Transformers News, Conventions, and Collector’s Club

This is Optimus Prime and you're listening to

All Things Transformers Hello and welcome to

All Things Transformers version 3 .0 I should

probably just stop the 3 .0 thing since it's

just continuously been All Things Transformers

anyhow during this entire duration despite the

fact it's changed version 1, 2, and 3 over the

course of 9 years. But yeah, so, missed you guys.

So, there really hasn't been all that many Transformers

news elements, you could say, worth really bringing

up. However, that being said, There have been

a few things that I thought were of note. Pete's

robot convention is coming up next year. I guess

he had his first year of it this year, and they've

announced that the next one's gonna be in Cincinnati,

Ohio, the Cincinnati Marriott at River Center.

June 9th through the 10th 2018 and The show's

hours are Saturday 6 30 p .m.. To 9 p .m.. And

Sunday, it's 9 30 a .m.. To 5 p .m.. I wonder

if that's it's kind of odd hours for Saturday,

but I Don't know I kind of like it though because

if I were to go to something like that a Sunday

would have to do But Pete Sinclair, who and Jesse

Wittenrich of BotCon have kind of filled the

gap that fans got kind of left in the ether or

in kind of... They got kind of dumped on after

BotCon went away and HasCon showed up. Not to

mention the fact that BotCon was insanely expensive

towards the end there, which is why I never went

until the one year my wife was like, you know

what, for your birthday, go. And I went with

my brothers and I met Michael Wilson in person,

which was kind of cool. I got to meet a number

of other people in person. I even got to meet

Frank Walker, which was awesome, thanks to my

buddy Michael Wilson. So yeah, that was that

was a fun experience getting to do that I got

to chat with John Bailey you get to chat with

Numerous people I've done the the TF cog Fandubs

with since 2005 so it was kind of cool to sit

down and talk with those guys At a botcon I didn't

go to 2017 or not 2017 20 I don't know whatever

your Frank Walker was the the main Attendee that

was Or the main guest I I went to that year can't

remember right now. I think it was two years

ago But yeah, that was a lot of fun and So They

they they are announcing it for 2018 and I Don't

know. I'm kind of interested in going they've

got kind of the opportunity to see and own pre

-production, final production samples for various

BotCon and Transformers Collector Co -op exclusives

during the Saturday, June 9th exhibitor preview

night. Some of the stuff he's got in there is

pretty cool. I love the fact that it's a lot

of the collections, you know, you've got different

toy organizations, you know, Now and Then, Tyrant,

Alpha Prime Toys, and then they've got collectibles

from not just Transformers, but other series

that have robots. So like, you have Transformers,

you have Mega Man, you have Gundam, Robo -Tech,

Power Rangers, Voltron, Macross, Exosquad, Gobots,

it's... I love the fact that this guy... is kind

of filling that gap because I feel like Hasbro,

when they kind of took over, they kind of shafted

everybody. Plus, I don't see Hazcon as that family

-friendly event to go to, being that they had,

and this is just personal preference, but you

have all these rap stars, you have all these

celebrities and stuff that have nothing to do

with Transformers, but they're there. or have

anything to do with any of the Hasbro properties.

