Florida SuperConVersatin' 2014!

The breaking of the 69th seal of the Roboplastic Apocalypse unleashes a tsunami of epic roboconversations all over Miami Beach on Fourth on July Day 2014! Like Tubbs to a Crockett, mighty waves of comic bookers, my little ponyers, powerful rangerers, video gamers and other assorted japanamation strangers all converged on the Miami Beach Convention Center for Florida SuperCon! Join the Nostrodomatron as I surf the waves of pop culture nerdity in the hopes of landing on conversation islands with the artists who helped create the great toy robots comics of the 70s and 80s. How did Al Milgrom get lucky enough to edit Shogun Warriors, Micronauts, and ROM? Why did Joe Rubinstein leave the Micronauts? And how did Peter David come to the realization that R5-D4 singledroidedly saved the Star Wars galaxy? Find out all this and more in this TALKING NAUTY IN MIAMI edition of the podcastalypse!

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This picture with Josef Rubinstein and Al Milgrom was a highlight of the con, but listen to me talk about why it also drove me crazy!


I don't know what character that pumpkin is, but it would have looked awesome on stage with Helloween back in '88.


A couple booths had nice selections of American Toy Robots of Japanese Toy Robots, and one even had Robo Force!


I met the lead accordion player (?!) of the band Random Encounter, saw Robert the oldest robot at the con, and talked to Peter David about Skippy the Jedi Droid!


Al Milgrom was a great guy and gave me an absolutely fantastic interview.


Joe Rubinstein was really classy and professional and made me wish I was, too!


It isn't a legit Florida comic convention without the legendary artist José Delbo!


Danny Fingeroth was really cool about the whole Robot Master thing! He even dedicated his book to me with "Your pal, Donny Finkleberg"!



SHOW NOTES OF THE PODCASTALYPSE

Be kind to your appliances!-Peter David

• It's time for Florida Supercon 2014!
• Last episode is the pre-show to this episode!
• Power Ranger guest drama this year
• Cobra Commander's five things to remember when volunteering at SuperCon
• ROM chronological reading order
• Shogun Warriors reading order
• Micronauts reading order
• ROM vs. Jim the guy with a magnet
• BREAK-ROM commercial
• Interview with Al Milgrom
• An Al Milgrom podcast interview at FirestormFan.com
• Al Milgrom at ComicBookDB.com
• BREAK-Micronauts Hornetroid commercial
• Interview with Josef Rubinstein
• Joe Rubinstein at ComicBookDB.com
• Joe Rubinstein interviews at Comic Geek Speak
• Other Joe Rubinstein/Michael Golden collaborations
• Michael Netzer's Famous ROM #1 Cover that Wasn't
• Crazy rock accordion video game music band Random Encounter
• José Delbo's great Transformers Regeneration 1 #96 sketch covers
• Getting a picture of Danny Fingeroth with Megatron
• The A-Team intro where Dirk Benedict sees a Cylon
• BREAK-R5-D4 commercial
• Interview with Peter David
• The original prose version of Skippy the Jedi Droid
• The comic adaptation of Skippy the Jedi Droid
• Peter David's Dark of the Moon adaptation with a different ending than the movie
• The lost Peter David Transformer story "The Love Bug"
• Peter David's new book Artful
• Peter David's new Spider-Man 2099
• Peter David's upcoming Deadpool mini series Deadpool's Art of War
• Don't Rocket Punch Your Friends!

The Marvel in the 80s panel with (from L-R) Peter David, Danny Fingeroth, Bob McLeod, Al Milgrom, Alex Saviuk, and Greg LaRocque.

CARRIED AWAY!

The breaking of the 68th seal of the Roboplastic Apocalypse unleashes a pre-SuperCon excitement extravaganza! Then my van gets towed! Join the Nostrodomatron as I journey to the monthly comic book show to get my mind off of my family going on an Alaskan adventure without me and get my mind on the big Florida Supercon 2014 adventure awaiting me this upcoming weekend. Which fantastic guests with ties to Micronauts, ROM, and Shogun Warriors comics will be at Supercon? What uncomfortable questions will I probably ask them? Will I find the first appearance of Skippy the Jedi Droid in time for the con to get it signed? AND WHO THE HELL TOWED MY VAN? Find out all this and more in this I'VE GOT A BAD FEELING ABOUT THIS PARKING SPACE edition of the podcastalypse!

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DANG SKIPPY!

