How did YOU start?

[Hoist]

I started back in 84 watching the cartoons every Saturday morning on Wac-A-Day, which led to the Comics and ultimately the toys. Being a 1-parent family (Divorce), I mostly had Minibots though, apart from when I got Hoist (Eased some of the resentment for my Dad I had at the time, and Twintwist. one Xmas.) I since brought a re-issue Hoist as an adult and an original Twintwist.

As I went to secondary school I kinda passed on the TF comics, switching to cult UK comic 2000AD instead. Ultimately during this time I kinda left Transformers behind. When in college I saw the G2 comics, the only issue I saw however was a UK one, and was put off by the crappy artwork and childishness of the comic. (As an adult where the US G2 is concerned, it remains my favourite period comic wise, I adore the US G2 comic.) I saw an odd episode of Beast Wars on the UK's third terrestrial channel, ITV - and, I sort of realised it was Transformers but was put off by the animal aspect. (Came to love the series as an adult). After this I more or less left Transformers fandom struggling to deal with my own personal family issues - a death of a parent. In 2002 however, I was in Woolworths one day and I just thought to myself - "I wonder if Transformers are still going?." So I went to the toy section and found they were very much still alive! This was during the RID era, the first ones I saw were the two packs of the Spychangers. I brought two double packs on the spot containing R.E.V, WARS, Crosswise and Hot Shot. My first larger figure after all those years being RID Megatron.

It was bitter sweet with RID because I got my first credit card not really expecting to be accepted and not knowing how it worked. Although it got me RID toys (Especially Ruination), It as well as my first owned computer put me in money trouble for many years. As a result I only brought the ones I really wanted, missing out on some over the years I wanted. Now things are good, it's only in the last year and a half I've had the freedom to get what I want, even past G1 toys, Beast Wars II toys and some of the stuff I missed out on. So my collection is only very small at 149 figures, but since RID I haven't looked back, or stopped.