Proving there's a fandom for even the most obscure and forgotten toyline

I am back from Botcon and all the crazy robot wackiness that was the week of September 25-October 2nd, but show reports and all that will have to wait. Dare I say-I am Transformered out?

Regardless of my TF enthusiasm being low, I got something in the mail that I've been excited about for years. As the webmaster of Sven Primenkopf's BLOCCAR World, I am a big fan of the dorkiest set of japanese building block robots ever-Takara Cultural Blocks System BLOCCAR. I intended SPBW to be the world's premier resource for fans of TCBS Bloccar. I would have reviews of each set and lots of pictures and all that other fanwanky stuff. But it all depended on me having a complete collection and I was one set short of having that. So in October of 2004 I let my Bloccar fan site die because I could never find Bloccar 001-Police Robo.

Trying to complete a set of Takara Cultural Blocks System Bloccar is like trying to complete a set of Maxx Steele Robo Force-it can be done but it's kind of embarrasing once you're finished. It's not that they aren't out there-it's that there's no market for them So that put me in the weird position of having a hole in my collection for over two years. A hole exactly the size of one Bloccar 001 Police Robo.

Since 2003 I've searched as hard as one could consider reasonable without mortgaging my sanity. Then just before Botcon this year, one went up for sale on eBay! Unbelievably it was the only set the seller had. 'Who cares?' I thought! As long as the only set is the last one I need to complete my collection!

So kick ass! Sven Primenkopf's Bloccar World is back! Hello Police Robo!

Transformers ad from 20 years ago of the week-Optimus Prime and Megatron

This week's ad comes from a place in Rapid City called Motive Parts & Supply, Inc. They ran it for the week of December 1st, 1985. It features the two most iconic Transformers of all. I don't have much to write because I'M ON MY WAY TO BOTCON 2006 RIGHT NOW! WOO HOO!!!!

I will say that as a kid I never could figure out what to do with that little silvery gun thing that came with Megatron. He couldn't hold it in his fists. He couldn't shoot it like a bullet. He couldn't combine with it or use it as a shield. It didn't even look like a gun or a rifle to me. So I did what any kid would do. I pretended it was a spaceship that he traveled across the galaxy in, kicking people's asses and destroying whole civilizations on the various planets he landed on. I imagined it was the size of many Jupiters. In my childhood imagination, the smaller the toy was, the larger the object it protrayed in 'real life'.

The (possible) start of something big(ger than usual)

I just got back from the post office. I mailed off some prototype figures I sculpted to a company that is interested in producing them on a scale larger than I'm able or willing to do. If all goes well, model kits of some Transformers based characters I've sculpted will be available for ordering online someday. It's a weird feeling thinking that finally people beyond my close friends will be able to buy my sculpts. You never can tell, though. Things may fall through so I'm not getting my hopes up. If the partnership works out and the company wants to market more of my stuff, we may well see the marketing and distribution of much of the CrazySteveFigure line.

Transformers ad from 20 years ago of the week-teh Dinobots

From KMart's ad for the week of December 1st through December 7th 1985 comes this Dinobots ad. What I loved about the early days of Transformers ads is that nobody that made them knew which were the popular characters. So we get ads like this for the Dinobots that feature Swoop, Sludge and Snarl instead of that media whore Grimlock, who would dominate Dinobot ads during G2.

I was lucky enough to have a mom that was a bigger fan of TFs than I was. I never really paid attention to what was coming out until 1986. She was keeping track of figure availability starting in 1984. So thanks to her determination she tracked down all five Dinobots for me.

Swoop was the hardest to get. I found out later that Swoop only shipped in the last case assortment of Dinobots which is why he was so rare. Even I as a dorky little 11 year old appreciated his rareness so I vividly remember when I opened him. I was in an airport of all places, possibly El Paso International Airport.

My only other Dinobots memory was when my cousin Paul (who was roughly my age) came over to check them out. I didn't like how rough he was with toys so I didn't let him play with them. He was pissed! But whatever. I still have my Dinobots and Paul killed himself in 1999, SO WHO'S THE WINNER NOW, HUH?!

Venom-Man vs. Mergatron

I am doing a display for the robot show . It's of the time that Venom-Man fought Mergatron and the Robotroids. Check it out:

Venom-Man is using his WebNets to ensnare Mergatron the leader of the Robotroids. It was a classic comic book from 1981. Ask for it by name at your comic shop!

What year is this again?

Last week I bought Alternators Optimus Prime and the new Iron Maiden CD called "A Matter of Life and Death". It occurs to me that every time I buy a new Optimus Prime, Iron Maiden releases a good record that year.

Check this out:

1984 1st Optimus Prime/ Iron Maiden releases "Powerslave"

1988 Powermaster Optimus Prime/ Iron Maiden releases "Seventh Son of a Seventh Son"

1992 G2 Optimus Prime/ Iron Maiden releases "Fear of the Dark"

2000 Super Fire Convoy/ Iron Maiden releases "Brave New World"

2006 Alternators Optimus Prime/ Iron Maiden releases "A Matter of Life and Death"

Just about every five years history repeats itself and I buy Optimus Prime and Iron Maiden records. It's like Halley's Comet except if Halley's Comet was a big red truck and it screamed like Bruce Dickinson.

Weird Al Yankovich has a new CD out next week, too. And the Star Wars movies I grew up with just got released to home video this week. What year is it again? If I didn't know better I'd swear it was 1984.

Transformers ad from 20 years ago of the week-Jetfire

As an aging toy robot nerd I laugh at the kids today with their instant access to information thanks to the intertron. These kids know about toys and games months-sometimes even years-before they hit the shelves at their local Pancho's Giveaway Megamart. Back in my day we never knew what the hell was going on when we went to the store looking for toys. Take this Target ad from the week of December 7th, 1985.

It reminds me of how back in late 84/early 85 Jetfire shipped with the same catalog as teh first series 1984 Transformers although Jetfire didn't appear in the first series Transformer catalog. Same thing with Shockwave and Skids. They even had the same battle scene on the back of their boxes as the 1984 guys. So for a little while, there were TFs on the shelves that I was totally unprepared for although at eleven years old I already had a masters degree in Transformer toy catalogs and packaging. Jetfire, Shockwave, and Skids were part of the new '85 line but us first generation robot nerds didn't know they were coming out. We didn't have MegaNetWebs back then to show us prototypes of toys as they're being sculpted by crafty Japanese engineers like they do now. For most kids in 1985, seeing an unexpected new toy on the shelves at Pancho's Giveaway was a pleasant surprise. For me it was another reason to huddle in the corner of my room and cry about how uncontrollable and chaotic life was, particularly toy robot distribution.