Botcon 2006: Outtsyder's Report

Venue: Hyatt Regency convention centre, Lexington, Kentucky

Dates: 28th September - 1st October, 2006

Sunday-Wednesday, September 24-27

Just cramming the first four days of the trip all in one, because there really wasn't anything all that eventful (not positive, anyway) during the Greyhound ride. I think I ended up getting reminded why I told myself after Greyhounding it to OTFCC '03 that I was never doing this again, no thanks to an almost-six-hour layover in Billings, Montana. And no surprise, the end part of my journey on Wednesday afternoon was marred by my last bust getting to Louisville over half an hour late (a trend that plagued most of us other BWInt-&-Hangar travellers, some even suffering from worse delays). But fortunately, all of us -- at least those of us who were staying with Hacker over the weekend (a number of primarily-BWInt BotCon attendees were staying at a hotel in Lexington) -- somehow reached our destination safely. Most of this day -- for myself -- was spent on making a beeline for the shower (I mean, c'mon, three days on a Greyhound?!), having dinner, and meeting with some of the group in person, including some old friends (like Haxx, Sapph and Miss Special) and a few others for the first time (like VampyerBA and Baron; the latter would arrive on Thursday evening). More were expected to arrive the next day, both in Haxx's area in Indiana and in Kentucky itself. All I had was my own willpower to prevent myself from exploding from the anticipation....

Thursday, September 28

After trying to grab some sleep, Sapph, Spesh, VampBA and I stayed to have breakfast (or brunch), while Haxx headed back to the Greyhound station to pick up my Lieutenant, Stelartron. 8) After settling her packed bags and working out some additional plans (i.e. Haxx driving Sapph, Spesh and VampBA to the La Quinta hotel in Lexington), Stelly and I hung out together while waiting for the time when we'd join Haxx's mom to pick up Baron from the airport. We had to head straight to the BotCon site after picking up the Baron, due to the time being fairly late-ish in the evening, and just about all of us had the earliest-timeslot letter (6pm) to pick up our registration materials and exclusive box sets of pre-BW Optimus Primal, Cheetor, Rhinox, Rattrap and Dinobot. And like last year, also on sale at the convention's souvenir table were two more exclusive two-packs: a pair of repaints of the Energon Divebomb mold as Laserbeak and Buzzsaw reformatted from their old G1 bodies; and, as expected, Megatron (from Cyb Defense Red Alert) and Waspinator (the repainted RiD-style jet). I wasn't sure which one I'd buy at the moment (still mulling over my financial tools; cash, credit and debit), so I held off on buying anything until later (and hoped to God that, by the time I decided to buy a set, they wouldn't sell out).

We had a number of hours before the MSTF (which pretty much means "Mystery Science Transformers") show would start at 10pm. During that "empty" timeslot, we met up with some of the others in our Alliance, including Sinead, Beastbot(X), Crab, and a bunch of others. During this time, I received word from Beastbot, our resident Toy Master and self-designated "Hasbro slave", about the first toy exclusive to the TF Collectors' Club store; Astrotrain and his Mini-Cons, repainted from the Armada Jetfire in grey-&-purple, and with a different head (just like G1 A-Train). He also told me that the main Mini-Con that will come with him, based on Armada Jetfire's Comettor, would be named... Starcatcher. (I am SOOOOO glad they didn't go with the joke name of "Cowcatcher"....)

During our mill-about and meet-up in the hotel lobby, amongst all the other fans who had pre-registered in advance (and there were quite a few), I was kind of distracted among the hang-out, because I didn't notice a certain Aussie-Canadian in a white baseball cap come over to me... Scott McNeil himself! (And yeah, I actually was a little surprised that he went out of his way to meet me; was completely unexpected.) Scott and I met up and talked casually for a few seconds, as I was about to introduce him to the others in our Alliance... and right now, I just have to say, "Poor Sapph... she couldn't have been ready for this!" The look of absolute shock on her face -- even as I was calling her "the legendary Sapphire" while intro-ing her to Scott -- was totally priceless. :lol: And the rest of the group was also (mostly) in hysterics as well (in a good way, of course). We were able to talk with Scott for a few more minutes before he had to scramble off to his hotel room, and we went outside to find some dinner; we chose a pizza place to settle in, where I met some long-time veteran TransFans, Phil "SkyJammer" Zeman and Doug Dlin, who were two of the three people who organize and perform the MSTF shows (the third one, MSipher, was not with them).

