2018 Retrospective

Going back to the strategy for 2016, I started writing this post at the end of January, with the intention of building it up more-or-less as and when things occurred. It wasn't particularly successful, as many of this year's personal 'events' were quite stressful at the time, and I didn't really want to write about them so, by the end of the year, I was left trying to remember things to cram in...

The year got off to a fairly momentous start, with my girlfriend's (delayed) 3-month appraisal at work confirming her position in a remarkably good role for a first (full-time) job, with the kind of perks and benefits that I can only dream of, even after about 25 working years in Publishing. Having a second income, and with the inheritance I received following my grandmother's death last year, our situation was suddenly very different. We'd already been talking, for a good few months during the tail end of 2017, about the possibility of me jacking in my job - for a whole variety of reasons, and I'd spent most of 2017 ill and on the verge of resigning - so that I could get some rest, improve my health, try to work on some personal stuff and then look for another job more-or-less at my leisure, all while trying to avoid burning through all my savings/inheritance the way I did with my redundancy payout during 2011. I handed in a little over two months' notice toward the end of January, much to the surprise of my manager, who was preparing to discuss the possibility of a pay rise. I was only obliged to give one month's notice, but the situation at the time meant that leaving before the end of March would have left too many others in the lurch, and there would have been very little opportunity to recruit and train a replacement during that time. My last day, therefore, was to be four years - almost to the day - after I started there as a full-time employee.

The plan following that date would be to do more sketching, more cooking, more photography, more blogging (perhaps even making a proper start on Toys, HEXcetera...), get back into pixel art/game design, get some regular exercise, get more housework done more promptly... and maybe, just maybe, get back into writing.

With less than three weeks to go before my departure, I got ill again - yes, another cough - and Courtney's depression got a grip on her, leaving her with doubts about her job, and leaving me wondering if my inheritance would end up supporting both of us while I hurriedly found another full-time job. Thankfully, her six-month appraisal was full of glowing praise, albeit not quite enough to allay her anxiety/depression-fueled fears entirely...

My period of 'freedom' didn't get off to the best start, as having only a 4-day handover with my replacement while our line manager was away the office - and resigned, "for personal reasons", a couple of weeks later - meant that I had to keep going back as support after my 'last' day, clocking up 8 more days, half of which I worked almost a full day, over the following three weeks... They even wanted me to come back, later in the year, during the busy period... but I politely declined.

A bigger bombshell came a couple of months later, when I learned that the owner was selling the company. The new owners are a much larger company, theoretically better positioned to give the magazines the investment they deserve, and likely to be less tolerant of some of the insanity I experienced during my time there. On the downside, they reportedly made some astoundingly poor staffing choices almost immediately (promoting a couple of contractors), and weren't even able to accommodate their new staff initially. Even worse, they're based in an area of London that's so difficult to get to, many of those still working there were looking to escape as soon as possible, many leaving before the buyout went through. As part of the handover process, I was asked again if I'd like to muck in, this time on the design side... but I politely declined.

Even aside from work, the first few months were full of tribulations and unexpected costs, not least my PC packing up at the start of May. On the upside, I'd been meaning to buy myself a new machine for at least a year... I'd just hoped the old one would still be in working order to transfer everything over. Thankfully most of the important stuff was already on external disks (I still don't quite trust the Cloud) and, in Safe Mode, the old machine was operational just long enough to transfer the rest. The new machine - running Windows 10 - was a massive improvement, but took a while to get used to.

Some time after acquiring my new PC, I brought myself up to date on the translation projects for several old Sega Saturn games - Policenauts in particular, but also Shining Force III and Princess Crown - and discovered, to my joy, that the first two were complete. I was able to fully patch my UK copy of Shining Force III Scenario 1 as well as my Japanese copies of Scenarios 2 and 3, which saved a bit of time and expense, though they're rather deep games and require a bit more concentration than I've been able to muster for most of the year. Failing in my attempts to apply the Policenauts patch, I ended up buying a pre-patched copy from an Etsy seller, along with a cartridge required to play the game... And my love of the game was thus rekindled. Time to get on and update my walkthrough of the game, maybe.

Something else I decided to put bit of effort into was learning Ren'Py - the Python-based visual novel development kit. I doubt I'll ever be a programmer - I don't have the patience - but it was certainly a lot of fun to set myself challenges, and coming up with solutions to the problems I encountered was hugely rewarding. All my progress stalled later in the year, when I started struggling with the artistic side of things...

Which brings me to a related purchase: I treated myself to a low-end graphics tablet - the XP-Pen Artist 10S - to help on the art side. It's actually just a touch-screen monitor that gets slaved to a PC, so it's not as convenient as I'd hoped and will take a lot of getting used to, but for a fraction of the cost of the smallest Wacom tablet, it's very effective... But my progress on that stalled when I got involved with some graphic design work for a game on the Sam Coupé, providing both sprites and scenery to improve the look an existing game, and then expand it further. On the upside, at least I've been doing something creative.

Courtney and I made a sort-of New Years' Resolution at the end of last year to get a bit more active in the sense of going out in the evenings or at the weekends, rather than the default of flopping down in front of our respective computers all the time, and it worked out pretty well. We didn't just to easy stuff like going to the cinema more often (though we did a fair bit of that, generally for classic movies rather than current releases), but doing unusual things like visiting a local funfair (one of our earliest dates was a funfair in Ealing), or making an effort to go to the theatre. On this latter option, I think we did especially well - taking in a production of As You Like It at the Globe, followed a week later by a very cleverly crafted stage production of Brief Encounter at the Empire, and then a production of The King and I, fresh from Broadway in the States and starring Ken Watanabe the following week... all of which happened in July. We also got to such diverse events as Rifftrax's take on Plan 9 from Outer Space, a recording of the awesome podcast My Favourite Murder at the Hammersmith Apollo, Flight of the Conchords at the same venue, a recording of The Unseen Hour at the Rosemary Branch, as well as the writer's comic horror ensemble drama, The Thing That Came To Dinner (which I'd actually supported on Kickstarter) at the Vault Festival, Witness for the Presecution and, ticking something off my bucket list, we went to see The Mousetrap just before the obligatory family Christmas visits kicked off.

