Brainstorm! Arcee! Chromia!

So a little while ago Brainstorm was available on Habro Toy Shop so I ordered him and he arrived shortly after. How awesome is he? 

Pretty awesome. His alt mode? Whatever. It looks like something from the Star Wars prequels. The headmaster's head looks like it's about to snap off. Aside for this photo, I won't be removing it from the body. Unlike his the other Generations Voyagers that came out this year, there's no sticker sheet, so there's nothing to break up the teal, white, and gray color scheme. The briefcase is Lionel Hutz'.

ARCEE! This version's hands are 'open.' Vehicle mode is meh. I was worried that this was too similar to the Impossible Toys figure from a few years ago, but it's instead vastly superior, at least in figure mode. She's still a bit of a shell former and the shell that makes the front part of the car is too close to her transformed body to hold the blue swords (like Animated Arcee). Anyway, it's great to finally have an official G1 themed Arcee (even though I would have dug the recent IDW version).

Pretty great figure. The legs pop out from the hip ball joint very easily, but not with any damage. The real problem: be careful with the upper arms' elbow joint. When you turn her forearms, you can feel them resist and...will it stress the ball joint and break it? Taking off the upper blue shield bit might help. The front wheel 'fork' on mine has already started to curve. Great figure, neat motorcycle design.

From "good to great" isn't a mixed bag of description. You've probably seen several complaints about recent Hasbro Generations figures being flimsy to hollow and clunky. If you're on the fence about Brainstorm, well, it depends if you are a fan of More Than Meets The Eye, in which case it's a no brainer (or YES Brainstorm! get it?). Chromia is cool but some of us clumsier fans are going to break those arms or lose pieces transforming. I don't care for having to transform Arcee and struggle with fitting the hips into the car shell part, but her robot mode is very sturdy.

So yeah, cool figures.

...see, BRAINstorm. BRAINer. Why do I have to explain it?

Hey, how about I type about some toys for a change?

OMG, I've been so busy drawing Mort strips and drinking coffee that I haven't typed up anything about my toys. And since I got Generations Brainstorm and am expecting Arcee and Chromia tomorrow, well, maybe I'll talk about some of the other stuff.

PLASTIC ROBOT DOLLS!

So I got Windblade, Jhiaxus, Nightbeat, and the playwright. But before those four arrived, what else have I found?

GENERATIONS ROADBUSTER - Ah, now I don't ever have to search out the G1 "deluxe" figure. The figure itself? Pretty amazing, save for his hands being attached to the forearms and not being able to move. He also has large feet. Large clown feet. He also has a lot of weapons you can creatively put on any of the pegs of his body, or put together in many combined forms. However, there's a lot of them. I haven't found good combinations for these. His transformation is actually pretty simple, and so all the empty space behind his legs and other parts of his body serve the purpose of making a very tight looking car. He's very light but still sturdy.

G1 GNAW - I keep forgetting that the Sharkticon has an actual name: Gnaw. But I like Sharkticon and why shouldn't I? That's such a great name that adds to the ridiculous figure, because Sharkticons are ridiculous. The one I found is missing the tail/weapon. If I make "Sharkticonado," well, now I have the star, don't I?

G1 Overbite - This is another G1 shark figure that has legs. RUN WITH IT, BABY! And arms, but I'm missing those. He's a "Scramble City" type of combiner so that means his head is super tiny and so he stays in...alt...form...a shark with legs. HOW DO YOU NOT LOVE IT?

A few G1 Micromasters - I don't know their names and I didn't take pictures. But I got my first G1 Micromasters. Never had them when I was a kid because by then TFs were off my radar. They're plane. They're SMALL, that's for sure. And with movable arms (but not moving elbows) and then legs that move together on two joints each...they're almost more posable than the original larger Autobots & Decepticons! Pretty cute.

Nope, I didn't take pictures of any of them. Go to TFW or TFwiki or Seibertron or visit one of my blogger friends linked on the bar on the right, those guys do a great job. I don't. Been busy with a lot of drawing stuff (if you can't tell). Hey, visit Robots With Coffee on Twitter and Facebook.

The Saga of Hammerhead Prime by Mort Inkingbot

Please click on the image to see the original size (for better readability).

The Collated Mort Inkinbot page.

Special thanks to @robotswcoffee / Paul for his hospitality. You should all check out his Functionist Funnies strips.

