Brian Savage has sent out the following email regarding Botcon 2013

Hello!

A little over one week in to BotCon 2013 registration and we are now over 60% sold out of all packages. Additionally, we only have a handful of non-attending Iacon packages left, so if you have been holding off on picking up a set don't delay! They will be gone soon!

Stay tuned as we will have some more exciting announcements and reveals in the next couple of weeks! Don't miss out on the Transformer event of the year. Make sure to register for BotCon 2013 today!

See you in San Diego!

Brian

Longtime site member Starscreams Ghost was in attendance at Farthest From, The UK Star Wars Retro Toy Show in Fordinghambridge today where it was announced that Roll Out Roll Call 2013 will take place in the Autumn and will run October 12th - 13th back at the Jurys Inn, Southampton, UK.  The show, which is a combination of G.I-Joe / Action Force and Transformers held it's first two day event last year with guests including Simon Furman, Larry Hama, Bill Forster, Jim Sorenson, Andrew Wildman and many more.

You can find out more by visiting www.rolloutrollcall.com

Part One Ltd have updated the e-Hobby shop with a new image of their latest exclusive, confirmed as Magnificus.

The figure will go on sale from midday on the 26th of March, adn images of the actual figure will also be posted on that day.

Scans from a Taiwanese Toys R Us catelogue showing 6 pages of Transformers BotShotshas appeared online.  We have mirrored the images which you can see below

IGN recently sat down with Transformers Prime producer Jeff Kline and performed the following interview

IGN TV: You left off at the end of Season 2 on quite a cliffhanger. Obviously, Optimus is in pretty dire straits…


Jeff Kline: He is! And hopefully we’ve established over the course of our series that we’re not afraid to get rid of a character, if that’s going to serve our overall storytelling better. Which isn’t to say he won’t be coming back in some way. I’m just saying you can’t be sure, which is what we’re always trying to suggest with our storytelling.


IGN: How much closure should we expect as the series wraps up?


Kline: We found out early enough that we were going to be wrapping it up at the end of [episode] 65 that we had time to actually close some of the stories we wanted to close. So we tried really hard to give a satisfying conclusion to this version of the Transformers saga. The fans will tell us if we’ve succeeded or not, but we went into it really trying to satisfy those who’ve been with us for these three years.


IGN: Can you talk about the introduction of the Predacons?


Kline: Well, actually, we had started working on Season 3 and writing Season 3 before we got permission from brand to use the beasts. And then that kind of came through and we did a little rejiggering, but not a lot. It actually ended up being a fantastic thing for us, because we’re always talking about, ‘How do we keep shifting allegiances? How do we keep the sides out of balance?’ Especially having the Autobots be at a disadvantage, in comparison to the Decepticons - and bringing in the Predacons really let us do that. It really let us upset the apple cart in a way that I think we benefited from and hopefully we take it to a place that surprises and satisfies.


IGN: I heard there might be some references to the 1980s animated Transformers movie this season?


Kline: I think, quite honestly, we do little homages to everything in the Transformers universe. There are little nods to G1, there are little nods to other series. There’s definitely nods to the movies. We’re all fans, so we try to drop some Easter Eggs in there periodically. Obviously the movies and we live pretty separately. We mostly make sure that we’re not contradicting each other and not duplicating each other, but we’ve been given some pretty free reign, which I appreciative. Conversely, I know very little about what the next movie is going to be, but I’m sure it’s going to be great.


IGN: We’ve gotten hints at another iteration of a Transformers animated series coming in the next year or so. Will you be involved with that?


Kline: Yeah, at the moment it seems like both Hasbro and The Hub would like this group that did Prime to be involved in the next iteration, which I, of course, appreciate and we would love to do. We’re kind of in the earliest stages of development and character work and conceptual stuff, but if all goes according to plan, yes, there will be a new iteration of Transformers and the Prime group will be the group driving it.


IGN: is there a character you’re particularly excited for the fans to see this season?


Kline: I think I’m going to get in trouble if I don’t say the Predacons! I’m pretty sure that is the answer. And the reality is Predaking especially is pretty kick ass – from a design perspective, from a character perspective and from where we take him in an arc, he’s a pretty great addition.

TFW2005 recently had the opportunity to speak to Mairghread Scott, one of the writers for Transformers Prime and co-writer of IDW Publishing's Rage Of The Dinobots mini-series and their upcoming Beast Hunters comic.

There is a short snippet below, but to read the full article visit TFW2005.com

1. Hi Mairghread! First off, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with us here at TFW2005.com. Can you tell our members a little bit about yourself and how you landed the gig of working with the Transformers?

Sure, I’m a freelance animation writer and my day job is working for production on Transformers Prime the TV Show. It’s where I got my first script and it has been my home base ever since. As far as the comic is concerned, Mike Johnson invited me to join him on Rage of the Dinobots. He’s a fantastic writer who worked with us on Prime before and knew how badly I wanted to get into comics. Since he had the comic book chops and I was already immersed in the Aligned continuity we were a natural pairing to work on Rage. After that… well we made no secret about wanting to continue the stories we were telling and, thankfully, our editors at IDW and the good folks at Hasbro agreed to let us keep going.

2. What do you do when you're not writing stories about giant robots punching eachother? Are there elements of your real life that you draw influence upon for your stories?