Courtney even came along with me to TFNation in August, and enjoyed herself far more than she'd expected, saying afterward that she'd consider going again if the theme and/or guests were interesting enough. I found it particularly interesting that, while she was by my side almost the whole time, and I spent most of the time carrying bags of TransFormers toys, several random male attendees attempted to strike up conversations with her, rather than with me, whether we were sitting together for a panel or admiring some of the displays in The Forge.

During a bizarrely warm and sunny Autumn, we had a long-weekend break in Amsterdam, just after Courtney's birthday, visiting mainly museums and shops that called themselves museums. We stayed for three nights in an AirBnB cabin in IJburg, a quick tram ride from Centraal station, and saw just enough of the city to decide that we need to go back for a longer holiday when time and finances permit. Highlights for me included finding one of the local equivalents of Forbidden Planet (because of course I did), and an exhibition on microbes called Micropia, running in a building next to the zoo, but the two full days included some amazing sights, wonderful food and no need to hurry over anything. The late warm spell came to a sudden end soon after we came home.

Around this time came the one celebrity death this year that cannot go without mention: Stan Lee. I was never really a Marvel fan until the live action movie series that started with Iron Man in 2008, nor did I particularly like any of the cheap-and-cheerful Marvel-based cartoons that were on telly during the 80s and 90s... But Stan Lee's opening/closing narrations, particularly the phrase "Welcome, true believers!" stuck with me and, on the rare occasion I picked up a Marvel book, I always read the narration boxes in his voice. I wonder if his brief cameo, voicing the proprietor of a comic book shop in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, will be his last. Perhaps less well-known, but no less iconic in my life, I recently learned of the passing of Bob Wakelin, early in the year. Bob produced loads of utterly stunning inlay and advertising artwork in the early days of the 8-bit home computer gaming scene, making many of those games look a lot better than they were. If a game's cassette inlay looked brilliant, you'd most likely find the tag "WAKELIN" hidden somewhere in the artwork, and I'm convinced his work got a lot of other publishers to up their game in terms of box art.

The last unexpected expense of the year came from replacing my oven in November. I bought a fitted oven as part of a complete refitting of the kitchen in my flat soon after I bought the place, and the second heating element blew only a couple of weeks before Christmas. I decided when the first one blew, about five years ago, that I'd rather replace the whole oven if it happened again, since the cost of the replacement element and professional installation was roughly equivalent to a new oven anyway. Frankly, I'm happy to be rid of the old oven now.
Right near the end of the year, and after another round of visits to a consultant, hearing tests, etc., I finally started on a constructive course of action regarding the Tinnitus that has plagued me since my youth. Initially, I'd thought to go the private route, since the NHS told me there was nothing they could do the last time it I brought it to my GP. This time round, armed with the knowledge that Mindfulness and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy are now known to help, I nudged my new GP - and later the consultant - in that direction. The consultant initially seemed sceptical but, after my hearing test revealed my hearing is basically as good as it can be for someone of my age, recommended I be provided a course of CBT to help manage my Tinnitus. This was duly arranged, and turned out to be quite eye-opening... But time will tell if it'll be truly effective, and my course of treatment will continue in the New Year...

