I was born in the Mid-Seventies, so it comes to no surprise
that I am a Star Wars Fan, a a fan of vintage cartoons and TV shows along with
the toys marketed with them. One of my
younger brothers was born in the early eighties, thus I was surrounded by
Legos, Plastic Robots, He-Man Action figures, G.I. Joe figures and Hot Wheels
along with my Barbies, Herself the Elf Dolls and Strawberry Shortcake dolls. We often would mix up our toys together, play
and watch all the same cartoons during our indoor playtimes. (Sue me, I love my little brother and he
played fair. Dad insisted we play
together and ride our bikes together.) Anyway, some of these toys, mainly “The Plastic
Robots” looked complicated and I was afraid I would break them. These were my kid brother’s Transformers. I preferred all of these Robots in Vehicle
mode because I would use them with all the Lego Mini figures we had. (I had and still have a wild imagination, I
made it work). My brother was able to transform
these toys in seconds and I could never figure it out.
We watched all the afternoon cartoons including the Transformers
and G.I. Joe block. I was around 9 or 10
at the time and my brother was 4 or 5. I
remember us singing the theme songs to both of these shows and thinking these
songs were better than the cartoons at the time. I would halfway pay attention to these
cartoons while my brother was fully engrossed while they were on. (It was Barbie time for me; these shows were
just my background noise. It was bad
enough I was getting teased by some of the fast ass girls at my elementary
school for still playing with Toys.) Nevertheless,
it appeared that kid brother was a casual fan who liked the cartoon and owned a
few Autobot toys. Years went on and we
apparently grew out of our toys and got more into sports and music.
Fast forward to more than twenty years later, I’m Iiving
with someone who has been a Transformers fan from the beginning (Since he was
10) and is just as passionate about it as he was when he was a kid. Not only does he own the entire series and
all the Transformer Series that came after G1, he has a huge collection of
Transformer comics. Also, this man owns many G1 and G2 toys and refers to all
the Michael Bay movies as Bayformers. (Did I mention that his toys are in great
condition and many are still in the box?) In addition, he builds Transformers
out of Legos and they are on display in our house. He
goes to the main Transformer Convention, BotCon and has been going off and on
from the mid nineties. After he’d get
back from BotCon, he would show me pictures and I thought it was neat that
people were still fans and got together to hang out at conventions. (I remember thinking, BotCon 1997 looked
really cool!) . Keep in mind, I always knew that he was a
huge fan all of these years I’ve known him, but I didn’t realize how huge until
we became a couple. When I actually saw
every toy and how his collection continues to grow, I became fascinated. Some
of my girlfriends do not get it and do not understand why I am okay with toys
being on display in my living room. Sometimes
when you live with someone, you become more curious about some of their hobbies
that differ from yours, especially if it seems interesting and cool to you.
Furthermore, being an avid movie watcher, I was dragged to
the Transformer movie that came out in 2007. (I will not mention who dragged
me. A mouth-breather.) I thought the
movie was so-so and I recognized that they didn’t really stick to the classic
cartoon. In fact, I thought the robots
in the Michael Bay film were ugly and looked like the Predator. Therefore, when the live action Transformer
sequel came out, I had no interest in watching these ugly robots and I assumed
the movie was going to be another lousy “popcorn mouth-breathing flick”. Like a lot of die hard Transformer Fans out
there, he watched the G1 cartoon in its entirety once a year. The first year we were together, I decided
to watch it with him. It took awhile for me to get into it, but by the fourth
episode I was hooked. I thought the
Robots were handsome compared to those ugly Bayformers and Starscream cracked
me up! What a whiny pain in the
ass! As I continued to watch the show, I
found that my favorite Autobot was Wheeljack and I loved Soundwave. I was becoming too emotionally involved with
the storyline and very soon I realized I was a fan. A
couple of my boyfriend’s friends stated that I only liked the G1 cartoon,
because he did. (Insert annoying eye roll here.) I was not forced to watch this
show and formed the opinion on my own. Why
can’t some geek/nerd guys accept that girls do think for themselves and not all
of us are snotty FiFi girls who scoff at Toy collecting? Also, there is nothing
wrong with being a new fan. Why does
everyone put so much rank on how long someone has liked something? I’m sure Hasbro is welcoming all the new
Transformer fans!
I have always like costuming and had just recently started
cosplaying from time to time at local conventions, so I asked about Transformer
cosplay. I was really interested in
putting my own spin on Transformer costumes. I did a few You tube searches and my boyfriend
recommended that I do a human version of Wheeljack. We focused on getting the color scheme right
and even adding some small details like the logo. So I began creating my Wheeljack costume...
He introduced me to some of his old friends,
Tony and Rose who have been going to BotCon from the beginning. Rose gave me a few tips on Wheeljack as well
and shared how she designed her human “Nurse Rachet” costume.
The next year rolled
around and we found out that BotCon 2011 was going to be in Pasadena, CA. I knew I wanted to go and check it out. I am
glad I did, because I’ve made a lot of new friends.
So far, it has been the best convention I’ve
attended and it was neat seeing how big Transformers have become again. I am looking forward to Bot Con 2012 and many
more to come!
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