Florida Supercon 2014 is this 4th of July weekend and from the guest list it looks like they're going to have a couple comic book celebrities I have yet to embarrass myself in front of. First up is Peter David, who wrote the Dark of the Moon novelization where Megatron wins in the end! And if that isn't mind blowing enough, he is also the creative genius behind Skippy the Jedi Droid! Then there's Danny Fingeroth who didn't actually work on any books I was into but served as the character model for Donny Finkleberg, Robot Master! Joe Rubinstein inked the first seven issues of Micronauts AND the cover to ROM #1! And topping it all off is Al Milgrom, who edited Micronauts and Shogun Warriors from the start of those books, plus ROM starting with issue 18. If I can get to talk to any of these guys then maybe the $75 I paid for the four day admission will be worth it!

LION AROUND

I hit up the BTL Collectibles Show hoping to score a copy of the first comic book appearance of Skippy the Jedi Droid but I struck out. It was fun regardless and I scored some Sleepwalker issues and a couple Peter Porker the Spectacular Spider-Hams. Not much robotty action except for the Matchbox Lion and Gladiator Team Voltrons on the table with some worn chrome. Undaunted, I left to the comic shop (that I think is the oldest one in Miami) to continue my search for Skippy the Jedi Droid's first comic book appearance. If I had known what expensive misadventures awaited me there I would have gone straight home after BTL!

NAUT THE DROIDS I WAS LOOKING FOR

Well after the BTL Collectibles Show I drove over to A&M Comics in Miami and parked right outside the shop where I always have for the past five years and I went in. They did indeed have a copy of Star Wars Tales #1 featuring Skippy the Jedi Droid. They also had the yellowest AT-AT I have ever seen in my life. What was super crazy about this one is that it wasn't the old Kenner one from 1981, but the recent 2010 Hasbro redesigned version. How did such tremendous yellowing happen to such a new toy? I could only ponder that for a minute because I then spotted boxes and boxes of Micronauts toys up in the topmost shelves of the store! It turns out some guy sold them his childhood collection. The man would get a new Micronaut every time he did good in school and over time the collection grew and grew. I even saw a Terraphant box elsewhere in the store but it was empty. What I didn't know was that while I was inside screwing around looking at Micronauts, the tow truck was taking away my van! Meanwhile I was all excited about the Micronauts and the prices seemed reasonable. They were missing their inserts so each box just had parts inside. They wanted 10 bucks each for the Thorium and Neon Orbiters and 45 for Karza. They also had Microtron (who was missing a rubber tread), Biotron, Andromeda, and the Taurion for 40-75 dollars each if I remember right.

MANY BENJAMINS DIED FOR THIS INFORMATION

Well I'm all ready to go with my three Micronaut boxes and Star Wars Tales #1 when a guy who had been in the store browsing with me bursts back in all upset. They towed his car! And he parked in the same spot I did along the west wall of the comic shop. I listened to him be all mad at the comic shop owner and ask why this has never happened to him before. I had a feeling he parked where I did so I went out to look and sure enough, my van was gone. I left the stuff I was going to buy there in the store and walked 20 minutes to the tow truck place to get my van. I'm glad I didn't blow the 70 dollars I was going to spend at the comic shop on Micronauts toys and Star Wars comics because it ended up costing $104 to get my van back. I don't think the other guy got his car because he just didn't have the money. That gas station near the comic shop is run by a bunch of bastards. If you ever go to A&M I hope you can figure out where to park. Also, fuck Chevron Miami to Unicron's butthole!

SHOW NOTES OF THE PODCASTALYPSE

• Toys R Us Transformers Kre-O event I didn't go to
• Florida Supercon 2014
• The comic adaptation of Skippy the Jedi Droid
• The original prose version of Skippy the Jedi Droid
• Heading to the BTL Collectibles Show
• Peter David's blog
• Peter David's Dark of the Moon adaptation with a different ending than the movie
• The lost Peter David Transformer story "The Love Bug"
• Plight of the Bumblebee from US TF #16
• Peter David's store appearance nightmare stories
• Youseph's blog will attempt to contact TF comic letter writers
• My goofy answers to the Trans Missions podcast 2013 comic poll
• Peaking as a podcast listener then retiring
• Youseph's review of Transformers 42 where my letter was originally printed
• The interview with a guy who got his letter printed in Transformers #5
• Existential angst over answering Transformer fan questions
• My copy of Transformers #1 signed by Bob Budiansky and Bill Seinkewicz
• Not getting comics signed by artists when you meet them
• The psychological nature of autograph hunting by Seth Godin
• BREAK-PMOP commercial
• An Al Milgrom podcast interview at FirestormFan.com
• BREAK-GoBots commercial
• Hellacious visit to A&M Comics

SATURDAY NAUT FEVER!