Highlights of 2018

1. Leaving my last job - given my many periods of illness last year, not to mention the general levels of stress and frustration building over that time, it felt somewhat inevitable that I would leave my last job sometime this year, but the stars seemed to align right at the start. With a decent level of savings, and my girlfriend doing very well in her first full-time job, I took the plunge and handed in my notice in January. I had a few pangs of guilt to begin with, but we had such a good selection of CVs in that it passed pretty quickly, and the guy we picked to replace me was excellent. If only certain other circumstances hadn't kept pulling me back...
2. Long Weekend in Amsterdam - as mentioned above, we had a quick jaunt over to Amsterdam in the Autumn. This turned out to be just what I needed to break me out of a creative lull. It wasn't nearly enough time to do the city justice, but we saw a few key things and had a great time. We'd like to go back and see more, but who knows what havoc Brexit will wreak on future travel into the EU?
3. Space Shambles - following on from last year's Cosmic Shambles, it transpired that my girlfriend had bought tickets to this summer's Space Shambles event at the Royal Albert Hall. Presented by Robin Ince and Commander Chris Hadfield, and also featuring Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickart, this event was more focused on space and space exploration, and included tributes to David Bowie (Mr Hadfield singing Space Oddity, natch, and Sheila Atim singing Life on Mars), Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan (part of which was Reece Shearsmith reading Pale Blue Dot). It was a brilliant evening, made all the more fun by the fact that it was the day before my birthday.
4. Rediscovering Policenauts - while an English language patch for Policenauts has been available for a while, I lacked the skills and software to apply it myself. Thankfully, I found an Etsy store selling the English-patched version of Policenauts and a cartridge that provides the means to play it on a converted Saturn. Thus, more than 20 years after I first encountered the game, I'm finally able to play it in English... so perhaps I'll finally update and complete my Policenauts FAQ/Walkthrough. Not long after, I also discovered the English language patch for the Shining Force 3 trilogy, which applies itself automatically, and made my life far easier.
5. New Scientist Live - an interesting experience, in that there were fewer talks, with more time in between to explore the show itself (not to mention having a proper lunch break), yet it didn't feel as though we were missing out on anything, and we had just as much trouble deciding which talks to attend. Courtney got herself a subscription to the magazine, as part of a deal with gives us access to recordings of all the talks, though, so we can view those that we missed anytime.
6. The King and I at the Palladium - somehow, Courtney had never seen any of the movies based around Anna Leonowens' fictionalised experiences as a teacher to the family of the King of Siam back in the 1860s (all the more surprising, given her love of classic movies!). I'd been seeing ads for the US Broadway version of the show, starring Ken Watanabe, in the magazines I worked on until April of this year and was delighted when I learned it was coming over to the UK. It also featured Naoko Mori (of Torchwood, amongst other things) as one of the king's wives, so I booked tickets immediately after mentioning it to Courtney. I like musicals generally, and this one was so beautifully staged - and featured the cutest band of moppets you could ever hope to assemble playing the king's children - that the experience was uttery enchanting.
7. Some Shakespeare at the Globe - Courtney and I have long discussed catching some Shakespeare at the Globe Theatre on Southbank... I mean, you have to eventually, don't you? We've both seen plenty of Shakespeare on stage, but never at the iconic, rebuilt, historial theatre... So, this summer (because we're not daft enough to risk going there during a rainy time of the year), we obtained tickets to a gender-blind production of As You Like It (coincidentally featuring a deaf actor, making it all the more interesting for Courtney while she was studying BSL Level 2). With Rosalind played by a male actor and Orlando female, it felt almost truer to the intention of the play (all parts played by male actors back in those days), and some of the bawdiness was enhanced by similar casting elsewhere. One really impressive aspect was that the two courts - those of Duke Frederick and Duke Senior - were played by the same cast members, who reversed their cloaks/jackets and altered their hair/headwear depending on which court was being presented at the time.
8. The Return of Duocons - one of the surprise early releases in the Power of the Primes line was a new take on the G1 Duocon Battletrap. Actually, he was released as two independent toys. The helicopter, Battleslash, and the SUV, Roadtrap, each had their own, individual robot modes to complement their combined form. Since we've already had a Flywheels-analogue in the form of Titans Return Skytread, it seemed unlikely that we'll get a PotP Flywheels... but a true Duocon Flywheels - two vehicles with only one robot mode between them - was one of the surprise War for Cybertron: Seige revelations at the New York Comic Con this year...
9. Power of the Primes Evolution Optimus Prime - by and large, I think Optimus Prime has been done to death, and Hasbro really needs to find a way of introducing a toyline that isn't so Optimus Prime/Bumblebee-centric (except, oh dear, they've decided to make Bumblebee their bloody brand ambassador). The Nemesis Prime repaint looks awesome, too.
10. Prime Wars Trilogy Punch-Counterpunch - snuck out as another Amazon exclusive (albeit one which I bought from In Demand Toys because Amazon UK are useless for toys), he has a deceptively simple transformation, but is a really cool figure. This was one very welcome G1 update in an increasingly large sea of mediocre reboots.
11. TransFormers Generations/Studio Series - several years after we learned that Hasbro had a Deluxe class Stinger (that was not a Bumblebee repaint) ready to go, only for its release at the time to be suddenly and unceremoniously cancelled, with Takara Tomy subsequently releasing a Bumblebee repaint as Stinger, Hasbro's all-new Studio Series brought us the missing Age of Extinction figure as a unique mold, which transforms into the actual vehicle from the film... not to mention one of the 'missing' Dreads (Crowbar having previously been Legends class only), a new 1976 Camaro Bumblebee, new Leader class takes on Blackout, RotF Megatron, a more accurate AoE Grimlock, an upscaled/upgraded Voyager class DotM Starscream, a Voyager class Thundercracker made from TLK Nitro, and improved Lockdown, a new Voyager class Ironhide which rivals the Masterpiece version, new takes on Sideswipe and Barricade... Oh, and yet another Voyager class Optimus Prime and approximately a billion Bumblebees, including four versions of the classic Camaro, two of the Beetle and the World War II version. The reveal, at the October MCM London Comic Con, of a new take on RotF Devastator with fully-transforming Constructicon components was pretty mind-blowing, and easily made up for the surfeit of Bumblebees. The basic idea - in-scale representations of key characters - was sound, and the whole thing looked promising. The packaging was fairly classy, too - far closer to the Marvel Legends-style boxes than anything Hasbro had previously achieved.
