Open Letter to Fun Productions re: The Official Transformers Club

In recent times, I've failed to post pretty much anything related to Transformers. I have been remiss. Hopefully, this will go toward rectifying that error. For some background to this open letter (which I intend to actually send to Fun Productions after it has sat public for a little bit, so as to generate comments that will enable me to add/edit/delete comments and make the letter as effective as it can be), I encourage folks to read my other comments on the subject. However, I should emphasize that my comments here will be dedicated to the club, and not the convention, as those comments were.

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To: Brian Savage, owner of Fun Publications
Re: Suggestions for The Official Transformers Collectors' Club

It has been almost a year since the announcement that Fun Publications would be the new licensee of the Transformers collectors' club. In that time, we have gotten a club that has largely met its deadlines, and delivered on most of its promises. This is in stark contrast to the previous owners of the club who, while having grand dreams, made a lot promises that they were not able to keep. As I'm sure you're aware, this has caused a fair bit of frustration in the Transformers fan community. I recognize that you have already gotten a fair amount of mail from fans who would like to see things done differently, and can speak from personal experience that, when I myself have sent such mail, you have been diligent to respond to each letter personally. This is greatly appreciated. Likewise, the efforts of Pete Sinclair to respond to threads on some of the more popular message boards is appreciated.

Nonetheless, there persists a sentiment in the Transformers fan community that, when legitimate concerns have been articulated, the response received has been one of indifference at best or outright contempt at worst. I'm confident that this has not been your intention. But the point remains that fans seem to feel that concerns are being dismissed without adequate attention or reflection. It is my hope that this perception may be overcome as positive changes are seen in the coming year.

I recognize that some of the things fans would like to see are simply not economically feasible. We are all very aware of the economic failings of the previous license holder, and no one wants to see a return to that situation. Nevertheless, I feel that there are a few aspects of the club that can be improved without detriment to Fun Publications. I should also make clear that I will keep my comments confined to the collectors' club, and not the convention, which I see as a separate entity.

With regard to potential improvements to the club, I would like to address the following issues:

1. Shipping for items from the club store;
2. Cost of merchandise at the club store;
3. The Master Collector magazine; and
4. Club exclusives.

1. Shipping for items from the club store: When I recently ordered the 2005 Botcon program from the club store, I paid over $6 for Priority Mail postage. This is an item that could have safely been shipped in a "Flat Rate" Priority Mail envelope for only $3.85. An option for First Class shipping would have been even cheaper. Since that time, I note that you have changed the option on your web site to encourage buyers to telephone a customer service representative to get a more reasonable shipping rate. But this is something that should be encoded into the web site itself, rather than causing potential buyers the inconvenience of having to telephone a representative after having already visited the web site. I am under the impression that other members have found shipping prices to be unreasonable, as well. I cannot speak personally with regard to international shipping, but have read several posts on the message boards that international rates are well above what it actually costs to ship the items being sent. It seems to me that, if Fun Publications actually is having to pay these higher shipping costs, then it is incumbent upon Fun Publications to explore other shipping options. If lower-cost shipping options risk lower quality shipping, Fun Publications can make these risks clear to the consumer. However, the consumer should be given the option of taking such risks.

2. Cost of merchandise at the club store: I do not expect Fun Publications to "take a loss" in selling merchandise on their site. It is to be expected that prices for toys purchased from the club store will be, at best, only slightly less than purchasing from another online source, even for club members. But the non-member prices are simply absurd. Rather than pay the membership fee or the exhorbitant non-member prices, non-members will simply spend their money at another online site, and that means lost revenue for Fun Publications. I'm curious as to whether any items have ever been sold from the club store at non-member prices, the prices are so high! To at least some extent, purchasing merchandise at a reasonable price should be one of the benefits of club membership, but when members are almost as well off to buy from another store, and non-members are definitely better off to do so, there is little incentive to become a club member or to shop at the club store.

