MAGICAL CON MISSIVES of the MECHANICAL MIAMI MEN

The sound of the breaking of the 77th seal of the Roboplastic Apoclaypse is the tippy tip tapping of a magic wand on my voice recorder to see if I can pull a José Delbo interview out of my hat! Yes I went to Mystical MiamiCon or whatever and who cares what it's called anyways because all that matters is I got another shot at talking to José Delbo about everything that's happened since the last convention I talked to him. Plus I asked a Star Wars question at a panel with Greg Weisman, the Star Wars Rebels season one executive producer! I learned he also created Gargoyles (which based on the voice actor cast I think may have been set in some kind of alternate Star Trek universe). I may not be hip to cartoons without any robots in them and I really didn't know who all the other guests were at Magical Miami Comics Con 2015 but I still had a good time. So smell the magic as I condescendingly complain about all the overpriced robots that I was too smart to buy and then LOL out loud as I get suckered into buying overpriced non-robots comics because I am dumb about GI Joe. How did Mr. Delbo's trip to London go? What are those new robots he's drawing now? And is it mandated somewhere that every single Star Wars character has to have a bad feeling about this? Find out all that and more in this MAGIC CITY 201.5 IS YOUR STATION FOR SMOOTH DELBO JAMS edition of the podcastalypse!

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That new signage looks more Wal-Marty than Convention Centery.

This is the closest to Shogun Warriors toys as the vendors got.

Overpriced neo-G1 was plentiful for people who don't shop internet.

I get the feeling that every Greg Weisman panel becomes a Gargoyles panel.

SPOLIER ALERT! Jim Cummings told me Clampdown was crabby. Very crabby.

Mr. Delbo knocking out the drawings with a new Optimus Prime backdrop.

He had some sketches of newer toys I found rather intriguing.

It was cool to see a mix of old and new Transformers in his art!

3 pack baggy GI Joe #2 reprints were super rare when I was a kid!

SHOW NOTES OF THE PODCASTALYPSE

• HELLO ALL YOU MAGIC CITY COMICCONONIANS
• Greg Weisman had a bad feeling about answering my questions at his panel.
• Jim Cummings told me a little about that crabby Clampdown.
• Okay so maybe they aren't that super rare.
• It's another interview with José Delbo!
• Mr. Delbo's trip to London for the London Film and Comic Con and the couple of panels he did there.
• Copies of Transformers Generation One #100 signed by lots of Transformers artists including Mr. Delbo were auctioned off with the proceeds going to Bill Mantlo.
• There will be a museum exhibit in Coral Springs, Fl featuring Mr. Delbo's work this March.
• Don't Rocket Punch Your Friends!

Don't miss the Coral Springs Museum of Art's Comic & Pop Art exhibit featuring José Delbo and other artists starting March 5th.

The Last Transformer I Will Ever Buy-Masterpiece Ultra Magnus

I've had a great run collecting Transformers but it's time to move on. After much contemplation, I've decided I want to finish off my collection with a piece so memorable, so truly special that it will be something worthy of the honor of being my very last Transformer. It will be a figure that when I look at it on the shelf I will cry because it embodies the emotional significance of the end of my Transformers journey. It will remind me forevermore of how wonderful my life was made over the past 31 years by Hasbro's special recipe of little robotic puzzle people made from plastic and metal and rubber. It will be the capstone of my Transformers collection and my rite of passage into a true manhood where I collect only old Macross models from Bandai. And so I have decided Masterpiece Ultra Magnus will be the very last Transformer I will ever buy.

I CAN DEAL WITH BEING LAST NOW

Ah, Ultra Magnus-I remember the first time I saw one back in '86. Actually it was a bunch of them. I was at a retail chain called Winn's. There was a stack of about four or five of them on the opposite end of the aisle from where the rest of the Transformers were. I guess they didn't know where to put this new guy. I was blown away because I'd never heard of the toy before and from looking at the box I couldn't figure out how they got that robot from that car carrier. I remember thinking Transformers were getting more and more interesting and there was no end in sight. So how fitting is it now that the ultimate version of the robot I felt signaled a gret new era of the Transformers franchise be the ultimate robot of my Transformers collecting experience. I'm as sure I'm done with Transformers as I am certain that that no better version of Ultra Magnus will ever be made. So that is why, with great pride and humility, I have decided Masterpiece Ultra Magnus is the very last Transformer I will ever buy.

The Bots Came Back!