— James Roberts (@jroberts332) October 27, 2014

You heard him. The Saga of Mort Inkingbot collected and starts here.

TRANS-BOTS!

This was an ad in various Marvel comics in Feb 1985. Not sure if Transbots was something that was ever packaged and released in stores, like any number of Machine Robo Gobots-wannabe, but pictured here are 2 popular transformers figures. The 3rd guy is something out of some fantasy sci-fi adventure and is probably named Zol-TAR or Hate-ROBO or something like that.

A number of different toys are listed and I'm wondering what exactly they are. Bear with me:

All are made of diecast metal and convert from robots to vehicles. Choose from the following – each $4.49 or 3 for $11.99.
Thunderstar – Robot to Jetplane (J1)
Locorob – Robot to Locomotive (J2)
Transfob – Robot to Spaceship (J3)
Protectrob – Robot to Police Car (J4)
Karza – Robot to Dump Truck (J5)
Phobus – Robot to Tractor Trailer (J6)
Metra – Robot to Dune Buggy (J7)
Photon – Robot to Bull Dozer (J8)

I'm guessing these are, based on the price points, GOBOTS. I'm guessing that Locorob is Gobot "Loco" and Transfob is "Spac-y" or whatever. Geez, those names are just as terrible.

Transforming Communicator
Disguised as cassette recorder it transforms into either a Jaguar (J15) or plane (J16) each $4.99.

...Wait, what? Plane? It describes Soundwave (no pricepoint) and then Ravage and then...a mini plane that fits into Soundwave? Huh?

Transforming Deception Plane
Flips in low for attack and changes into Robot for attack. Complete with attachable weapons and decals - $15.99 (J17)

Any of the seekers, I guess.

Transforming Camera
Disguised as a camera it takes pictures of the enemy trenches and then transforms into 3 robots to head off the enemies - $14.99 (J18)

 Good ol' Microx/Reflector.

Also Available Now
The Leader
The largest of the robots he heads up your force and then before attack you can convert him to 3 robots. $13.99 (J19)

Optimus Prime as THE LEADER!

Astro Magnum
A battery operated robot with shooting arms & 3 different sound levels or convert him to Lazer Vulcan – a laser gun, Gunberg a double barreled cannon or Vulcan Base; a standing laser gun. $18.99 (J20)

I don't know who this is but it could be that giant Go-Bot "ro-gun" or whatever. Or it's one of the Shockwaves/Shackwaves with three sounds instead of two.

Transforming Weapon
This super weapon with operable trigger and parts coverts into one of the ultimate robots with attachable weapons and decals $14.99 (J21)

How cool if it was Browning and not Megatron.

Robo Watch
Wear it as a self-winding watch or remove  the center piece and convert it into a robot with the time displayed on his chest 3 function - $9.99 ea. (J11) 

Yeah, one of the transforming watches.  

Windblade wave!

Hola, amigos. Been a long time since I talked about toys. I hadn't bought many until recently. I preordered a wave of Generations a while ago and it came in a few weeks ago. I got some other figures before that but I'll get to those later.

So, Windblade! Finally! The fan created, girl robot, comic book superstar. And Arcee still has a few months before getting her generations figure. Poor Arcee!

The good: pretty neat figure. The bad: kind of a flimsy figure. Her heel can fold if you just touch the rear fin it's attached to, so she's not the sturdiest toy. Otherwise, considering those large wings, she still manages to stand well. The fans on the wings can turn (so her alt mode is a VTOL kind of jet) and that's one of the best features.

I don't have much else to say on her.

Jhiaxus. New head & guns for generations "armada" Starscream, all orange & gray. I didn't get the Starscream figure and only got this one because he's a separate, new character. The guns are better weapons as I've seen the Starscream figure and its easily breakable swords. But I'll need to repaint that head. What a flat paint job!

Nightbeat: I didn't like "idw" Bumblebee/Goldfire figures, and I'm still...meh. Like Jhiaxus, this is a new Generations figure, and he looks to be a prominent character in MTMTE. I guess it's not as bad as I thought the Bumblebees were (in my opinion). As for the weapons: w.t.f. What are these? Combined, separate, they look terrible. I think the best feature is the headsculpt. Not a bad looking vehicle either.

