Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
Yesterday, November 25, 2020, I received a special box in the mail containing what would have been the contents of my RoboCon 2020 registration package had Covid-19 not forced the convention to go virtual. For this year, there were two registration packages to choose from: the Standard Registration and the "BotCon 2021 Pre-Party Exclusive Pack".
Naturally, being the big BotCon enthusiast that I am, I went with the latter. As originally advertised, this registration package was to include, among other perks, the following physical items:
- An exclusive BotCon Convention T-Shirt featuring a "Neo-Classic" BotCon logo
- An exclusive Convention Trading Pin
- A special vintage BotCon logo themed Lanyard
- A free 8x10 art print by Paul Vromen and Josh Perez, featuring Shattered Glass artwork inspired by a vintage piece of promotional G1 artwork from the 1980s, with this year's custom class SG Megatron front and center
- And the crown jewel of this package: Beyond the Convention – BotCon: The Ultimate Product Guide, featuring a convention-exclusive cover
*Sample images, actual full art print not pictured*But, since the convention was switched to a virtual one, the "BotCon 2021 Pre-Party Exclusive Pack" was changed into the "Virtual Con" package and would instead be mailed out to its recipients at a later date. Plus, an additional batch of extra goodies from BotCons past was also added to the package:
- A print of four autograph cards from BotCon 2015, featuring General Optimus Prime, Sgt. Hound, Red Sunstreaker, and Police Sunstreaker (now named Spin-Out and Cordon)
- A ticket from BotCon 2007's charity screening of Transformers, the first live action movie
- A BotCon 2015 first-day registration pin of Oilmaster
- A physical copy of the BotCon 2015 Animated script reading "The Return of Blurr", first released at Botcon 2016
- And a physical copy of the 2014 comic Transformers: Timelines #9 "A Common Foe", first released at BotCon 2016
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With all of that out of the way, I'm here to talk about the main piece of this package, the BotCon Legacy book. Specifically, the version I received has the convention-exclusive cover featuring BotCon 2000 Apelinq. A retail version with a cover featuring BotCon 1994 Generation 2 Breakdown is being sold through
Big Bad Toy Store
Just as it says in the title,
Beyond the Convention – BotCon: The Ultimate Product Guide offers a complete look at every single exclusive toy and piece of merchandise offered officially at the many BotCons of years past, from its Formative Years in 1994 to 1996, to the era of 3H Enterprises from 1997 to 2002 (and unofficially in 2004), to the brief era of OTFCC in 2003 and 2004, and to the long-lasting Fun Publications era from 2005 to 2016. The release of this book (and the registration package itself) was intentionally delayed due to a desire to add an additional 27 pages of content, upping the total page count from 144 to 171.
Written and edited by James Kavanaugh and Dakota Raborn (with further editing by Luke Thompson), the book opens with a heartfelt two-page Foreword written by Kevin Lukis of
Unicron.com. It continues with both a single-page Introduction explaining how BotCon first came about, and a two-page "How to Use" section explaining how to decipher each "Main Panel" used to catalog every single exclusive toy in this book, denoting such things as the toys' Names, Functions, Quotes, Tech Specs, Modes, Accessories, Availability, and more.
The main body of the book is divided into four sections:
- Pages 1 to 10: the Formative Years, 1994 to 1996
- Pages 11 to 42: 3H Enterprises, 1997 to 2002 (and 2004)
- Pages 43 to 166: Fun Publications, 2005 to 2016
- Pages 167 to 171: The Official Transformers Collectors' Convention, 2003 to 2004
Each section (minus the OTFCC section) is then further divided in half, with the first covering the exclusives and merchandise of each convention, while the second half—titled "Concepts, Prototypes, and Samples"—covers some neat behind-the-scenes information that gives us a taste of how some of the exclusives were chosen for certain years. This, in my opinion, is the best part of the book, showing off some never-before-seen ideas and artwork (along with some that have been seen at previous BotCon and RoboCon conventions, and online) that were ultimately never made a reality.
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To give a few highlights of some of this book's unique offerings…
The "Concepts, Prototypes, and Samples" section of the Formative Years offers a rare color photograph of a prototype Action Master Arcee figure that Men in Black (the company that ran BotCon 1996) were considering producing for BotCon 1996 as one of its exclusives. However, the cost proved too much for the figure to be made.
The section for BotCon 2002 contains complete scans of all 30
Beast Wars Commemorative Postcards. Though, the text on each card is so tiny that it may require a magnifying glass to read each one (luckily, larger scans of these cards can also be found online). Still, seeing all of this Mainframe character artwork in one place is very cool.