3. The Master Collector magazine: This is highlighted as one of the benefits of club membership. But the magazine is basically just a collection of classified ads, and I don't know of any fans that find it valuable. In fact, I have read many comments on message boards that consider it a waste of paper. If Transformers fans wish to sell something, we tend to find we are better off using the message boards, or even eBay (despite the costs involved in using that particular service). Although Master Collector is the featured publication of Fun Publications, I would suggest that fans would be served just as well if they were only sent the bi-monthly Transformers Club magazine. This would result in saved shipping costs to club members (only having to send every other month) and presumably lowered printing costs (as you wouldn't have to print so many Master Collector magazines), thereby freeing up funds for other club benefits without damaging Fun Publications financially.

4. Club exclusives: I have saved this for last because I feel that it is the most easily dealt with, and in fact might be taken care of anyway now that Fun Publications has dealt with the struggles of the first year of running the club. However, I have been extremely disappointed not to be given the opportunity to purchase any club exclusives this year (besides the "freebie" exclusive I got for joining, which I am very happy with). While I am aware that creating an exclusive is a costly endeavor, it seems to me that Fun Publications could have made one more recolor out of one of the molds already being used for the Botcon exclusives and set that recolor aside as a club exclusive. This would have satisfied my own desire to see at least one exclusive this year, while costing Fun Publications far less than if the exclusive had been made out of a mold not already being used. Ideally, I would hope to see two or three exclusives per year (again, not counting the annual "freebie"), but I would be satisfied with one annually.

I trust that you will find these comments to be reasonable as well as to represent the kind of changes that may be implemented without damaging Fun Publications' bottom line. I truly do wish the club to be a success. However, if changes are not implemented, it is difficult to state that I am getting $40 worth of value out of the club in a year's time, and I would therefore be reticent to renew my membership in the future. I'm quite confident that I am not alone in my opinion.

Thank you for your time.

RIP Michael Piller

Unless you're a fairly avid follower of Star Trek, you've probably never heard of Michael Piller, nor have heard that he lost his struggle with cancer yesterday. Piller is credited with breathing new life into the Trek franchise after the first couple of years of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and co-created both of the Trek's that followed (Deep Space Nine and Voyager). Oddly enough, my reason for remembering him on my blog here has little to do with Star Trek, but rather because of another show Piller was involved in, which provided the venue for my very first foray into web page design.

If you read the obituary carefully, you'll see a quick mention of a show called Legend that Piller co-created with a man named Bill Dial (although the obituary doesn't mention Dial). Legend was a short-lived series that aired on UPN back in 1995 (UPN's first year of existence, a time when very few parts of the country even had UPN programs on a dedicated UPN station). Legend was a Western drama with a Sci-Fi edge, starring Richard Dean Anderson (formerly of MacGyver, more recently known for Stargate SG-1) and John de Lancie (best known as "Q" from the modern versions of Star Trek).

The series told the tale of Ernest Pratt (played by Anderson), a dime novelist who often has to portray his novel character, Nicodemus Legend, in real life to appease the publicity needs of his publisher. This is often a struggle, as Legend is the stereotypical hero: doesn't drink, gamble, or have illicit relations with women, while the very human Pratt enjoys all these things. When the character of Legend is accused of illegally changing the course of a river, denying water rights to a wealthy landowner in Colorado, Pratt must go to clear his name. He soon learns that Hungarian scientist Janos Bartok (de Lancie) has achieved this feat by scientific means, in order to help some poor farmers who were being denied rights by this landowner. Bartok has used the identity of the fictional hero Legend in order to protect his own identity so that he might continue his scientific research undisturbed. Faced with the reality that his actions may cause Pratt to face legal difficulty, Bartok agrees to help Pratt to clear his name. But faced with the prospect of denying the poor farmers their livelihood, Pratt decides to accept the responsibility for changing the course of the river, and he and Bartok start to work together against the landowner, who has been trying to drive farmers away from the nearby land they legally own so that she might profit from illegal contracts that would bring a railroad into town, leading to huge profits to those in on the deal. To this end, Pratt accepts the identity of his fictional hero, Nicodemus Legend, for real. After the landowner is brought to justice, Bartok convinces Pratt to stay in town and be a hero on a more permanent basis. As the series progresses, Pratt continues to struggle to maintain his bohemian lifestyle while being called to the higher ideals of the hero he is forced to portray, partly by his publisher, but also by the fact that, deep down, he really does want to help people.

