Grave Considerations: TFCon Chicago 2018

This past weekend was TFCon Chicago 2018, the American version of the wildly popular Canadian Transformers fan convention. Havingattended a few years ago, my wife and I went this year as well, and had a great couple of hours. Our first excursion to the convention was one made out of curiosity and marked my initial participation in the Third Party scene; this year, we both returned as grizzled veterans with vaster knowledge and more critical eyes. Let’s take a look back at the afternoon that was, shall we?

The week leading up to TFCon was a real big one, toy wise. I’d won an eBay auction for a complete mint in box set of Unique Toys Terrorcons, which upset my TFCon shopping plans. After thinking it over, I’d decided I was going to look for those Terrorcons at the show, but then found a deal that just could not be passed up, and so five days before it began, I had no shopping list for the convention. Also, the day before the show, my Perfect Effect Mega Doragon arrived from BBTS, and I was so excited. For a week or two, pictures of that figure had been circulating on the various socials, and every one I saw many me more and more anxious for my copy.

My very first thought of this years’ show was that the dealer room seemed a bit smaller than I remember it being in 2016, not only physically but in terms of dealers and merchandise as well. But, it also seemed that the Artist Alley was larger than the previous show, and that’s good. Something that really struck me about TFCon 2016, and about C2E2 2018, was the sense of inclusivity and diversity that the cons displayed. A healthy and thriving Artist Alley is the real soul of a convention, even though it’s not the section that’s highest on my immediate list of must-sees. But a strong Artist Alley allows us to see the state of the fandom, and really assess how we’re doing. A wildly popular comic that Hasbro decided had to end for some great reason I’m sure has attracted all kinds of younger, newer fans to the Transformers tent, and the Third Party and creative scenes have jumped on it in ways and with fervor that Hasbro hasn’t even tried to match. More Than Meets the Eye/Lost Light have attracted a slew of new fans to the property, and that has helped to make the fandom a better and more representative of real life place. Perpetually a potential topic for a Grave Consideration such as this, generally passed on only because my involvement with the comics ended a few years ago, MTMTE brought us robot relationships and through that, allowed for the exploration of weighty concepts like gender and identity and gender identity and other really human issues, but made them seem less serious and heavy by putting them on robots instead of us as humans. This didn’t expand the tent to others; it blew the tent away, as in a mighty gust of wind, revealing the illusory nature of limitations or boundaries on the fandom. Thank heavens. With all the phoney outrage bullshit we see like “ComicsGate” and other pathetic and limp displays of “strong” “tough” and “masculine” offense, it really is so much more satisfying to see people actually enjoying something instead of shedding impotent tears over the fact that the world doesn’t feel any need to coddle their snowflake asses and protect their delicate feelings. I swear, the people that bitch and cry online about comics or whatever being coopted or infiltrated by Others have never been to a convention or anything. If they had, they’d know that these things were never “theirs,” but have always belonged to everyone.

The state of dealer tables was actually fine, and I think that the sense that there was less this time around is because the 3P scene has shifted away from combiners and more towards larger individual figures. In 2016, we were in the Golden Age of the Third Party Combiner, and the biggest, best, and apparently last of them were currently being released. TFC Toys’ Hades and Poseidon were just finished and about halfway released, respectively, and Unique Toys’ Ordin was a year old at that time. Dinobots and combiners were the order of those days, and the merch at TFCon 2016 reflected that, with several dealers pushing the several figures needed for each combiner. Right now the scene seems focused more on individual figures, and so there are fewer offered. Not that this presented any issues for me when it came to shopping, though. Having opened Mega Doragon the evening before, I put Perfect Effect’s Beast Goriria, the matching Beast Wars Optimal Optimus, at the top of my list, and had really only to find the one place that had the best price on it to obtain it. And so I did. Like a week before the show, FansToys released Quietus, a G1 Cyclonus that I’d been seeing some hype about online, and that figure was apparently the star of the show, as almost every dealer had it and almost every convention goer seemed to be carrying one around. And then, my wife bought one for me. And that is awesome. Hopefully, some time in the not terribly distant future, we will sit down together, you and I, and take a super long look at Quietus, because what an incredible toy that is. I sort of feel like that is going to end up being an end-of-semester reward article to write, but in the meantime, if you have any inclination towards Cyclonus, at all, in his G1 or IDW comic iterations, you owe it to yourself to own Quietus. Find a good price online, buy it, and then drive to the physical location of the etailer and pick it up, because you will not want to wait for the figure to ship to you. So amazing.

Also obtained were MakeToys Wrestle and Iron Factory’s Shrike Feather and Amethyst, two more of their Legends scale Seekers, representing Slipstream and Purple Air Warrior, respectively.

We attended a few panels, and got to hearing some startlingly good Q&A with Flint Dille and the Third Party Panel, where we were treated to some glimpses of upcoming 3P products, and I basically lost my mind at the images of Fans Toys Road King, a Masterpiece sized Motormaster. Preorders for it just went up this week, and it’s pretty pricey, and I don’t want a Masterpiece sized combiner. But I really am enthused about that one figure.

There were also several cases of prototypes around the convention, so we got to see a whole ton of things that I basically have preordered in person. Ok, not preordered yet, but they will be. MakeToys’ Riotor Galactron and Buster Skywing, as well as their Coneheads; Fans Toys enormous Double Evil and their Shattered Glass Power Baser, both super expensive, were on display, and Double Evil just went up for preorder. One of these days; right now, I find it too expensive, considering how much money I’ve spent on toys this year and how much stuff is still on preorder.

I think this trip to TFCon was a lot more satisfying than that of two years ago. I am familiar with the 3P scene now, not a wide-eyed noob as I was way back then, so I feel like I can be more appreciative of things I see rather than just stare in amazement. I know companies, and I know figures, and I know the differences between the official and unofficial things. And my wife, bless her heart, knows these things as well, so I was staring at something in one of the prototype cases and she just started talking to me about it like a total pro, officially making us the coolest couple at the con, and the envy of all those people that went to the show with or without partners that don’t get it. It is hard always being the coolest two people at any convention we attend, but if you’re ever at a Chicago-area con and want to pal around with the legendary Moby Richard, I’m pretty easy to find. I’m the guy standing next to the coolest and best woman in attendance.

Next years’ TFCon has already been announced for Los Angeles, so that effective ends thoughts of attending pretty early on. That’s a slight bummer, but 2019 brings Star Wars Celebration to Chicago, so I think we’ll manage.  TFCon 2018 was a great time, however, and I do look forward to the next opportunity to attend one.