I’ve been an avid collector of Transformers since I can remember, and they’ve actually helped shape my career path.
If it wasn’t for Transformers, I wouldn’t have been lucky enough to become the website designer for GAME in 2000. I was chosen for that role, in no small part, due to the animated Transformers GIFs I had created on a hobby website I created in 1999. Back then, animated GIFs weren’t the hugely popular communication medium they are today. My using animated GIFs, over a decade before they became popular on social media, set me aside from the others going for that role.
I wouldn’t be in digital marketing now if it weren’t for Transformers.
As well as being an avid collector, I’ve also been involved in shaping the Transformers community.
In 2004 I wrote and produced a two-part Transformers comic, entitled The Beast Within, that would be printed and distributed with the DVD boxsets of the animated cartoons from Metrodome Distribution. The comic received a mixed response, to put it mildly, but much to annoyance of many fans it is Transformers canon.
Some people liked it, though, as this video review shows:
It’s fair to say you will also find plenty of video reviews on YouTube from people who really didn’t like it.
In addition to the comic, I produced a lot of the special features for the early Metrodome releases, such as character profiles and interactive quizzes. The cover art on the DVDs was also down to me – well, I didn’t actually draw them – I introduced Metrodome to the artists for them to create the artwork, artists such as Theo Black and Lee Sullivan.