The Day of Woman and Robots

Back on Christmas of 2008 one of my first and favorite podcasters-Shawn Robare of Branded In The 80s-conspired with one of my most recent favorite podcasters-Jerzy Drozd of Art & Story Extreme-to share with the world a Christmas themed Transformers comic published in the December 26, 1985 issue of Woman's Day magazine. The scans were fantastic but what was infinitely more valuable to me was that Shawn gave the exact coverdate of the issue. I'd seen the magazine discussed occasionally on the message boards of various Thoroughly Informative Transformers Themed Internet Entertainment Sites but until Shawn's post I never saw anyone release the most important factual tidbit of all-when the friggin thing came out! Armed with that information and full of enthusiasm, excitement and prayers to baby Jesus I looked forward to the joy of getting ripped off on eBay.

I TRY NOT TO BID ON AUCTIONS WITH A HIGH REGRET-IT-NOW

In the two years hence I've seen the magazine pop up exactly three times. The first time was as part of a bound collection of all the Woman's Days released in 1985. It was the entire year all in one hardcover volume the seller said was once part of a library collection. That auction had a Buy-It-Now of $25, which I thought was a bit high because I couldn't justify owning a whole year's worth of Woman's Day just for what amounted to two pages. I don't care how good those cookies on the cover looked.

Surely there was nothing Transformers or toy robots related in all those other issues bound with it, right? That auction sold within a couple weeks of when Shawn's post went up. Then the issue popped up again on eBay around the time the first auction ended when a comic book shop was scalping a single copy of the issue with a Buy-it-Now of $20. They knew what they had and the description used the Transformer comic within as the selling angle. There's no way I was gonna pay $20 for two pages, especially to scalpers. I could've got the whole year for that! Seeing two copies come and go in such a relatively short time had me convinced all I had to do was wait a couple days and another one would pop up. Then a year went by and that hardbound library collection I missed out on earlier because of my cheapness started looking pretty good. So I began wishing a copy of that friggin' magazine would just show up so I could buy it no matter how much it cost since I finally realized how rare it was. They say a fool and his money are soon parted and I've realized the same is true for cheap guys but it just takes a little longer.

WELL WORDED EBAY SEARCH CRITERIA MAY NOT TRUMP DIVINE INTERVENTION BUT IT HELPS

Well finally around two weeks ago baby Jesus hooked me up because a seller put a ratty old copy of the most roboholyest of Woman's Days on eBay. It was in a lot with three other old raggedy Woman's Day magazines I wouldn't need, but hell the Buy-It-Now was only $2.99. So I figured I'd keep the one I wanted and chuck the rest of 'em in the garbage once they arrived. Because again, surely there was nothing Transformers or toy robots related in all those other issues, right? Holy hell was I wrong.

As it turns out I got a lot more than I bargained for when within the pages of those old Woman's Days I found old toy robots ads! Old Woman's Days was the last place in the universe I'd ever expect to find that stuff. The same issue that had the Transformer comic also came with a pull out section from Toys R Us called the Christmas Dream Book 1985. Inside there were ads for Gobots, Voltron and Wheeled Warriors. Then in the issue from earlier in December there was an absolutely beautiful black and white ad from Kay Bee toys for Transformers. So then arose the terrible realization that there may be other ads like this lurking in other issues from that year and possibly other years. It wasn't just the ads that had robots, either. There were articles about toys that were written as holiday gift guides with Transformers pictured in those, too. Were those ads? The more I read the more the distinction between article and advertising began to blur. Then of course there was the Transformer comic presented as a Christmas story for children but it was really an ad when you think about it. I became convinced that there had to have been some sort of covert subliminal Hasbro/Woman's Day advertising conspiracy. The more I read Woman's Day the more I realized it was not a collection of articles on women's issues, but actually a trojan horse filled with thinly veiled advertisements for Hasbro toys disguised as articles on women's issues. Well except for that one about chlamydia on page 28. That was totally about chlamydia.

