What is BOP?

Transformers: Balance of Power was started originally in 1993 as a continuation of the defunct Marvel U.S. comic series by my friend Thomas Zavier. At the time he envisioned BOP, the Generation 2 toyline/comic had not yet come into being and there was no official stories around. We'd also recently been exposed to the Transmasters fan club and wanted to try our own shot at doing a TF fanzine (eventually, Tom did BOP and I did Trans-Scrypt). BOP only ran three issues before Tom decided to give up on it. However, I enjoyed the melodramatic quality of his writing in the three existing issues and decided to continue the story myself (with his blessing). I plotted out an involved story arc (along with input from Tom) and published BOP #4 - #7 myself before losing access to the computer I used at the time. Enter our friend and prolific writer, Matt Kirkby, who enjoyed our efforts and decided to continue the story himself. He used our existing ideas as well as some new stuff he came up with and published issues #8 - #26 before quitting due to real life issues.

For some time afterward, I had planned to continue the storyzine again (now having a computer of my own). I plotted out a few more stories and even published BOP #27 exclusively on this website but never got around to doing anything further... Finally, in early 2006, Peter Phelps did a "best of" Transmasters CD-ROM, including all of our BOP media and I got inspired to try and finish the fanzine off. After nearly two further years, I managed to succeed. BOP now runs up to issue #35, the very last issue (the entire run is available to read in the BOP archive below).

BOP back issue archive. Check out the previous issues of BOP here (as well as all the covers and character profiles).