Once upon a time there was a guy named Thundercracker. He was just a boring ol' redeco of Starscream.  (Or vice versa.  S'hard to tell.)  Starscream was way popular and managed to be one of the first handful of original Transformers toys that got second and third toys.  Starscream got a Classic Pretender toy, an Action Master toy... but Thundercracker was kind of a nobody, so he didn't get that kind of attention.

But when he did get that kind of attention, yikes!  As I said, he was kind of a nobody.  So unlike Starscream, who was important enough to keep his appearance mostly intact during those years, Thundercracker could apparently look damn near like anything!  And so, after Generation 1 ended in North America, and Action Masters continued in Europe, Thundercracker got his second toy.  And, oh lord, it is probably the craziest damn color scheme you'll ever see on a Transformer.  He was purple.  And maroon.  And blue.  And green.  And gold.

It is a color scheme so insane that it crosses the threshold from insane terrible into insane awesome.

Who will dare to homage Action Master Thundercracker?  Certainly not Hasbro!  What retailer would carry this thing?  I mean, look at it.  No, this task would fall to Fun Publications, who could probably target just the very handful of people who'd care about the homage.  And, y'know, hopefully avoid the folks who look at it, go WHAT THE HELL, and then continue on about their day.

Technically, this BotCon toy is Shattered Glass Thundercracker, Thundercracker's mirrorverse counterpart.  You're allowed to be crazy colors in mirrorverses!  And so he  has a red Decepticon symbol on his shoulder.  But, dude, c'mon.  Action Master Thundercracker.  The Holy Grail of insane Transformers callbacks.  The one you thought they'd never do, and by "they" you mean "EVERYONE ON EARTH."  BotCon did an admirable job matching the colors on Action Master Thundercracker's nonstransformable figure to this Classics Seeker mold.  The Action Master didn't have arm-guns or proper wings, so those kind of end up whatever the plastic sprue breakdowns allowed, but otherwise he's spot-for-spot accurate.

But my favorite thing is his jetmode.  Action Master Thundercracker never had a jetmode, because, y'know, he was an Action Master.  And so we finally get to see what kind of cracked-out jet mode Action Master Thundercracker would transform into.  And the answer is... yeah, pretty cracked out.  His wings are purple, his body is maroon, his intakes are randomly green, and then right down the middle of his nose the colors swap from maroon to purple.  That's my favorite part.  I love that there is absolutely no attempt at vehicle mode cohesion.  This toy is all about robot mode accuracy to something that never was really supposed to have a jet mode.

(Oh, hey, stealth homage.  His wings are done up like the wings to Action Master Thundercracker's "Solo Mission Jet Plane," his Action Master transformable exo-suit.  Neat.  That might also be where the green intakes are from, who knows.)

One small flaw in this toy being Shattered Glass Thundercracker and not the original Thundercracker proper is that it negates the awesome and/or tragic story that would involve such a drastic color shift.   I mean, consider Thundercracker, the fictional character.  For millions of years, he's this dark blue and black and silver guy.  Pretty conservative.  But then, out of no where, he's this purple and blue and green and every other color monstrosity.  What's the story behind that?  Did he have a stroke?  Is this a personal visual statement?  Is he attracting a mate?  Did someone paint him up like this as a gag and he's too colorblind to notice?  Did he lose a bet?

These are the questions that keep me up at night.

One of BotCon 2011's add-on sets included Toxitron.  I'm sure most of you are asking, WHO THE HELL IS TOXITRON??  Well, until last weekend, nobody, really.  He is technically a new character.  However, he's one that has his roots.

See, years ago, there was a BotCon panel hosted by Rik Alvarez that showed various Transformers rarities.  One of them was a potential Generation 2 Laser Optimus Prime redeco in purple, gray, and green named "Toxitron."  A few BotCons later Toxitron was on display at the Hasbro Tour.  And so Toxitron, a guy who was never released, and a guy we'd never really know about otherwise, had built up a tiny bit of infamy.

So, hey, guess what.  Here's Animated Toxitron.  The concept of Toxitron fits pretty well into the sometimes (and thankfully) goofy Animated universe.  Toxitron's a tongue-in-cheek parody of Bizarro Superman, speech-pattern and all.  He's a not-so-good clone of Optimus Prime.  He drives backwards.  He's super-strong but not so smart.

And, yeah, he's a sickly green, purple, and gray.

I think my favorite aspect of him is the dripping orange splotches all over him.  There's some on the nozzle of his cannon, too, implying that the orange goop is something he also shoots, not just perspires.  (The gun, by the way, is a functioning water squirter.  Are he and Motor Master the only BotCon toys with water squirters?)

