push the

The what do you call it? The trance not the transform

sound the the the gun sound on the optimist prime

voice box And not the I am Optimus Prime one,

but the other one. And then obviously we actually

upgraded to legitimate buzzers that are like

Family Feud that you actually put your hand down

and you push it and it makes the sound. And we're

able to tell who pushed it first. We've actually

upgraded with technology and everything. So that's

what happens when we have more budget. We make

it a little better. And then at 10 o 'clock is

the official TF con after party, but in all honesty,

there's always an after party So it doesn't need

to be official, but this one's official so now

Sunday 9 o 'clock Like I said Saturdays is 100

% dedicated to Transformers and I've said this

before in the past What we used to have problems

with, and I think it was Big Bad Toy Store was

an issue, was that these were guys that, you

know, they make a big time, they make the effort

to travel and everything, but they want to be

able to sell their other merchandise too. They're

not just a transformer store like a TF Source

or... Right, right. So we made it, so we worked

it out that the Sunday, and this was when we

did it our first year, this was a couple years

ago, the Sunday would be anything goes. And it

ended up evolving into... Probably the best thing

about TF con in my opinion the 80s toy expo You

come Saturday, and this is another thing I don't

want a bad -mouth Botcon, but this is a truth

especially with someone like me who owns a lot

And it's very difficult to find something I'm

missing But the sad thing with Botcon is that

that Friday evening when you get the early preview

of the deal room After that's done. That's the

deal room for the next for the next three days

Nothing's gonna change what you saw is what you

get here with TF con You come Saturday, it's

all Transformers. Transformers, Transformers,

Transformers, this, all these Transformer dealers.

You walk into that dealer room Sunday, everything's

flipped on its head. Now there's new dealers,

new toys. Now it's not Transformers anymore.

Now T -Man, Power Rangers, GoBots, Voltron, Star

Wars, King Arthur and the Knights of Justice,

all kinds of 80s and 90s toy lines, and new dealers.

And the best part about it is the way that we

run the Sunday is the tables are cheaper So we

also because for people that don't want to do

both days because they don't have a transformer

stock we give the opportunity for people that

That aren't like big stores that have the budget

to take two tables or whatever. You get a lot

of mom -and -pop People showing up with a lot

of cheap stuff and let me tell you something

when it comes to conventions always check the

bins You know the bins of stuff you get mom -and

-pops that have bins of loose stuff in there

And then you that's where you find oh, and I

know this is a true story complete UK Stalker,

which is what was used for machine wars sound

wave and stuff one dollar. Oh wow yeah mom and

pop because to them It's just a robot and there's

ton and the Sunday has tons of people like that

where it's just it's my mom and pop garage sale

kind of scenario, they just brought all the old

toys of their grandchildren, 25 cents, a dollar,

da da da. The Sunday is nuts. Like I love Transformers,

but that Sunday, when it opens it up to everything

else, is when things get crazy cool. And that's

the thing too, BotCon had 22 separate dealers.

TFCon has 130 separate dealers. Think about that

for a second, okay? So that really gives you

variety. And why variety is important, you walk

into a deal room and you say, you know what,

I want to get Masterpiece Side Swipe. When there's

only 22 dealers and only three dealers have Masterpiece

Side Swipes, those dealers aren't trying to beat

each other on the price because they know they're

the only game in town. You walk into a TFCon

deal room where there's two days with 120 individual

dealers and 50 of those have Masterpiece Side

Swipes. They're going to be fighting to put the

best price to get you to buy it. And that only

works in your favor. You know what I mean? The

old saying, competition is the spice of life,

and that always is good for business. That's

the thing it works great in your favor for that

and just all the cheap stuff the fact that there's

all this variety Because hey, we love transformers,

but we love other stuff too. We love Power Rangers

We love this we love that you know we love the

tick we love comic books We love x -men we were

so it's all there for you And because like I

said before we're coming fresh off of San Diego

comic -con You know what's gonna be in that dealer

room especially also a lot of those dealers are

coming from San Diego and from the California

region You looking for San Diego Comic Con exclusives

and you don't want to have to deal with shipping

or Possibly having to get outbidded at the last

second on a $300 morpher that's made out of 24

karat gold It'll be at the deal room buy it now

right there and then no shipping in your hand,

you know Steve you should have gone this year

Yes, Steve Steve and I have something interesting

about our friendship over the years he uh...