SO MANY WOMAN'S DAYS, SO LITTLE TIME

Kay Bee Toy Stores 12/03/85

As luck would have it, the magazines arrived last week on the day of the 36th annual IronRoboHellaCon! I would like to thank Shawn and Jerzy for however indirectly contributing to my happiness on my big day. It made me think about how wonderful my life has been made thanks to the technological advancements of mankind and how the pinnacle of a society's evolution is the ability to buy from ebay power sellers. It is truly incredible how large organizations of people I will never meet including Hasbro, my internet service provider, the staff of Woman's Day, other Transformers fans, the US Postal service and everybody who works at eBay are brought together over time and space in a grand magical electronic conspiracy so that I may get birthday presents from the internet. But all that wonderfulness came at a price and I don't just mean shipping costs and Paypal fees. Knowing there's the possibility I might find other Hasbro propagandas in back issues of women's magazines is both a terrible and exciting knowledge. Whether or not all this will result in a quest to seek out more old Woman's Day issues is still up in the air because I've got a tryptizillion other projects to deal with first. But the mystery of what may or may not be contained in those other issues will always be nagging me now in the back of my mind. I'll probably never get a shot at a whole year's worth of Woman's Day for dirt cheap like that one time. Unless I can find some old lady with a large collection of Woman's Days, tracking them down individually is gonna be expensive. Even if I do find a grandma like that I'd be reluctant to meet her. I suspect the only reason someone would stock up on vast numbers of old issues of that magazine is because they were trying to self diagnose whatever venereal diseases they kept getting in the 80s. However, it might be worth it because she'd probably be really really good at making those cookies.

In my Zen contentedness I want for nothing (except multimillion dollar powerball jackpots) or: I NEVER KNEW I WAS BUYING SLURPEES FROM GALACTUS

The 35th annual IRONROBOHELLACON fell on Friday the 13th last week as it is sometimes known to do and we all had a great time here in the Kingdom. A couple days prior, the Queen of Macrocrania called from her current outpost in a galaxy far, far away to ask if any gifts or presents may make this year's convention extra special. I, feeling very enlightened in a way only Zen masters and Care Bears feel, said 'No, IRONROBOHELLACON is not about presents'. Then the rest of the conversation turned into me reciting a song by the Goo Goo Dolls about being content and complete, and since the Queen doesn't know who those guys are she wondered if I was singing Care Bears songs again. I honestly felt those feelings of contentedness, at least until I saw what the Powerball numbers were that week.



FROM HERE TO ETERNITY (OR AT LEAST TO THE LOAF'nJUG ON THE CORNER)

There was a comic book once about how all of existence joined together in the hope that it could destroy one single being of immense power, which is how I feel while driving with all these crazy people in downtown Rapid City. It was an issue of Secret Wars where Mephisto comes up with a plan to kill the Beyonder but it would only work if he assembled together all the magical beings of eternity and attacked in a certain place within a very specific timeframe. Mephisto is me planning to win the lotto by assembling the magical lottery numbers at the corner gas station before 8:00 pm. I don't have a problem with this metaphor making me the devil, but it is odd that the gas station clerk essentially becomes the living embodiment of all eternity. Plus she sells me hot dogs and gas. Once I dropped a Slurpee on the floor and the little ice balls spread out in a spiral like the Milky Way galaxy.

THERE IS NO GIFT AS GREAT AS LOVE BUT 35 MILLION DOLLARS WOULD HAVE BEEN PRETTY SWEET, TOO

This isn't going to be one of those "If I only had played my birthdate and age I would have won the lottery on my birthday" stories. Honestly, if I picked numbers based on my birthday and age in the way I usually do I would have only won 3 bucks last week. But there is a sort of cosmic synchronicity in the balls that did drop (3, 7, 13, 34, 47, 30) and I've been thinking about it ever since. The 3 and 13 correspond to March 13th and I was 34 last week. 47 is the last two digits of the year I was born, but backwards. I had never thought of playing that variant of 74 and since the form numbers don't go up to 74 I usually just play 7 and 4. 47 makes infinitely more sense. Now I know. DUH! The last number 30 would have been impossible for me to guess. There is some comfort in knowing even if I had played my usual 1,3,4,7,13,34 I would have only won three bucks. But then the second guessing and self doubting and what iffing come into play and I think things like-If I had only bought my regular numbers 300,000 times I would be a millionaire!

