BenSpark Family Adventures

Photo-A-Day #02755 Today I wore my Transformers shirt from Battlesea that Allison and Eva got me when they went to London. Yesterday, it was announced that a figure for Battleplex was going to be made. Battleplex is the character that is the actual Battlesea Station Transformer that was created as the mascot for the Transformers store at Battlesea Station. Anyway I was in Stop & Shop and the cashier was a young girl and she complimented the shirt. Then proceeded to tell me about all the G1 figures she got from her dad. She was so excited about them. It was very cute to hear about her collection and love for Transformers. Then I walked to my car and a woman saw me and came over to my car to look at the Transformers that I have in the rear window. She asked if I had painted the figures because her boyfriend paints figures. Both interactions were within minutes of each other. Strange night.

Photo-A-Day #02725 To celebrate the 3rd anniversary of Skybound's Energon Universe a series of interconnecting covers were commissioned to be done by the artist Tom Reilly. I couldn't get them at my store so I turned to eBay and got them for a great deal. The whole set was $14 plus shipping. Each book is between $5 & $6 so that worked out well in my favor. There is also a black and white variant of these books but I stuck with the color one. The art is really well done.

Photo-A-Day #02671 I have a new item on my car, it is a solar powered Autobot symbol. I put it on my gas tank door. It lights up at night and goes from red to green and other colors. 

Photo-A-Day #02657 I made a random Temu purchase of an Omega Supreme figure. It is a third party figure and so it came with a different name other than Omega Supreme. It was called Miracle God Robot. I did not try to transform it I'd rather keep it in robot mode for display. It isn't huge but it is decent sized.

Photo-A-Day #02645 They really do an amazing job photographing items on Temu. I thought I was getting a much bigger Optimus Prime in toxic colors. It is super tiny but really well detailed. It does come with some attachments like additional hands for posing and also the energon axe from the first episode of the show. I have not transformerd it yet but it is a bit loose. For now it is just in there for display.

Photo-A-Day #02605 When Allison and Eva returned from London Eva had brought back some itty Pops of Transformers for me. However the mystery figure in this set was a Lite Brite and not Soundwave of The Transformers. There were other Mystery sets and I found a low priced G.I.JOE set. I figured that I would give it a shot and maybe get Soundwave. No, I actually got the real G.I.JOE mystery figure, Dr. Mindbender. So now I have a whole set of G.I.JOE but I am still missing the bitty Soundwave figure. I have a feeling that this is going to rabbit hole very soon. In other news tonight we had our first dress rehearsal in front of people. A handful of The Masons came down and watched the show. This is our last rehearsal before opening night on Friday. I had most of my lines down so I'm feeling pretty good on it.

Photo-A-Day #02599 When Allison and Eva went tot he Transformers Store in London they picked up a Funko Bitty Pop! Retro Toys set of Transformers. The way that Funko did these sets was that they had 4 different Bitty Pop! Retro Toys sets, each with a different Hasbro Retro Toys Theme. There was Transformers, G.I. Joe, Mr. Potato Head and Board Games like Monopoly and Operation. However, in these sets of four figures there was one figure that was a mystery figure. The mystery figure may or may not match the overall theme of the set. Int his case it does not match because I got Lite Brite with my Transformers. I didn't have the heart to tell Eva that I already had this set on my wall of Transformers. She was so happy to have found something fun for me in London that was Transformers themed. And they are very cool. I opened this one because I have an unopened one on my wall. I didn't know about how they worked the "mystery figure". So now I am on the lookout for Soundwav...

Photo-A-Day #02594 Allison and Eva went to London ... and all I got was a sweet Transformers t-shirt, and more. While in London, Allison, Eva and Mimi went to Battlesea Station, a converted Power station that is now an indoor mall. Inside is a store that is 100% dedicated to Transformers. I had seen it on Tik Tok and joked that if they saw it they need to go. I wanted a pin from the place but they came home with two pins, some mini Transformers Funko characters and a keychain and a t-shirt of Optimus Prime with the Battlesea Station. Inside the building they have a large mural that tells the story of Battlesea Station actually being a Transformer. I thought that was cool for lore of the place. It makes sense to have a London store dedicated to Transformers. One of our greatest Transformers writers Simon Furman wrote the UK version of the Transformers comic books for years and then over to the US for many more.

Photo-A-Day #02582 I finished reading my first Comic Book box. This second box includes the next iteration of Transformers comics. These are the ones that were done by Dreamwave. The problem with these was that Dreamwave went bankrupt during the middle of the runs of many of their books. That means that a set of Transformers vs. G.I. Joe comics did not get completed. They only produced book #1. And a bunch more books were never done. The comics were good and the designs were great to see. 