Later that night, we returned to the convention center and found some good seats for the MSTF show. And as has been a tradition for many BotCon and/or OTFCC events over the years... the show started late due to some technical difficulties (they seem to encounter this every year). But finally, they got the ball rolling, alternating between the live on-stage skits and the mocking of the episodes. This year's victims: two of the "Go-Go-Go-Bots" shorts (not the old '80s Tonka GoBots, but the animated shorts for the kiddie-oriented Go-Bots Transformers), "B.O.T." from G1, and the Beast Wars 2-part opener (fitting, for BW's 10 anniversary)! Some of the live-action skits ranged from pretty funny to hysterical, including a painful (on purpose) bit with Phil Zeman on acoustic guitar and singing horridly off-key, claiming that he'd be writing the score for the new movie (leading to the others snatching the guitar away from him, preventing further assaults on our ears). Incidentally, just before we left after the show was over, I gave Zeman a compliment on the show (it was definitelly better than last year's), and because of the guitar gimmick, I briefly nicknamed him "Honky Tonk Man". Let's just hope he doesn't start whacking people upside the head with that guitar...! With Thursday night's activities at an end, we flocked together again and (barring some mishaps) made our way to our shack-up bases, hoping to charge our personal power cells with enough juice in order to operate the next day.

Friday, September 29

We made it to the Convention center in time for the first panel to begin: the Q&A session with BW voice actors Blu "Tigatron" Mankuma, Pauline "Airrazor" Newstone, Richard "Rhinox" Newman, and -- of course -- Scott "(unrolls a 50-foot-long scroll)" McNeil. Scott was a little late (not surprisingly), and he had brought something with him... a dozen box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts, of which he had eaten more than half during the panel! The panel began, with the actors asking if anyone in the audience had any questions or comments to make. A moment of uncertain silence later, and Scott got up and joked that the panel was over and "thanks for coming!" :lol: After that moment, we finally got things started, with comments on the shows, voice-acting work, pre-lay and ADR dubbing, Beast Wars and Beast Machines, the Cybertron series, and so on. Mankuma sounded pretty cool and relaxed the whole time, sounding like R&B singing legend Barry White; Newstone was the quietest of the group, although she got to make some comments; and Newman turned out to be something of a show-stealer, even though Scott's presence still stood out the most.

During this panel, I got to ask a question for all four VAs, and also noted, "Scott, you've had this question before, but you're getting this anyway. If you could answer the following question in your BW character voices..."

(slight pause)

"You have a hammer, a ferret, and a roulette wheel. What are your plans for the evening?"

HUGE reaction from the crowd, and especially from Newman himself! The responses came as follows...

TIGATRON: I'm goin' to Vegas!

AIRRAZOR: I'm going to Disneyland!

RHINOX: I shall determine which component is the most potent... and merge it with Optimus.

And Scott's had this frenetic mix of all of his guys, with Waspinator saying, "Waspinator want to date ferret!"

Finally, the panel was over, leading to the transition toward Hasbro's toy desgining panel. As Stelly and I moved to a closer row for the next panel, Scott picked me out of the crowd and had me snap a pic of himself with a fan. Being in the right place at the right time, Stelly wanted a shot with me and Scotty together. So he started it out with the usual arm-around-the-fan's-shoulder pose... and I was trying to make it a back-to-back pose. As I was turning while Scott still had his arm around my shoulder... he flexed his arm around my neck and we made it look like he was choking me out, as Stelly snapped the pic! Scott's comment: "That was SOOOO satisfying!" :lol:

After the VA panel was completed on Friday, next up was Hasbro's Toy Design panel, where they showed concept art and prototype pics of different TF toys, including the Optimus Primes from Energon and Cybertron. They also showed two unused Planets for the Cybertron series, including the war-like Apocalypse Planet and a Nebula Dark Fleet, which was fairly similar to Planet X; plus an earlier version of the Ginat Planet. Also shown were two different versions of Scourge's Jungle Planet temple, and also revealed why the BW-X Primal and Megatron had Cyber Planet Key slots; the molds were originally intended for the Cybertron line, but held off, and then got revived for the BW-X line. They also showed a concept design for a Classics Cosmos, which Hasbro rep Aaron Archer didn't use, because he thought it wouldn't fit with the trend of cars, jets, and Earth-based vehicles. The response fom the crowd was pretty much covered by three words; "Make him anyway!" There was a question regarding the chances of Masterpiece Starscream ever being released by Hasbro. Archer didn't give a straight answer, but he did say that if it did, they'd make sure he'd be in the cartoon-accurate colors.