he basically forced me into comics like full

-time reading comic books and i now with with

the power rangers podcast that i do and rewatching

all the series i've basically forced him into

enjoying power rangers again yeah and let me

tell you something like especially now sent i

is huge which is what power rangers original

source material uh... last year there was a lot

of Power Ranger guys that showed up, like selling

Power Ranger merchandise, Japanese specifically

or American. And then on the Sunday, because

the mom and pop people show up, a lot of Power

Ranger merch that's, you know, let's call it

used merchandise, like older toys. This year

it's gonna be even more nuts because I already

know some of the guys that are coming this year

like in terms of dealers and they intend to bring

almost only Power Rangers stuff for their tables

because they know how big it is right now, especially

with the 30th anniversary coming up and all the

STCC exclusives So it's gonna be pretty crazy.

If you're a Power Ranger fan, there's gonna be

a lot of stuff for you there How much is what?

You guys have day passes, right? What is a Sunday

day pass cost? Let me just pull it up for you

right now. The weekend admission, which gives

you that early bird special, we call it the premium,

is $50. Early admission tickets for Saturday,

because there's Guys, you want early admission

just for the Saturday, like the walk -in people

is 30 bucks, just for the Saturday, which is

transformer day, let's call it, just for Saturday.

Regular admission for just Saturday, transformer

day, is $20. Now, early admission for the Sunday,

now Sunday, it has a whole bunch more dealers,

has a lot more people at it, it's also the cheapest

day. Early admission is $20, general admission

is only 10. Steve? You better start talking to

your wife, because you guys got some driving

to do. Ten dollars to get in. Yeah, I know. I

went last year. I won't be able to go this year.

She's got an event going on. And as it stands

right now, the TFCon exclusives Roswell and Vanguardian

are for walk -ins, because if you pre -reg, you

obviously got a special deal. The walk -ins will

be fifty dollars each. And which isn't too bad

at all. It's pretty good price considering what

they are limited number exclusives That are like

the eye gear molds themselves of hench and UFO

are 40 so ten dollars more It's a limited one

for McInvention and let me tell you something

the eye gear ones don't come in boxes like these

ones or they come with the excuse me the special

Special trading card that we have so we have

a special trading card made up and the comic

book is free, you know, so Pretty worth it for

$50 a pop. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah And

then we have the two extra exclusives. Unfortunately

at the time I don't know what the prices are

on those But I mean if you base it off of the

wreck of the again the wrecking crew original

releases of them Obviously pump up a little more

of the price because they're limited edition

I believe there's we're only gonna have 300 of

them. So and they're gonna probably fly So I

don't know and we also have kid prices where

kids between five and twelve It's only five bucks

to get in regardless of what day it is and It's

no charge for children under five get in for

free And I believe that's it for the admission

stuff Now Sunday again, like I said everything

changes up everything gets crazy Now, in terms

of events and stuff, at 9 o 'clock we start some,

actually I forgot to mention, there's a customizing

class that exists. Last year we used to do it

only on the Sunday. It would only be on the Sunday,

it would start at 9 o 'clock, it would usually,

unfortunately it's about a five to six hour class.

So it usually ends about the time that the deal

room closes, unfortunately. The customization

class was always a big hit and we'd always sell

out. This year what we did was we actually managed

to get Hasbro to send us extra copies of figures

so we can make two customization classes of the

same figure. So we have one on Friday, but it

actually happens early at lunchtime on the Friday.

