Tuesday, March 09, 2010

The State of Things...

As you may know, the Transmasters website used to be on Geocities.com. In the fall, Yahoo! decided to shut it all down (I guess hosting sites for free wasn't making them money). Anyway, I (Thunder) moved the website and most of its files over to Angelfire.com instead. It sat there for a few months, pretty similar to the previous incarnation that Peter Phelps set up.
Recently, I had the idea to try and jazz it up a bit--to make it more informative, adding information to act as a "Transformers 101" for the newcomer to the concept/quick reference for people who don't want to wade through pages and pages of Wiki (not that there's anything wrong with the Wiki--but let's be honest, it is very extensive and that can be intimidating to some). The site as it exists now is still bit rough around the edges (I intend to add more pictures to some of it for one thing).

www.transmasters.org

You will also notice the lack of those annoying banner ads on the website--I chose to go pay and get rid of them (at least for the immediate future anyway). I also figure we deserve a nice website and seven hundred ads clogging it up don't really help that cause.

I also plan to do a new issue of the Transmasters Magazine in May. Unfortunately, we lost some of the previous issues Peter did (#1 to #3) and only #4 and #5 exist anymore. I do have a fair amount of content done up for this new issue already but new stuff is welcome (even if it doesn't make the spring issue we'll still need stuff for the following issues).

There's never been a better time to throw in with the club and make your voice heard! We're not the Official TF club, but that's good in many respects. It gives us the chance to go further and fly higher, unencumbered by red tape. Let's make Transmasters the best damn TF site on the web!

3 comments:

UberNerdyBoy said...

Have you decided on the amount of pages per issue ?

Not sure if I can fully participate in the coming months, I am most likely moving in may or april to a new house. After that, time will hopefully be more on my side and if it's a quarterly production I should be able to produce some art for every edition. (probably 4-6 pages)

-Johan.

Pierrimus said...

Sorry for not getting back to you on your email Tony. Busy as ever and still have about 14 more weeks to go before I finish up the UOP classes online for my BA! See the light at the end of the tunnel. Thank you for your work on moving and changing the main site. I will try to get the issues of the old TM Mag off to you ASAP.

It has been hectic at my work too. They just downsized a bunch of people and since we're security we are on a high alert mode for someone doing something dumb. Sigh, then I have to think at least I have a job...still should not mean I have to do twice as much work.

Me and Juanjuan, the lady in China, are in a bit of a bump right now. I finally set a deadline for the paperwork for the Fiance Visa at end of Feb. Then I nagged her all that month. She missed it and pissed me off a bit since seems entire burden on me. She says she finally got it in the mail on Friday so give a week or so and see. But not feeling trust her now because she lied about getting it in the mail earlier. Sigh.

Sadly I would have to say that my participation will probably continue to be lacking. My TF collection is down to just one bookshelf now (was 4). I haven't bought any of the comics since the Dinobots series. And all the TM medias are collecting dust in boxes. Would you consider being the new President Tony? I'd ship the medias up to you if you want them.

Sorry folks, be well.

Thunder said...

As far as page count goes, it's going to be an e-zine so it doesn't matter too much. Something like maybe ten pages or so on average and I hope to maintain a quarterly schedule (I'm dropping the TM Comic though as it's too hard to do both at the same time. The main zine can have a comic instead). The first issue should be okay on its own but if you have time and interest later on, contributions are certainly welcome.