Faced with low ratings (caused by the fact that, at the time, few people knew the difference between UPN and UPS, a paraphrase from de Lancie) and a corporate shake-up at UPN, Legend was cancelled after only 12 episodes (along with all of UPN's first year of programming, with the exception of Star Trek: Voyager, which had been guaranteed a two-year commitment.). About a year later, I opened "The Unofficial Nicodemus Legend Page," which I ran for over five years, and am pleased to be able to say was regarded as the foremost Legend page in existence at the time. I stopped working on the page as I took on other commitments, but if you go to the Wayback Machine and search for "http://NicodemusLegend.web.com," you should still be able to find some of what I had done a few years ago.

I invite you to have a look, and see Michael Piller's other legacy.

Introducing G.B. Blackrock

When talking with a friend of mine (who has seen my blog) the other day, I was asked about the little head that appears as my icon on Blogger. Clearly, this isn't my face! (Actually, the current picture is, but it wasn't so at the time) It occurred to me that I've never explained on the blog itself what that is, and that now is a good time to do so.

The head is part of a customized action figure I kitbashed some months ago to resemble G.B. Blackrock. Long-time Transformers fans will know that Blackrock was an important character in the early Marvel Transformers comics. Blackrock was an oil tycoon who, after having several of his energy plants attacked by the evil Decepticons, formed an alliance with the heroic Autobots. In exchange for their protection from future attacks, he provided them with a source of fuel. Toward the end of the Marvel series, Blackrock reappeared to form an "X-Men"-like group of heroic mutants, dubbed the "Neo-Knights," to assist in protecting Earth from the Decepticons.

The idea for my figure came from a similar figure created by long-time Transformers fan Zobovor, using a J. Jonah Jameson figure from the Spider Force line of toys of quite a few years ago. For my figure, I used the more recent J. Jonah Jameson figure that came out with the first Sony Spider-Man movie. The picture to the right representing this figure came from www.toymania.com. I picked up my figure from Target on clearance for under $2.

As with Zobovor's figure, I was glad to find that the vest was a separate piece from the rest Jameson's shirt. Or at least, it was in part. Only the front proved to be removable, leaving the back of the vest, which was molded into the rest of the figure. This needed to be smoothed over with modeling putty.

Another aspect of the figure that needed major reconstruction was the huge lever sticking out of the back. The idea was that you could move this lever up and down to make the figure smash it's fist on top of a desk that was included with it, making lots of "cups" and "papers" on the desk wiggle about. I had no need of the desk, nor of the lever, and it had to go. I cut as much of it away as I could with pruning shears (which I don't recommend if you want to keep the shears in good shape!) and filled in the rest with putty.

There were three other areas of the figure that needed noticable, if minor, structural change. One was the head, as Blackrock's haircut is not at all similar to Jameson's. Again, I followed Zobovor's lead and used putty. Another area was the tie. The folks who made the Jameson toy cheated a bit on the tie, only making just enough of it to be visible above the vest. Once the vest was removed, it was obvious that the tie was WAY too short! I used putty to lengthen the tie to a more realistic size. The final thing was glasses. For these, I cut a piece of plastic out of the remnants of a small Transformer package, used a black paint marker to create "rims," and glued the resulting glasses to the head after the whole thing was repainted.

Unlike Zobovor's figure, which he claims only took a couple of hours, I painted my figure over the course of several weeks, often adding a new coat once one had dried to make sure that none of the pin-stripes of Jameson's shirt showed through the white. I use acrylics, both in paint markers and in jars using a brush. I find that they dry more thoroughly on plastics than enamels, and acrylics hide brush errors more forgivingly.

The end result now sits on top of my bookshelf, and I've used an image of the head as my avatar not only here, but on several of the Transformers message boards I frequent, where I often go by the alias of G.B. Blackrock. As with this board, I usually only give my real name in personal e-mails, rather than on the public boards. It's not that I don't want people to know who I am, so much as I choose to avoid spam in this way. For similar reasons, I tend to avoid using the name of the seminary I work for, even though most of my friends (who also go to the same school) obviously know it already!

