[gallery]

I got in and out of both of the registration and the souvenir add-on toy lines in about an hour!  Holy crap, that's a huge improvement over last year.  Everything seemed to be running much more efficiently.  (For example, nobody seemed to be running a line who was over the age of 85.)

Last year I was in line for... six hours?  Yeah, six hours.  Ahahahaha.  Mind, that year's problems were related to the launch of the Revenge of the Fallen toyline, which encouraged folks to take about 30 minutes a piece to look through BotCon's stock of toys once they got up to the front of the line.  Imagine going to Walmart and having people shop when they get up to the register.   People were certainly doing that this year, but not to the same extremes.  75% of my hour was spent in the second line, even though I was the sixth person from the front of the line.  Folks looooove to ask BotCon dudes to bring them every single toy on the shelf one by one so they can look at them.  Man, those things are shelfwarming at Walmart!  Go buy them there!

But still, only one hour spent in line this year = super awesome

Check me out, u guys!!  i am TOTALLY at BotCon!  I hitched a ride in on the back of this yellow truck, I think his name is... um.. ... i think...

n e way, if you see the yellow truck guy with the backwards orange flames?  i'll be right there!  and theres this big pink scorpion guy.  lol he loves to play soccer????? we're seen together a lot, like inseparables, like we're in a big bag together, 4evah.  #BFFS!!!!!

(what is soccer???)

i also saw some lame cartoonist who like broke his glasses and had to tape them together like a NERD.  ha ha ha ha nerd

what a lamer.

Hey dudes!  Jonathan Rosenberg, aka The Guy Who Draws Goats And Whatnot, has a new webcomic!  It's called Scenes from a Multiverse, and it involves you, the weirdos of the Internet!  See, every week he draws a set of unrelated strips that take place on various worlds, and whichever gets the most votes returns the next week!  It's like Web 2.Oh Yeah.  Jon continues to be a true visionary, awash in unfettered creativity.

Ten hours left in my spring convention art auction!

And on Wednesday morning, me and my local buds head to BotCon.  Shortpacked! veterans know what this means, though this year the usual all-weekend-long convention strips are getting a twist.  You'll see.

If you're also going to BotCon, I've decided to be less stupid than I usually manage.  Every year I'm met by a few dozen readers wanting to know if I have books for sale!  Well, no, I don't have a dealer table at BotCon -- that's be counterproductive to my goal of Totally Geeking It Out 24/7, what with all the panels and whatnot -- but I figgered I'd plan ahead and bring a  handful of copies of Shortpacked! Book 3 with me.  I plan to have one or two on me at all times.  Y'know, be prepared!  It's like my backpack will be Shortpacked! Express, like those mini-Pizza Huts at Target.  So if you see me out and about, hand me $15 and I'll hand you a Book 3.  I'll even scribble in it for you.

Well, that was some fun fake news which I posted because I am an idiot who can't read.

Let's try for some real news!  Uh...

Um.

Hey, check out this Unicron.  He's Armada Unicron with a new more-G1 head, decoed in more-G1 colors.  Oh, Japan, always finding ways to paint things orange and thus get my attention.

And, uh, hey, watch this, I guess:

It's not Dinobot, but it's Beast Wars!  (Vote for Dinobot!)

This is Shokaract from the BotCon 2000 comic book. This is what he looked like in the original book.  Andrew Wildman, the colorist, looooves his Photoshop filters so I thought I'd see what it'd look like if I dropped all that and recolored it, um, vanilla.  Now you can see the Geoff Senior artwork more clearly.

Enjoy!

BotCon online registration finally went up today at about 4:30.  So, hey.  Congratulations, everybody! You're out $300, just like you always wanted.

A week ago I asked about me maybe going to TFCon.  Well, here's an alternate idea.  I went to Canada's GIJoe convention last year, and they want me back!  As a guest again!  And it's two weeks later in the same town (Toronto). Would that be amenable?  It's a smaller show, but a fun one.  I would love to go back.

(Remember to vote for Dinobot.)

While the masses get increasingly restless as BotCon is roughly one month away with no preregistration yet, we do get some raw meat thrown down to us.  A few days ago we got to see Clench!  He's Onslaught with a new head, in sparkly dark blue and bright pink.  This means he's awesome.

We also got to see this year's convention shirt, which glows in black light.  I've sworn off black BotCon shirts, since I just have too damn many, but I probably can't resist a G2 blacklight shirt.  I mean, c'mon.

What we don't get is BotCon preregistration three months ago.

I'm gettin' up early today for my trip to WildPig II in New Jersey.  Guess who I'm road-tripping with?  Why, none other than Randy Milholland, because I'm pretty much on his way from Texas, so why not?We're gonna pile up in his truck and godspeed ourselves to Springfield.

We may headbang.

So, woo!  The BotCon 2010 site is up!  It's beautiful.

Funny story: This morning, folks found images of one of the BotCon 2010 set's toys, Streetwise, on the BotCon.com server.  D'oh!  But then later in the day, a second image was found on the server, this time a badly photoshopped image of Universe Tankor as Clench.

And oh, some websites thought they had an awesome scoop!  And man, were people angry.  What a terrible choice for Clench!  And why doesn't he have a new head?  BotCon is RUINED!

Of course, it was all a joke played by Fun Publications.  (At least, the second part.)  And about half an hour after the image was "leaked," the BotCon.com site updated to reflect the theme of the year's set, plus an awesome new Guido Guidi illustration of Spark and the real Clench toy.

The real Clench is apparently a redecoed Universe Onslaught with a new head.  Suitably large, since he's Decepticon leader, and the little details we can spot in this illustration make him look super rad.  The blue on his legs sparkle, which is very important for Clench, and there's his Tron-like circuit patterns on his abdomen.  Here's hoping for his anti-wolf deco and his Texas license plate!

Streetwise Streetstar, the other reveal, is okay.  It's cool that we're getting a toy of an unreleased Generation 2 character, but I really wish the toy had more detail.  I mean, it's super-accurate to the original toy, but the original toy was kinda dull, too.  He just needs some more color somewhere.  But hey, at least it reminds folks that G2 wasn't all dayglo playskool neon.  And the tampograph on his windshield is awesome.

The BotCon 2010 brochure is up! Preregistration will go up later, so we can have a chance to look this thing over.  I haven't really read anything other than the names of the toys in the set, but oh my god yes.

Autobots: Spark (Pyro) and Streetwise

Decepticons: Clench and Breakdown

Predacon: Skybyte!

SKYBYYYYYTE