Hall of Fame Award Renamed the Hartman Award

agreed

very nice, i like it.
Hopefully it will get some more respect now

nice, adds a bit of flair to it, and recognizes the additions to botcon the hartmans brought

That's a great honor there. We have BotCon and many other inspired Transformers conventions due to them. Congratulations to the Hartmans.

Yet another step showing this is less about the fans, and more about FunPub. But after Swindlegate, I'm not surprised.

Wait, whut?


What have the hartmans got to do with funpub? you fancy explaining your crazy talk there son?

Awesome, no matter what someone may say otherwise.

I have been collecting Transformers nonstop since 84. And I have been online since the only place to talk Transformers was att. I see this as a nod to the entire fandom, since the Hartmans have always been huge fans and laid so much groundwork for the fan aspect we enjoy today. This is no situation where corporate america is taking over, which seems to be the underlying fear someone posted. This is fandom.

Well deserved.

I agree... I think it's a perfect name for the award.

I don't really understand why people think this is so awesome.... The Hall of Fame may be a Botcon thing, but it isn't limited to Botcon (even if it is mainly present at Botcon). It just seems kinda silly to me. Why not name it after, oh I don't know, someone more important? Although as much as I'd like them to name it after Wally Burr, I honestly can't think of anyone better myself, but I really don't see why it needed a name change at all.

And after this, probably a million people will come along and tell me I'm wrong and I'm stupid and why I'm wrong and stupid. But whatever. It's just my opinion.

Also, you smell!

Is it named after the Hartman who sold of his collection or the one who didn't hmmmm ?

Oh and have you noticed no matter how much they try to hide it that Botcon still has the hotel/convention center deco more in your face than the Transformers aspect.

That Wall paper in particular.

Eh, I don't know anything in particular about the Hartmans, but I've just never been keen on naming awards after specific people. "Hall of Fame Fan's Choice Award" is just fine, since it describes exactly what the award is actually for.

They'd have been better off naming the dinner event after him.

Good for them

(still don't care much about the HOF itself though)

I think it would have been nicer to create a new hall of fame for people / fans who have become a big part of the TF community and naming that after the hartman's, even making them the first inductee's. Renaming a existing hall of fame just seems wrong.

Naming the fan's choice award after two of the biggest fans of the franchise, and the ones who started BotCon in the first place? I like it.

You mean the Hartman award would be for people not things... and the fan award stays the same.

Yes that would be a good idea.

Then you'd have Michael Bay some place other than the same location that Grimlock & Starscream.

When I first saw this, I thought it seemed a little arbitrary. Then I did a bit of Wikiresearch...turns out that of the big four entertainment awards (Oscar, Grammy, Emmy, Tony) only the last is actually named for someone. The rest are incredibly arbitrary. Other awards also tend to be arbitrary or silly (MTV gives out "Moon Men" and "Golden Popcorn").

So I guess it's OK...but I don't know, it still seems off somehow...like it should be named for someone who passed away or something.

Thats cool.

I was at a diffrent con in 2006 and started chatting with this guy for about 20 minutes about Transformers. wasn't until we were heading our seperate ways that I asked his name and found out he was one of the Hartmans.

Great news - thinking of bay in a hall of fame just never sat right with me...thinking of him as someone who won some heartman award? I never heard about? Yeah - much better.

This.

Then continue to have it not sit right with you...

...because, based on this, the Hartman Award is only specifically for the fan's choice Hall of Fame inductee. Everyone else, human or TF, who gets auto-inducted is just a normal Hall of Fame inductee.

Explain this "swindlegate", please.

He´s just buthurted over Bay. Nothing uncommon.

Cool!

Can someone answer this for me because I'm confused (and I'm not trolling, I'm really confused, I've tried searching on the subject). Aren't these the owners of Fun Publications?

That was really cool of Archer to do I think the Hartmans definitely deserve to be inducted into the human HOF at some point, although that should probably be after they "retire" from FunPub.

No, neither Jon nor myself own or run Fun Publications. Jon is a department manager at Wal-Mart amd is heavily involved with his church. I am a private saxophone instructor in the Avon, Indiana community school corporation, and am on an advisory board of sorts that helps to come up with ideas for convention toys, when needed.

Again, it was a very humbling honor bestowed upon my brother and myself, and it is certainly not one that we take lightly.

Karl

Woah Mr. Hartman seems to be taller than a freakin' bear. Either that or Aaron was on his knees looking for his contacts before the photo was taken or something.

Because naming the award after the two FANS who started organizing Botcons back in the day isn't making Botcon about the fans....

No two fans have done as much for transformers as these two. They deserve the honor, without a doubt.

This is pretty awesome. Glad to see these guys getting more recognition.

THIS x OVER 9000.

Congratulations guys!

This right here. Congratulations guys.

Thank you for clearing that up! And definitely a congratulations are in order to the both of you. It's impossible to track the myriad world of who does what in the realm of collecting. Now if only that award came with a prize bonus. Or royalty checks.

It's cool! My congratulations! It's amazing when certain people make such great contributions to our movement! And it's even better, when they are known and appreciated for it! Now everyone will know who founded BotCon!

Honestly, I wouldn't care if you two were the majority owners of Fun Pub. For what you two have done over the years for the fan community, this is a very well deserved honor and I congratulate you both.

Are you serious bro?

Meh who cares! the fans choice stopped being relevant as soon as Hasbro started rigging votes.

Rigging votes?

Sky-Byte and BW Megatron probably just split the vote is all. Same thing happened in 2009, I'd argue, when Dinobot got in. Sure Dinobot's popular, but there was definitely votesplitting among Shockwave, Soundwave, Grimlock, etc.

This is an awesome way to recognize the Hartmans. Putting a known name on the award based on our picks gives the Fan's Choice pic more of a what we wanted versus being an "also ran."

Except it's not arbitray, it's named after one of the original founders of Botcon.

Um I think lots of fans have done quite a lot for the franchise, like Sorenson and Forster, Roche and Roberts to name just 2 pairs.

These guys haven't done much (if anything) for the fandom that I've heard of in almost 10 years

But still, no big deal, still don't care that much lol

I don't buy it. Maybe in 09' that could have been the case, but with some of the more recent fan nominations, it's pretty obvious Hasbro has been manipulating some of the voting. I'm sure some people might disagree with me, but that's just my opinion on the matter.

I met Karl over the weekend, didn't know who he was but he helped me out quite a bit, helping get me a duplicate badge when I lost mine and my fiancee a last-minute MiniCon package. Yes he is very large! Congratulations, sincerely!

Congratulations! Well deserved!!!!

Well, they've done a hell of a lot more than Sorenson, Forster, Roche, and Roberts have, whether you're aware of it or not.

They started Botcon in 1994. Not with a company, just as fans. The fan community was small in 94, and given it's size it probably seemed like a dumb thing to do. They did it anyways, and kept doing it (one of them even went into debt twice to do so). They started the very idea of Transformers conventions. They were the first to bring fans together like that. It grew and grew, and now it gives TF fans from all over the world to meet each other face to face at a giant transformers event every year. Didn't do much for the fandom? Sir, they helped build it.

Whether you know who they are or not, they deserve it more than any other fans on the planet, especially since the ceremony is held at botcon.

Having the HOF Fan Choice award renamed to the Hartman Award actually makes me think of it a bit more seriously. Yeah, that name carries more weight to me (and probably a lot of other fans) than "Hall of Fame".

It makes me extremely happy to see these two get more recognition.