I forgot to mention that. And then you have the

exact same customization classes same teacher

same figure and everything starts same thing

on the Sunday at 9 a .m.. We've revealed who

it is thus far We've been hiding it, but it's

deceptive charge which was the originally a alternators

character And was used in the kiss play fiction

also so we managed to get 70 prime bumblebees

which of course there's been no shortage of them

to begin with, 70 prime bumblebees, and a new

head sculpt for everyone. Molded, casted, and

made for this bumblebee. New head sculpt looks

like DeceptiCharge. Sticker sheet provided by

Reprolabels, because if you've seen how DeceptiCharge

looks, he had a whole bunch of advertisements

and sticker applications and stuff on him, like

a lot of details, so... you're going to have

your prime version of DeceptiCharge. And in all

honesty, it looks great on that mold. It's very

weird, but it works. So that's going to be happening

at 9 o 'clock for those who... I think, honestly,

I think at the registration table, we still have

three or four slots left. So I think some people

still might be able to get in on that. to my

knowledge there's still some slots left because

sometimes people they uh they register for it

and then they have to cancel their whole thing

so it's usually leftovers but uh this year i

know there's three or four left because because

we did 70 slots this year and it didn't sell

out instantly but it it sold the i believe the

friday sold out the sunday didn't sell out there's

still three or four left so there still is a

chance um at 10 o 'clock The deal room opens

for early admission and then we cast pass holders.

Also at 10 o 'clock begins the cosplay panel,

which is, this is new to this year. We have Mariah

Baby, who is a professional cosplayer. She's

done San Diego Comic -Con, all the BotCon stuff.

She is a extremely talented individual. She has

done cosplay of animation accurate characters

from Prime and stuff. She's going to be hosting

a panel with one of our local Awesome cosplayers

Vanessa and Vanessa. Also, she's the one who

done the the animation perfect black arachnia

from Transformers animated as well as Bubble

be and stuff So those two together are gonna

be hosting a panel talking about how to do cosplay

because cosplay is getting bigger and bigger

and so they're gonna talk about You know materials

how they do especially Mariah, baby What her

sources is what she does to make her stuff, you

know, you know inspiration Like, you know, just

the whole process of it At 11 o 'clock, Deal

Room opens up to general admission. At 12 o 'clock,

a very interesting panel. The creation of comic

books with James Roberts and to be announced.

Essentially, we're going to decide which artists,

how I see it, don't take my word for it, but

I see it being James Roberts, Alex Milne and

Joshua Perez because... Those three represent

the beginning and end of a comic book. James

Roberts, the script, Alex Milne, the pencils

and inks, Joshua Perez, the finalization, coloring,

and lettering. So I think that if you're someone

who wants to get into the comic book industry,

and me who's written comics in the past, I was

actually schooled, I was taught by Alex Milne

himself. In 2008 how to write a comic book and

it's a very interesting process not as easy as

you think it is So this is gonna be a panel that

really opens up your mind to how that process

works and the you know The beginning middle and

end of it and it's fascinating After that and

then James Roberts is gonna be go He's gonna

go down to the Britannia room to do more autographs

So if you missed a chance to meet James Roberts

and get his autograph, now's your chance at one

o 'clock, also at the same time, is a very important

panel, how to get into voice acting with Jack

Angel, Dick Goche, and Venus. And they're gonna

teach you how, literally, to get into the business.

Because it's always the common question from

every Q and A. So now we've literally dedicated

an entire panel to it. And I know that when,

again, when Gary Chalk and Neil Ross did it,

they did it spectacular. because they literally

showed everyone in that room where to start,

what to do. Last year we also had Wally Burr.

Wally Burr was amazing, because the thing with

Wally Burr, he's a very, to pardon my French,

he's a no shit kind of guy. He doesn't take no

shit, so he literally told people, here's how

you know if you suck or not, and you're wasting

your time, and you should think of another dream.