12. Masterpiece 'Bumblebee Movie' Bumblebee - what with Hasbro's dedicated Bumblebee manufacturing machine shifting into overdrive, preparing to warm shelves in toyshops all over the world with an excess of the little yellow 'bot in celebration of the solo TransFormers: Bumblebee movie, I decided against buying the Studio Series VW Beetle figure in favour of the larger, more detailed and more intricate Masterpiece figure, in all its fiddly glory. I did pick up the 'special' Retro Pop Highway version of SS 'Bee, however, and that will hopefully be my last Bumblebee figure for a while...
13. The Bumblebee movie - Given the cast and the director, I was cautiously hopeful about this movie, and it certainly didn't disappoint. The story may have been extremely derivitive, but it was well-paced and a lot of fun. I saw Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse the same day, and that was probably the better film, as well as being by far the best Spider-Man movie to date, but this is a TransFormers blog so, reluctantly, 'Bee takes precedence.
14. Third Party figures - I received Peru Kill and Firage in February, and then Fans Toys' Masterpiece-analogue G1 Arcee in June, all of which were utterly amazing. Black Mamba's beautiful upscaled/upgraded TLK Nitro was everything I wanted out of the source figure... Whether they're creating something entirely new or merely adapting Hasbro/Takara Tomy's molds, the Third Parties are still creating some awesome TransFormers...
15. TFSource - on a semi-related note, I bought a Third Party figure from TFSource (via eBay) toward the end of last year, only for one of the ankles to break within hours of coming out of the box. I contacted TFSource, and they got in touch with the makers, FansProject, to acquire not just a replacement for the broken part, but two whole replacement legs, because I reported that the other ankle was looking a bit dodgy as well. It took several months, but they kept me informed and did exactly what they agreed to do. Excellent customer service! I'd start buying more from them if it weren't for the fact that they're based in the States...
16. Finally getting my hands on... - well, where to start? There's Beast Wars Transmetals 2 Blackarachnia ('Animutants' according to the box, making it either the continental European or Canadian version?), Galaxy Force Chromia White Version (aka the Minerva repaint), a dedicated Age of Extinction Stinger figure, completing my G1 Protectobots with reasonably-priced and complete Hot Spot and Streetwise... I could even count Fans Toys' Rouge here, since I preordered her back in November '17 and ended up cancelling/reordering another (delayed) item just to get my hands on her a little sooner.
17. Doctor Who is back! - much as I've enjoyed New Who (apart from David Tennant's tenure and, to a far lesser degree, Peter Capaldi's interpretation), as a fan of the original series, the format of the reboot/continuation has never quite sat right with me. The opening episode of the new series wasn't perfect, but it set everything up beautifully, and leaving the TARDIS out of it until the very end of episode 2 was a gamble that, I think, paid off very well. The humour feels a bit more laid back and natural, where previously it had been forced and often not as funny as it thought... I'll go into a bit more of this in the "Predictions vs. Reality" bit, below, but this new series feels more like Classic Who... and I'm very happy with that.
18. Star Trek: Discovery Season 1 - This series has been really divisive among Star Trek fans, but how much of that is poor writing/execution, and how much of that is rose-tinted nostalgia for the original series, or even The Next Generation? It's a bold new direction, and I don't agree with everything they did because, yes, it does deviate from Gene Roddenberry's vision as most of us interpreted it at the time... But I really enjoyed it, and look forward to more... Particularly where they're going with the character namedropped right at the end of the series. And, come on, it's nowhere near as bad as Enterprise.
19. Lost in Space Season 1 - I wasn't entirely inspired by the trailers, and am still not convinced the new take on the robot or the curious handling of Doctor Smith (the way she fits into the story, that is - Parker Posey's performance is excellent - you're never entirely sure if she's got everything she wants out of a situation, if it's a failure she can work with), but I've really enjoyed the first series of the reimagined Lost in Space. It's very different from the original, not least because it's not just about the Robinsons, and everyone spent the majority of the series on one planet, but the family dynamics of the Robinsons have been an absolute joy to behold (Judy and Penny in particular). Plus, you have to love that the real Doctor Zachariah Smith, seen briefly in episode 2, was played by Bill Mumy, who played Will Robinson in the original series.
20. Netflix, generally - While the UK selection tends to be a little behind the US on certain shows, it's nevertheless fun to dive in and go looking for new shows once in a while. Aside from the big name shows mentioned above, we've enjoyed The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, w/ Bob and David, She-Ra and the Pricesses of Power...
21. Reprolabels - I've bought one or two Reprolabels sets in the past (and really need to get some of their G1 sticker reproductions), but their Titans Return upgrade sets have improved some of the halfhearted paint jobs considerably... Everything is printed on much higher quality stock than Hasbro's own stickers, and the same applies to their Power of the Primes sets. Can't wait to see what they do for Studio Series...
22. MCM London Comic Cons (May & October) - not only did my girlfriend agree to come to the show in May, I actually convinced one of my former colleagues to attend her first Comic Con, and take the day off work to do so on the Friday. I actually didn't buy a great deal - spending, I think, less than half my budget for the show - but it was great fun for all three of us. I kind of wish I'd gone back to a couple of the videogame stalls, but I haven't been spending masses of time playing games... For the October show, I was there with my best mate and, what with the Hasbro panel and the Studio Series Devastator reveal, a DC/Batman panel involving the legendary Frank Miller, and a selection of purchases curiously free from TransFormers toys, it turned out to be one of the best shows - if not the best MCM show - I've ever attended.
23. Branching out? - For one reason or another, I've started picking up somewhat random toys from lines completely unrelated to TransFormers in recent years. The common thread between then is that they're Japanese action figures of cute girls, with connections to franchises like Digimon and Monster Hunter, as well as cool games like Odin Sphere. Even more material for my other toy blog...
24. Getting back into pixel art - over the last few years, as 'retro' gaming (that is, anything that looks like it came out of the 80s/90s) has exploded, and 'demakes' (the practice of taking an existing, current-generation console or PC game and turning it into something that looks like it would run on a NES/SNES/Master System/Megadrive) have become popular, I've been looking back at the days when I used to do pixel art on the ZX Spectrum and Sam Coupé. Having been asked to get involved in a reboot of an existing Sam game, I started to get a bit more serious about it, and actually put some effort into making some new pixel art, not to mention taking existing 'demakes' and squishing their graphics into the Sam's comparatively small 256x192, 16-colour display. Hours of fun!
25. Larking about in Ren'Py - I quite like the idea of visual novels... and the chance to try to make one of my own was an opportunity I couldn't pass up. It hasn't gone as smoothly as I'd have liked, and I possible underestimated the amount of effort involved in the 'visual' part of making visual novels, but it's great fun nonetheless, and finding the solution to a coding problem is pretty rewarding.

