Transformers, Transmasters and More Than Meets The Eye

I’m going to start off by saying that I don’t have memory that is easily divided into dates and years. It’s more chapters of life and so even if I say X happened in Y year, it’s probably at best a guess I made. And my memory is fallible but I’ll do my best to make my story about my part in the Transformers fandom coherent if not completely accurate.

I was a fan of transforming robot toys pretty much the first time I saw them in person at a store. This may be sacrilege, but my first actual transforming toy was not a Transformer at all, but the Gobot Scooter. The true heresy is in saying I don’t remember which actual Transformer was first. When I began collecting them I didn’t distinguish between them at all, but I have a dim recollection it may have been Sideswipe.

This was before the cartoon or the comic books, but my allegiance to the Transformers solidified when I saw the first episode of More Than Meets The Eye in fall of 1984. This fact is really funny considering I only watched it because the show was in the same 4pm time slot previously occupied by reruns of classic Star Trek. I was initially actually really unhappy to see Star Trek was not on that afternoon but before the first half hour episode finished, I was hooked!

Suddenly one faction of transforming toys I had already been collecting had actual backstories and it was a mythos that was perfect for my sci-fi-loving heart. I don’t actually remember when I read the first comic but I think it was after I had seen the show despite it coming out first. For years I bought the comic more because I just wanted more Transformers stories as a supplement to the show. I know the Gobots also had a show around the same time but it didn’t air on any channel I got so I was fully an adult before I ever even saw one episode.

My early years of Transformers fandom was solitary. I would have been in 7th grade when the cartoon started and I literally did not know a single soul in my area who was into the toys, the show or anything related. I definitely remember feeling like I was on the outside edge of the age range they were aimed at and was self-conscious liking a “kid’s show.”

Outside of two younger cousins, I didn’t really know any other fans until I wrote a letter to another fan, Brendan Crispin, whose address was published in the letters column of the comic. I think this was 1990 to early 1991. All I’m positive about was that this was before Liane Elliott’s letter was published in the final issue because I do remember that I was already involved with the Transmasters fan club before the influx of new fans when her letter was published. But I think it may have only been as little as a few months before.

For people who weren’t around back then, this is before the internet was really a thing. Club business and contact between fans was mostly by mail. Some of those early “pen pals” all those years ago are still people I consider close friends today. Even the ones I’ve regrettably lost touch with I do look back on fondly.

It was somewhere in this pre-internet world that I created my short-lived ‘zine TransVerse. I wish I could tell you a year it began and ended but after several moves I have very little left from that era. I just remember being inspired by some of the other ‘zines I saw. TransVerse was not a newsletter but text-based stories told in a universe that was my own concoction. It blended the cartoon and comic book histories together picking what I considered the best of both worlds. It focused on some original characters as well as the actual Transformers characters. It lived in a period where the only new Transformers stories we had were ones written by fans.

I don’t remember the actual stories in my ‘zine anymore but I remember all the work that went into publishing it. Typing up the stories, laying it out and printing it. When it started, with no scanner, art was either done on my computer or when it came from one of my artist friends I had to leave space for it when I laid out the text and physically pasted it in so that it would be part of the copied pages that were eventually mailed out. Lots of barely digital and analog steps in a world that was just beginning to move to digital.

To me the art part is really interesting looking back because those very basic robot line drawings I did on the computer were done without a pen input or even a mouse. I did that on a keyboard in a very rudimentary computer drawing program. They were heavily inspired by art from the comics. About the same time I almost signed up for an art class in college but chickened out after the first day. A decade later I got interested in photography and started selling prints online. Soon after I got my first Wacom tablet and mostly taught myself digital editing and painting. What began as a hobby would later turn into a full time profession.

I haven’t written any fan stories since TransVerse finished. I think the last issue may have been around 1996. I feel like I had just started grad school when I mailed out what would be the last issue. Sadly i don’t think there was any conclusion to the stories I was telling either, just ended when I never put out another issue. If you were one of the readers who was left waiting for the next issue, I’m sorry!

I never entirely left the fandom but I definitely became a less prominent part of it. I was years ago VP and later Co-president for Transmasters. I have never aspired to any sort of club office before or since so it says a lot about my devotion to Transformers that I was up for that. I went to the first four BotCons. Sat out a few years when I was first out of college and couldn’t afford to travel so far. At this point I was living in Atlanta and helped start a listserv fan group “TFATL” on “Topica” for fans who lived in the area. About once a month, we would pick a place to meet and chat. Around the same time I attended the last BotCon I ever made it to in North Carolina in 2001.

I still love the Transformers. I rarely collect the toys anymore but I periodically get caught up in new shows or comics or what have you. The original show and movie and those long ago friendships I formed around it will always be a special part of my life even if I can’t remember what year X happened in.

Thanks to Tony Buchanan who asked me to write about this subject… Maybe I’ll reminisce more about those long ago years in the Transformers fandom someday…