Mostly I read comics and cross-stitch, but I am always trying to do new crazy things that I think might be useful later on (much to the chagrin of my husband, who insists I’m going to get myself killed). I’ve done everything from flying trapeze to pole dancing, kung fu to parkour and it’s all helped with my work. Writing the Ser-ket/Grimlock fight in issue 3 of Rage involved a lot of thinking back to my armored sword fighting lessons with the SCA (they’re medieval reenactors). I wanted Ser-ket to be a two-weapon fighter, but in real life they rarely beat sword and shield fighters like Grimlock, so I tweaked her weapons to be a sword and electric scourge instead of two swords. It made it a lot more believable that she would get Grimlock to drop his guard and giving her that goal in battle made the fight a lot more interesting than just having them randomly hack at each other.

3. You're the first woman to write a Transformers comic. How does that make you feel and what do you think you bring differently to the table of other comic book writers?

Well, you definitely feel like there are more eyes on you, but I’ve got a really great writing partner in Mike Johnson and that’s reassuring. The only thing I think I do deliberately as a female writer that might be different is to include women in my stories in a very ‘normal’ way. Female comic book readers (i.e. me when I read comics) are looking for female characters to be there, be well written and not be treated like a big deal. In a lot of ways Transformers is the perfect brand for that. Female Transformers characters don’t dress provocatively, they aren’t just love interests and no one questions if they’re fit to lead/defeat because of their gender. Ser-ket lost because she was a villain. Arcee is on Team Prime because earned her spot. End of story. The more I can do to build on that for all comic fans, the better.

4. What can you tell us about the upcoming Beast Hunters comic from IDW Publishing?

The new comic features the same great Dinobots we had in Rage, but we’ve jumped forward in time and the Dinobots’ mission to protect those still left on Cybertron has turned them into accidental leaders for the largest Autobot settlement still on the planet. The only problem is that being great commando fighters and being great civic leaders are two very different things. We’re hoping to expand the Prime universe and explore that tension as the Dinobots protect their followers from threats both external and internal. Grimlock’s always claimed that he could do a better job than Optimus and Mike and I are determined to test that theory.

On the Thursday 4th April at 8pm GMT / 12pm PST / 2pm CST / 3pm EST, we shall be taking part in another special episode of Collectors Hangout via "Google Hangouts on Air". The broadcast will be available live via Google Hangouts so please drop by and join in as I will be taking your questions this time around as well as talking more about the Lucky Draw figures+.

The episode will then be available on YouTube as a standard video.

You can find out more by visiting the Collectors Hangout page over on Google+ - https://plus.google.com/events/cj9359iit256m7lucjb89dspfd8?cfem=1

TakaraTomy have tweeted out a new preview image of their next Masterpiece figure, MP-17 Prowl, with a size comparison to MP Lambor as well as the Human Alliance Sideswipe and Barricade from the Movie-Verse

e-Hobby have posted a teaser image onto their website and social media account to tease their upcoming exclusive figure.  You may remember that back in Jan we tweeted out regarding a new e-Hobby exclusive, well it seems to have taken longer than we expected for the story to progress but now it has.  The image, which can be viewed below, contains the characters EONBMI as well as the message "look closer!".  The full reveal will be made on the 22nd March, but for now let the speculation continue.

Bathing Ape, or BAPE for short, have announced that they will be releasing another exclusive Generation One Convoy figure.  Following on from the camo green BAPE camo grey BAPE Convoy figures, this third release will be a red version and is due for release on the 30th March 2013 priced at 7560 Yen.

Chris Ryall has revealed the cover art for volume 8 of Transformers: The IDW Collection, via his Tumblr account. The hardcover comic collection feature a portrait of Hot Rod by the artist E.J Su.  You can view the image below.

Thanks to Toywiz we can bring you some official in-package images of the upcoming Transformers Prime Beast Hunters Deluxe Wave 3 figures including a redco of Ratchet and new molds for Dreadwing and Skystalker.

IDW have dispatched the usual preview pages for the latest issue of their Transformers More Than Meets The Eye series.  The preview images, which can be seen below, continue the story with Overlord being on the loose onboard the Lost Light while Chromedome is trapped in the time-dilated cell.

Seibertron.com member Freaky777 has posted some in-hand images of the upcoming Transformers Prime Beast Hunters Cyberverse Legion Prowl and Hun-Gurrr who are a part of the 2nd wave of Legion figures from the Beast Hunters line.  You can view the images below.

Amazon have posted some new pre-orders for some upcoming Transformers trades from IDW. The two new listings are:

Transformers Prime Beast Hunters Volume 1
It's the beginning of the end for Transformers Prime! But a new enemy is revealed and the stakes are racheted up even higher as the Cybertronians continue their quest for peace throughout the universe.

Paperback: 112 pages
Publisher: IDW Publishing (August 20, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1613777159
ISBN-13: 978-1613777152

and Transformers Prelude which is a collection of the latest spotlight comics
The Spotlight falls on Orion Pax, Thundercracker, Megatron, Bumblebee, Trailcutter, and Hoist in this collection of six individual stories that explain an important moment in each character's life. From the distant past to current events, each story adds to the Cybertronian lore.

Paperback: 152 pages
Publisher: IDW Publishing (August 27, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1613777167
ISBN-13: 978-1613777169