Crosscut: this ended up being the best figure in the wave, but that's my opinion. Obviously I'm a fan on Skids' mold. The paint job here is pretty amazing, mostly for the shiny red bits. Why couldn't they make a few tweaks to Jhiaxus?

None of the figures have light piping for eyes. I don't think the wave is a letdown in any way, as some great characters (even the fan made gimmick) got figures, so that's a plus. If it was "armada Skywarp" instead of Jhiaxus, I would have passed. My collection is basically Generations versions of G1 and IDW main series characters, so these fit well.

That's it. I'll get to some some actual G1s I picked up in my next post.

No really, I have some toys to blog about. Really. Some day.

So my WINDBLADE wave came in! Windblade! Jhiaxus! Nightbeat! CROSSCUT!

I just haven't had time to sit down and type about them!

And I still have to type about Roadbuster!

And a few other cool things! WTH?

Here's a visit from our old pal Mort Inkingbot, Functionist Cartoonist! I'll get back to babbling about toys, really. Don't say you don't love these though, LIAR. I know you do.

Way odd to the very end.

I picked up a few Kreons and Generations Roadbuster. Woo! A full report sometime soon.

In the meantime, enjoy this mashup.

Robot Wars!

Gang! I went to Logan Hardware in Chicago (it's a record store) and they had ROBOT WARS! It was a set of trading cards by Fleer that included stickers and scratch off games. And, uh, cheap sticks of powerdery, stiff gum stuck to the stickers if you open it 25 years or so after their initial release!

Each pack beyond the gum comes with five cards. Of the three packs I bought, they each came with 3 game cards (nearly the same one in every pack), a sticker of a drawing of a robot, and then stickers for your robot action figures.

"Peel & Stick on your robots" yeah, not a chance in hell, Fleer.

These were pretty much the reason to get the packs. I was curious to see how well these images were done to match the scale of Gobots or Transformers...and if so, were there any in mind? Was Optimus Prime to wear the "Leader" medallion design on his shoulder over the Autobot symbol? Where does "Robots Only" go, on Metroplex? If you look closely you'll notice that printing of the designs is off a bit from where you'd remove them from the sheet, and thus if you were to apply these, they would look slightly off. Some of these aren't bad designs, the kind you'd see in the shoulder area of the Seekers or waist areas of Constructicons.

Of COURSE the gum will be covering each one of these in each pack. The card in the center is the only one that survived.

Then there was one sticker of a robot design in each pack.

Lasertron has TOES.

If I'm not mistaken, transforming robots ruled the mid-80's. Other than C3P0 and R2D2, I don't recall kids loving non-transforming robots figures, unless they moved or were remote control or you built them from plastic 'construction' sets. Y'know, actual robots. These are something out of a bizarre 70's fantasy script that got rejected. I got two Lazertrons and an Eagltor and they both look like Autobots that Prime would ask to stay in the Ark, and remain in the Ark, and then 20 years later he died and they're still waiting there.

Kids, you can now practice those games your uncle is always playing
to supplement his income.

Finally, the element of gambling. There were three scratch off cards in each pack and they were virtually the same cards in each pack you see above. I think I got one different but it doesn't matter, because Father Time and maybe bad storage has altered the bonding of silvery scratch off material and cardboard. I tried to scratch off a card and the paper underneath the material rubbed off with it. So, thanks Robot Wars.

Y'know, I would have loved a Hasbro sanctioned sticker pack. you could buy GI Joe figure weapon packs as extras or as replacements, why not the same with stickers for Transformers? Beat Reprolabels at their game?

Anyway, I DO have a figure I'm going to try the stickers on. I got a little haul and I'll discuss that next. For more on these stickers, check the linked review at the top, I think that's all you need to know about this cash-in.

BTW, you buy something at Logan Hardware, they open up a back room and it's full of vintage arcade games set on free play. I played Bosconian and got the highest score! (until they reset it for tomorrow.)

Mort Inkingbot and speculating on MTMTE 32

That's Mort Inkingbot, everyone. He used to draw a syndicated comic strip for various Cybertronian newspapers, mostly with pro-establishment, pro-functionist messages, sometimes veiled and sometimes not veiled all that well.

Just kidding. I made him up.

Anyway, expect some more Lost Light Insider and functionist propaganda gags to be repeated here.

