Pretty much this. Been on my mind all week. I recall there being a grand sense of mystery around who, exactly, this mystery letter-writer was. Was the result ever revealed?

Bonus question that's also been on my mind: does anyone else still have the original TF code lying around? Would be fun to put this back into our ATT signatures, perhaps! (Just an idea).

Hoping that everyone is doing really well,

Joseph
Joe.bardsley@gmail.com

On Friday, May 21, 2021 at 7:28:40 PM UTC-6, Joseph Bardsley wrote:

> Pretty much this. Been on my mind all week. I recall there being a grand sense of mystery around who, exactly, this mystery letter-writer was. Was the result ever revealed?

I feel like the editors made it into a much bigger thing than it ever needed to be. I'm sure there was indeed a kid whose nickname was Shingo, and he wrote a letter to Marvel Comics, and that's where it should have ended. Maybe they were trying to drum up sales or something, but the way they hyped up the existence of this kid was shameless (even to the point where they were sneaking his name into artwork and sponsoring contests to see if you could "Spot the Shingo"). If I remember right, several people wrote in all claiming to be the true Shingo, but this was result of all the hype that Marvel themselves had created.

It's silly and irreverant and just another symptom of the way Marvel dismissed TRANSFORMERS as a silly kids' comic based on a toy line, and how they had to essentially invent a random controversy just to make working on the book more interesting.
> Bonus question that's also been on my mind: does anyone else still have the original TF code lying around?

I think it would have to be significantly updated for modern times. As I recall, you could indicate if you were a fan of G1, G2, or Beast Wars, but that's as current as it ever got.

Zob (I'm sure there are people out there who love All Things Transformers, but I'm not one of 'em)