Sometime later on, we took a break for lunch, and then made our way to the line-up for the dealer room's opening for 2pm. As we reached the line with about a 20-minute wait, I noticed some fans were running around with... TF Classics toys?! I found out later on that they've been released and sighted now, with these toys having been bought in a nearby TRU. Another unusual moment was the arrival of a mid-sized marching band toward the dealer room's entrance. Their purpose would be revealed minutes later; when the clock struck 2pm to open the dealer room, the band played the TF theme as we entered the room! There was just one little downside... the marching band was with a college that's a rival to Hacker's (BOOO!!!). I might consider making a print-out of the pic (if I took one of the band), and just for a joke, give to Haxx to decorate her dartboard. ;)

The dealer room was pretty darn big, along with a much more impressive list of entries for the Art Contest, including a G1 Devastator statue standing about 5' tall! While perusing over the tables and meeting with some old TransFan buddies whom I hadn't seen in a long time, we eventually got to the second timeslot for the BW VA autographs. While I was getting my autographs from Blu, Pauline, Richard and Scott, I surprised them with some little gifts of my own. Remember those BW-themed mock Motivational poster graphics that I made at the beginning of the year?

http://www.bwint.net/outtsydergraphics.htm (for reference)

Yep... I printed them out, and gave them to their appropriate actors; Blu also got a Unicron one with his Tigatron and Tigerhawk; Richard also got a poster of the Vok along with his Rhinox one (he really cracked up at the slogan on the Rhinox poster). Pauline seemed surprised by her own gift, and just as much when I tlod her I lived in the greater Vancouver area ("You're a local, too?" :) ). And I jokingly cursed Scott for having so many characters in the show, because... he got five. Including BOTH versions of Dinobot. When I gave them to him one by one, he read out each slogan in the voice of the BW character on it; he seemed to like the Waspinator poster the best. :)

Soon, it would be about time for the Friday activities to be closed (except for the Game Night, which most of us wouldn't be attending), but we also opened an invitation to the BW VAs if they wanted to come with us for dinner (we chose the Cracker Barrel restaurant). We didn't expect all of them to accept, but we did in fact get not just Scotty, but Richard as well, plus Ben Yee! 8) After a rather hyper-active dinner with all parties involved, most of us were going to return to our shack-up quarters, with a few of us going to see the midnight Advance Preview showing of the 20th Anniversary TF:TM DVD. While this was finally a chance to see the movie in a theater, the experience was kind of ruined by having to wait in a line outside the theater (I'm just glad it wasn't raining TOO hard), and that some crazed fanboys kept shouting stuff during the showing of the movie. But it was finally over, so we returned to "base", hoping to still have enough energy left for the next day....

Saturday, September 30

Despite some early trouble, we made it early on Saturday, where Stelly and I went to the line-up for the Peter Cullen autograph session; we showed up about a half-hour before its start time, and we were in pretty good position. About an hour later, Stelly had her stuff signed, and when it was my turn, I had two items to sign. One was a copy of the "TF Legends" anthology book, and one of only two printed copies that I will *ever* make for an Optimus Prime motivational poster graphic. One of those copies was addressed to Seeks, whom I know will probably never make it to a BotCon, so I wanted to surprise her with a BotCon gift with the signature of a G1 voice actor; namely the one considered to be THE Icon of all TF-dom. I gave the other copy to Cullen himself, and he seemed to really like the gift, saying, "Well, aren't you a sweetheart!" (And I'm sure he meant that in a uncle-y sort of way.) :)