Disappointments of 2018

1. Not getting a break - when I discussed resigning from my job with my girlfriend, we talked about taking a holiday in the immediate aftermath. Since my exit wasn't as smooth as we'd hoped, the idea was put on the backburner, and several domestic emergencies over the following months made it difficult to concentrate on creative pursuits until our all-too-brief trip to Amsterdam.
   
2. The End of Toys'R'Us in the UK - while we knew back in 2017 that the US arm of the toy megastore was struggling, all the signs initially were than the UK branches would be unaffected... Then, all of a sudden, it was announced that it was going into administration after all. It had been quite a while since I'd done any serious shopping at TRU (it probably slackened off a bit after the Revenge of the Fallen toyline, to be honest), but I figured it was worth taking one last look... Unfortunately, pretty much all I found was Skullitron.
3. The early end of Titans Return - I was glad to see Power of the Primes achieve a fairly strong start, but have to say that Titans Return felt as though it had at least another six months to a year left in its lifespan... Having scraped the bottom of the G1 barrel, they could surely have added a few more new characters, or perhaps brought in some of the fiction-only characters from IDW's comics.
4. TransFormers Generations/Studio Series - yes, it's a highlight and a disappointment! For a toyline based around the idea of keeping to a particular scale, it didn't take long for scale to go out the window. Almost none of the vehicle modes were in scale (compare and contrast SS Optimus Prime, Ratchet, Ironhide and Jazz for the most extreme examples), and the robot modes weren't much better either. Lucky I don't really care about scale...
5. Power of the Primes - before PotP toys were even appearing consistently in shops and webstores, Hasbro had made announcements about the next TransFormers toyline. It didn't help that the death throes of PotP were accompanied by distribution issues (which some blamed on the Studio Series coming along and taking precedence) and, frankly, some underwhelming toys in its comparatively small catalogue. It's always disappointing when a decent toyline ends, but for something like PotP to go out with a whimper rather than a bang was bordering on disgraceful.
6. 'Amazon Exclusive' PotP Nemesis Prime - on a similar note, I preordered PotP Nemesis Prime from Amazon as soon as it became available, ahead of its supposed release on Prime Day. That day came and went, and I received monthly emails from Amazon apologising for the delays and letting me know they still had no idea when it would be in stock. Meanwhile, prices on the secondary market were increasing steadily from the already high £60-ish RRP. Eventually, I gave up and ordered via eBay, cashing in a large number of Nectar points to compensate for the higher price. Annoyingly, it appeared on Amazon UK only a few weeks later, still at the original cost.
7. War for Cybertron: Seige - initially, the name made it sound like either a belated attempt at a full toyline for the old videogame or another complete reboot, returning to the pre-Earth years of Generation 1. I'd kind of hoped it'd be a new take on Cybertronian history after the respective crews of the Ark and the Nemesis left home... but that seemed highly unlikely, considering how much Hasbro like re-telling the same damned story over and over again. Way back in May 2017 I wrote a post about the future directions Hasbro might take with TransFormers, suggesting that adjusting the size classes, then introducing a 'new', smaller size class (I used the term Micromaster because, historically, they're what happened after Powermasters in G1). Toward the middle of May this year, news leaked out about what we should expect from the War for Cybertron line and, lo and behold, they list 'Micromasters/Battlemasters', and the plan for "two main size classes" to "carry Micromasters/Battlemasters". July brought the first CGI images of toys from the first chapter, Seige: a Battlemaster (Firedrive, a TargetMaster-analogue), a Deluxe (Sideswipe) and a Voyager (Optimus bleedin' Prime, of course), as well as physical toy reveals at the San Diego Comic Con, including an all-new, two-part Ultra Magnus toy whose truck mode was based on RID/Car Robots Ultra Magnus. The Decepticons revealed at the New York Comic Con in September/October were largely a bit crap (another tank Megatron, dodgy vehicle modes for Shockwave, Soundwave and Starscream). It all looked decidedly - and disappointingly - G1, thus confirming my worst fears about the line.
8. TFEVO TE-01 Hot Fire - I had this on preorder for quite some time, only to cancel just a few days before it became widely available due to all the poor press it was getting in fan forums and from YouTube reviewers... Perhaps it was too much to expect from a new Third Party company, but it looked so good in photos. Shame the build quality and QC weren't up to scratch.
9. Unexpected expenses - to be fair, most of the unexpected stuff happened while I was still working, up to mid-April... but then my PC died at the start of May. I got a very good deal on a new machine which is, theoretically, a few steps up from a simple replacement of the old one, but it was still a hefty amount of cash to lose in one hit. A couple of months later, following a torrential downpour one summer evening, I bit the bullet and paid to have part of my roof repaired because my landlord is still being stubborn about renewing the whole thing. There will have to be even more work on it in the New Year, but at least there's been some kind of progress. The oven, later in the year, was a real surprise, as I only realised the heating element had blown the day after a dinner I tried to cook came out a little underdone...
10. Still can't play - having bought myself a converted Sega Saturn toward the end of 2017, I found the first game that won't work on it early this year: Working Designs' translation of Magic Knight Rayearth. On the upside, I seem to recall I can play that via the SSF emulator on the PC... once I get that working on my new machine. 
11. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom - Honestly, this franchise is just getting more ridiculous these days. The latest entry was full of stupid people doing stupid things, and the whole plot was unbelievably predictable. I like the cast, but they really need better material if the franchise is to continue... which it will, if the end of Fallen Kingdom is anything to go by.
12. The solo Venom movie - While I enjoyed the movie, it felt - and occasionally looked - like something that should have been released back in the 90s. A patchy script, heavy editing and very poor CGI didn't do the character justice. 
13. The Predator - actually better than I'd expected, but still not the return to form any of us were hoping for after two disasterous AvP films and, in my opinion, far inferior to the much-maligned Predators. It was another film scuppered by studio interference and reshoots, not to mention the controversies over the way mental illness and autism were portrayed, and the casting of a convicted criminal who just happened to be a friend of the writer/director.
14. Netflix's Altered Carbon - I only started reading the Richard Morgan novel about halfway through watching the series, at which point it was still reasonably true to the book... however, I was on to the second book in the series long before watching the last episode of the Netflix adaptation, and have to say that the screenwriter really missed the mark in a lot of ways. Kovacs was made far too human and personable, and the very nature of what an Envoy was had been changed beyond all recognition. Furthermore, making the antagonist his sister served no narrative purpose (but introduced a disturbingly incestuous subtext that isn't present in the book), and the finale effectively neuters the protagonist. I may have enjoyed it more had I not read the book, because it's neverthless actually very good sci-fi. The cast is excellent... but it's an abject failure as an adaptation of the book. 
15. Star Trek: Discovery's legal issues - much as I liked the series, I was disappointed to learn of the controversy surrounding its creation, and particularly the suggestion that it had ripped off an independent videogame developer, tarnished the show. Coincidentally, the 'creative' team behind the show departed after the end of season 1, and season 2 seems to be taking a very different - and hopefully original - direction.
16. Solo: A Star Wars Story - I read a review somewhere that suggested it was like watching a live-action version of the character's Wikipedia page, and that was pretty much exactly how I felt about it. Some of it was so clumsily handled, most of it was unnecessary... I don't think anyone really wanted Han Solo's origin story, just a standalone tale from the life of the intergalactic smuggler before he wound up on Tatooine for Episode 4. That said, like all the recent Star Wars movies, I did enjoy it... it just seemed entirely superfluous.
17. Packets of Dinky Deckers that somehow, inexplicably, turn out to be Fudge Minis - bit of a silly one, this, but there were far too many occasions this year that I was sure I'd picked up a pack of Dinky Deckers (certainly from the correct box on the shelves of my local Sainsbury's/Tesco) only to find, when I got them back home, that I'd actually picked up Fudge Minis, and didn't notice my mistake when I put them through the self-checkout. Not the end of the world, and I don't dislike Fudge Minis... but I really wanted Dinky Deckers #firstworldproblems