In the meantime, the highly anticipated (and dreaded) More Than Meets The Eye #32 came out this week. I have a few thoughts. Just a few, because #33 will answer the 'what the heck?' Hey, it's after the jump because, you know, SPOILERS. Major goshdarn spoilers.

more silly...drawing!

Inactivity. Here's some drawings.

Haven't bought much or have much to report. Hasbro NOT 3RD PARTY combiner stuff, even for mockups, look great. Hooray!

Been drawing some goofy stuff. Here's a few!

Kreons! And some more Botcon pics!

Kids, I don't know what has taken me so long because I don't have anything to report that has been keeping me busy. Got a few drawings in, been hanging with my nieces, some band practices, feelin' tired from work...I don't RECALL anything that keeps me posting beyond not feeling like being on my computer that much. I haven't seen the new Transformers movie but I DID see SHARKNADO, the Rifftrax live event, with my pal Sean H. It was incredibly funny but I couldn't look at the screen for the last two full minutes, it was that bad. Thundercracker's Sharkticonado would be a much better movie.

SO. ANYWAY.

Here's what I got yesterday:


That's Highbrow and Misfire from the first "movie" Kreon wave. It's actually a bunch of G1 Headmaster/Targetmaster figures and a tiny Trypticon but whatever, why nitpick when the real purpose is to get teary eyed over the harsh level of adorableness involved with the Kreons. Highbrow came with two propellers but as far as his robot mode goes, you're only supposed to have one on his back. Probably because if you have both from his arms (not that unlike his actual G1 version), well, then you can't MOVE his arms. I like the way he looks with two propellers.

Like with any TF figure I buy, I pick 'em based on my Geewunner preference, and even then I'm probably even more selective because there's a good chunk of G1 I normally wouldn't care about...such as the Headmasters & Targetmasters. It was nice to find the G1 Hardhead but kind of embarrassing that Duros was a more fun figure than the complete Hardhead itself. Thanks to IDW, I pick up anything related to the comic story. I definitely don't have a consistent approach to my TF character purchasing, and it's not worth figuring out. I'm here to hopefully provide you with a few laughs, okay?

Please note that unless I'm suffering from eye strain (and I might be these days), Highbrow has a Decepticon signal, and Misfire an Autobot. What the what? ARE WE IN SHATTERED GLASS TERRITORY?

EDIT!

I also bought two Kreo Slipstreams, I mean Slipstrike. They were at Walgreens near where I got the Kreons above. My nieces like Legos and I figured they could have some lady Kreo figures to fight the good fight with UniKitty.

Okay, after the jump, there's an Altered News Comic! Here's a few figures I SAW at Botcon, mainly what I'm looking forward to.

A piece of Pipes' mind - another Botcon recap.

Hey, been a little busy. Here's some fun I had at Botcon. The IDW people were obviously wonderful.

More BOTCON day 1 / a quick MTMTE 30 theory.

MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE! #30! SPOILERS! THEORIES! SPOILER THEORIES! After the jump!

Botcon day 1

I'm meeting new people!

I AM PASSING THIS AROUND!

The Lost Light Insider: Botcon Edition!

Generations Legends - Swerve, Tailgate, Cosmos!

So I picked up a figures! And here they are!

Tailgate! And though it's awesome to have another figure from More Than Meets The Eye, this is my least favorite of the three. It's because of the tabs on his shoulders, the tabs that connect to make the hood of the car. These tabs will bump into the windshield/shellformer back of the car. Is the windshield/back part supposed to be moved further down (such as when he's in car mode)? Because you can move his arms back much with the tabs clashing into it.

Cosmos is a great figure. I figured the previous (Universe) toy would have been acceptable and was going to skip it, but a lot of people who bought it gushed about it, so when I saw it I picked it up. Well, gotta say, it's pretty amazing. You might have trouble pulling the head back out when you go from UFO to robot mode. Payload is a really cute companion too.

SWERVE! Worth it just for the smile. Best package art in TF history. Well, I have a bias. But I love the figure. I think most fans will dig Cosmos but I think Swerve is the best figure of the bunch and of this size (again, BIAS). Flanker is neat, especially when it converts into a weapon. However, fans will be disappointed that Hasbro didn't make a My First Blaster or drink tray. Why let a 3rd party beat you to it?
So just slightly disappointed with Tailgate; I can see kids (yes, toys are for KIDS, right?) getting frustrated and breaking it. I can see ME breaking it because I'm clumsy.