But the stuff he was saying, while it was very

chorus it was a reality and it was great because

at the same time it was really cutting it was

getting through to people he was literally explaining

to people like you know take your cell phone

because everyone now has cell phones that have

voice recorders record yourself play it back

to yourself now here's one of two worse responses

i will expect if you think you're good then you're

lying to yourself you have a bad year and should

not be in the industry If you have criticism,

then you have space to grow and you belong among

us. When he said that, it's like, you know what?

That's really good because there's a lot of people

that think they can voice act and they think

they're great, but they're not. You know what

I mean? The people who usually are good voice

actors always strive to better themselves. They

always see flaw in their design, but they're

the ones that we see as talent. He was the one

who really cut through all of that and his panel

was great too. Having Dick Gauthier, having Jack

Angel, and having her, Venus, from the new generation,

showing how this all works, this process, how

to get into it, it'll be really fascinating.

Always great to have that. And then at two o

'clock, all those voice actors just mentioned,

autographs. So at the same time at two o 'clock

we'll begin the 80s toy costume competition.

So now we have transformer only costume competition

on Saturday. Sunday opens up to everything else.

Last year, wow, the stuff we got last year. We

had a Weird Al Yankovitch costume. We had a guy

who dressed up as the Hulk, but he literally

like... buffed himself up and everything. We

had a guy dressed as King Muscle, which is Muscle,

like the old Muscle toy line, Kenekuman. We had,

what else? There was, trying to remember, there

were so many that were hilarious. It opens up

essentially to other stuff too. And the thing

is, when it opens up to 80s stuff, you get a

lot of people who try to be very creative. And

so that's really fun and awesome. I saw Doc Brown

there last year. What? Doc Brown. Yeah, there

was a Doc Brown. Yeah, exactly. There was a Doc

Brown There was a Doc Brown because Vanessa cosplayed

as a transforming DeLorean That was hilarious.

Yeah, it was great Yeah, and it was a transform

like she'd actually curl up into a working DeLorean

with lights and it will not working as and it

goes back in time But it had working lights and

stuff and it very again talent beyond talent

in this show Like just so many talented people

there At 3 o 'clock is going to begin another

panel that I'm going to be doing this year, and

this is one I've been wanting to do for a few

years, but been passing it up because of other

stuff, and now I'm going to do it. It's the prototypes

Lucky Draw and other rare toys panel. I'm a person

who collects prototypes. Lucky Draw is really

rare transformer stuff. I started noticing as

the years progressed, especially with China being

a big factor in the eBay game with third party

and everything, and bootlegs. There's a lot of

fake stuff out there. To the point that a friend

of the podcast, Callie, a lot of times she'll

show me auctions going, oh, Proto Man, I found

this prototype of Rotomus. And literally the

auction will say, authentic prototype, 100 %

not fake. From China, and no offense, I know

the seller personally, the seller only deals

in bootlegs. Wow. That's just so wrong. It's

totally a fake. I'm going to be bringing fake

prototypes, real prototypes, fake Lucky Draws,

real Lucky Draws, fake Bakan exclusives, real

Bakan exclusives. is gonna be very touchy -feely.

I'm gonna want everyone to sit up in front, and

I'm gonna literally teach people how to spot

fakes, and even when you're on eBay where you

can't touch and see it, how to spot fakes. Because

as a collector of this, you encounter it all

the time. All the time, there's people saying,

oh, I have a prototype of this, when it's not.

You know what I mean? Speaking of Callie and

Rodimus, I heard you snaked Octobotimus. Did

I? Didn't you buy a Rodimus Puggle from her this

year? Oh, that wasn't you. Someone else did.

Wow. I thought it was you. Well, Callie always

sells out her stuff way before her. Way before

anyone gets to it anyway. She does some good

stuff. Which by the way, Callie's gonna be at

the convention too. Is she coming to TFCon this

year? Yep, she's gonna be at TFCon this year.

