HAPPY HALLOWEEN N STUFF!

Not a lot to add because A. no new TFs that I want and B. ARKHAM ORIGINS! Arkham Origins, Arkham Origins, and Arkham origins.

Oh wait, this bomb was dropped on TFW today:

• Generations Voyager Brainstorm
• Generations Voyager Roadbuster
• Generations 30th Leader Jetfire
• Generations 30th Leader Megatron
• Generations Deluxe Arcee
• Generations Deluxe Chromia
• Generations Deluxe Hardhead
• Generations Deluxe Jhiaxus
• Generations Legends Brawn with Mudslinger
• Generations Legends Gears with Eagle Eye

Holy bajeezus. Arcee? CHROMIA? Roadbuster?

GEARS?!??!

I thought I'd be done after Generations Skids and Legends Swerve & Tailgate, Hasbro. BUT YOU KEEP PULLING ME BACK IN.

I'm wearing a Soundwave shirt at work today and have the cassettes laid out on my desk. (I'm going to have to explain to the college kids what cassettes are.)

No, I don't have permission to dress up for Halloween. I'm Thundercracker,
one of the original Seekers. Why so serious, HR?

Kiss PLAYERS? I have no idea what you're talking about.
Do I really have to explain to you kids who Paul Stanley is?

Robots In Cahoots # 7 (podcast!) - It's Not That Kind Of Podcast!

A few posts ago I shared the long delayed Robots In Cahoots podcast #s 5 and 6. I took my sweet time getting them together, as we discussed Botcon and perhaps some other stale stuff.  Then shortly after posting them, Eric (Til All Are Mine) and I got together and ended up talking about Metroplex, and I happened to record it. I planned not to edit it for a few weeks because I had a lot of stuff coming up, but then Eric texted me that someone requested to hear it. What, we have listeners? Okay. Well, I STILL hadn't planned to edit it, so NEENER NEENER.

However, I had some extra time TODAY and so I grabbed the file and started editing it. Here's ROBOTS IN CAHOOTS #7. It's just under 40 minutes, we talk about Eric's Metroplex (this is where a video camera would come in handy), innuendo two grown men make while reviewing Metroplex, my recent disapproval of 3rd party stuff, and Constructobots. Or Construct Bots. Whatever. Anyway, it ends somewhat abruptly; our original conversation was 80 minutes but the 2nd half can be its own episode...if I choose to edit it, but I might scratch it as I'm not sure how interesting it is. We can talk about the topic (comics) later...and by the time I DO get around to editing it, it'll be old news. We TRY to keep the conversation not exactly current but not stale. Our Botcon/travel episodes weren't exactly time sensitive, or at least I didn't think so. It's just me grilling Eric more-so about his experience and less-so about what was announced. But yeah, I'll try to get future installments up quicker, of course.

Hit me up in the comments section. We're talking about doing some video in the near future.

In the meantime, I'm going to go back to listening to the new Pelican album. I have a lot of non-Transformer writing and ranting I need to get back to.

Coffee soon,
-Gassy Autobot

Recent acquisitions!

...Last week I snatched up a loose Generations Sandstorm from Quake (my local vintage toy shop). Not only am I doing a little bit to save the earth, but the complete figure without packaging was pretty cheap. Pretty awesome considering how recently it was released. I wasn't going to get the toy until I saw it free-of-packaging and cheap. 

I stopped by THIS weekend, I saw Generations Springer, also loose & complete. What the WHAT? SCORE! I mean, I wasn't going to get this, but I was actually really impressed with Sandstorm. I guess this version of Springer will be more consistent with my Classics/Gen figures, as opposed to the Universe (Voyager) and GDO (Deluxe) figures I've never really cared for and wasn't sure what to do with. Now I know: I'll sell them and just keep the one I thumbed my nose at.

ALSO at Quake: TF Universe DRAG STRIP. I don't think I've seen this figure before, and I'm not sure of its initial availability, though I'm also unsure it's it's rare or not. It's the Classics Mirage mold, also used to make movie Fracture (which is one of my favorite figures). This was also reasonably priced so I picked it up as well.