BotCon Aftermath

BotCon, the official Transformers convention, has come and gone. As I indicated earlier, I did not go. Both the cost and the timing made it impossible. However, I have been able to keep up with most of the news via several Transformers news and message boards. For the most part, it seems that the convention was fairly well run, but the general feeling I get from many of the fans who attended is "they really don't get us."

By way of background, Fun Productions (henceforth referred to as "FP"), the current organizers of BotCon, have been running the GI Joe convention for nearly a decade. This is the first year that FP has organized the Transformers convention, and so they largely adapted the model for toy conventions that they know: that of the Joe convention. It was largely understood by everybody that this was the best way to do the convention in a short span of time (9 months after getting the license), and that while not everything would work as well for Transformers as they did for Joes, it was better do it this way than the reinvent the wheel with untried (or previously tried and failed) methods. Even though FP often took a "trust us, we know what we're doing" attitude that largely alienated Transformers fans with legitimate criticisms, many of us decided that it was best to wait until after this convention was over and allow FP the benefit of the doubt.

So, did they know what they were doing? In large part, yes. However, the dealer room was quite a bit smaller than usual. The art room was decimated to the point where all the entries fit on a small table, and the expensive exclusive toys were produced in such small numbers that no one who wasn't there will ever be able to afford any on the secondhand market unless they have tons of disposable income. Perhaps this web comic explains some of the feelings the best.

But probably the most telling sign that FP doesn't understand Transformers fans was the dinner. I found this statement at the Allspark forums:

The dinner was a perfectly good beef meal. For everyone. There was no spot on our prereg forms to specify if we wanted a different meal. Can't eat beef due to religious or medical reasons? Allergic to one of the other items on your plate? You're gonna have to send it back, and you're gonna have to wait up to half an hour for something else. Real American Heroes don't have such pissant concerns.

Mr. Savage made absolutely no effort to cater to vegetarians, or anybody who might not want to eat beef. This might work fine for Joe fans (who, as a commenter has observed, are a more "Republican" group. Not suprising for fans of a military toy line), but Transformers fans are a more diverse bunch, and people might not want a "red-blooded-American meal" for a variety of reasons: personal, health, religious, etc. While non-beef eaters were eventually given other options, it was only after they sent back their steak and complained, and then they had to wait half an hour. Even worse was this story, which tells of a person who can't eat mushrooms, who turned in his steak with mushrooms only to recieve chicken with mushrooms!

But even more disturbing was the fact the Mr. Savage interrupted the meal for a prayer. I first learned about this through a throwaway comment on Walky's blog, but this paragraph after what I just quoted from Allspark says it much better:

About 10 minutes into dinner, Savage came over the PA to lead us in saying grace. Maybe this goes over okay with the Joe fans. We're not the Joe fans. Everyone with an interest in saying a Christian prayer over their meal had already done so, with their own families around their own table, well before Savage chimed in. Everyone else was embarrassed or offended. But it's okay, because Jews and other undesirables aren't Real American Heroes.

Mr. Savage not only alienated a lot of non-Christian Transformers fans (which, I'm sad to say, is probably the majority of Transformers fans), but he embarrased most of the Christians, who (as was already noted) had already said grace if they were so inclined.

I have to admit to being rather torn on this one. As an evangelical Christian, I'm not unsympathetic to the argument that Christians should not be afraid to demonstrate their faith, even in secular, public forums. But this crosses a line for me. Mr. Savage wasn't just demonstrating his faith, he was forcing everyone else to participate in it. While I do believe that Christianity is the "one, true, way" (even though I'm not willing to be any more specific as regards any Christian denomination), I do not believe that one should force someone to participate in a Christian act of worship. A person comes to Christ themselves (or more properly, through an act of God), if at all. They cannot be forced into it. The prayer at the BotCon dinner was totally bad form.

So, the end verdict? Lots of style, but the substance leaves a lot to be desired. Time will tell if FP has learned from the experience.

Transformers Reviews for Non-Transformers People: Bumblebee

While most of my friends tend not to be Transformers fans themselves, they're generally kind enough to show a general interest, if only because they care about me and know that I'm a Transformers fan. They don't really understand my own interest, but they'd like to understand a "little bit," in order to better understand me. I'm grateful that they care enough to try.