Just an idea of how many people are coming this

year. She's not considered a official artist

But she is gonna be in the artist alley to with

her merchandise So look forward to that On top

of all of that also is that I'm gonna be showing

Pretty much how to buy this stuff how to get

it cheaply because I mean There's like with that

kind of stuff. It's always about opportunity

rather than just having a fat wallet You know

where to look for it how to look for it and just

rare transformers in general and when I mean

rare Transformers, I don't mean like a g1 transformer.

That's hard to find that's not rare in my opinion.

I mean like Grandest I mean like you know Grand

max like really rare stuff how to find it where

to look how to get it cheap It's a panel for

guys that have fat wallets and want to see some

rare stuff in the process. I will actually have

two security guards on -door for that, because

the amount of merchandise that are going to be

in this room is going to be quite outstanding

in value. And actually, the bot con that just

passed, I recently perched a prototype Masterpiece

Rodimus. So you'll be able to see what that looks

like in prototype form also. and how the process

changes throughout the process, what changes

from the prototype, from the final product. It's

going to be an interesting panel, to say the

least. And truth be told, I haven't finished

packing for it yet. What else? Deal room closes

at four o 'clock, and then at four o 'clock begins

the Q &A for the convention organizers. That's

going to be me, SuperMegatron, and cheers Ian.

And it's essentially where you, the fans, get

to ask us questions about TFCon, suggestions,

what we could do. The thing about this convention

is that we always want suggestions to make it

better. That is how we've gotten to what we are

today because of what fans have suggested and

what they've wanted. And the grant, yes, there's

always that one suggestion that won't happen,

but when stuff is very obvious it needs to be

changed or fixed, we do that. One example is

at the registration table, we are able to service

about 400 attendees in less than half an hour

because it's literally a chain system of how

the registration goes and how you get exclusives.

Interesting. Anything's better than those alphabetical

lines. Yeah, well. Yeah, we just have it's a

first -come first -serve basis, but considering

how fast we work things Everything goes perfectly

smooth and Callie sending me a message Someone's

been snitching Anyways so like it's a it's a

Q &A we're gonna talk about ideas for next year

talk about how we did stuff this year, like what,

you know, it's an insider's look of how the convention

functions and also people could ask questions,

essentially. See, this is something you would

never see at BotCon. Because it would get nasty.

Okay, but seriously, if you're going to do something

like exactly what you're saying about, you know,

the ins and outs of creating a convention. Well,

yeah, it helps people understand. Why something

exactly and I think if they would if they would

do that it would be people might understand a

little bit more. Of course. And that's why we

open it always up to questions, too, because

we want to know what is on your mind, what we

could fix and everything. And people always have

other questions, too, because they read the fiction.

And then they always have like, oh, can I ask

you an extra question about the fiction? Was

that character in the background supposed to

be so -and -so? Because I always put background

characters. So it's an opportunity for people

to get that stuff out of their system. What's

the deal with the TFCon DVDs? The TFCon DVDs

are actually available at the registration desk.

We have a guy named Evan Entertainment, who's

a professional DVD producer. He's been actually

producing our TFCon DVDs since, not since the

beginning, but since 2005, where he's been literally,

every single panel is recorded and documented.

Very high quality. every single voice acting

or whether it be even some of the smaller panels,

it's documented and recorded unless it's like

a Hasbro reveal panel or something or a third

party panel where something can't be on screen

but usually in general everything is documented

by him. And on top of that, it's just the convention

experience. So it's him going around at the bars,

at the dealer room. It's just a TF, like if you

weren't able to be there or it's kind of, it

was originally invented as a Sylvania thing where

the year that you went, he would record everything.

And if you came back that you're following year,

here's a Sylvania from last year. of everything

that you did, you know what I mean? So, but then

it started becoming really popular because when

the panels started really becoming serious business,

people started picking them up just to see the

panels. Especially when the voice acting was,

you know, a lot of voice actor fans to be able

to see voice acting auditions that were, because

our voice, our Phil Gervais who's involved with

our voice acting panels and the script reading,

he always writes really crazy script readings,

so you always see a lot of crazy stuff together

and people want to have that documented. Very

cool. After that, at 5 o 'clock, after the organizers

panel, we're going to have a live recording of

the WTF at TFW podcast with Vangelis, Ax Smith,

which is one of his co -hosts, and I don't know

who else, that's the only two that I know of

of WTF that are going to be there, so there might

be some other people that will join them, who

knows. And then at 9 o 'clock is the wind down

party, swimming pool. Very awesome. Again, it's

loaded, loaded, loaded, loaded, this convention.