Photo-A-Day #02573 I've been playing a solo D&D RPG this year with a daily calendar. I learned about this Transformers deck building card game and I picked it up. It has a solo mode and a multiplayer mode as well. There are many expansion packs. I'll see how the game is before I look into expanding.  Speaking of Transformers I finished reading my first box of comics today. I finished with Regeneration One Issue #100. I'll go put that box back on the rack and bring up Box #2 tomorrow. More Transformers. I think I have 6 or 7 that are just Transformers  related. The kids finished watching The Lord of the Rings tonight. I came down when they were making popcorn and about to start disc #2. I could hear them from downstairs and they both exclaimed "2 Hours!" These were long movies.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02570 I've been making great progress in rereading my comics and also reading some I've collected and yet never read before. One series I had never read was Regeneration One which continued the original Transformers run of comics from the 80's some 20 years later. But, since I had never actually read the whole original run I didn't want to read these until I had completed that. So, now I am there and ready to read these books.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #025689 With a major snow day yesterday and a second snow day for Andy today plus a 2 hour delay for both Allison and Eva we had more time at home. Yesterday Andy made some chocolate/coconut cookies and Eva made chocolate chip cookies. Today Andy made everything but the kitchen sink cookies with M&Ms, pretzels and potato chips. Needless to say It has been a challenge to stick to the Virta diet that I am on. I had a few of these cookies. Each was good but my favorite are the coconut ones. Andy did a great job on them. Although next time we figure that they leave out the chocolate chips and dip the cookies into melted chocolate instead. I continue to work on reading my comic book collection.Today I completed the 12 issue series of Transformers Generation 2. Good story, not the best but I was so excited in 1993 when Transformers came back to comic books. I don't think I'll ever tire of reading these stories.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02564 I purchased these 8 comic books from 616 comics. They are special covered done by two different artists. The ones on the left are by Tiago Da Silva. I have all of his other Transformers split view comics where one side is of a pristine robot and the other is battle scarred. I did not know that he had done Soundwave and Jazz until recently. So when I got some Christmas money I decided to get these comics. The ones on the right side are by Bjorn Barends. They depict Optimus Prime facing off against Megatron. The Megatron one is the perfect comic book for him because in it Megatron returns in a huge way.  I recently reread and read for the first time all 80 comics from the original Transformers comic book run from Marvel. I never had all of them until last year. Now I have them and also a compendium of all of them plus the UK versions of the comic and some short stories and more. There is a lot in the compendium. I've been trying to reread my entire Transformers...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02563 Today I received a new Transformers figure called Road Rage. He is an Autobot that is the same style as Tracks. Tracks is the blue Corvette and that was the original one that I've had since the 80's. Road rage is a great looking figure, too. It arrived in robot mode and I was able to transform it down to a car so that he could slip in with the rest of the Autobot cars.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02556 Today was a good comic book day because I had two of my favorites ready to pick up. The ongoing G.I. JOE and Transformers comics were great. I also get G.I. JOE: A Real American Hero which continues the story from the 80's, it is good but not my favorite. The great thing about the other two was some major reveals. Both had jaw dropping final panels. I did not see one of the twists coming at all and the other was insane. I'm loving these series and I also continue my reread of the Classic Transformers comics including many of the UK ones I have never read before.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02545 I had forgotten that I had ordered this Masterpiece Tracks figure from Temu before Christmas. It arrived today. I picked it up because Tracks was another of my favorite characters. I loved the look of his corvette form with the flaming firebird on the hood. The masterpiece version came with a little figure and a miniature Blaster in his boombox mode. This was from an episode of the cartoon where Tracks connected with a kid name Raoul. I thought it was really cool that they added this piece to the set. Tracks was also one of the only Autobots who could fly in his vehicle mode.  The transformation was a bit strange but I figured it out. The instructions were all in Japanese because it is a Takara figure. Speaking of Japan, I just finished reading George Takei's book, They Called Us Enemy. It is a book presented in comic form telling about George and his families lives while in a Japanese internment camp in the 40's. It is a very powerful book and has direct...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02544 I now have 3 compendiums for comics of properties that were a huge part of my childhood. Transformers was my go to comic and cartoon followed by G.I. JOE and Thundercats. They were all great cartoons and even better comics. It wasn't until recently that I learned that there was a Thundercats comic from the 80's. I never knew that. The day I learned about it and the day that I purchased the first 14 comics I learned that Dynamite, the company that is publishing current Thundercats comics was making a compendium of the original 24 issue series. I recently received this in the mail and it is a very cool compendium. It even has a forward from Larry Kenny, the original voice of Lion-o. I'm going to have to find a better place to display these.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02530 A while back skybound put together a Kickstarter for a Transformers Compendium. This collects the 80 issues from the 80's - 90's. That is the collection of comics I just completed in their original form. The compendium is 4 giant embossed cover books. Then they reprinted 3 key issues from the comic book series. They were issues 2,5 and 67. They even made some tech specs, lenticular images and portraits of characters. I did buy an extra Decepticon sticker because I bought the Autobot version of the compendium and so the sticker for Decepticons only was part of the Decepticon version. There was also an Autobot pin and a challenge coin. It is a beautiful set.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02527 It is very fitting that I received this note along with the final two Transformers Generation 1 comics for my collection. Issues 72 and 77 are now in my possession. I had many conversations with this seller. We even shared photos of our Transformers toy collections. He was really excited by my love for the franchise and was glad to sell the books to me. This note shows a great deal of care that he took with his books and also with making my purchase special. He couldn't have known that this would be my last comics for my completed collection or rather that they would arrive last. Just very cool to see that he cared. 

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02526 I continue to find cool things for my Wheeljack collection.The figure is Wheeljack from Transformers One prior to getting back his transformation cog. He's standing on two comic books. They are Transformers #21 of the new Skybound continuity. The covers, however are done by Tiago Da Silva my new favorite Transformers artist. He's done handful of these special covers for Transformers comics. today I received about 7 of them and learned that there are still 2 more that I do not have. What he does is creates one cover of a shiny new robot and the other cover is battle damaged. So the left one is battle damaged and the right is pristine. It is a very cool concept that he's done for many great characters. What turned me on to his covers and artwork was this Wheeljack set. I'm really excited to have it now!