The little guys that come with these? Flanker is the most impressive as a TF AND weapon, Payload is probably the cutest 'bot, and Groundbuster...um...he looks like a pooper scooper when held by another figure.

Okay, got some work to do. Hadn't written in a while. I'm going to Botcon (as stated earlier) and I'm going to have a small 8 page Lost Light Insider with me. Woo!

Head west, young man, that's the place to be.

Going to Botcon! Me! Going to Botcon!

Other news:
-Picked up Swerve, Cosmos, & Tailgate. Pics soonish.
-All the support & love for the Lost Light Insider: thanks everyone. And if YOU'RE at Botcon, I'll have something special for you there. And it will be shared here.

Okay, that's it.

Lost Light Insider cover - special Get Me Off This Ship edition!

(Not a lot to this one. I imagine this is still in the early zine days where whoever is making it is homesick or tired of being on the ship. Also, I apparently imagine "early zine days" for my fan-made tribute to a nonexistent magazine read by fictional robots appearing in a comic book.)

An Impromptu Bike Trip With Custom Downshift (A RwC Special Event)

Got on my bike and just headed north. Had an absolute blast. Here's a pictoral adventure (after the jump, under 1mb to load.)

Lost Light Insider - Madness! RwC update.

I haven't had time to archive Robots With Coffee on here like I'd like to. And I have plans for a dot com page. A dot com, I tell you.

IN THE MEANTIME!
Robots With Coffee - Tumblr (NEW! Newish.)
Robots With Coffee - Facebook
Robots With Coffee - Twitter

I'm working on something to give to a friend to take to Botcon. It'll be...something. Anyway, here's another EARLY issue of the LOST LIGHT INSIDER. Stop by these social media places and say hello.

Lost Light Insider includes this football shaped phone!

I made a few more. Then I blinked and @robotswcoffee had a bunch more followers.

Because:

.@robotswcoffee My god, an *IN-UNIVERSE* MTMTE fanzine. As a 90s TF fanzine addict/contributor this is possibly my favourite thing ever.

— James Roberts (@jroberts332) May 17, 2014

These were ending up on other people's tumblrs, by the way. I can't really do anything because I'm taking images from...well, you get the idea. But they're at least listing RwC as a source. Anyway, -paul

BONUS! Lost Light Insider subscription!

Not really. But I made another fake cover.

Seriously though, I have to go and do some other art thing not related to transforming robots.

MTMTE 29 - The Lost Light Insider

If I had all the time in the world I would make this a real fanzine:

I have too much time on my hands. Really. Sad.

But I don't, and it's sad enough that I'm such a lonely near-middle age man to make that in the first place. But it got me a surprisingly large amount of retweets. Like more than five.

EDIT:

@robotswcoffee You are a genius.

— James Roberts (@jroberts332) May 15, 2014

MTMTE 29 came out and it was great. Continues on with 28's back & forth of modern day Lost Light living & Megatron's trial, making more sense of everything. I haven't combed over every damn panel but there doesn't seem to be as many mysteries or clues BUT I AM PROBABLY WRONG so whatever, I will enjoy it on its zillionth read. Hey, there's a jump discussing this and, more importantly, Windblade. Possible Spoilers!

Silly page!

Haven't sighted any TFs lately. Swerve & Cosmos are showing up around the burbs but not in the city.

Lookie what Angry Canadian Decepticon found! I love Devastator and I am amused by KO's. The packaging art is pretty interesting. NICE FIND, JOE!

Here's a silly page. It might not be that funny. I've been busy drawin' my own stuff lately.

See, because the dinobots are old, and so are cassettes...oh, forget it. It's late.

MTMTE 28 Kinda-Review and Speculations.

There's going to be spoilers; probably none that you aren't familiar with with the preview that's online. But after the jump, I will go into some detail, and I will ALSO be speculating very, very, very wildly.

The great thing about MTMTE, or at least my opinion if you've read my rants about it here, is that there are casual parts of the conversations between robots that in fact are huge plot points. THAT'S the kind of writing I love. Hence why I love the movie Midnight Run so much.

"Season 2" of MTMTE starts this week with issue 28 and it's a nerve-wracking introduction to the new crew. I didn't feel a sense of dread or tension with issue 1 of the series, and that's with everyone on Cybertron thinking the Lost Light was dead, finishing with a bizarre warning from the future. Here, it's tense because Megatron is on the Lost Light. The story flips back and forth between a six month span of the crew on the Lost Light adjusting to whatever it was that was decided on Cybertron to do with Megatron.

