Issue 8, June 2006 £5.00 / $10.00 INSIDE THIS ISSUE: A personal look at his involvement with Beast Wars by Simon Furman, Reviews, News, Artwork, Fiction, Articles and much more besides...! Contents Credits 2 Artwork - "RiD Prime" by Simon Executive Sven Harvey Williams and Jason Cardy Editor: 3 Contents/Credits Editor: Simon Plumbe 4 Introduction Writers: Kylie Austin, Keith Cooper, Simon Furman, Lola Gudgeon, 5 Guest Profiles Sven Harvey, Simon Plumbe Features Artists: Jason Cardy, Guido Guidi, Lee Sullivan, Simon Williams 11 Beast Wars: The Official Regenesis Photos: Heather White, Simon Plumbe, TransFormers: Unlimited Transformers@TheMoon 14 "Reunion" by Sven Harvey Contributors: Jason Cardy, Simon Furman, David Ravenscroft, Geoff 16 "Prison Break" by Keith Cooper Senior, Lee Sullivan, Andrew Wildman, Simon Williams 30 "A Mech's Best Friend" by Kylie Austin Design: Simon Plumbe 42 "Retreat" by Lola Gudgeon Front Cover: Lee Sullivan Features 45 A Sideburn Obsession The Cybertronian Times Issue 8 is the official 49 Dateline 1984: Was this the launch of fanzine of Auto Assembly: Target 2006 and is TransFormers in the UK? published by Infinite Frontiers and is © copyright 2006 50 More Than A Convention... www.autoassembly.org.uk 51 TransFormers: The (Live Action) Movie Auto Assembly: Target 2006 PO Box 8966 54 Toy Review - Landbullet Great Barr Birmingham 55 Artwork - "Cougar" by Guido Guidi B43 5ST First printing, June 2006 3 Introduction I hope you enjoy the event and though we are Once again its that time of year where I end not announcing Auto Assembly 2007 as an up trying to be in at least three places at once event quite yet, mainly due to the new live trying to make sure everyone is enjoying action film possibly causing headaches, I do themselves whether they be attendee guest intend there to be one next year, just don’t or even dealer. With a bit of luck, assuming expect a guest list like this years! you picked up your copy of this issue if CT at Auto Assembly you are probably reading this Sven Harvey whilst having a break from the dealers table Founder, Auto Assembly melee in the seating area (actually its more than likely that you have skipped this bit, so I wasn't originally going to write anything here whenever you are reading this, this is all but as there was a little space, I thought I'd seemingly utterly pointless!). add a few words... This is an exciting time for me - it's 10 years since we did our first large What is Auto Assembly about? Well lets face scale convention here at Infinite Frontiers, it's it, its supposed to be fun, and hopefully the the 10th Anniversary of Beast Wars and ability to meet a tonne of other TransFormers we're on target again to beat the attendance fans and collectors in itself is worth the record for a European TransFormers journey, but hopefully the variety of dealers convention and it's something that we tables, plus the number of guests Simon has couldn’t have achieved without YOUR help. managed to pull together for your enjoyment, and lets face it the likelihood of us being able And that's really what I wanted to add here - to better the guest line-up in a future event is a few personal thanks to some people who pretty much nil! However one big chunk of have made this year's convention possible. Auto Assembly which puts it apart from First, I'd like to thank all our sponsors this almost every other TransFormers event year who have provided the free gifts for our anywhere else in the world is that any and all goodie bag or who have helped us financially proceeds from the event, once all costs are with the event - Spacebridge, Model & paid, plus funds raised from the auction and Collectors Mart, Red Mill Snack Foods, Titan the raffle will be going to Acorns Childrens Books, TF Auctions, and another sponsor Hospice Trust who run a number of sites who we can't name but who helped us primarily for life-limited children. immensely with our room hire costs (you know who you are - thanks Martin!). Unfortunately funding for the Hospices has been difficult to raise resulting in beds having Obviously, I want to thank Sven for all his to be closed. Auto Assembly: Target 2006 hard work and effort he's put into the and BRMBs Big Brum Walk as the only two convention as always and making sure reasonable sized events raising money for everything has run smoothly with the venue, the Trust that I am aware of this year so I can all our volunteers, Lee Sullivan for his cover only ask for as much help as you can offer to artwork, Guido Guidi, Simon Williams and Kat help out these kids. And don’t forget next time Nicholson for the postcard artwork, and finally