I was three when TransFormers came out, so I can't remember things too well. I do know that TF's are amongst my earliest memories, like waiting to catch the cartoon on Wakaday or watching my dad sit and copy the Optimus Prime drawing which appeared as a calendar image in the comics which my brother (who is four years older) had been collecting from issue one. I do clearly remember that this was what sparked my interest in drawing in the first place, because that was the first time my young brain twigged that these pictures didn't just *happen*; someone had had to sit and draw all this in the first place. I was always more fascinated with how a page was put together after that. I guess maybe I picked up on things that others wouldn't, in terms of storytelling and compositional ideas, because I was looking at it harder. I spent a lot of my youth copying pictures directly from those comics, and others I got during that period, like The Real Ghostbusters, the occasional Thundercats or Spider-Man book, and later on the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles.
But anyway.
I am assured by my parents that my first toy was Bumblebee, but the first one I seem to remember owning was Sludge. Given that my parents were the ones buying them at this point, I'll trust that it was Bumblebee.
We got that odd period of TransFormers toys continuing after the cartoon and comic had long since expired, didn't we? The ones that the americans love to identify as 'Euro Exclusives'. In that period I got Overlord and Lightspeed/Braver for a birthday, and a couple of Turbomasters. Flame and Boss, I think. Oh, and Stalker. I guess that counts as my first experience of the Takara stuff.
Gen 2... The UK comic was my first exposure to it. I think the only toy from the series I bought when it was new was the little pinkish sports car for some reason called Frenzy. As of today, the only toys from that series I own are the Laser Rod and Hero versions of Optimus Prime.
My first exposure to Beast Wars was seeing them listed in the Argos catalogue. I had a few spare quid, so I bought one of the smallest assortment (at Argos you couldn't pick which one you actually got, right?), and my first Beast Wars toy turned out to be Razorbeast.
A few weeks later, I woke up on a saturday and my dad told me he had taped a new cartoon that was "like transformers, only it's all animals and computers, like that other show (later ascertained to be Reboot) and it has those two leaders (his way of saying that it *was* Prime and Megatron) as a gorilla and a t-rex". Still half asleep and not entirely certain what he was talking about, I let him put it on for me. Looking back I think maybe he was as excited by this as I would have been, since it had been so many years since anything TransFormers had been on TV. In recent years he couldn't care less, because there has been on over saturation of TF on TV, and most of it very bad.
Anyway. He started the tape, and there was snow as the picture adjusted to midway through a scene a few minutes into the first epidsode of Beast Wars. He had rushed to find a tape to record it on after it had already begun. I took me a few weeks to come to terms with the new idea, I definitely enjoyed it, but I couldn't decide if I *liked* it. I can honestly say that I was completely down with it and actively trying to convert my brother long before any blatant connections to Gen 1 continuity began to surface.
Beast Machines, I first saw after picking up the DVD's released around the time the first Bay film was out. I had already learned from the internet how utterly terrible the series was supposed to be, but I was completist, and it was still Beast Wars, really, right? And I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised. It had been made out to be so very very bad by the online fanbase that in reality there was no way it actually could be that bad, maybe. First toy would have been Obsidius. Dunno why.
RID/Car Robots/2000, the first thing I saw of these were the toys which already seemed to be going for discount price. My first was Prowl. I bought one of the DVD's but gave it to my brother if I recall. I guess Beast Wars had spoiled me, but this, and the following series, were just not what I wanted from my TransFormers.
Unicron trilogy, the cartoons began on saturday mornings and have never seemed to have gone away. I could never get into them, I'm afraid. First (and only, in some cases) toys from them where each series' version of Starscream. The Armada game rocks, though.
Movieverse, first exposure was leaked character designs that looked terrible. It was all downhill from there. Admittedly, I bought a few toys in the early days before coming to my senses. My first was either Starscream or Barricade.
Animated, I have to admit, I was one of those who saw the initial character designs and groaned in despair. Maybe I had to face facts; TransFormers was something I was going to have to leave behind me.
My brother and I watched the first three episode pilot 'movie' on youtube after it had released in the US, neither of us expecting to enjoy it.
By god, how completely wrong we were!
I can't remember who my first toy was, but I THINK it was Bumblebee.
Dreamwave comics; first exposure was quite by chance stumbling upon issue one of the series retroactively referred to as Prime Directive. I collected every issue and trade the company released before folding. Aside from the writing of the first two minis, Pat Lee's art and general management and the God awful Micromasters mini, I really think Dreamwave got a bad wrap.
IDW, again, quite by accident I stumbled upon issue 0. I haven't collected every issue they've done, but I have bought every trade thus far, excluding UK and classics reprints, since I already had the more comprehensive trade collections put out by Titan a few years before.
Reckon thats it. Killed a bit of my sunday morning.