Special guest Jack Fields and I fire up the GoBackatron 1977thousand for a look back at the first year of Micronauts! This one's about Elvis, it's about the Bee Gees, it's about the Star Wars, but mostly it's about Darth Vader centaurs with laser beam eyes. Proper show notes later but for now all you need to know is that Jack's film Happy Memories is screening at PalmCon this weekend!

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We are all a bunch of toy people (and other reasons the Annunaki like to mess with us)

Like a long dreaded visit from the sun's evil twin Nibiru, the 61st episode of the Roboplastic Podcastalypse is finally upon us! Marvel at the hidden knowledges I uncover as I report from the floor of Tampa Bay Comic Con 2013 in search of interviews with toy robot collecting illuminati Ed Sanford of Robot-Japan.com and legendary artist/illustrator Pat Broderick. Revelations abound as I get to hear which one of them is creating an ancient alien comic on the origins of mankind and which one of them is doing an ancient toy robots party in Florida. I also get to hear one dollar GoBots cause a mass extinction of money from my wallet. Plus I finally get to do a segment called "Things I Always Wanted to ask Pat Broderick". Listen to me seize this rare opportunity by asking the classic Marvel Micronaut artist trivial stuff like what is the correct pronunciation of "Commander Rann" and forgetting to ask him important stuff like who would win in a fight between Darth Vader and Baron Karza. When is the next Robot-Japan Summit? What did Pat Broderick think about the Annunaki-ish engineers in Prometheus? How much can one man learn about life, the place of mankind in the universe, and the current secondary market value of loose GoBots in Tampa Bay? Find out all that and more in this PARADISE MAY HAVE ALL THE GOLD BUT I'LL BE DOWN HERE WITH ALL THE ROBOTS edition of the podcastalypse!

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I finally got to talk Micronauts (and Annunaki) with Pat Broderick!


TBCC'13 had lots and lots of robots. New ones, old ones, and even some Ro-Guns.


Alen Yen's Mach-5 and Ed's rare yellow Gatchaman G1 at Robot-Japan's booth


Big Red Head Collectible's impressive display I mentioned at the end of the show



SHOW NOTES OF THE PODCASTALYPSE

COMING SOON!

Oh please ghost of Christmas past take me back to 1978 I have been a bad boy

So the other night I was watching that musical version of "A Christmas Carol" where Sir Alec Guiness played Jacob Marley and I realized that going to hell is actually not a bad price to pay for time travel. When I got to thinking about it, Scrooge accomplished what Einstien and eveybody else who wishes they could relive the 1980s could only dream of. He traveled through time both backwards and forwards and all he had to do was be cheap and a little stingy for most of his adult life. Hell I can do that and I'm already pretty cheap. Somebody tell me how bad do I have to be for Obi-Wan Kenobi to give me a ride to 1978?

Carsons 10 December 1978


IT ISN'T CHRISTMAS 1978 UNLESS AT LEAST ONE PRESENT COMES IN A BOX BIGGER THAN YOU

Here we have a really cool ad from Carsons (they're still around!) that is unlike most of the ads I've seen for old robots in a lot of ways. Not only does it qualify as a robotastic smorgasbord as defined in episode 32, but it also has a bunch of loose robots hanging out AND there's an actual kid in the shot. It's more than an ad-it's a vicarious 1978 Christmas experience. This must have been what it was like to be a dad during Christmas Day of 1978 looking down on all the money you blew on robots as your kid gently breaks their arms off one by one, loosing all their pieces while you dread how much of a pain in the ass it's gonna be to put that Micronaut Microrail City together. I once read that Baron Karza's motivation for being evil was he wanted to become immortal by committing such horrendously inhumane atrocities that he'd loose all his humanity. But I think the real reason was he just wanted Ben Kenobi to give him another crack at Carson's tremendous Micronauts sale that ended December 17th all those years ago.

Rudolph was a Cylon!

THE PULSATING RED NOSE TOTALLY GIVES IT AWAY

Santa's piloting a Colonial Viper in this Hecht's ad from October 25, 1978. And what an ad it is. It's got a great riff on the Santa reindeer roll call and some great toys from Battlestar Galactica, Star Wars, Micronauts and they even threw in a StarBird. I think it's the only ad I've seen for the Star Wars three packs. Also cool is how they call a spade a spade and describe the Micronauts as "dolls".