someone has a go at you for being a loser or my fiancée Heather who's kept me sane the sad for enjoying TransFormers or coming to last 12 months planning everything! Auto Assembly, you can always state quite clearly “When was the last time you helped I'd also like to thank everyone who's entered out some ill kids?” our competitions this year. We've had so many entries to our fiction competition that On behalf of the Acorns Childrens Hospices I we couldn’t include them all here so if you would like to thank you for your support of look on the website soon we'll make a bonus Auto Assembly: Target 2006, and indeed fanzine available freely for downloading Auto Assembly 2005, when half of the money featuring the rest of the entries! raised from the event went to Acorns (the other half went to the NSPCC). Simon Plumbe 4 Auto Assembly: Target 2006 HAWK!), G.I. Joe Extreme; David played the Guest Profiles infamous MEGATRON on Beast Wars -- Transformers (Also Beast Machines; For this year's convention, we have what is Transformers Armada etc.); D'Myna League probably our biggest and best guest line-up (BARRY), Kleo The Misfit Unicorn (his to-date with guests joining us from three character SLIM shares star-billing with a continents covering all aspects of the character voiced by Mickey Rooney), Street TransFormers universe including - as always Fighter (AKUMA), Kong (RAMONE DE LA - comic and TV guests! Well, it's time we PORTA), Exo Squad (Hallas, Draconis) a introduce them to you... series directed by Gordon Hunt (Helen Hunt's, of Mad About You fame, father). He DAVID KAYE was also cast as AKELA THE WOLF in a Russian adaptation of Jungle Book, starring A man of a thousand voices -- and a growing Charlton Heston as the narrator, and is the number of faces - actor David Kaye narrator himself on MGM/Sony's Bible Stories was already a radio professional by the age series. And that was just the very beginning of 16. Working summers and weekends of his career. Fast-forward now through over during his high school years in Peterborough, a hundred characters to his most recent ones Ontario, he dropped his plans and you get to the voice of PROFESSOR for a psychology degree to pursue a full-time XAVIER on WB Kid's animated X-Men: career on-air. Evolution series; MAJOR POWERS for Hasbro’s toy ‘Major Powers’; DRAGON, in Kaye's breakthrough came as a radio personality on a station in London, Ontario, and he followed that with a move to Vancouver's CKLG. There he handled every shift before joining the popular "Morning Zoo" crew, for which he came up with zany characters like the drawling "Cowboy Dick" and "Stunt Boy" with the latter providing him an excuse for remote broadcasts from odd locations. Writing and improvising material for the Zoo soon gave him a taste for more challenging fare, so he undertook acting studies. "When I was still in radio," recalls Kaye with an uncontrollable smile, "somebody told me I would never make a living in this town doing voice- overs. That was all I needed to hear." Kaye has since worked non-stop as a voice actor. He began by supplying vocal personalities to cartoon characters on series like G.I. Joe (the Canadian’s first cartoon character was as the "great American hero" GENERAL 5 Mattel’s new cartoon Barbie as Rapunzel able to do my own thing." That "thing" (“Another purple dragon,” laughs Kaye); includes dead-on comic timing and a flair for CLANK, in the popular Playstation 2 game, intense dramatics. The six-foot, brown-haired ‘Ratchet and Clank’; SESSHOMARU in the Kaye comes by his flamboyance naturally, new hot anime Inuyasha; and he’s still since he counts Captain Blood - the infamous MEGATRON, this time on Transformers model for Errol Flynn's most swashbuckling Armada. Finally, fulfilling another lifelong role - as one of his family ancestors. ambition, David Kaye recently received his first paycheck from “the mouse”, for a Disney SIMON FURMAN Christmas project ‘Mickey Mouse’s Twice Upon A Christmas’. And this breakdown of Simon Furman is a writer for comic books characters only touches the list of voices and TV animation, his name inextricably Kaye has provided in animation ... A list linked to Transformers, the 80s toy impressive enough to land top talent agency, phenomenon. He has written literally William Morris in both L.A. and in New York. hundreds of stories about the war-torn 'robots in disguise', for Marvel Comics (US and UK), But more than 'toon-town beckoned. As part Dreamwave and most recently Transformers: of North Vancouver's First Impressions Infiltration and Beast Wars: The Gathering for theatre company, Kaye landed key roles in IDW Publishing.