It's a good issue, much in the way that issue 1 was good. I thought I'd hate the series when it first came out and though I liked the first issue, I thought it was trying to hard to set stuff up and introduce characters. Yet of course now I love it. This issue is of course similar, but with Milne's art instead of Roche's for the beginning of the series, which I think means we'll get more consistent clues from the setup issue this time. This is CRAZY talk from a CRAZY person who, after the first "season," now reads into EVERYTHING. But it's a good read and a good reintroduction to the cast.

And it's tense, and that's even before it gets foreboding. SO, the JUMP, a list of things I noticed (that are obvious and maybe not obvious?) and questions, and with a WARNING from the FUTURE: there's SPOILERS for the issue. And even WORSE, there's SPECULATION. Wild, wild, terrible speculations.

MTMTE #28 due out! Woo! Also, C2E2 recap.

HEY!

MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE comes out Wednesday, April 30th! Make sure you pick that up!

I'm pretty excited. I mean, more Nautica! And the epic journey begins! Drama! Action! Jokes! Can't wait.

C2E2 was fun. This strip I picked up from Brian Shearer should give a slight recap. (Eric from Til All Are Mine took the Bumblebee pic.):

RiD #28, & a new silly page!

Haven't check in lately, but hey hopefully that gave you more time to look up Windblade #1. Good stuff!

The next step of Dawn of The Autobots starts with Robots In Disguise #28. Prime & some of the gang head back to Earth to see if they can find Alpha Trion. And Thundercracker is still there. And is doing the best thing that a Transformer has ever done in this series: he's a dog owner and a hopeful (hopeless) screenwriter.

I am not to be listened to, but: IDW, stop with the good vs. evil, Autobot vs. Decepticon. A comic about Thundercracker trying to become a writer is what I will read. And promote every day.

ANYWAY, it was probably one of the better issues. More Than Meets The Eye has attracted readers with robots chock full of personality unseen beyond Prime vs. Megatron vs. Starscream. It's a high bar and a few people, albeit with an otherwise positive response to RiD 28, wonder if John Barber is trying to amp up the 'side' characters' personalities in this comic to match MTMTE's "success" (both comics seem to have similar print sales numbers) (maybe "popularity?" "fan cred?").

It's not perfect, but it's an improvement. RiD may have meant to be the main title, and it's not bad (and better than the initial IDW TF comics), but it's definitely overshadowed by the tight plotting and character drama in MTMTE. I hope some focus remains on Thundercracker. His G1 tech specs had hinted that he questioned the Decepticon cause, but this was a potentially awesome plot that never came up in the original cartoon or comic book.

OKAY, I bought another page from Brian Shearer, from Robots In Disguise #16. More Sideswipe and Arcee, with Skywarp and Rumble in the fray. Neat, right?

Windblade #1 - Hooray!

Well, I read Windblade #1 and I really dug it. It's the first of four issues. I'm sure the creative team would like to see it become an ongoing, and there's several reasons why that should be, beyond that it's a really good comic and a fresh, exciting look for the Transformers.

-Mairghread Scott wrote a great introductory comic, not just to a miniseries, but for people who don't read the IDW Transformers comics (even if they are fans of the toys or cartoons or movies).
-Sarah Stone's art is awesome the whole way through. It will appeal to new comic readers. Maybe younger comic readers.
-It's easy to be cynical about the fan-made character gimmick and the Poochie vibe about the whole thing. The Windblade character in this book is done so well that we can now stop talking about how the fans made up the character; the character now exists in this book through the comic team.
-The supporting cast and Cybertron setting? If Optimus Prime & friends are heading back to earth in Robots In Disguise for their ongoing monthly adventures, then Windblade (the title) should be ongoing just so we can have more stories about Cybertron life.
-I don't know what sales are like digitally for the TF comics. Beating out Batman on iTunes for a day, is this impressive? After Heart Of Darkness, IDW was a little twitchy on more miniseries (hence why Chaos was integrated into the regular TF series, alternating with the Police Action story). It's hard enough to convince retailers to NOT cut indies, especially IP titles, in the middle of New52 and Marvel NOW deluges (seriously, that's how my store picked up customers; other stores wouldn't order indies for PULL LISTS for their customers after New52). If sales for a TF mini from distributor to comic store aren't strong, then there won't be an ongoing.
-But if Autocracy and Monstrocity can survive digitally (with collected reprints), why can't Windblade? DC's Batman '66 is doing this too and it seems pretty successful. Windblade beat out BATMAN (albeit on ONE digital distro channel, I don't know how popular iTunes is for comics no how Windblade did on Comixology). If that's the platform, keep hammering at it and hopefully stores will follow.
-And why not a series of miniseries? That might even be a draw for new readers: these stories have an end. It's not always "to be continued."