And I don't want to brag, but we have way more

guests than BotCon. We have way more dealers

than BotCon. We don't have more exclusives, but

I think that's the only thing we follow. We have

a comic, just like they do. But I mean, it's

loaded. If you missed, and I always say this,

especially to Americans, Canada isn't as far

as you think it is. Mariah Baby lives in California,

she's coming down. Callie lives in Texas, she's

coming down. No, Callie lives in New York. I

live in Michigan, it was like a three hour drive,

I believe. Exactly. I live in Montreal, I'm a

Canadian, it's a six hour drive. You know what

I mean? So, but the thing is is that, and what

people have to realize is that the BotCon experience

for a lot of people, Now they're American. Even

if they fly within their country, it's still

usually a $200 to $400 plane ticket, depending

on how far you are. Then a Primus package of

$360. A hotel that's usually between $200 to

$300. And let's not even talk about food. You're

already usually $1 .2 grand in the hole before

you walked in the dealer room. TFCon, we have

a hotel rate, which right away is Drop down to

$90 a night if you use our code which when you

read when you pre -registered you were given

the code Although we could give it to you anyways

But there's a hotel code which you get cheap

cheap nights now Here's the thing if you fly

from wherever you are in the United States into

Buffalo Still staying with the United States

and then you taxi across the border to TF con

it is still cheaper than going to Boccon We back

because we've had artists from IDW that have

had the fly in from Cali, which is all the way

in the West He end up in Buffalo and then they

taxi and we cover their stuff. We cover their

charges and it was still cheaper than flying

Within and then going to Boccon and then paying

for all that stuff in the end It's about $300

to $400 cheaper, and you get the exclusives.

Imagine. And you're going to another country.

Think about that for a second. So in a way, it's

a vacation. If it's your first time in Canada,

just make sure you have a passport, because that's

all you really need to have. And it's always

good to have a passport. Who knows? One day you

might want to go to Japan, Amsterdam. Who knows?

The point is that it's always good to have a

passport, even if you're not going to use it.

It's another piece of ID. It's not it's not expensive

to get the TF con if you're someone who lives

on the border I don't know what your excuse is

No offense, bro But I'm just saying in general

like I obviously if you have prior engagements

or stuff or money is an issue But in general,

yeah, it's it's super easy to get there You know,

I know so many people that carpool. It's like

the reason why we've gotten so big is that we've

made a proactive effort to help people figure

out ways to get to the convention you know and

because the sad unfortunate truth that we learned

as Canadians is that Americans don't really in

general Americans don't travel outside of their

country and I don't blame you guys because you

have a vast country that you could have the heat

of Florida the calmness of California beaches

yet the snow of New York City you have all those

different flavors of culture and weather and

sights and scenes that, in all honesty, I don't

blame you, there's not much of an incentive to

want to leave the country when it comes to traveling.

Where Canadians, because we also come from, we're

a very cultural background, we're a lot more

of a mixing pot of culture and stuff, and because

we all live on the border and all experience

the same weather, We tend to travel, number one,

we always go to the United States like crazy.

That's our number one destination. But we also

travel, we tend to travel a lot more, Europe,

Japan, China, than any other country, especially

the United States. So a lot of Americans never

really consider getting a passport to travel

outside of their country. But, and not to mention,

especially if you live in the South, who wants

to go to Mexico? You know? So, I'm just saying.