I've got a budget I'm trying to stick to: no new figures paid for from my ever shrinking paychecks until Generations Skids and Wave 4 Kreons. So moolah for these came from selling my Alternators. I'm not too sad about getting rid of them. They're neat, most were well done, but I'm in a new place and space and display are both an issue. Our new condo is actually someone's old vintage and ornate building, and I don't want to start drilling holes into walls willy nilly for a million shelves of action figures. So, since I've been focusing on the Classics & related lines, I let go most of my Alternators and a few of my Masterpieces. I know, I know. So the funds for last week's & this week's haul came from that. I'm not too sad: it's just chunks of transformable plastics, the money allows me to get THESE figures, and now I have more space. And the person who got the Alternators will hopefully appreciate the deal THEY got as well as the figures. So everyone wins.

AMERICA!

Coffee soon?

Other stuff:

-Anyone have an extra Universe (Classics 2.0) Hound? Broken? I just need the head for a custom.

-Oh yeah, I'll make some time for some customs soon. Some terrible, terrible customs.

-And then I have to buy this. Maybe one for each toy. Or at least when Legends SWERVE is released.

-The band Pelican put out a new album, "Forever Becoming," and it's awesome. Whoops, that's not Transformers related. I ran out of things to babble on about. See you later.

(If you don't hear from me in a million years it's because I also used the money from the Alternators sell-off to buy Batman: Arkham Origins.)

Sandstorm! And some random stuff.

I found Sandstorm! Like, super cheap. And he's a pretty cool figure. He's a retool of Generations Voyager Springer, who I didn't want to get, but I did want to get a new representation of a G1 character, and again, cheap. Also, loose but complete, so whatever. I saved the trees by not getting one with a package. Hooray!

Pics below the random stuff.

-HEY! Look to the right. I made my rant for MTMTE into its own page. I added issue #22, as writer James Roberts said on Twitter, "If MTMTE ever got the omnibus hardcover treatment, (#22) would definitely end the book." So, #22 will cap off my SEEDS & PAYOFFS rant.

-We recorded #7 for Robots In Cahoots. Got the hang of audio editor. Will edit soon.

-Hey, I made a twitter. @gassyautobot for RwC pics n robot fart jokes. No biggie.

Robots With Coffee - sixth installment.

Robots With Coffee - here's a batch from a few months ago.

You can see these as Eric (Til All Are Mine) and I post them on Facebook. In the meantime, click on Grimlock below...

If you're at the New York Comic Con this weekend, there's a bunch of IDW artists in Artist Alley, including friend of the RwC BRIAN SHEARER. Please go visit him and buy some pages and that kick ass Swerve print he's got for the con. (I won't be there, poop.)

Robots In Cahoots #s 5 & 6 / GDO Wheelie / Little Chainsaw Guy

First up, thank you so much for the visits, the links, and the love. Really appreciate it. Definitely am lookin' for someone to correct me on the MTMTE "Seeds & Payoff" post. I will definitely make it a page in the next week or so.

I'm going to stop talking about that comic for a bit...wait, no, because the following links are me literally talking about the comic book some more. ROBOTS IN CAHOOTS is back! Eric (Til All Are Mine) went to Botcon and when he got back we talked all about the event, what was announced, and...oh wait, that was several months ago. Hey, I moved, and then I got a new sound editor and I am JUST getting the hang of it. I had nearly ZERO time since then and now to edit the conversation.

As a matter of fact, ROBOTS IN CAHOOTS #5 and ROBOTS IN CAHOOTS #6 are in fact from the same "blah blah blah" session that I decided to cut it down into two separate bits, for space reasons and...um, we promised to keep these podcasts short. #5 ends abruptly when Eric's son runs in, #6 is a little bit longer. I actually edited #5 a few weeks ago, and Eric posted it, I was just too busy obsessing over MTMTE among other things and when I decided to edit the 2nd half, I was able to use the sound editor a little better. So I guess we can record ANOTHER podcast soon.