I didn't have much to say as far as a review. I dug it, and I dug it A LOT. I don't feel like rambling. The reviews I'm reading praise it. The skeptical knowitalls who were cynical about Windblade being a marketing gimmick that ruined their hobby? They love it and/or were pleasantly surprised and will read the whole series. And whatever minor problems I had (not saying, because I don't want to mention any spoilers even if they're minor) I realize later are because this comic was written as an introduction, not just to Windblade, but to the IDW TF comic franchise. I could ramble on a lot about my experience as a comic retailer, trying to push comics on people, trying to push TF comics even to TF fans, every little detail of what I like and didn't like, but I've rambled enough. I've already handed my copy to someone else interested in the comics but hasn't read them. Windblade is really good if you've been reading so far with amazing art and surprising depth for the fan made gimmick, it's truly a great first TF comic to pick up and start reading.

So dig in. And let them know what you think. #windblade on twitter if you can.

Fracture enjoys the comic, even if it's about an Autobot.

Robots With Coffee q&a: Jeffrey Brown (Incredible Change-Bots)

The author of Darth Vader & Son, Jedi Academy, Vader's Little Princess...and INCREDIBLE CHANGE-BOTS did a q&a for Robots With Coffee. Click on the pic below to read it (on Facebook...you should be able to read it without logging in).

These comics are awesome. The coffee is good too.

G1 Headmaster Hardhead & Duros

Hardhead & Duros would be the worst cop show ever.

I was picking up my comics and hanging with one of my pals from the TFW2005.com board and I mentioned we should walk up the street to a new vintage toy shop by the comic shop. The number of vintage toy stores that I know about has doubled in the last half year. This one has a few toys, and by few I mean "a lot of He-Man figures, some other stuff, that's pretty much it," and the rest of the store space is arranged into a hipster thrift shop with a small and expensive record (vinyl) bin. Lots of young people with terrible mustaches is what I'm saying.

We found the small section of TFs on a table. Because I had seen little to mention of my few previous visits, I'm not sure what really compelled me to stop by this time other than that a TF fan hadn't been there yet, even though I thought little of the stock. This time, there was a G1 Hardhead, nearly complete (missing 1 of the guns) and in great shape. And, uh, at a pretty amazing price. I opened to cockpit, and there was Duros, the Headmaster head. SO, I bought it.

The few things I notice about Hardhead:
-He's got a hollow abdomen/butt area. That really stands out; a few thin plastic walls comprise a noticeable amount of his torso. This makes Hardhead seem like a Flimsybot (TM).
-I think I lucked out with the hinge on the armor piece that protects the tech spec area. It's perfect! Nothing broken on it.
-Duros's own face? Amazing for such a tiny robot. Puts all the city combiner faces to shame. TO SHAME!
-His legs are kinda weird looking.
-Careful with those feet. They are hard to lock into place, and then hard to push back in. I was afraid I was going to break them.

Well, not sure what else to say about this figure or the Headmaster line. I think it was a far better gimmick than the Targetmasters, though at the same time, you will always have just ONE robot as opposed to the two or three total you get with Targetmasters. The head (Duros) himself has a lot of moving limbs!

I never liked the idea that a human contortionist forms the head of the robot so that the robot itself can be active. That makes the robot very dependent on the human (or Nebulos). I've asked before, what if the human has to go to the bathroom? Gets cramps or aches while folded over? DIES? The sentient mechanical being that will generally outlive his human partner will be screwed! So I like the Japanese backstory better.

Anyway, enjoy the pics.

Duros' amazingly detailed face.

Tonight, on Airwolf. I mean, Groundwolf.

This doesn't come in a T-top?

Don't come UNHINGED. HA HA HA HA!
Seriously though, I lucked out.