IT'S NOT WHAT YOU GOT, IT'S WHAT YOU...GET FOR IRONROBOHELLACON

That was the last lotto drawing before IRONROBOHELLACON 35 and when I went to the Powerball website I realized that my chance to kill the Beyonder that is my horrible, terrible future was past. Losing was a blessing of sorts because now I can stop fearing the horrible, terrible future and start living it. I understand that I will never again be that cosmically close to infinite wealth and ever since I accepted that, the true contentedness has begun settling in. And if I learned anything from all this, it's that true contentedness sucks. When my wife called again later on in the week I asked her if it was too late to get me anything. And she said "But I thought you were a Zen master who wanted for nothing! Plus it's too late to get anything shipped to you in time!" And I said, "I should have been more careful what I wanted for nothing for, because I got it. PLEASE TELL ME IT IS NOT TOO LATE TO ORDER ME A ROBOT TYRANNOSAURUS!"

WORLD YOU ARE ONLY THREE DAYS AWAY FROM IRONROBOHELLACON

Once again the time has come
for IronRoboHellaCon
And no matter where I've been
I've been to every one

Every year for the past thirty four
IronRoboHellaCon's the same as before
Same party, same music, but I'm happy to go
Because one day it won't be held anymore

It's an ancient tradition as old as me
IronRoboHellacon's got some crazy history
It started in Texas, gone over the sea
And the thirteenth one was on Friday the thirteenth

Old memories and metal and ghosts and good times
with guests Bruce Dickinson and Optimus Prime
I listen to Iron Maiden and eat cherry pies
And watch robot cartoons of cartoon robots in disguise

The years and the people they come and go
but I'll always love my metal and plastic robos
Not everyone would like IronRoboHellaCon I know
But I hope they've all had as much fun with their own

WORLD YOU ARE ONLY SIX NUMBERS AWAY FROM IRONROBOHELLACON

Another Powerball Wednesday went by, taking with it a) my dreams of becoming dirty rotten filthy stinking rich and b) my three dollars. So far this year I've blown $30 on Powerball which is pretty bad because I could have wasted that money on other equally pointless paper things like robot comic books. Even though I never win, the time I spend daydreaming about how I would have my own toy robots convention with special guests Iron Maiden and Helloween is priceless. When I think about it, lottery and toy robots are probably my two favorite brown trash hobbies. I do like how with lottery tickets I get to find out I'm a loser within a few days. With buying hundred dollar toy robots that realization takes a little longer to sink in.

I'm going to stop with lotterying not because I lose so much, but because once I win there is no chance to ever get rich and well known off of my own hard work. Any sense of satisfaction I'd have from being my generation's George Lucas/William Shatner hybrid creative powerhouse would be erased. I would always be that guy who got famous from the lottery. So I am going to start working on my webcomic autobiography with the totally original title "Every toy robot is the end of the world for me" and then once that's finished I'll go back to lotterying. Then once I win the lottery you can expect me to finance a movie based on my story, except I'll change the name to "Please Save Me Robots: the Movie" because Jeffrey Brown would probably kick my ass.

Lately I've been keeping every losing lotto ticket because I hope that having these physical reminders in plain sight will keep me from wasting my money the same way again. I don't know how I got that idea because I've tried the same approach with my toy robots collection and I know it doesn't work. Reminding myself I'm wasting money by amassing large piles of stuff is not an effective deterrent because it appeals to my collect-osis genetic defect. Actually maybe collecting losing lotto tickets would be preferable to collecting hundred dollar toy robots. The big advantage is that lottery tickets take up less space reminding me of how much money and how little common sense I used to have.

I guess this is goodbye lotto for now. I need to knock out this one last idea so I can say I was working on it before I was rich. Then maybe I'll give up all my other brown trash hillbilly hobbies like heavy metal, Burger King and shopping at Wal-Mart. Or maybe I'll write a sequel to PSMR the movie that documents the creation of my successful chain of MetalBurgerMart restaurants, the official sponsor of IronRoboHellacon.