While I missed the Cartoon Creation panel (due to the scheduling at the same time as Cullen's autographs), I did find out for sure that the rumors of a new TF cartoon coming next year were true. Hasbro wouldn't release any details yet, but they did confirm that it would be US-produced, in contrast to the anime series over the last four-to-five years. Our next stop was Hasbro's main panel of new toys and projects coming over the next year, from the Classics series to the movie, and other current and recently-passed lines. Cybertron is, of course, almost over, and with the progress of the new movie going on, other lines like the Alternators will be put on hold after the release of Rumble and Ravage (the new one that's actually a Jaguar car that becomes a quadruped robot jaguar cat). Classics will be the main series until the launching of the movie, with new Mini-Cons being incorporated into the line, as well as "Legends of Cybertron"-like "Classics" (such as a yellow LoC Hot Shot as Bumblebee). Re-issue Soundwave was confirmed for a Hasbro release, and chances are he may be released with the Soundblaster 2-cassette-capacity chest plate. Some new Classics on the way will include Cliffjumper (repainted from Bumblebee), Ramjet (and dropped a hint of some other jet-based Classics to come) and Grimlock. Regarding the movie toys, two preview figures will be released on or about May 2.

The Titanium line will continue on with some more new stuff, including a new Megatron that really IS War Within Megatron; as well as a 6" Titanium transforming Ultra Magnus that isn't a straight repaint of Optimus Prime (FINALLY!). Some little features from the 20th Anniversary TF:TM DVD were shown, as well as a 2-minute video clip from Paramount showing more action sequences that were being shot for the movie. The response was so huge, the crowd chanted for an encore... and got one!

Some various notes were brought up during the Q&A session with Hasbro. While Maximals and Predacons might not be getting the bigger piece of the spotlight yet, there is a 6" Titanium Cheetor being released. A lot of questions were asked about Classics and Titanium (including possible Classics Dinobots!), and when asked if hasbro could produce one more 6" transforming War Within figure, Hasbro said "Grimlock." Whether or not this WILL happen, I don't know.

A question was asked about a Cadillac XLR Alternator that appeared as a UPC or SKU in a store computer, but Hasbro cancelled the item due to the imminent hiatus. Incidentally, to the chagrin of the crowd, the cancelled Cadillac Alt would have been Megatron.

After the panel was over, Stelly and I took a break for lunch, but consequently missed the second BW VA panel, meaning that I missed out on seeing the other BWInt-ersin their face-paint get-up! But after lunch, we went back to the dealer room, and finally started to do some buying, plus looked at the new items shown in Hasbro's glass cases. Getting most of th eattention were the new Classics and Titaniums, including The Fallen (from Dreamwave's War Within Vol. 2 mini-series)! 8)

After more scoping around, we finally made it to the final panel of the day before the Dinner & Casino Night; the Peter Cullen Q&A. While overviewing his career, Cullen discussed Frank Welker's audition for Megatron, although no results yet have been determined. As for the hopes that Paramount has for this movie's success, Cullen revealed that he had signed a deal... for three TF movies. The conclusion of this panel led to the short rest period before the dinner and casino night that night, although I didn't gamble at all (I suck at gambling). Also, the dinner room became so crowded, that we were also given the option to eat in the convention center's food court if we wanted to. But an announcement was made at the conclusion of the Dinner Night, regarding the time and location of next year's BotCon.

BotCon 2007 will take place in the summer again; the weekend before the premier of the new TF movie... in Providence, Rhode Island... Hasbro's own backyard!

Sunday, October 1

We showed up fairly early that morning to get a snack for "breakfast" (if you can call it that), but most of the places in the center were not open yet. Adding to my frustration was that the ATMs were gradually becoming lacking in cash (though that's not much of a surprise) or just plain going out of service. Shrugging that off, though -- and meeting up with Richard Newman one more time; he called me out before I realized he was there 8) -- Stelly and I made our way to catch the later-scheduled times for the Q&A panels that we had missed before; the IDW panel and Simon Furman's "Creating History" panel, both in a row.