2018 Predictions vs. 2018 Reality

1. Power of the Primes will be good, but expensive - well, I certainly wasn't entirely wrong here... When PotP toys first started turning up online, the Deluxes tended to be in the region of £25, and the prices going generally a little bit crazy after that. Some online outlets seemed confused about the price points, with both Scouts and Voyagers turning up at similar prices to the Deluxes, and Leader class figures coming in at £60+. Prices settled down once the toys hit regular retail, quickly dropping to £45-ish for the Leaders, £24 for Voyagers and £20+ for Deluxes... But some online retailers were quite slow to follow suit. Weirdly, I ended up buying PotP Rodimus Prime from The Entertainer's website, before it was made available in their bricks-and-mortar shops, and for only a little over £35 - at least £10 cheaper than anywhere else and even £5 cheaper than their own on-the-shelves price. The tail end of the toyline seemed to come all too soon, and cynical Combiner Wars rehashes like Dreadwind and Blackwing were particularly disappointing. Arguably worse than PotP, though, was the Studio Series. Much as I like the toys, their increased cost doesn't bring significantly improved paint jobs, and the engineering thusfar has been well below the levels of the Revenge of the Fallen toyline. Then again, much of the increased cost of my collection was entirely the result of my own impatience.
2. Third Parties offering better value for money than Hasbro - this is always going to be a contentious and subjective issue, with 'value for money' being perceived by individual. Given the cost of some of the newer Masterpiece figures, versus their nearest Third Party equivalents, (as in their new figures rather than the KOs) I'm inclined to say I got this one right... My first Third Party products of the year, Unique Toys' Peru Kill and Alien Attack's Firage certainly support the idea - the former being a Masterpiece scale movie Lockdown, at a similar price to current Hasbro/Takara Tomy Masterpiece figures, with the latter being closer to Deluxe class, but Masterpiece quality and intricacy for about the cost of a current Leader class toy from Hasbro. On the flipside, we have the price hikes accompanying Power of the Primes and Studio Series, neither of which came along with Takara Tomy-style improvements to the paint jobs. Quite the reverse, in fact, with Hasbro insisting that Takara Tomy release toys in exactly the same format, as a result of their Unification of World Brands.
3. Another great time at TFNation - long before the event, but quite a time after making all the bookings, I started getting second thoughts about taking my girlfriend along. I didn't invite Courtney because I disliked going on my own, but because it was something else I wanted to share with her, after all the other events we'd attended together... but was this a step too far? TransFormers are very much my thing, after all, and we'd always agreed that we're each happy to do our own thing, rather than force each other along to events one of us isn't entirely into... but, unlike most of the shows I attend, this one is very much more than just the retail. Also, we had consciously resolved to do more together this year, rather than wasting our weekends, sat in front of our computers. Furthermore, I wasn't even expecting this one to be any good since it seemed that most of the guest budget went on bringing Stan Bush over and putting on a concert on the Saturday night. Surprisingly, it turned out to be every bit as awesome as the first two. I bought more than I'd expected - being very fortunate with a Third Party accessory and one or two toys I'd been undecided about buying via eBay. With 2019's show having a Beast Machines theme, I'm on board for that already... Whether Courtney will be remains to be seen.
4. Toys, Hexcetera... - Well, I finally got this new blog started! The inaugural post, in mid-July, was about the ill-fated Parker Bros/Palitoy Rom the Space Knight figure. I'd hoped to start with something newer, but I guess it's a bit more appropriate to start with a retro toy...
5. The Bumblebee movie will be the worst movie in Hailee Steinfeld's career, but might just save the franchise - quite some time after the announcement of the disbanding of the much-vaunted Writers' Room on the TransFormers live action movie franchise, several people involved in the standalone Bumblebee movie seemed to imply in interviews that it was effectively a reboot. The initial teaser trailer certainly implied a soft reboot at least, with Bumblebee sharing only a few design cues with the Bayverse version, and the glimpse of a Decepticon jet certainly started some buzz because the character seemed to use G1 Starscream's colourscheme and a head that appeared to be derived from G1 Seekers, rather than the insectoid appearance of Starscream in the original three TransFormers movies. It also didn't go unnoticed that John Cena's character - a Sector 7 agent named Burns - could, in theory, provide a link to a live action MASK movie... But he turned out to be Jack Burns, not Calhoun... Oh, and the revelation in July that one of the antagonists would be - gasp - a Femme-Bot voiced by Angela Bassett brought me all kinds of Airachnid-inspired shivers. Thankfully, I think I'm wrong on the first count - Bumblebee definitely won't be the worst movie in Steinfeld's career - but hopefully right on the second. I really enjoyed it, it was far better than any of the preceding five films, but it was a little derivitive and I'm still in two minds about the balance between humans and robots in the movie. The real shame, perhaps, is that it was released around the same time as Aquaman and Mary Poppins Returns, thus scuppering its chances of the kind of quick box office success it deserved.
