So THAT'S the difference between a 'character' and a 'person'...

Warning: this post talks about Transformers. Again. Because I like Transformers. Deal with it. 

There's been a massive furore in the world of Transformers over the past few months, even bigger than when Beast Wars happened, or when Bayformers happened (but then, Bayformers is awful, so...). That furore is over the whole issue of female Transformers, with the shorthand I've seen used in various places being "the Windblade issue".

Now, to forestall the argument that I'm only against Windblade because I'm sexist (the standard, instinctive reaction even to people making valid, well-thought out criticisms), I'm going to preface this little stream of consciousness by saying that I'm 100% in favour of having female characters in the Transformers mythos. There are already a whole shedload of women out there who love Transformers, and having female Cybertronians also has the rather desirable benefit of making the story universe within IDW's Transformers comics that much more diverse and wonderful.

It's just a shame that Windblade herself, the poster-girl for this absolutely necessary movement, is dire...

Musings on my influences - HOW has Transformers endured for 30 years?

What I say next, I say completely without shame or irony: I love Transformers. I've always loved Transformers, ever since the age of 6/7, and I honestly reckon that my love of the weird and the epic (seriously, that's a concrete part of my biography and everything) came from the opening of Transformers: The Movie, in 1986.

Y'know, where the first scene has a planet being eaten. Seeing something like that was bound to have a lasting effect on the brain of a 7 year old, and no mistake.

The thing is, though, that it wasn't just my prepubescent brain that Transformers had an effect on; it also somehow went on to become one of the most successful toy franchises in history, and is still going strong today, thirty years later. The big question, of course, is this: why? How did a toy franchise aimed at 7 year old boys manage that?