It's basically a top ten. :)

The Top Ten Memorable Moments/Conversations:

1—paying it forward. I stood in line waiting to pick up my Premium Pass (plus tee-shirt and option to buy convention exclusive figures) on Friday evening. It was a pretty long line and at some point you stand there and chat with anyone who seems “chatty enough”. There was a mom and her son in front of me……..I shared photos of my Transformers collection from my phone with them—then I had a chat about the brand new TCG with the guy behind me. I showed him my list of missing cards………and he gave me the very last battle card I needed (#36—a rare card) for nothing at all, he had several duplicates. We won’t get into the whole issue with character cards here, but at least I got one part of the collection completed. On Saturday, at the card gaming room, I was able to pay this forwards when one guy said he wanted another “Agility of Bumblebee” card for his Bumblebee-themed deck and he just needed one more—this is a rare I had a duplicate of and I gave it to him, for nothing. :)

2—Flint Dille* is REALLY GOOD at coming up with random Transformer-ish names on the fly. I saw this in three different panels with him. I have a feeling some people are going to use those “newly birthed” Transformers in their fan-fiction. XD (*Flint Dille is a writer who worked on the 80’s cartoon.)

3—James Roberts, the soft-spoken British guy who wrote the two popular IDW series “More Than Meets the Eye” and “Lost Light”, is super-nice and easy to talk to………..when you could manage to get to the front of the line of his booth before he has to dash off to a panel. I have three memorable moments of being at his booth (multiple times—don’t forget to give him a British accent!!!):

Conversation #1
Me: Thanks for making Rodimus cool again. (Said as he signed what I brought.)
Roberts: Rodimus was ALWAYS cool.
Me: You know that and I know that—but you finally made the world know that. laughs
Conversation #2
Me: I’m still hoping issue twenty-five ends up with Megatron and Rodimus together. (Said as I buy a cute gijinka fanbook from his table-mate’s stuff and got another comic signed.)
Roberts: Hunh. I haven’t heard anyone supporting that pairing yet, today.

Me: It’ll never happen, because Rodimus seems to be destined to be alone. Thanks Drift.
Roberts: Well, there is that. laughs
Conversation #3
Me: Thanks so much for writing a really great series. I’ve enjoyed reading since the beginning. (Said while buying one of his scripts and he signs it.)
Roberts: Oh, why I really appreciate you saying that. soft laugh
Me: You know, after “Chaos” and the comics divided into the two titles………..I saw previews of their summaries and thought—“It’ll never work. No war. No Optimus. No Megatron. This won’t last very long.” And here we are well over five years of this.
Roberts: And you stuck with it after issue number one, congratulations! laughs

4—Sara Pitre-Durocher, who did such amazing art on the other comic I semi-enjoyed until the final issue (Till All Are One). I told her how I’d met her at AnimeExpo in 2015 and I was surprised she still drew lots of Cyclonus/Tailgate art……….even though she never worked on MTMTE or LL whatsoever. She’s still really nice, even though she’s way more well-known and popular now than she was in 2015.

5—employee at The Chosen Prime’s booth (a place where I bought many figures). I had a nice conversation with her a few times during the convention and she asked to see my figures that I had photos for on my phone.

6—an artist in the Artist’s Alley area, where I bought a couple pins from her. I said that I really appreciated the fact that amidst all this Transformers stuff, she had a Courage the Cowardly Dog pin……..and I think she nearly cried because someone recognized it. I asked if she’d bought the complete series set yet and her eyes went huge—I’d just bought it at Wal-Mart right before going to the convention and was frankly surprised to see Cartoon Network put out a complete series of an older show like that. She was so happy I told her, so I bet she’ll go looking for it soon—she said how much she really loved the show.

7—the disappointing “fanzine swap”. I think I will always have disappointing memories of the room and what it was forever (I still think it was a place for adult artists to try and peddle their stuff that they couldn’t do up in the Dealer’s Room/Artist’s Alley—and the fact that the people in the room were mostly dealers who wanted “equal quality” for their swaps……….so it felt like it actually wasn’t geared for a “normal fan” who wanted to hang out with other “normal fans” and trade their stuff!), but the two good things that came out of it was I got to have a nice conversation with a new person and I met someone I know on Weasyl!

8—Matt Moynahan……….artist of “Lil’Formers”. One of the few people I got a commission from…….this was the conversation:

Me: Just do Rodimus, it doesn’t matter what generation, I’ll be happy with any of them.
Moynahan: Can I do GenOne?
Me: Sure! IDW Rodimus is too pointy for a chibi? laughs
Moynahan: Someone else asked for Tarn earlier, I thought I would die. laughs

9—I actually used will power, I don’t always use willpower at a convention when I know I literally have the money for it and it was something I pretty definitely wanted. I DID NOT buy the $170 Star Saber…………no matter how much I wanted it. I did want to get the Fan Toys “Hoodlum” (that 3rd party company’s version of Rodimus)—but it was like the only 3rd party Rodimus I DID NOT see there the entire weekend, although one booth had a display figure they didn’t have the figure itself in-stock at the convention.

10—the great figure buying regret. There was ONE, just ONE, 3rd party G1-styled Galvatron anywhere that I could see in the Dealer’s Room. I saw it when I walked in that first day. I kind of wanted it when I saw it………..but I wanted to go take care of the things I wanted most first. After the autographs and finding a Rodimus I didn’t have………when I came back around to that booth, it was gone. Ah! I didn’t see any other G1-styled Galvatrons throughout the remainder of the entire convention…………really kinda shocking actually. @_@