6. Hasbro to make another takeover offer - well, as early as April, it was revealed that Hasbro had set up shop in India and ended a distribution deal with another company there. Not quite a takeover, but that was just the start of the financial year. This was quickly followed up, right at the start of May, with news that they had acquired the Power Rangers brand from Saban. Again, not a takeover, as such, but a huge coup for Hasbro... and, let's face it, Power Rangers would be an easy fit into a shared Hasbro Movie Universe...
7. Star Trek: Discovery will continue to divide the 'fanbase' - upon its return in the New Year, Discovery's storyline disappeared down a rabbit hole that confirmed some of the wilder fan theories, but went far further than even their expectations. The mirror universe, horrific surgeries, double-crossings... they bloody well killed the doctor... and then left us on another damned cliffhanger with the introduction of the USS Enterprise under the command of familiarly-named captain (no, not Kirk)! I really don't get all these people whining that "Discovery isn't Trek"... but I guess it's another example of the poisonous nostalgia which seems prevalent in long-running sci-fi these days. Of course, it doesn't help that the series got embroiled in accusations of plagiarism later in the year...
8. Doctor Who will be better - it didn't take long after the announcement of Jodie Whittaker as the Doctor and Chris Chibnall as the showrunner for triggered YouTubers to spring into action, ripping the next series apart before filming even commenced. Chris Chibnall - riding high in the popularity of Broadchurch - was quickly dismissed as a hack... and on the dubious evidence of the few 'deus ex Medicus'-heavy episodes of he'd written over the years, it seemed hard to argue. His episodes of Torchwood were no better, either, some downright insultingly bad... Could this be just another 'fanboy' given his dream project? Well, the first episode was pretty good, Whittaker was spot-on in her post-regeneration confusion, the companions seemed interesting enough, and the monster - while a bit dull - didn't seem to even know who the Doctor was... a refreshing change after the way he'd previously been portrayed, under both Moffat and RTD, as the godlike intergalactic hero/messiah figure. Overall, it started to feel more like Classic Who, and the humour was a lot more natural, less "oh, isn't that funny? Aren't I clever?". Segun Akinola's music - both the themes and the incidentals - is like a more subtle take on the sort of music that accompanied the original series, and the theme particularly is a massive change from the bombastic (albeit really good) Murray Gold versions. But what made it feel much more like the original series, to me, was that each episode presented us with more of what was happening before the Doctor's arrival, and each episode felt more directly connected with the last - the companions are going on a journey with the Doctor (and, for the first time in ages, they've actually asked to carry on travelling rather than just being sucked in), and we're going along with them, rather than just watching the Doctor be wacky and save the day every week by means of sudden deus ex machina. Nevertheless, it continued to attract bitter scorn from certain quarters, with a bizarre focus on viewing figures (which have actually been better than some previous series), Chibnall's scripts (admittedly the weakest of the bunch), and Whittaker's Doctor (which, for me, works far better than Capaldi's, even if it is taking just as long to settle into character). We've still got the New Year Special to come, but I'll be looking forward to the next series - perhaps with Chibnall supervising rather than writing any scripts.
9. Deadpool 2 will disappoint some - the trailers came thick and fast, looking every bit as awesome as the first... Reviews were largely quite positive, but there were comments about the first movie exceeding low expectations and the second failing to live up to the resultant high expectations. I quite liked it, and will definitely pick it up on DVD/Blu-Ray... but I quite agree with Ryan Reynolds' assessement of why it's unlikely there will be a Deadpool 3. What really bugged me about this one was that it introduced Cable in a way that failed entirely to explain who he is. Perhaps that means a solo movie will be considered..?