They're just trying to build a buzz around their

event, which I think was kind of the wrong way

of going about it. You either gear it towards

the people that actually want to go, or you're

just... It's like counting metrics for a podcast

and you dump... 12 clips of the same show online

and you're counting those clips towards the final

count When you should only be counting the the

the the main The main count I don't know I think

it's kind of cheating in that sense to try and

draw people to that event whereas Pete's robot

convention It's strictly robots. I love it I'll

probably try and go next year Money depending

that is So I don't know if anybody's heard But

TFG1 Mike is getting married Yeah So he's joining

the the club and so is optimus solo. He's he's

engaged as well and It's kind of crazy I Basically

everyone at GCRN will be married now, so I was

the first one Dan was the second and then Well,

I should say Michael Wilson would technically

be the first and then I was the second and then

Blanchard will be third or not third Dan was

third and then Blanchard will be fourth and then

I don't know it's getting convoluted and then

Optimus Solo will be last but Yeah, so I'm actually

going to be TFU and Mike's best man at his wedding

gonna be out there in December in Chicagoland

and So it'd be kind of cool. We might actually

get all the GCRN guys together for the most part

Aside from Dan who's who's in Boston land but

yeah, cuz Kevin and Michael Wilson live around

somewhere in Illinois, edge of Chicago area or

edge of Indiana. A lot of the What's On Joe Mind

guys live out that way too. I'll only be out

there about one day though, just because it's

again December and I don't know how the weather's

gonna be and that kind of stuff. But yeah, it's

kind of cool to think about it that our whole

friendship started because of a Twitter conversation

and Transformers and now it's kind of gone. full

-fledged friendship and it'll be kind of cool

to actually meet TFG1 Mike in person considering

we started this journey back in 2008 during All

Things Transformers of all things so it's kind

of come full circle and then it'd be cool to

have Michael Wilson show up as well which I have

met in person so Yeah, I'm gonna get through

a little bit of the other news New York Comic

-Con is Transpiring in a couple days October

5th through the 8th and IDW is gonna be there

and maybe we'll see some Transformers news. I

would like to see some some new toys debut and

some new Information So I guess we'll kind of

see what happens. They've got a full lineup though

of all kinds of events for IDW purposes anyway.

Some of it related to Transformers and some of

it related to like the Ninja Turtles properties

and other like Star Trek and whatnot. I'm not

a current collector of comics, so I don't really

keep up too much with that. Now if they were

to do a Beast Wars comic. That would be about

the only way I would dive back into comics, because

at this point, I don't care for comics in general.

I don't really read them. I quit collecting them.

So it's kind of a different dive there. Ocular

Echo. An unofficial G1 photo archive is nearing

its Kickstarter goals. I have no idea what this

is. But I found this is supposed to have more

than 10 ,000 high -res photos snapped and some

are still being shot with the aim of ensuring

that each and every toy that appears in the books

are photographed from a mint sample with mint

stickers, which are correctly applied in accordance

with official instructions and with complete

and mint accessories. So volume one will feature

every figure from G1's American Line 1984 to

1990. along with some features on variations

and oddities like decoys, mini -spies, and others.

The production quality appears to be among the

highest of any unofficial Transformers guidebook."

And yeah, I'm kind of surprised that this is

getting through Hasbro, that they're letting

this happen. But then again, it's not surprising

because Hasbro hasn't done anything like this,

nor did they ever show that they care. Volume

2 will cover region -exclusive items from lines

like Super God, Master Force, Victory, and European

G1. Since the Kickstarter is about $10 ,000 short

of its $40 ,000 goal with the better part of

a month left, copies of both books require backing

at the $110 level. The only way I'd be interested

is Beast Wars. Again, I have little... I love

Transformers, but... not like love love Transformers,

but... My knowledge base, I care more in the

Beast Wars realm than I do in the G1. Yes, it's

cool that these are pictures of the toys and

they're on a black background, they've got the

name, they've got information on the figure,

they show their accessories. It's really cool

as a catalog guide of sorts. But if you're not

somebody that really cares to see the pictures

of the toys like if if you're gonna live vicariously

Through these toys in this book rather than owning

them. I think that's great Myself on that same

CD that I bought years ago actually I bought

two CDs one had all the comics one of them had

all the tech specs and toy pictures because at

the time I ran a website called Predacom Empire

and The the reason I bought these was so that

I could outsource A lot of the the content from

that and not have to actually do a lot of it

myself And then I just never got around to sorting

it out and putting it on there And so I still

have these CDs that I can't bear to throw away

even though they didn't cost me that much They

were like ten bucks apiece, which is cheap but

what's funny is the Some of the European transformers

actually were used in the in some of the generation

2 stuff was used for machine wars rehashes. So

like Thunder Clash is Machine Wars Optimus Prime

Stalker is Machine Wars Soundwave, which I owned

at one time Sky Quake was Machine Wars Starscream,

which I owned at one time Rotor Storm was Machine

Wars Sandstorm Yeah, I think it was Sandstorm.

I'm not quite sure, but regardless, I remember

owning a lot of this. Peter Cullen, of all things,

he's going to reprise his role as Optimus Prime

in the Bumblebee movie. Although it hasn't been

confirmed by the studio, he said that he's going

to. Basically, he's... He's not actually going

to be in it per se but he's going to Possibly

be going to be a Partial feature maybe with radio

transmission type stuff I can't see him being

much of the movie when bumblebee is gonna be

on earth in his bumblebee form So So the Transformers

Movieverse 3D animated feature film, Boulder

Media Studios is actually hiring? So if you're

wanting to get on Transformers Official and know

how to do this stuff, this would be a great way

to do this. The movie obviously was announced

during Hasbro's annual Investor Day and it's

said to be a prequel story taking place in Cybertron

during the Great War between Autobots and Decepticons

and I guess they're needing a 3D senior rigger,

a... effects, technical director, and senior

set modeler and pipeline supervisor. I wish that

they needed something I was actually good at.