IDW came on first, with Furman joined by Don Figueroa and Chris Ryall, as they revealed some of the plans for the TF comics they'd be working on in the near future. First of all, they made it clear that their Stormbringer story, despite Optimus Prime's War Within-like look, is not tied in at all with Dreamwave's work. Also, they had stated that, while they would love to complete the unfinished stories that DW had left hanging due to the company's bankruptcy, they can't do it for legal reasons (especially with DW's former employees still being owed money), until those problems are solved. And while the one-shot "Spotlight" issues will be focusing on G1 characters only, they're still making plans for another BW mini-series. They will also be releasing a four-issue mini-series prequel for the new movie next year, calling it "Prime Directive". There's also a very small chance that Bob Budiansky -- who's been absent from writing TFs in years -- might consider writing new TF stories (after his new comic adaptation of the original animated movie), but don't bank on it yet. And there are no plans for an Alternators comic, because of licencing. There was, however, a rumor going around claiming that there would be a cross-over story between TFs and Justice League. IDW wouldn't confirm it, although they are planning another crossover with GI Joe.

A short break followed, where Furman and I got to talk for a little bit, catching up on some stuff since our previous RL meeting back in 2004 (where he was the voice director for the live script reading that year). We talked about a nuimber of things within what little time we had left before he was about to start, and there's a small chance that I may be able to conduct an e-mail interview with him for BWInt (and the Hangar as well; possibly dropping a link to it in other larger boards, like TFW2005.com). Later, it was time for him to get to the stage, and the panel was underway (this was the Sunday panel, so Figueroa didn't accompany him this time). He started with some open questions regarding several upcoming TF projects, one of which will be a new updated version of the DK-published "TFs: The Ultimate Guide" book, which will add sections for the more recently-added TF series since the previous edition, and possibly reqork or expand some older articles, depending on convenience. I had asked about a possible expansion of an article on the mythical original Thirteen Transformers from the very beginning of Cybertron's history. Furman replied that he wanted to leave some of that ambiguous, while only identifying a few of them for certain (such as Vector Prime and The Fallen), to avoid story conflicts with other material like convention magazines, larger fan club stories, and the like. That way, the speculation for the full roster would still be open. Other points that Furman discussed include Grimlock (his favorite character, but he doesn't want to overuse him), Death's Head, Marvel Comics being his "spiritual home", and some touches on more stuff coming soon. He did stated that Galvatron is slated to appear in the IDW book, with one really unusual twist... Furman said, "He won't be Megatron." This I gotta see.

The rest of the day wasn't too heavy, already having caught most of the panels that I wanted to see (I hadn't seen the Faction Feud: Board Wars games, though; and only caught a few glimpses of the TF Attacktix games), so Stelly and I spent most of our time checking things out in the Dealer room, meeting with some new and old friends (including another fellow fan who knew me from past BotCons/OTFCCs, specifically the voice-acting tryouts) and getting some pics of the new upcoming TF products in Hasbro's display case. I didn't buy too much stuff, but I think Stelly surprised herself with how much stuff she found. Besides the box set that I already had with my Primus Package (and not counting the free Tigatron, which I gave to Stelly), I had bought the BotCon Megatron-&-Waspinator 2-pack (I lucked out before they sold out), a Golden Disk set from Unicron.com, a Wreckers comic from Decepticon-Matrix.com for only $1, and the exclusive OTFCC '04 Heroes Of Cybertron Seeker 6-pack for only $20 (breaks down to about $3.33 per figurine!). Most of the rest of the day was slower paced, until the BWInt-&-Hangar Alliance eventually regrouped during the last half-hour before closing time. After exchanging some more e-maila ddresses with other fans and friends, and slipping in one last goodbye to Scott McNeil (who was still at the autograph table), it was finally time for us to re-assemble and get our final things done and completed. Most of us would be heading back over to Haxx's place for KFC for dinner, a movie night and have Sapph read us one of her fanfics... the over-the-top hilarious "Beast Warriors' Day Out: The Funfair." Whather or not you've read this story before... I personally think you get an even BETTER comedic effect when it's read aloud. :D After the story was over, we watched "V For Vendetta"... and now I want to be V for Hallowe'en this year (if I can pull it off). 8)

The remainder of the day, leading into Monday, consisted of some final sleep times, packing up our stuff, and slowly, gradually, saying our goodbyes to each other and making our returns to the airports and travel stations to return home. As of right now, though, the only ones left yet to leave the Indiana/Kentucky area are myself and Stelly... and tonight will be our departure time to our respective homes on both sides of the 49th Parallel. With just over an hour left before the arranged time to return to the Greyhound station, this concludes my text-only parts of my BotCon '06 report. I should probably be able to get my own photos posted up when I'm back at home, by the end of this week.

(end text report, October 2, 2006)