In that vein, I'll try here to give a little bit of background on one of the main characters. The Autobot known as Bumblebee.

Now, the first thing you need to know, when I use the term "Autobot," I'm referring to the "good guy" faction of Transformers. There are a few others, most notably the "Decepticons," who are the usual "bad guys." Now that we're clear on that, on to Bumblebee himself....

In the Transformers cartoon, Bumblebee is most familiar as the Transformer who spent all his spare time running around with the main human character, Spike. Because of Bumblebee's comparative small size, he was able to interact more easily with humans, and he had a very warm and likeable personality.

Bumblebee was able to transform into a small, yellow, Volkswagen Beetle. While not quite as ubiquitous as "Herbie" back in the early '80s, this made him instantly recognizable.

The original toy version of Bumblebee was one of the less expensive Transformers available back when the line first came out, which no doubt added to his popularity. His transformation was very simple: push the arms in, fold the feet down and push the legs up, fold the head over, and you're done!

This character was so popular, in fact, that three other toy versions of Bumblebee were made available by the time the original line ended in 1990, representing six of those seven years (1988 seems to be the odd year out) making Bumblebee the most readily-available character of the original Transformers toy line!

Exclusivity

If there's one thing that Transformers fans can agree on, it's that we like to argue a lot. Is Rumble red and Frenzy blue (as the toys had it), or is it the other way around (closer to the cartoon's interpretation)? Could (giant-planet eating Transformer) Unicron destroy the Death Star? Was the former "Official Transformers Collector's Convention" owner a crooked businessman, or was he just in over his head?

Now that the convention (and the official fan club) has passed on to a "more legitimate" business, fans have been disecting the offerings of the convention to see if they come up to snuff. There has been a lot of debate about whether or not exclusives are even a good idea. Some fans think it's little more than an excuse for some fans to say "Look! I'm better than you! I have the exclusive!" But most debate has centered on how these exclusives measure up to exclusives of the past. Today, the folks behind the convention just announced the full set of 7 boxed exclusives available for pre-order. While I haven't seen the comments now that the last two of these have been officially revealed. I've seen enough of the previous comments (and predictions on these two which have turned out to be correct) to guess the verdict: they don't measure up well at all.

Now, to be fair, I've had my own criticisms on this set. And I still stand by many of them. $265 is far too much for me to be spending on Transformers toys. Especially now that we know that 5 of the 7 are "basics" (generally accepted as the smallest size, although this isn't technically true), and 1 is a repaint of another one within this set, and that another is misnamed for the character it's intended to represent. But, also to be fair, the $265 price tag isn't really intended to be the price of these toys. It's intended to be the price of the convention and the toys. The toys are intended to make up (roughly) about $120 of that cost. The fact that the toys are offered for pre-order to people who can't or won't attend the convention is actually something of a bonus.

But the sheer amount of vitriol expended on these things is really ridiculous. Okay, so they're all repaints of toys that have been available before. That's nothing new, and in fact it's likely to always be that way. So they're repaints of less than impressive molds, some of which are actually still warming shelves in stores right now. I grant that. So being forced to pay for all 7 of the toys, rather than picking one or two we like, is a burden we've not had to deal with before. I agree. So the recolors, especially for Ironhide, seem less than inspired. Yes, perhaps they could have done more. Some fans have even gone so far as to complain that Ironhide was too obvious and "fanwanky" a choice. Well, duh! The mold has always looked like a good fit for this classic character, and if you can't do "fanwanky" at the offical fan convention, then where can you do it?

The fact is that, because of the former convention runner's bankruptcy and loss of the convention (and club) license, this new group had to be brought on board fairly late in the game, and it's understandable that they would use the business model (including selling all 7 of the exclusives as a set, rather than allowing fans to buy just the ones they want) that has worked for them for nearly a decade (for the GI Joe convention), since the only other model that's been tried before for this kind of a convention clearly didn't work. I'm certainly not happy with all of the choices, and I've felt free to say so. But I hope that I've kept my criticisms of the convention constructive. And they'll certainly have the opportunity to make changes next year.