The "Concepts, Prototypes, and Samples" section for the 3H Enterprises era reveals that the packaging for BotCon 1999 Antagony contained a removable display diorama with artwork rendered by Mainframe. The same section also has an early sample of the unofficial BotCon 2004 Action Master G2 Breakdown figure with its originally-intended Devastator head before it was given its final custom-made Breakdown head.
Also for BotCon 2004, this section features the first page of the convention's unofficial script reading "The Return of Kremzeek" autographed by the voice actors, and some original artwork of new-character Gaea, the planetformer who turns into Planet Earth. Said artwork features an early design of Gaea from back when she was originally conceived as a male character, drawn into a dynamic, almost "anime" style of the early 2000s.
The section for BotCon 2016 includes the exclusive Magnaboss sticker set for the Combiner Wars toys of Silverbolt, Ironhide, and Prowl, complete with a photo of the stickered up combined form. Plus, both the convention and post-convention variants of the souvenir Rubber Duck (red and blue) are pictured.
The "Concepts, Prototypes, and Samples" section for the Fun Pub era describes how the 2006 Beast Wars prequel comic "Dawn of Future's Past" came about. It was originally part of a 2004 story concept pitched to Dreamwave for a three-Volume 18-issue mini-series bridging the 300-year gap between the end of the G1 cartoon and the
Beast Wars cartoon. The final version was ultimately based on the very last issue of the pitch, Volume 3: Issue 6.
The same section describes how Aaron Archer of Hasbro was involved with the creation of the Shattered Glass set of BotCon 2008. He himself had come up with some of the early color schemes for the set's figures, and even drew up some designs for Mirrorverse versions on the Autobot and Decepticon symbols (which are pictured in the book). The Autobot symbol looks more evil and pointy and Decepticon symbol looks more heroic and square-ish. Ultimately, though, the redesigned insignia were dropped for reasons of brand recognition.
The same section also goes heavily into the conception of BotCon 2011's Animated-themed set, "The Stunt-Con Job", showing off many numerous concepts that were suggested before settling on the final product. One concept that wasn't even Animated-themed was a Generations-themed set of non-combining Stunticons using Classics, Cybertron, Universe, and Generations molds. This idea ultimately inspired the final set consisting of the Animated Stunticons, as the other Animated proposals were much more random in their character choices.
There are so many more ideas and proposals seen and described in this Fun Pub concept section, but I won't spoil any more for those who wish to acquire this book for themselves.
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At the end of the book, after the very brief OTFCC section, are an Index and an Acknowledgements page giving special thanks to many parties involved in the development of both BotCon and this book.
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With all of that said, however, I am also a little saddened to see that there are several minor errors in this book. Numerous typos and misspellings appear throughout the entire tome, an egregious case being the word "Souvenir" consistently misspelled as "Souviner" and/or "Souvinier" on nearly every page of the Fun Pub section. The BotCon 1998 section features an image of the program guide from BotCon 1999 instead of its own. A paragraph on Page 165 is made up of two sentences printed twice, with each misspelling Dai Atlas's name as "Dia Atlas". And at one point, the word "president" is used instead of "precedent". While some may not mind these kinds of typos, those who do may find them a bit irksome.
What's more, the description for BotCon 1996, the most infamous BotCon of them all, does its darnedest to paint that convention in a positive light, skirting around all of the issues that that con suffered at the time. Amusingly, the book openly acknowledges that year's lacking proper admittance badges by picturing a generic "Hello, My Name is…" sticker to represent its convention badge.
And, sadly, none of the Japanese BotCons of 1997, 1998, and 2000, or the European BotCons of 1999 and 2002, are covered at all, offering no coverage for Super High-Breed Model Galvatron, Double Punch, Grizzly-1, the Choro-Q toys, or Rook.
Despite these minor issues, I still feel that the many good aspects of this book outweigh its flaws.
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Overall, this book is definitely a passionate labor of love for an era of Transformers fandom and community that was so beloved by many a fan. From 1994 to 2016, BotCon was a pilgrimage to be cherished and anticipated. And hopefully will be again should things go according to plan for its return in 2021. While Hasbro probably won't have any involvement in the BotCon revival, the true heart of the experience was the fans and the friends made along the way. On this day of thunkfulness, I for one am very thankful to have been able to participate in some of the past BotCons, and hope to do so again. And I am also thankful to have this book, warts and all, to commemorate the 22 years of BotCon.
To quote the words of Kevin Lukis in the final paragraph of the book's Foreword...
It might be optimistic to envision that by the time this book is released everything will be back to "normal" pre-coronavirus lifestyle. I certainly hope so. We all want travel restrictions and quarantines to end and to come together once again. Until then, at least we have this book and all those fabulous toys to bring back memories of the great conventions of the past and the time we've shared together: Hope to see everyone again, in person, very soon.