Who can't love Toxitron?  Nobody, that's who!

Omigod omigod omigod omigod omigod omigod omigod omigod omigod omigod omigod omigod omigod omigod omigod omigod omigod omigod omigod omigod omigod omigod omigod omigod omigod omigod omigod omigod omigod omigod omigod!

It's Ironfist!  He was the attendee exclusive figure!  If you bought a BotCon box set and came to the convention, he was yours for free!  Oh my lord!  Oh holy crap!

He's Autotrooper, but in orange and teal!  AND HE'S IRONFIST.  Who knew that Autotrooper's head painted up differently was like the perfect Ironfist!  Seriously, mo'fo'in' Ironfist!

IRONFIST.

Like, Last Stand of the Wreckers style!  ANIMATED LAST STAND OF THE WRECKERS IRONFIST.

Never has a more beautiful set of words been strung together.  Never ever.  This toy is my pride and joy.

Excuse me while I go change my pants.

Shattered Glass Megatron was my favorite toy from BotCon's Shattered Glass year.  And because BotCon simultaneously hates me while loving me with great booth real estate, here comes a toy to replace him.  Curses!  I don't want to replace my Megatron!  My Megatron is great!  That is a dumb idea!

But, see, a while ago Fun Publications scribe Jesse Wittenrich painted up his War Within Springer to be Galvatron, and it really really worked.  It was a pretty amazing idea that you have to see to believe, because, dude, who'd believe it otherwise?  A helicopter guy?  Meh!  But it does work.  And I guess it was such a great idea they decided to off Megatron and bring him back as that Galvatron design.  And now there's a toy of it.  A toy of it that came with something I really wanted, Shattered Glass Thundercracker, so it's not like there's any skipping it.

So here he is!  Galvatron's admittedly a very pretty toy, but his prettiness isn't my problem, it's the kicking of Megatron's toy the curb that's my problem.  Evac's always been a good toy, no matter who he's been redecoed into, and Galvatron's no exception.  Galvatron's probably even the prettiest of all of them.

(It's been noted that SG Megatron's Rumbler tank arm cannon thing can still attach to Galvatron's arm.  There's a 5mm peg on Galvatron's right arm and a 5mm screw hole on the underside of Rumbler.  So there's that continuity of arm-cannons going on as well in Galvatron's favor.)

So what I think I'm gonna do, since I'm not prepared to put my Megatron away, is use SG Galvatron as... Galvatron.  The "real" one.  Universe Galvatron's way too tiny and Energon Galvatron, the guy who I'd been repurposing as G1 Galvatron before, is way too big.  SG Galvatron's the right colors (sans the eyes) and he strikes the middle ground, size-wise.  He's neither a midget nor a giant.

Thus, I have not wasted my money, nor have I spurned one of my favorite toys.  Everyone's happy!  Kind of!

I've always wanted to do one of the annual BotCon customization classes, but never had before due to needing to fly in a day or two early.  I've got comics to draw!  But when this year's BotCon theme was revealed to be Transformers Animated, I had to ensure that I got in.  The customization toy is almost always a mold from that year's toy set, and I wasn't gonna miss a potential new Transformers Animated character.

And, hey, whaddya know.  Animated Minerva.  She's a white and red redeco of Animated Arcee (also used for Animated Drag Strip that year in the box set) with a new part that gives her antenna.  The piece doesn't alter the toy itself, rather, you place it inbetween the front and back halves of her head when you screw them together.  It's a very fragile piece, since it involves two thin stalks of resin, so I'm gonna have to be careful with her.  For the trip home, I folded her up into car mode and shoved her in the box set's foam insert area for Drag Strip.  Like hell was I gonna wad her up in my suitcase!

There's two classes, Wednesday and Thursday, with about 25 people per, and each participant is given a tray, tools, a booklet, and a big bag of unassembled parts, screws, and rivets.  The toy parts are all still on their plastic sprues.

The booklet outlines all of the tools you're gonna use, plus identifies each of the toy parts as being part of the torso, head, right arm, etc.   The first step is removing all of the plastic toy parts from the sprues and organizing them by these groups.  This, like basically everything in the class, is more difficult than one would imagine.  Very few of the parts come free cleanly.  Most you have to sand or knife away the excess residue.  But some you have to take, like, scissors to, because the connection point to the piece and the sprue is really thick.  Clamp down hard as you can, finally the piece gives way, it goes flying across the room...  and then you get to sand or cut away what's left of the sprue attachment point.

