ALIAS:

Bryan Richard Shipp

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        This human was created on July 30, 1977 in the small state of Rhode Island.  Because his dad was in the military, he had to move to Jacksonville, North Carolina, so his dad could easily commute between home and his work at Camp Lejeune (the day-long drive was really wearing him down).  Bryan was introduced to Transformers at the ripe age of 7, when he encountered a small toy at a local department store--a little maroon tank.  That tank was, of course, BAM!  POW! Warpath, and young Mr. Shipp's life would never be the same.
        He began gathering a horde of Transformers--their magnificence in young Mr. Shipp's eyes was only approached by one other toy line, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe.  But it was Transformers that he really liked, because nowhere in their story was there a scantily-clad muscleman.  He cut his artistic teeth on Transformers, learning to draw them very well for a boy in the third grade and virtually perfecting his ability to draw Optimus Prime, his favorite Transformer.
        But the time came when he would have to move away from Jacksonville, when he went to Michigan.  Unfortunately, in Michigan, there were no stations that he could pick up which would allow him to watch Transformers at any reasonable hour of the day (already, young Mr. Shipp was discovering that any time before 9am was anathema to him).  Thus, his interest in Transformers began to wane, until the last Transformer he ever got was Powermaster Optimus Prime.  Powermaster Prime was such a disappointment to him, with its hydrocephalic head and stunted arms, that he would not buy another Transformer for many years.
        By the time young Mr. Shipp had the opportunity to return to Jacksonville, he was sorely disappointed in the direction his beloved toy line had taken.  In K-Mart, seeing "Micromasters" advertised as Transformers, he simply shook his head and sighed.
        But then came Generation 2.  He was in High School by the time he saw the first year of Generation 2 Transformers come out.  He purchased the remolds of Optimus Prime, Jazz and Inferno, because he had always wanted the second two when they first came out, and because he really liked the new black trailer on Optimus (even though he couldn't stand that Optimus' name was scrawled across it).  He also purchased Rapido, only to see the same shoddy construction that had killed the first toy line.  He was able to collect the first four issues of the Generation 2 comic book but, as had happened before, his local comic shop soon stopped carrying the line and, for lack of fresh stories, young Mr. Shipp once more lost interest in Transformers.
        He watched as the Generation 2 line introduced an Optimus Prime which actually had a front end on his cab, and he declared Transformers a totally, woefully, lost cause.  Machine Wars then appeared, and young Mr. Shipp wept.  Beast Wars appeared, and young Mr. Shipp cried out, "But they're robots!  How dare you try to make them into animals!  And your show stinks!  And the toys are ugly!  And since when did Optimus Prime have those two damn bars across his face?"
        Mr. Shipp ignored Beast Wars. . .until one day when, as he was aimlessly watching television, he came upon a Beast Wars episode called "Agenda" airing on the Cartoon Network.  He was hooked.  He watched the entire Agenda storyline, and he was a convert.  Over the next year, he couldn't get enough of Beast Wars.  He admitted the first season was terrible, though it was nice to see Starscream again.  He wept at "Code of Hero" and "Transmutate."  He thrilled at "The Agenda" and "Optimal Situation."  He stared, shocked, at "Master Blaster."  And when "Nemesis" finally aired, he bowed before his television and bemoaned his earlier rejection of Beast Wars.
        It was during this period of hunger for Beast Wars that Mr. Shipp got his own computer, and learned of the glories of UseNet.  He discovered Alt.Toys.Transformers, and appeared there first as himself, then as Lord Zuthe, and finally as Maximus Prime.  He began to write his own Transformers fanfiction, The Maximal Gambit and A World Transformed his primary pieces.  Then, when he decided to play catch-up on what happened in the comic book universe, he founded the Transformers Comic Scan Archive to help other comic-scan seekers like himself.
        Then came Beast Machines.  And once more Mr. Shipp finds his interest in Transformers waning. . .

        Mr. Shipp has a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and Religious Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and is currently pursuing another degree, this time in Computer Programming.  He hopes to break into the computer gaming industry at some point, though this will plainly be very difficult to do.  He trusts in his own luck and skill, though, and is currently writing his first computer game, a text-and-menu-based affair written in the simple language of Pascal.

        For anybody who wants to contact me about anything on this webpage, either because you really hated it, really loved it, found some errors, found some glitches, or anything else may do so at:

Transformers and all related materials are copyright of Hasbro and Marvel Comics.  The design of this page, and most specifically all fanfiction appearing on this page, are Copyright©1999 by Bryan Richard Shipp.  All characters appearing in said fanfictions are also Copyrighted by Bryan Shipp unless either previously Copyrighted by Hasbro and Marvel, or otherwise specified.  Any and all opinions expressed by Mr. Shipp are solely his own, and do not reflect in any way the opinions of the staff or management of the rest of the universe.