Introduction to Bish

One of my good friends is a Transfan from the UK. He has been enjoying my reviews and graciously offered to cover the UK comics. I asked him to write a short introductory piece and here is what he came up with:

Hello, Bish here. Jim has very kindly allowed me to collaborate on this blog of his by complimenting his weekly reviews of the Marvel Transformers with my own analysis of the material produced in the United Kingdom. This is a neat fit, because I am, in fact, British. So if you see any spelling you think is wrong, trust me, I know what I’m doing (there’s a nice “get out of jail” right there).

As a Transformers fan I do not, unfortunately, have Jim’s pedigree. I am in my early twenties and therefore am slightly too young to have discovered Transformers the proper way, in 1984, with everybody else. Luckily for you lot, I was given VHS tapes and toys by older children, and Hasbro had reissued some of the classic G1 figures in the UK in the early nineties, so I was only vaguely aware that I was behind the curve.

Shamefully I rather foolishly believed that I had grown out of Transformers from the age of about ten, around the time I discovered Doctor Who and Star Trek. I left my toys untouched and unloved, with only a slight spark (ha!) of recognition whenever I heard the word “transformer” in a physics lesson.

Amazingly, when, at the age of about sixteen or seventeen, the adolescent thirst for alcohol and female company meant that I desperately needed more cash, my interest in Transformers was stirred once more. While browsing the internet to see if I had anything from childhood worth selling, I very quickly became aware of how big a deal Transformers were, and of how interesting their mythology really was. Two facts swiftly became apparent: my Transformers were very definitely worth selling, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to be the one to do it.

The internet makes the acquisition of information about a prospective hobby laughably easy. Before long I had joined message boards, read fansites, bought tons of toys from ebay, and finally amassed enough of the Marvel comic reprints to realise that, for me, the best Transformers saga so far, was this one. From “The Transformers #1” through “End of the Road” and then beyond, into G2, here was the deepest and most complex story that the unique medium of oddly named, perpetually warring, transforming robots had yet produced.

Anyway, enough about my tedious life and onto the main course. I will review two UK issues per week, which brings the number of pages reviewed very close to that of Jim’s posts. The UK comics were, of course, weekly, as opposed to the United States’ bimonthly offerings.
Bish