But face it, Transfans. The exclusives for this year are set. They're not going to change. If you don't want to buy them, don't. If you're still going to the convention, but don't want the toys, it's only $9 per day to get in at the door, and you can still buy whatever loose toys the vendors wish to sell. If you're not going to the convention, but have paid for the non-attendee package, ask for your money back! Surely the $25 (so I hear) non-refundable part pales in comparison to the extra $240 you could be spending on toys you actually like. For those who haven't already paid yet, but you only like one or two, you can almost certainly get that one or two off of eBay for less than the cost of the whole package, even at eBay's generally inflated prices. Even better for those who did pay for the whole set, but like only one or two: you can sell the ones you don't like, and possibly end up making more money than you spent!

But could we have an end to the cursing, name-calling, and general hate that's going on out there? Constructive criticism is one thing, but what I've been seeing lately is something rather different altogether.

P.S. I actually think the box is quite nice-looking....

The Transformers Creation Debate

People who have not followed the various forms of Transformers fiction over the past 20+ years will no doubt be surprised to learn that there's been a long-standing debate within the fandom over how the Transformers were created, often with religious implications. This has arisen because the various forms of fiction (cartoon, comic book, toy packaging, and others) were often created independently of each other, and so often came up with conflicting accounts of parallel events.

For example, the 1980's comic book version of The Transformers followed up on threads from Transformers: The Movie by making the movie's giant planet-eating Transformer, Unicron, into a "dark god," necessitating the creation of a counterpart to fight him. This counterpart was called "Primus," and the comic says that Primus created the Transformers (and their planet, Cybertron) to fight Unicron.

The 1980's cartoon ignored Primus completely, but said instead that the Transformers were created by a race of aliens called the "Quintessons," semi-robotic creatures with five faces that rotated around their single head to depict various emotional states. According to the cartoon, the Transformers were created as robotic tools that eventually developed sentience and rebelled against their creators. Unicron had nothing to do with this origin, but it is established in the cartoon that he was similarly created by a kind of "mad scientist" named "Primacron" for reasons of his own, but that Unicron also got out of control.

Fans of the Quintesson origin decry the establishment of "religion" in the Transformers fiction, often arguing that their version is more "believable" than the "god origin" and often suggest that the Primus/Unicron story goes too far toward the hyperbole of making the Transformers "the absolute most important beings in the entire universe." Primus fans, on the other hand, not only don't have a problem with religious elements in the story, but exhalt the depth that such a religion brings to the characterization of the Transformers, often noting that not all Transformers are "followers of Primus," and in fact multiple religions and interpretations have nonetheless surfaced.

As is often the case with long-standing fictional universes with apparent contradictions, there have been attempts to meld the two origin stories together in recent years. Primus, in one version, created the Transformers, but the Quintessons occupied the planet Cybertron and used the not-yet-sapient Transformers for their own purposes, aiding in their creation. But these are almost all (with one possible exception) merely fan attempts to weave a coherent continuity, and are not generally considered "official."

But what really intrigues me is the question of why science fiction fans (of which Transformers fans have a right to consider themselves a part) seem to find it so much more believable to suggest that Transformers (or humans, depending on the genre) might have been "created" by some alien visitors from outer space than by any kind divine being. While this tendency is by no means universal (as has already been demonstrated), it seems to me that the idea that humans were "planted" by an alien race (see Stargate SG-1, an excellent program, for an example of this) requires at least as much suspension of disbelief as the idea that God created us. Especially when one considers the question of where the aliens originally came from! This, of course, does not enter into the "creation vs. evolution" debate, which is also touched upon in great detail in science fiction, but which is beyond my purposes here. Here I'm merely talking about creation (be it evolutionary or otherwise) as "engineered" by some other entity, be that entity alien or god.

I've probably already made my own bias for the "Primus origin" clear. I've really never cared much for the Quintessons as characters. I found them far too ineffectual to be viable "Transformer progenitors." Probably my own belief in the existence of a God (big "G") makes the fictional version of a Transformers god (small "g") more plausible.

The debate continues....