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.

Kreon wave 4!

LtoR: Cyclonus! Sandstorm! Kup! Brawn! Alpha Trion! Slipstream! Rodimus!

Slipstream was the one I wanted the most out of this batch.

There's some quality control issues with the Rodimus. You see that he's leaning over. His legs won't align straight enough for both feet pegs to stand on a brick. Kup was almost like that too. And I had a REALLY hard time putting on Brawn's helmet all the way.

Otherwise, the mission of being way cute has been accomplished.

silly page - Dark Cybertron! ...and SHARKTICONADO.

The altered comics page contains a minor spoiler for the Dark Cybertron series. So, it's after the JUMP.

In other news, yes, the preview to RID #28 is awesome. Thundercracker was one of the best parts of Mike Costa's Transformers run, and I was worried the current creative team was going to do something really stupid with the Decepticon left back on Earth. Instead, they did something so STUPIDLY awesome: they gave Thundercracker a dog and made him a screenwriter.

IDW did this. NOT ME.

Okay, I said I have little else to add. Been sick. Bunch of non-robots related stuff I wanted to work on is backlogged because I can't sit still long enough to draw my comics or type up stuff. I was on Twitter a lot with #sharkticonado, typing that up while laid out on the couch and watching baseball (and Frasier on netflix). Sharkticonado was fun but I should take a different approach.

ANYWAY, THE SILLY PAGE! AFTER THE JUMP!

Transformers Windblade writer Mairghread Scott interview on RwC

Yup. Mairghread Scott, a writer on some recent Transformers cartoon programs, was kind enough to do a q&a with ROBOTS WITH COFFEE. It's a Facebook page and you don't need to 'like' the page to read the interview, but if you DID like RwC on the ol' FB, I'd appreciate it.

Click on the photo (by Jason Enright, @jasonenright on twitter) to read the interview!

Okay 'bots,  you ALL want coffee butNONE of you know how to refill the pot?

I want to say that I'm proud to feature Mairghread on RwC. Make sure you give Windblade a shot! You can still get your local comic book store to order it for you!

BIG McLARGEHUGE! Oh, and Scoop & The Ammonites.

I promised a review of Scoop and the MiniCons, who came in about a week and a half ago. "I've been busy" is what I'm going to say to the deep empty universe awaiting a "review" of toys.

As usual, the toys come with comics, though I'm not sure what parts of the Dark Cybertron story these are part of. The MiniCons are known in the comics as The Ammonites, a faction of another set of transforming robotic life-forms engaged in their own war, and are not called such on the packaging. But whatever.

The first thing I noticed about the combined form of the MiniCons is that, when you look at the robot from the back, the face of the figure making up the legs of the combined figure is...

...THE COMBINED FIGURE'S BUTT. Granted that piece's arms should be blocking the face, but I'm incredibly immature and will be pointing this out to EVERYONE. The figure was easy to take apart and turn its three components into regular bots. There's very little transformation on that end.

I think the helicopter figure on your right is a ladybot, based on the diamond-ish shape of its head and her high-heeled footware. I do NOT have to point this out to anyone. I have more proof and more to gain that the combined bot's butt is a face.

Never got into the TargetMasters part of the TF lore because the Headmasters were much more interesting and, despite being just as blocky, better designed. G1 figures after the movie weren't based on specific vehicles (other than the Throttlebots?) and so they looked LIKE toys, and the Targetmasters especially looked like toys holding other toys. So other than Cyclonus, here's the first actual Targetmaster redone in Generations mold. The construction vehicle looks pretty good and the transformation is pretty easy. There's not much else to say about that other than that he's holding two implausible weapons (living people who turn into guns, at least in the original G1 world; they're robots in the IDW comics, of course). The weapons can stack on top of each other, which for those of you with a dirty mind...

ANYWAY.

I was at a gathering of local TF collectors, and my pals Til All Are Mine and Collecticon were present, and good times were had. The host, Rick, who organizes Atomic Sketch, gave me this:

It's a KO tiny Fortress Maximus! It falls apart easily! The transformation would only risk further damage and lost pieces! And it's called...

Which makes me think of this wonderful MST3K bit:

Shockwave With Coffee

Okay, DARK CYBERTRON #10 (aka MTMTE 27) came out today. It was really good. I don't like how the first half of the series was paced or that it interrupted the momentum of MTMTE. I'll say more later. I also owe a review of Scoop and the Minicons, aka Ammonites, but I don't have much to say about them.

Today was all about the comic books. More Than Meets The Eye was so anticipated that I COMPLETELY forgot that Stray Bullets #41 came out today. That was one of my all-time favorite comics, and always the first on my new comics pile that I would read, and then reread, before touching the other comics. The comic had been in limbo for, I don't know, a decade? Limbo? Forgotten? I followed David Lapham's other projects and I stopped after Young Liars. He's had success with other things I'm sure but this is the one comic I wanted to see finished, and kudos to Image Comics (despite their publisher's "not real" speech) for allowing Lapham to finish off the series, with another six issue mini that started  today as well...and both were GREAT!

But I read MTMTE 27 first.

Anyway I took Shockwave around work today and ran some errands with him. IT WAS PART OF HIS PLAN! HAIL MEGATRON!

Robots With Celebrities

Coming soon: "reviews" of Scoop, the Minicons, and...Dreadwing? Dreadwind? Darkwing? Darkwind?

WindDark?

Point is, I got a few 'bots (cons) and I'll write 'em up, albeit briefly, soon.

IN THE MEANTIME!

Joseph Cranford, who played Pete Ross in Man Of Steel, tries to finish up his takeout cup while Fracture talks to him about her fanfic ideas. Her, terrible, terrible fanfic ideas.

Talk soon.

Testing: Gears' video blog comic strip

This is a test. IDW comics colorist Josh Burcham asked on Twitter @jcburcham what it might be like for some of the characters in More Than Meets The Eye to have their own blog, to see what their adventures are on the Lost Light separate from the main cast (& focus) of the story.

So I did this kinda quickly. Sorry. It's a test, AFTER THE JUMP.