Yeah, I myself I'd rather go to TF con then go

to bot con not only because the distance but

and price but just I I Went last year and I was

real impressed night. It was the first convention

I'd been to and a long time and it's I always

say ask people Me even though I've been the I

go to bot cons like crazy and I Co -run TF con

don't ask me because it might sound biased but

always ask people that have done both ask Pia

Ask TJ duck. It is another good example. Who's

another toy reviewer? You know ask Vangelis ask

people that have done both and who have no real

major connection to the show and They'll give

you their honest opinion and it always anyone

who has ever done both always you're going to

know the truth. That's the sad thing is that,

and especially people who've been going only

to recent BotCons, because I've gone to vintage

BotCons too, if you could use that term loosely,

and they were a lot better back then. But I think

that when it stopped being, because the thing

is BotCon in the past was ran by fans. It was

the Hartmans. It was the Hartmans and the Hallets.

When it started becoming more of a business,

things started losing touch. I even made a comparison

once, when BaKon was already 10 years old, which

was because they started in 1994, when it was

2004, that following year they got eaten up by

Fun Pub. So when they were already 10, 11 years

old, they already went professional and lost

touch. And that 2005 set sold horribly, not to

mention. The Descent to Evil set. we're already

11 years old and we haven't lost touch. You know

what I mean? That's right. We've learned not

to make those mistakes and we're already as old

as Bakon was by the time they became a business

as opposed to a fan -run convention. All I could

say is try to make your best to get down. If

you truly can't get down, but want the exclusives

and don't want to have to rely on a scalper on

eBay, we do have non -attendee packages. And

after the non -attendee packages, sometimes we

strike deals with the big bad toy stores and

the TF sources where if we buy chance, I'm not

making any promises because stuff does sell out.

If we do have overstock, it will end up on those

guys. But it's only like the thing is we put

it we put first we sell it through pre -reg,

then at the convention, then it goes to the non

-registration packages within the TFCon website,

and then, if then, and it has only happened once

thus far, which was with the Nightbird exclusive

in 2010, but only then will it end up on the

Big Bad Toy stores or a TF source or whatever.

So don't bank on hoping for that, but you know.

Just to give an idea, if you can't make it and

you really want to pick up the exclusive, there

is alternatives. You just got to kind of do your

research a little bit for it. Very awesome. Very

awesome. Well, TFCon is the world's largest fan

run Transformers convention. If you are going,

it is in Mississauga, Ontario from July 26th

to the 28th, 2013. It is this coming weekend.

Go people, if you're a Transformers fan, if you're

just an 80s fan in general for the Sunday, go

for the Sunday. Amazing guest list between Jack

Angel, Dick Gaudier, Venus Terzo, all the comic

guests that they're gonna have, Puggles, potentially,

you know, you never know, since that's apparently

breaking news around here. So yeah, absolutely

awesome. We will... We will probably talk with

Proto Man maybe a week after the convention's

over to let him kind of settle down and recover

and not be so stressed and of course, this year

is his own damn fault for waiting to do stuff

to the last minute, but... Well, it's always

a little nutty. It's always always a little nutty

like again as of this recording for people who

aren't aware I don't know how quickly you're

gonna get it up Mike Yeah, you're pretty good

then As opposed to most podcasts that I'm familiar

with usually takes a week to two weeks. Oh, yeah,

you're a pro That's right, but as of this recording

it's Monday Monday going into Tuesday at midnight

we're literally like three days away from TFCon.

So we're literally at the racing line right at

the end. And I still got stuff to do. Everyone

still has stuff to do. So imagine. Imagine. It's

pretty nutty right now. But I just want to say,

I hope I see you guys there. Come by, say hi.

It's always fun to meet new fans and everything.

Very awesome. Very awesome. Alright, well that's

gonna do it for the TFCon 2013 pre -show. I am

TF2 and Mike with Steve Megatron Phillips. And

the goddamn Protoman. We will catch you next

time at Transform and Rollout. We Decepticons

now face our darkest hour. Oh shit, what are

we gonna do now? Soundwave Superior. Autobots

inferior.