Once everything's removed and separated, you put the thing together piece by piece.  Most things are relatively easy to put together, but some things, like where the rivets go in, are difficult to work with.  There's rivets of various size, and the only difference between them is a millimeter or two.  (That's why you get a ruler!)  Once the correct rivet is sorted out, you have to try to get it through the joint you're trying to create.  This usually involved pliers.

As the toy's being assembled, it's probably smart to paint some things as you go.  The red on the top of her torso, for example, was something a lot of people airbrushed.  This involves taping around the sides of her torso piece so that the red doesn't go where you don't want it to.  I tried this out myself, but I ended up with a goopy red thing because I don't know what I'm doing.  So, woo, I ended up dumping the torso in the glass of delicious-looking clear blue thinner, sanding off what didn't wash off, and hand-painting the red instead.

After several hours, you're done.

It's rough, but very rewarding!  I feel very strong ownership over my Animated Minerva.  I made her!  I'm like her daddy!  AND NO DON'T TOUCH HER OH MY GOD THE ANTENNA.

Waspinator won the Fans Choice Transformers Hall of Fame thingy. You can't blame me for it this year!

UPDATE: I has a table. Look for Bumblebee!

So I'm not gonna have a table at BotCon.  I sent in my California sales permit form weeks ago, and it never came in the mail.  So after getting turned away at registration, I figger, okay, after putting together my customization class figure, I'll travel all the way across LA to Van Nuys to get the form in person.  No big.  Well, SORT of a big.  The trip requires three trains and a bus and then half an hour of walking to get to the office.  So of course after undertaking this FOUR HOUR TRIP, you get to the office and they laugh at you because the place is only open for a half hour more and they require ten more minutes than that to process your form!

I also asked about the form I faxed in weeks ago, wondering, hey, it might already be processed and I can just pick it up.  Ha ha ha, no.  It is not processed yet.  Obviously, California does not want my sales tax money.  I wonder why this state is friggin' broke.

So you go home, time wasted.

And I sure as hell ain't doing it again tomorrow morning.  I got crap I gotta do!

So, I guess, I am not meant to have a table at BotCon.  Things will apparently proceed as they have in years past.  You find me, obvious luau-shirt-wearing self that I am (it's red this year, not orange), and then if you want a book or a poster, I'll have them on me.  In my backpack.  It is the Shortpacked! booth express! I will also be happy to just say hello.

I apologize for the last minute switcheroo.  But unless Fun Pub says "ha ha just kidding you can have your table without the bullcrap form that the state doesn't want to give you ever ever," I'm not gonna be at a table.  (And judging by the sheer number of artist alley folks who ALSO don't have the form, it's going to be a very friggin' empty artist alley indeed.)

Sitting at an airport and everything!

I have a table for a limited portion of the convention, since there are things at BotCon that I want to do, but even when I'm not at my table I'm pretty easy to spot.  I'll be the guy in the red and yellow luau shirt!  (Not the old orange-and-blue, that's been retired.)  I will even be able to process credit cards from my backpack.  That is how much the future this is.

It will be marvelous.

First off, I will not be attending San Diego Comic-Con this year.  I apologize!  But we're moving out of our house to a new apartment across town that same week, so also doing a convention on the other side of the country is kind of a non starter.  Some time after we move into our new apartment at the beginning of August, Shortpacked! Book 4 will arrive.   You don't want to have to move a ton of books twice, that's for sure!  So they're arriving after our move and not before.  Meaning, most importantly to us all, that they wouldn't have been there to buy at SDCC anyway.

Of course, my Blank Label Compatriots, Spike and Kel, will still be there, and will be happy to sell you their things.

(Anybody want to pick me up a 20-inch Stay Puft Marshmallow Man?)

Next, BotCon!  They've just put their schedule up, so now I have a general idea of when I will be at my table:

At this writing, there's fewer than 23 hours left to preorder/pledge for Shortpacked! Book 4!   If you want to make sure you get a sketched-in book or a chance at some unique swag, this is your last chance.  Don't miss out!

Also, I've just put in for an Artist Alley table at BotCon this summer.  So look for me there!  At least, look for me there when there's not an interesting panel or it's lunch or something.  I'll be bringing Dinobot posters and some other interesting new goodies.

HEY DUDES! Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, the best webcomic you are or are not reading, now has a book!  You may remember SMBC as the fantastic webcomic that pulled off this amazing feat, re: gayness.   As for its book, you should totally get one.  And then put it right next to your eventual SP! Book 4, like they're making out.

That's right. Both our books are dudes.