BotCon '97 Journal and Notes Saturday -------- woke around 7:20 went to opening ceremony with Nick, stood with Phil Zeman, Rob Jung Ben Yee, Doug Dlin - Hartman's play greeting tape from Welker we cut in the preregistration line, joining Ben Yee near the front some _great_ art, as always sit with Ben and Phil for Peter Cullen panel looked around dealer room, will buy bumper sticker went down street for Arby's and a Coke Bob Forward panel, sit with Andrew Frankel, Phil, Gordon Ho, in front Bob and Larry knew very little TF stuff before cartoony aspects come from Mainframe; Bob and Larry originally objected, but let it go to lessen the impact of the violence bad-ass chaingun is officially Rhinox's gun's name, thanks to ATT "Dark Side" wasn't meant as a ship name, but is now unnofficial knows nothing of a MW series "The Low Road", written by Bob in under 8 hours, approved by Larry immediately, accepted without any changes Hasbro wants more BW! Fuzors should be cool season 2 starts in fall, Preds will be played up but still squabble most TransCon rumors from Doug Parker are true 3 new characters, all males, for season 2: Silverbolt by Scott McNeil, Quickstrike by a GI Joe Extreme actor, and unknown Pred ape Primal needed flight because when they chose characters for the show, Batimus was the only flier they had on the Maximals Hasbro Interactive has 50%, pre-alpha version of PSX game Quiz Show starts late, since Bob Forward session ran over Eric "E" Pronko wins first round in a blowout tie between a 20something and a 8-10 year old in round two Furman / Wildman panel "No one else can write Transformers, really" -- Andy, about Si Andy liked to portray TFs in a more human way, but started more mechanical until Rob Tokar took over as editor "You can't kill Optimus Prime" -- Simon Derek Yaniger was s-l-o-w, took three months to do G2 #1, which is why his contributions dwindled Si killed Nightbeat because it's too easy to only kill secondary chars that you don't care about Si likes BW! So does Andy. they'd like to do a BW, if asked Hasbro gave most creative control to them, but Marvel made their typical restrictions _Bravestar_ was Andy's first real project Dinner - confusion, huge group, no pizza, some of us (Hex, Tengu, Vulcana, Doug, Phil, M Sipher, A Frankel, Stan) eat in-hotel Concert begins with Unicron theme - Vince's music is almost all excellent, Stan's was mediocre, they played Copland beforehand After concert my room fills w/ DALnetters, names I know are Helgi and Sean Holshu Sunday ------ wake up around 7:20, get up around 7:40 arrive to Kaye / Terzo panel late no huge news, but fun, they were cool get a Hilton room for tonight, moved out and in again Bush / DiCola panel didn't hear much, had to leave at beginning, go back, leave early for the movie MSTing they like and admire each other not too interesting overall MST3K session funny overall, sometimes hard to understand what they said damn dealer kept throwing toys into the room, and acted confused when I told him to stop nothing in town open on Sunday HasKen panel unreleased G1 toy designs - ooo! but no photos allowed 98 / 99 line already in planning these 2 work directly w/ Takara, the _only_ ones they make the general ideas, cooperate w/ Takara to finalize TFs are reverse engineered, beginning with models toys and show often look very different bc this is one of the few lines where the toys are designed first they _do_ want the toys and show to match, though MW is "in negotiation" for continuation toys bigger than Megarex are coming... still Ultra? small waves of new toys every 2-3 months "possibly" making bases or ships, "no comment" on triple changers and more gestalts bios basically provided by designers "no comment" on metal toys if they're not doing something "right", tell Ben to tell them Fuzors are one of three "segments" of the line remakes of current toys that look better and have a middle vehicle- like mode -> TransMetals, a second "segment" Quiz Show round three: Tengu and Josh / Prowl go up, Tengu won by a landslide final round also won by Tengu final walk about Dealer Room munch on some pecan twirls back for art contest winners yarn masters win prizes again... oh no! closing ceremony first show, 175 people, this year 600-700 550 exclusive figure sets release of the Welker tape is iffy due to copyright stuff Si Furman wrote the names on the cards, Andy signed his name Glen Hallit gives an awesome smile to his wife during a low spot convention costs between $100-150 thousand, they took a lot of loss official ending go back to my room