GUESS WHO'S COMING TO SUPER(con)

Animation Supercon is a convention going on here over the weekend I'm thinking about going to. I'm somewhat interested because it'll be the first big pop culture con in the Miami area since I came to south Florida a couple months ago. Of the two I've been to so far I've liked the free one (Yasumicon) the best and I felt a little burned by the one I paid $35 for (Mizucon). But its hard to complain about anything since I've been able to get pictures with guys dressed up in cardboard Gundam costumes each time. Any con I can meet my fellow robotards at is a good one. Hell, I'd go to My Little Pony conventions if I was sure I could get pictures with somebody in a Voltron costume made of cereal boxes.

TALK TO THE HAND! (OF SUPERION)

The Supercon is not without guests I'd like to see. Although the voice actors are pretty much the cast of Futurama and Pinky and the Brain, there is some old school Autobotic overlap. The characters they played weren't exactly a-list robots in the Transfromer wars but they had some memorable lines. Rob Paulsen alone was a couple Aerialbots, a Throttlebot, one Autobot Clone and Blurr's gun. Maurice LaMarche was Six-Gun, the guy made up of the leftover accessories you had when you turned Metroplex into a robot. Okay so it's not Botcon level celebrity but Slingshot got the best Aerialbot characterization and Air Raid and Six-Gun were in one of my favorite Transformers episodes ever-the third season's Thief in the Night. Plus there's the guy who played Jazz in the latest cartoon. I'd love to get pictures or maybe even autographs but the problem is this is one of those cons where you have to pay $20 an autograph and $30 a picture because these actors have big followings from their roles in shows more popular than their Transformers work. Apparently there is a world of animation outside of robots cartoons I was unaware of. But screw that, I won't pay an arm and a leg to hang with with an arm and a leg of Superion.

WHEN ALL HELL'S BREAKING LOOSE YOU'LL BE SEWING THE EYES ON A GREEN PLUSHY STEGOSAURUS

At first I was scared when I saw the schedule but thankfully it looks to be more, much more than speed dating, raves, cosplay and Pokemon hookers. There will be the TRANSFORMERS PANEL OF AWESOME, which sounds like a) something Michael Bay would name a panel or b) something I should name a really good shelf on my wall. Either way I admire the ballsines of whoever named that-it's good promotion. It also makes it easier to decide what to do if there's anything named "TRANSFORMERS PANEL OF FAIL" running at the same time.

I do feel a little torn because during the Transformer panel there's another one going on about how to sew little felt animal dolls. I am not kidding about being interested in this. Ever since I bought a plush Ravage at Botcon '08 I've wanted to learn how to sew my own stuffed animal Decepticon cassette mascot army. Alternatively I could just buy a book about sewing and go to the Transformer panel, but I could also just buy a book about Transformers and go to the sewing panel. I wonder if there's really anything new left to say about Transformers that I haven't heard a million times already over the past 25 years. The sewing panel could be my introduction to a whole new world of robot fun, though. Trading Transformers talk for a sewing sermon? How Tyler Durden in a Martha Stewart way. The things I transformed ended up transforming me-into my grandma.