I didn’t give this up.
I didn’t get a better job.
i didn’t get a life.
I didn’t get married.
I didn’t get any smarter.
I didn’t find a healthier outlet.
I didn’t join a cult, unless that cult involves grown men that collect toy robots and play video games whenever they can.
Most of all, I still feel like writing something here at least every 6 months.
So the Bobby Fisher of toy robots blogging has come out of seclusion for, exactly why, you may not be (probably aren’t) asking?
To write a friggin’ BotCon re-cap of course!
Hey Bot kiddies--remember these??
BotCon 2010: The Invasion
The whole thing began as anyone who’s been to a BotCon can attest–a long-ass line that stretched into the Epcot parking lot on Thursday night to pick-up my “package”. For a long time I’d felt stupidly alone in this toy robot accumulation thing, but this line eased my fear of being in my 30′s and being far more worried about scoring a Japanese Animated Blackout in the dealer room than how BP was going to clean up all that oil that’s laying waste to a delicate aquatic ecosystem.
I was actually one of the first 1000+ people, I guess, to register for this thing, as my pick-up line was actually in the first group at 6pm. Once I got in, it was smooth sailing, got my crap, got out, went to my hotel to watch a guy on the Discovery Channel catch killer river fish and fell asleep. I would need my rest for day 2.
BotCon 2010 Invasion +2
As I arrived for my first group of panels, I promptly met, you guessed it–ANOTHER LINE.
I got in and got to listen to the TFCC guys talk about their comics, a Takara legend in Yoke Hideaki speak about how designing great toy robots in the late 70′s was about making fun toys with no characters/characterization, and then got to hear Bob Budiansky honestly speak of his enormous contribution to the Transformers mythos.
His honesty was so refreshing to me. Writing Transformer bios and the comics was simply a job he performed well and by 1989, much like myself, he left it there to move onto other things. Yet, here we both were, 25+ years later, involved in toy robots again. Simply awesome.
More awesome, however, was finally getting to meet a legend in interwebz toy robot historian circles, none other than my main man, Evil King Macrocranios! Bonus–fairplaythings-Colin! It was so fantastic to meet people I’d spoken to on the interwebz over the last few years and finally get to meet them.
Your Agent of Doom on the left, Evil King Macrocranios, and Fairplaythings at BotCon!
This BotCon was already going great but that just made it go up a notch. To be honest, there had actually been a part of me that considered not going a couple months ago–even with it being held less than 2 hours from me. I would’ve have been an even bigger idiot than usual to have passed this up. The time I spent with those two made my weekend, really. Awesome toy robots but even cooler people.
I really hope to see the Evil King again soon at Star Wars Celebration in August! And congrats, Colin on an award well deserved for the diorama!
And to sum up the dealer room on Friday, it had everything I pretty much ever wanted in transforming toy robots, outside of a MIB G1 Star Saber for $20 and an aphrodisiac bot for obvious reasons.
Holy crap, I gotta have him.
Obligatory con haul pic.
I ended up spending most of my cash but walked out with great deals, met some of my TFW2005 peoples, and even watched one of them play the horrendously awesome Japanese Transformer game on the PlayStation 2. Love the little kicks.
Otherwise, as per usual, I’ll let some of my pictures tell the tale.
BotCon 2010 came and went, and when all was said and done, I really left wondering just what the hell I had been doing for the past 4 days or 6 months, even.
For more of my BotCon visit, see my flickr: BotCon 2010.
And on that note, I shall continue in my studies of the Robobnomicon, and that BotCon Rapido es muy fantastico, Crazy Steve.