However, being that it's a 3D animated movie,

I would not be good at anything. But you have

to relocate to Ireland. Yeah, you have to be

open to that, so I would not. So that would automatically

cancel me out. It's kind of cool. I don't...

Yeah, I Don't know it says that you have to have

like 10 years experience or something. It's kind

of crazy So there's also the new transformers

line called transformers authentics Which was

kind of in the realm of the the transformers

evergreen So they show, there was images leaked

from the Transformers Cybertron News and it's

got some Chinese writing on it but it says very

clearly, Decepticon Starscream Transformers Authentics

for the subline underneath. So it seems like

this could be the official name of the G1 inspired

Transformers figures. Which is interesting way

of putting that these are like basically budget

versions of knockoff fager figures that Are supposed

to be like g1 but not Detailed like scout size

figures. I I just I don't see the relevance in

them. I would rather have Highly detailed figures

And then This is something kind of cool. The

Transformers Collectors Club is having a clearance

sale which is open to everyone. Everyone. Rolling

10 % discounts and every week till they drop

to 90 % at which time they will continue sales

till all the stock is gone or the end of the

year arrives. I imagine they'll be gone before

the end of the year. But it's basically like

a going out of business sale. at a store. So

they're gonna have a final clearance sale for

all Transformers Collectors Club toys and then

sayonara, they're gone. So some items only have

a quantity of two or three and are very limited.

Some items have a quantity of several hundred.

But yeah, I'm gonna check that out because I'm

not... I'm not sure if I could pick something

up for cheap that's something that I would want

I Would possibly do it But I I don't know like

I don't really collect anything anymore, which

is Very difficult for me and anything Anyways

the stuff I would want even in the first place

would be gone They would not They would not have

what I want Or at a price that I could purchase

sadly enough Such as the 2006 Donna futures past

convention set Which they have that on on for

sale or did anyway with signs signings by Scott

McNeil Blumen Kuma Pauline Newstone and Richard

Newman and Yeah, I'd love to get my hands on

stuff like that, especially if I could get my

hands on the Dawn of Future Past Megatron, or

especially the final BotCon Megatron that was

released with the dragon. I would love to get

my hands on that. But unfortunately, all those

things go for the high hundreds to thousands,

so there's no way I will ever... ever afford

them, sadly enough. If I could just get the head

of Megatron, I would be happy enough with that.

Like literally just the head of those figures.

Because I could paint the other stuff. I could

buy like a cheap un -painted or painted a different

color version of one of those other things and

do it. It just it makes me sad So they do have

like archive sheets like archived items of the

exclusive uncut card sheets Such as like the

2011, you know Ravage Megatron Carly You know

the the 2012 stuff Art prints signed by the actors

from Transformers Prime Some of the Transformers

combiner wars combiners But those are only like

10 % off. Some of them are a little bit more.

They've got some like 2005 BotCon text bets and

instructions for some of the figures, but not

the figures themselves 2006 Transformers the

movie special edition DVD ticket. No, even though

the tickets not valid. It's just the ticket or

like the fan experience badges and You know obviously

the stuff that doesn't work anymore some of the

transformers metals From the convention and they

have they have like well over 300 results on

the page of stuff that's sold For sale on there,

so definitely go check that out. That's that's

something awesome I made do that 2011 just because

they have the the Megatron Even though it's uncut,

they have the Megatron from the Dawn of Future

Past where he's not wearing the battle armor,

but it's the full, like, yeah, I could see myself

getting this because it's got him and his robot

body without the armor. And then, of course,

they have that going on. Yeah, I don't know.

There's not really a lot in the Transformers

newsroom right now, which is a bit odd, but with

different conventions coming up, I'm sure we'll

get a nice influx of content coming. So yeah,

just be sure to check out the Transformers Collectors

Club. See if there's something you can find.

I'm gonna look on there myself after I finish

this record. So yeah, until next time, till all

are one, and Transform and roll out. Hahahaha.

I wish to speak to my lawyer.