The sound of the breaking of the 76th seal of the Roboplastic Apocalypse is the echo of a 30 years ago stampede of beeping, blooping, zipping, zapping, tape deck transforming, twin drill spinning, suction cup sucking, dinosaur stomping, Lamborghini crashing robots parading through the pages of Penny Power! Yes never before or since has a magazine ignored all the hype and marketing to bring kids the brutal truth about how much bang you got for your toy robot buck in 1984. This Consumer Reports magazine for kids took on all Tronians in an article titled "The Robots are Coming" from their Oct/Nov '84 issue before anyone even knew what a Decepticon Communicator was! Penny Power pulled no punches in its objective look at nearly every major robot line fighting it out in the early days of the Toy Robots Wars of the 1980s. It's the Starriors vs Armatron, the GoBots vs the GoDaiKins, RoboTron vs Robo Force, and Transformers vs...Magic Mike? Who will win? Who will lose? Whose transforms will leave the kids confused? Find out all this and more in this ONE WATCH TO RULE THEM ALL edition of the Podcastalypse!

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Read along with your own copy of the article here!



I CAUGHT A F.I.S.H.B.O.T.!!!

Waaaay back in episode 18 of the Podcastalypse I did a review of a Penny Power article from '85 where they evaluated some cool toy robots like the Zoids Giant Zrk, Starriors' Deadeye, and the Robotroid Space Station. But during the review I mentioned how there was an earlier Penny Power magazine article I remembered with tons more robot reviews in it that I didn't have. Then a couple months ago I talked to myself some more about how I'd missed out on an auction for that very most legendary issue and felt terrible about it. I felt bad because when it comes to my love of toy robots, Penny Power's "The Robots are Coming" article in their Oct/Nov 1984 issue is ground zero. I was a kid when it came out and it made a huge robot raygun blast right through my brain. In this episode I talk about the circumstances under which I saw it first come and go through my life in 1984 when I was in first grade reading it at the school library, taking it for granted and eventually seeing it nevermore. I had pretty much given up hope of ever finding it again because even on eBay issues of Penny Power are few and far between. Then last week the big penny in the sky used his power to give me another shot when I thought all my luck was spent. I was grateful and I learned that in life you can't count on second chances, but you can count on eBay's saved search alerts to let you know when somebody is selling the crap you want.

DO IT WITH BUY-IT-NOW OR DON'T BOTHER DOING IT

So the other day I got an email alert from eBay that someone was selling a stack of Penny Power magazines. I was super excited but the auction description said they ranged from '81 to '94 and although there were something like 24 issues in there, the range was wide enough that there was no guarentee that my issue would be one of the ones in there. What made it tricky to guess was that the only picture in the auction was of a pile of magazines where only the cover of the one on top was clearly visible. But thanks to the tiny little picture of the cover I saved from the last time someone was selling one, I was able to zero in on a very tiny sliver of the cover to the magazine buried at the very bottom of the stack. It took a ton of photo manipulation but I swore I could make out the hood of Jazz, the deluxe Autobot car from 1984. I was still not 100% sure so I sent the seller an email message asking if it was indeed the Oct/Nov 1984 issue. Well waiting for him to get back to me was more than I could bear. What if someone heard me talking about how legendary and great this issue was and set up their own eBay alert so they could buy one if it popped up? I couldn't stand the suspense so I just went ahead and bought the lot before the seller got back to me, which he eventually did and confirmed it was the issue I was looking for. I was elated and amazed and I felt really really lucky at having beaten my phantom competition. Then I laughed because I realized in order for it all to have played out like it did in my mind, someone would actually have to be paying attention to my show since episode 18.

First up it's GoBots, GoDaikin, RoboTron, the Radio Shack Armatron, and Robo Force!

Next it's Starriors, Magic Mike, the Kronoform Time Machine and then almost every assortment of Transformers available at the time.

With all those Ram-Mans and Robotrons it's amazing
Playworld ever went out of business!

SHOW NOTES OF THE PODCASTALYPSE

• My 4th grade Library Club aka child labor slaves of the elementary school librarian
• Penny Power was the anti Dynamite!
• A brief toy chronology of my childhood
• F.I.S.H.B.O.T. a few episodes ago WAS THIS VERY MAGAZINE!
• Buying it with style (and $36.00)
• Kids of the 90s remember Penny Power in its renamed form as Zillions.
• Old episode I did about GoBots being dominant early leaders.
• My review of the 1985 Penny Power magazine article in episode 18 of the Podcastalypse
• You don’t go full dump truck in your first robots assortment!
• Playworld commercial with Robotrons behind the kid dressed like a reindeer.
• Wikipedia article mentioning Penny Power was harsh on Starriors.
• IS IRONHIDE WORTH THE EFFORT?
• My personal list of top three robot lines from this issue
• Don’t Rocket Punch Your Friends!