The Haul

So, another Memorabilia has come and gone, and I've come home with many bags of cool stuff. While it's often said that the summer events are smaller than those in spring or winter, it didn't quite hit me how much smaller this one was than the last one until my companion pointed out that they hadn't even filled the one hall of the NEC they were using. Also, no stage area? No big names at all? What gives?

Still, in lieu of this year's Auto Assembley, there were many stalls pushing TransFormers of various kinds, everything from Generation 1 (original and reissues) to the movie line... And yet, crazily (as you might gather from my previous posting) Hasbro were not there. At all.

The lack of big names or anything that might have made use of a stage area reduced the normally mighty Memorabilia to a glorified Collectibles Shopping Centre. Many of the usual suspects were in attendence, from the folks who do framed photomontages from various TV shows, and the stall which is always bristling with large-format canvasses of comic-book artwork, to the people who carry an inordinate amount of facsimile weapons of the bladed variety.

And without any star draw, my companion and I managed to be in and out before 11am (which is when standard entry kicks in) and we still made out like bandits. TransFormers-specific stalls included Space Bridge (getting more amiable every time I see him), Xybertoys, that guy who always has a tin of Quality Street on the stall, and even Sven & Simon of Auto Assembly. I very nearly bought something from everyone, and something from each iteration of TransFormers, from Gen 1 Reissue Skids and Astrotrain (the 'real world colours' version), through Beast Wars Mach Kick and Silverbolt, to a grand collection of Movie toys, which make the scoreboard look more like this:

Leader
Optimus Prime
Megatron
Brawl

Voyager
Blackout
Ratchet
Ironhide
Starscream
Thundercracker

Deluxe
Jazz
2008 Bumblebee
Scorponok
Wreckage
Barricade
Bonecrusher
Arcee

OK, that's only really added three Deluxe class toys, but I did also snag a set of the three Target-exclusive movie basic Energon repaints, Arcee, Sector 7 Signal Flare and Sector 7 Hardtop. Space Bridge reckoned they had far more on the way (via Parcelforce) but, by the time he reckoned they'd be with him, I'd spent the rest of my money, and I'd decided not to duck out of the show to get more money but to keep to my 'in pocket' budget of just over £200. Most of the rest I'll be able to buy in the shops, or online at the very least... I honestly doubt I'll be missing out on anything important.

As an extra bonus, my companion bought me the BotCon 2002 exclusive Tap-Out, a repaint of the Generation 1 Mini-Autobot Cliffjumper, the keyring version of the mold. He's incredibly cute, and Cliffjumper was the first Autobot I ever bought so there's a kind of significance to that. My companion later admitted that she had expected a more complicated transformation.

For complexity, see Mach Kick... His horse alternate mode is quite poseable in itself and the robot mode, while awkward, unwieldy and possibly not the most attractive in the world, is made up almost entirely of ball joints, so he has a decent range of motion. Then again, he needs a lot of that just for transforming, with the horse's neck and head becoming most of one arm, and the robot legs twisting over each other to get the horse's legs into place. Takara's design team for later Beast Wars models must have been a band of evil genii to create such wackiness.

Silverbolt is a curious amalgam of eagle and wolf. Striking to look at, and with some beautifully molded detail, he actually has a fairly simple transformation... The robot head is something close to that of Galaxy Force Fang Wolf/Cybertron Snarl, but with his beast wings sticking out of the robot mode's shoulders, the overall effect is not dissimilar to the Armada Seekers. His tech specs card features a lenticular image showing the CG interpretation of his beast mode along with two images of his robot mode.

Gen 1 Astrotrain is, apart from his colour scheme - identical to the one I bought about 20 years ago. He's a steam locomotive... He's a space shuttle... He's a robot with really stumpy arms and a massively long rifle. He does look far better in 'real world' colours and, as an added bonus, he doesn't have the weak leg of my original.

Gen 1 Skids is a very odd little robot. He seems far too tall to fit into his compact, two-seater hatchback alternate mode, and yet he manages perfectly. Granted, applying the stickers messes this up somewhat, but it'll be interesting to display Gen 1 Skids alongside his Binaltech remake.

From the Movie line, I grabbed Jazz, Scorponok and Wreckage, all of whom are impressive in their own way. Scorponok is likely to stay in scorpion mode, simply because his alleged robot mode doesn't feature in the movie, and looks a bit rubbish.

Additionally, I picked up the two TransFormers plushies, Softimus Prime and Slumblebee... Cute and clever in equal parts, they manage to impress by being soft toys that successfully fit into the brand.

Non-TF merchandise was largely T-shirts - one from Genki Gear (which has now become a full-time job for the husband-and-wife team) and the new gorilla sprite shirt from Retro GT. My companion was very taken with the 'knife and fork piggy' shirt but, as a trial product, they didn't have her size. I did also score Volume 2 of the Firefly Companion, for my sister... I already have her Christmas present, though, so I'm not quite sure what to do with it. Could have bought Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: Solid State Society (the movie of the TV series based on the movie of the manga), but only the Region 1 disc was available... Sadly, the natty tin case didn't outweigh the inconvenience of not being able to watch it on my laptop.

Since we were out so early (a couple of folks arriving for Standard entry at 11am were surprised to see people already leaving), we decided to return to our hotel for a short nap before venturing into Birmingham town centre to pay a visit on the Bullring shopping centre for lunch and other types of shopping. There were also vague plans to pop in on the Solihull branch of Toys'R'Us, but we were first in need of a map to find the place.

Once we got into town and found a parking space (not as easy as we thought) we didn't really do much browsing, and what we did was very targeted - straight for The Entertainer, brief browsing of clothes, straight through HMV and Virgin (though I snagged the live action movie of Tetsujin 28 and the wonderful Pan's Labyrinth along with a couple of magazines), with a short rest while we scoffed some 'American/Mexican' fast food... which was actually rather tasty, and reminded me somewhat of the Californian/Mexican fast food place in the bay area of Auckland which I visited with my parents a few years ago.

Once we'd had our fill of shopping, we headed back to the hotel again to prepare for dinner, then bed... We'd managed to pack quite a lot into the day. Friday's bomb scare (the police cordoned off huge areas and blew up a car parked a little way down the road from the office, though it turned out to be quite innocent, and was later described as "just a gas leak") seems like it was ages ago.

The trip back home was uneventful, and with far less traffic than previous trips. So far today I've managed to avoid napping, even though I was feeling quite tired earlier. Better to get an early night tonight, to set me up for the week... I hope.