Hopes/Predictions for 2019

1. Studio Series to continue and expand - I wasn't expecting a flood of releases for this line, and it does seem to be aimed more at the collector than the kids, though not to the extent of the Masterpiece line. April this year saw the announcement of a Voyager class Bonecrusher and - ugh! - another Optimus Prime. On the upside, it was revealed in late October that this would be accompanied by a new Jetfire, with the option to combine them into a new Jetwing Optimus Prime. The SDCC reveals of Lockdown and Stinger repaints were... anticlimactic, but the Deluxe class VW Bumblebee looked surprisingly good considering it appears to be using much the same engineering as the more recent Camaro Bumblebees. My excitement over later reveals of a WWII Bumblebee and a whole new take of Sideswipe were tempered somewhat by the many Bumblebee repaints and the botched 'Crowbar' which was just a repaint of Crankcase rather than TLK Berserker. The most awesome announcement was regarding the 8-part Devastator combiner, at the MCM London Comic Con in October. There are many other characters for Hasbro to try or retry, as well as the opportunity to finally release the unique RotF Elita-1 figure that had supposedly been developed to create the three-bike combiner that never appeared in the movie, and perhaps we'll get a decent Jolt and an improved Jetfire at some point. Even a Deluxe class Hatchet, based on the same approximate framework as TLK Berzerker/Crankcase and SS Crowbar, would be worth a look.
2. War for Cybertron will be just another disappointing rehash - the new toyline could have been so much better, so much more... But Hasbro have decided to reboot G1 all over again, taking us back to a time before the Prime Wars trilogy, before all the exisiting Generations lines, and sell us the same 'Classic' characters, barely looking any different, all over again. On the whole, it feels like a good time for me to step back and focus on other things, not least to avoid cluttering my flat up too much more... I've been collecting again for about 14 years now, since the 20th Anniversary lines and the introduction of the Masterpiece line, which is longer than the time I spent collecting back when TransFormers first hit the shelves!
3. Improved Distribution? - one of the almost throwaway remarks made at the Hasbro panel at the October MCM London Comic Con was that they were aware of the troubles UK/European fans had been experiencing with obtaining new TransFormers toys... and that they were 'looking into it'. Hopefully this means someone will kick the relevant teams in Hasbro's European offices and start a concerted push to get new toys on shelves in a timely manner.
4. Movie focus for Third Parties? - having bought Unique Toys' Peru Kill and Alien Attack's Firage this year, I've been interested to see more of the Third Parties turning their attention to the robots from the Michael Bay years of the TransFormers franchise, not least Toyworld's WWI Triplane Starscream and their own take on WWII Bumblebee, the latter being far superior to Hasbro's Studio Series offering.
5. Slowing down? - it seems that I write about dialling back on my collecting at least once a year... but, at this point, I really think it's a stronger likelihood. Studio Series isn't going to be release quite so many new toys as the War for Cybertron series, and that line is of minimal interest to me. I'm basically out of space unless I want to put more of my existing toys into storage (RID/Car Robots being the most likely option, though some older movie figures may end up replaced by their Studio Series alternates to save a bit of space), and I should keep a tighter rein on my spending till I'm working again.
6. TFNation to expand and/or relocate - honestly, I expect to be wrong about this, but it's certainly a high hope. While the Hilton is a lovely hotel, and TF Nation is not quite ready to occupy a hall within the NEC, the current location and organisation of the show is frustrating. The Saturday morning queue is ridiculous, having the main stage and guest booths in the same room as the main retail floor is horrible, but the smaller, satellite rooms are set aside for panels, etc. Based on my experience of my former employer's events, installing some partition walls in a single, larger space would make for a better experience. Funnily enough, the idea of relocating was partly addressed in the Round Table at the close of this year's show, and they're keen to keep the show 'residential' for the time being, simply because it enables them to make better deals with the hotel in terms of room allocation and discounts.
7. Fun Publications to bounce back with a new, unofficial BotCon - around the middle of the year, it was revealed that Fun Publications had re-registered the trademark 'BotCon', giving rise to speculation that they would bring their TransFormers convention back in an unofficial way. It wouldn't surprise to to find they were bound by some agreement that prevented them setting up an unofficial con before Hasbro had time to make their own plans, but that wouldn't be a permanent thing - I'd guess one or two years at most. I'm certainly hoping they do resurrect BotCon, since HasCon doesn't quite fulfill the needs of the TF Fandom. If it happens, though, the big question will be whether they continue to have the sort of exclusives they used to sell, and whether there will be an unofficial Collectors' Club. 
8. Star Trek: Discovery will continue to divide the 'fanbase'... again! - I consider myself a huge Trek fan and, while Discovery does mess about with established canon, that's nothing new to Trek. It's happened within episodes of the TV show (like the DS9 episode that was partially set in the OS episode 'The Trouble with Tribbles') and Enterprise was one monumental "fuck you" to the established origins of the Federation. Perhaps it was a mistake to set Discovery before the OS, but it's been fun and exciting so far... though the accusations of plagiarism are troubling, as it seems quite clear-cut. Let's hope season 2 does more to win back the die-hard, extremist fans... even if the introduction of Spock seems to have upset them even more!
9. Another change of direction for Doctor Who? - before Chibnall/Whittaker's first season was even half way through, rumours appeared that Chibnall planned to leave after completing his second series... and that Whittaker had elected to leave at the same time. Personally, I hope it's not true. I enjoyed every episode of series 11, despite a couple of underachieving scripts from Chibnall himself, and it feels much more like the show I used to watch as a nipper... If only they'd turn it into three or four multi-episode stories per year, rather than keeping it 'monster of the week'. We'll have to wait and see whether this new direction gets curtailed due to the outpouring of vitriol from certain quarters... And we'll be waiting longer than expected, as the next series has been delayed a couple of months to early 2020!
10. News on the next TransFormers movie - with broadly positive responses to Bumblebee, Paramount will undoubtedly move to restart their giant robot juggernaut... However, a poorly-timed release at Christmas may have had a detrimental effect on the superior film's box office takings, versus the previous cruddy blockbusters so, sadly, I suspect that the next movie will be a misstep. They'll try to relauch the big blockbuster type of movie without properly understanding why Bumblebee was well received, what the fans actually want, and what general audiences are capable of appreciating. But at least Michael Bay won't be (actively) involved.
11. Big Movies, Big Disappointments - the last few years have seen the release of some really excellent movies, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been mostly awesome... Sadly, the same cannot be said for the DC Cinematic Universe, and several other prequels, sequels and reboots have been a bit crap - Universal's Dark Universe, for example, just keeps failing and the ongoing Star Wars saga, while generally enjoyable, has been weakened by films like Solo: A Star Wars Story. Since the studios seem intent on not learning any lessons from their failures, I don't see any reason to expect improvement... Though Aquaman looks surprisingly good (not seen it yet!), and Michael Bay's exit from the TransFormers franchise seems to be a very positive thing...

This hasn't been a great year for me but, looking back on it, there have been far more positives than negatives... it's just that those negatives have been particularly stressful and draining. It's beginning to feel as though I need a change in direction, career-wise, and I've started looking into what I might like to do outside Publishing... Although a couple of career-related questionnaires I filled out as part of the process seemed intent on pushing me back to Publishing. I'm not averse, just that the last couple of full-time jobs in that field were not very pleasant for one reason or another, and the Production side of things just seems to be getting squeezed further each year.

I'd really like to get into videogames, and have explored several avenues during the year... Ren'Py is a lot of work, but has a lot of potential... and if the Sam Coupé game I'm working on is well received, I might have the opportunity to work on other games on that format... (the programmer already has plans for more) and, in the meantime, if any new ideas come to me, I can pursue my own projects.

Once the New Year starts, though, I'll start to more seriously look for a new job, be it full-time or temping. I don't feel that I've accomplished much of I set out to do during this 'time off', but I am keen to avoid burning through all my savings, and it's not as if I'd have to stop pursuing my own ideas if I'm working again.