OTHER NEWS! I picked up GDO Wheelie. Why? Because you know what, I hate G1 Wheelie. I hate it with a passion. So I'm replacing it with a larger version of Wheelie that won't fit with the scale of the other Classics, but I don't care. Here's a picture.

I don't need to say anything about the redeco of Jazz other than...what's in his right hand?

It's the Little Chainsaw Guy from the Shapeways 3D printing service! I painted him orange and black, using acrylic but no gloss, hence the paint coming off his right hand there. Sorry.

Hey, I painted him! Hooray!

Okay, talk soon.

IDW's More Than Meets The Eye series - seeds and payoffs.

MAJOR EDIT: I duplicated the "Seeds & Payoff" to its own page. And I added issue #22. All future updates will be on that page. Thanks.

Continuing and concluding with my ranting and praise of MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE!

So here's the meat of what I'm getting at: More Than Meets The Eye is either a comic where some jokes were later turned into plot points because, "Oh yeah, I said THIS about THAT back then, maybe I can squeeze it in" OR James Roberts planted some seeds in what must have been some amazingly descriptive scripts, because artists Alex Milne (and Nick Roche, and many others) put these things right on the page and mind-blown fans have gone back and reread the book several times, only to wonder how on Cybertron they missed it the first time. (It's the latter.)

Transformer comics are not known for their subtlety. Transformers, the brand and the characters, are not known for subtlety. But these moments in the book that you giggle at, or just pass over with your eyeballs while wondering when they're going to address a lurking evil in their midst, pay off out of almost nowhere; Suddenly you GASP because their Darkest Hour is at hand, and what Lights it and saves the day was that gag you found so funny a dozen issues ago.

The plot, again: Rodimus, thinking the empty Matrix is a map, grabs a crew of disillusioned Autobots and heads into space to find the Circle Of Light, a city full of pious religious robots who moved away from Cybertron to live in peace from the war, yet still ready to defend themselves in bad-ass ways. They pick up some old (and not previously-seen) friends along the way, and run into some trouble here and there. It's the journey, not the destination for this book.

You already know from the previous posts that I REALLY like this comic book. After issue reading issue #21, where many threads were tied up (but not all resolved, of course) I have to say I'm really impressed. It's not a perfect book; there are inclusions of characters who happen to have toys being released shortly afterward (mostly in the return of the Spotlight books) and so you have to wonder if some focus had to be diverted from the planned plot to include, say, Metroplex and the Titans every so often. There's also a flashback narrative where one wonders if it was mandated by the corporate property owners to include a story about Optimus Prime, considering that he is currently out of the regular narrative in both ongoing titles (Robots In Disguise being the other)...but what is great that this narrative is in fact a story ABOUT a narrative. And the inclusion of the Titans (Metroplex sized characters, now available at Toys R Us) isn't jarring in the least bit. "Hey everyone, it's POOCHIE, the dog! He's a 1/3rd Fonzarrelli!" You know what I mean.

What follows after a jump: a summary, a few problems I have with the book, and a MASSIVE AMOUNT OF SPOILERS, because I went through page by page and tried to pick out every seed planted and where it pays off, and POSSIBLE seeds for...future issues! This last bit will be only good if you've read the comic.

JOIN ME!

More Than Meets The Eye and how it stands out from other TF comics

Here's another rambler, gushing about the MTMTE series.

I promised a "review" of More Than Meets The Eye. But did I review the series in the LAST post? I just wanted to post a quick update that I was going to write something long and tangenty about the series, and instead I wrote something long and tangently basically praising the series as something special to the Transformers comics and storytelling brand. Because it's a BRAND, and as a BRAND stories about it are going to have limitations. They're going to have editors and copyright holders standing over them saying "no, you can't do that, we have toys to make" and whathaveyou. And that goes for REGULAR superhero comics too, because if you know anything about the history of comic book publishing and the REGULAR content that drives the industry, superhero comics done by committee represent BRANDS just as much as constantly re-booted stories about iconic fictional robots do.