Beat You to the Rocket Punch

Last night was library night and you know what that means-more robot ads from the newspaper archives. Instead of going after 80's robot toys this time I went further back. I went all the way back to 1974. I thought it would be fun to read papers from the year I was born, but then as I loaded the machine with October of '74 suddenly I felt weird. As I was reading the news of the day, an unsettling feeling intensified. It's like I wasn't supposed to be there. I can't explain it, but there is something really creepy about reading newspapers from the year I was born.

I think it's partly due to the timeless bland look the Rapid City public library has. From the outside it looks modern enough, but parts of the inside might as well be from any time and any place. The area that has the microfishe readers is seperated from the rest of the library. The furniture is especially generic looking. Nothing looks modern. The microfishe readers themselves are technology that has existed since the 70's. There is no hint of what year it is when you sit there in front of those machines.

So when I sat down last night and pulled up 1974 it was like going back in time. I clutched my iPod tightly to remind myself that I wasn't in 1974. It was like that old Christopher Reeve movie where he goes back in time by emptying his room of all objects from his current time period and then he looks at the wall and concentrates on the year he wants to visit. The only difference was he really wanted to be back in time. As I looked at the pictures of the high school football players in the sports sections I thought about how they were all probably in their 50's or even dead by now. I did not want to be in 1974, especially at my current age.



[Although I guess it would be cool having knowledge of future events. Of course everyone would try to beat George Lucas at creating Star Wars if they went back to 1974. I probably wouldn't be able to create a movie, but I could write approximations of the Star Wars speaking lines off the top of my head and animate it with clay puppets and cardboard spaceships on public access television. Then when he comes out with it three years later I could sue him for ripping off my public access puppet show, thus toppling the Star Wars empire and preventing the creation of about ten million nerds.]

I always think about going back in time but as it was happening last night at the library, instead of feeling nostalgic and happy I got all bummed out because 1974 kind of sucked. There was very little toy robot action going on. I searched hard for any hints of the eventual robo awesomeness that the world would develop, but no traces of robot culture were evident in 1974. Nothing seemed familiar. It was a desolate time devoid of internets. Was I really born that year? Where were the robots? I was freaking out. 1974 was scaring me. The ads had no robots of any kind. I drowning in a sea of Evel Knievel wind up motorcycles and Snoopy radios. Please save me robots from the strange toys of 1974! Oh god somebody invent the internet already!

I was all freaked out so I jumped ahead and loaded up the reels with years I was more comfortable with-1977 and 1978. Maybe one day I'll have the guts to load up '74 through '76 but that'll have to wait a while. And guess who awaited me in the newspaper ads from '77 and '78? Those goofy crazy robots with lots of metal and little articulation-the Shogun Warriors.

Like I've said before, my recollection of the toyline is bad because I was only three to four years old when they were at their retail heyday, but hell, they were robots and I was glad to see their ads. It was years later that I started watching their cartoons but for some reason the names of the Shogun Warriors toys were different from the cartoon names. Like I remember the Mazinga toy as Tranzor-Z because that's what the cartoon was called. And Dragun was known to me as Star Dragon from Starvengers, part of the Force Five block of japanese robo cartoons in the early 80's.

TERRIBLE COOL NEWS!!! I just found out that there is a company making DVDs of the Force Five cartoons and you can see clips from Starvengers at their site! DREAM COMES TURE!!!

Damnit, I was supposed to talk about Shogun Warriors in this post but I spent it writing about how 1974 scares me. So without further adeiu, the first ad waaay at the top is from a store called Gambles. It was published November 20, 1977. I like it because somebody hand drew Dragun to fit the layout of the ad instead of using stock images. The one that reads "Invincible Guardians of World Freedom" is another Gambles ad, but from December 11 of 1977. The "Almost 2 Feet tall" ad is from Mill's Drug Store published 28 November 1978. "Shogun 24" Warriors" is a JC Penny ad from 21 December 1978. The final ad is for the three inchers and it came from JC Penny's 28 November 1979 newspaper ad.