I got another comics page! And some randomness, like me clearing out a few TFs.

NOTE! MINOR COMIC BOOK RELATED SPOILERS AHEAD! Er, BELOW! Whatever, just read the post. There will be a jump, so strap yourself in.

Latest acquisition. Penciled by Alex Milne, inked by
Brian Shearer, written by John Roberts,
published by IDW.

CHECK IT OUT! I got another page from More Than Meets The Eye from Brian Shearer. I was fortunate to meet him at C2E2 and he was selling his pages from various IDW books he worked on, including both G1 Transformers titles (Robots In Disguise and More Than Meets The Eye). You may have seen a comics page with some new dialogue inserted in; that page is from Robots In Disguise. I really dug that page as it features Sideswipe and Arcee (and some whazzizwhozziz characters like Bumblebee and Starscream or whoever), in a moment when they fight back against the Decepticons (after I thought Sideswipe to be dead! nooooo!). I saw it in Brian's portfolio and I snapped it up immediately. But Brian wasn't done taking my money, as he had also inked half of MTMTE #12, which also featured a few of my favorite sequences in the comic's run, between Cyclonus and Tailgate. And lo and behold, he had THOSE pages, reasonably priced as well! (Pages I picked up? Not part of the linked preview, sorry.) They were sweet, sad, and funny moments in a comic about robots fighting each other, and whooptie do for me, I have them.

So yeah, MTMTE #18, the 2nd issue in a multipart epic which starts off with the most epic Transformers character EVER, SWERVE! I realized that hey, I have no pages from this series with Swerve in them. I mean, I'm lucky to have any at all, but still, why not any with the true hero of both comic series?

Well, this page has Swerve, armed & dangerous. The weapon is hilarious as is the last panel of the page. Please read the preview. I dropped Brian a line to see if he had this page lying around. He did. I sold some comic books (not MTMTE) as well as some action figures (non-Transformers!) to get the funds. The page arrived last week and I took a pic with my phone (and lightened up the brightness & contrast when I got home).

Brian's a great guy and is working on a few projects of his own. Please check out his site and see what other pages he has for sale on eBay.

My interest in the hobby has shifted from completing the G1 line, pre-animated movie, or getting every version of certain favorite characters. I've been reducing my collection to fit in a manageable space and checking out interesting things like the graphics from G1 boxes to, say, getting original pages from a comic book or cels from the G1 cartoon**. I managed to find "The Ark" book that was published by IDW, and maybe I'll review that soon. If you like the artists from these comics series, the prices for these pages aren't off the scale compared to pages from mainstream artists who work on DC and Marvel or have their own properties they are publishing or are having published. In any case, pages are one of a kind (or two, as these are just Brian's inks over a reproduction of Milne's blue pencils), make great art, and buying them directly from the artist helps them immensely. These were a deal (trust me, my budget for both the comics and TF hobby are nonexistent these days, I had to let go of a few things in the collection for this and some of the other recent acquisitions) so if you're interested in this part of the hobby, it's not out of your reach. I mean, people are spending $80+ on Masterpiece Acid Storm, right? Why not buy a page instead?

RANDOM THOUGHTS after the jump!

Til All Are Gassy #2 - where did Carly get her change of clothes?

Hey, here's 'Til All Are Gassy #2, starring Eric from Til All Are Mine and...me!

Click on the image to stream or download the MP3!

Topics include: Prime Shockwave, my Shapeways adventure, Devcon from that episode of G1 TF where Smokescreen gambles away his friends, how big are Carly's lips, what to name my KO seekers, and much more!

Oh, I can't forget how much it bothered me that, in Dark Of The Moon, Carly was able to change her clothes after being kidnapped. Eric and I discuss that at great length. We promised to make these short. This one is under an hour. We will try to keep it short next time...

Life is full of disappointments.

"Something is missing. Or, I am expected to
walk around on my robot genitals."

If you ever read the original The Tick comics by Ben Edlund, you might remember near the end of that (unfinished) run that Arthur would complain about his bad luck, and The Tick would explain it as "Charlie Brown Karma." I pick up lines or phrases like this and they become part of my own personal language. This either becomes part of an accepted way to speak to others raised on pop culture (my band exists because we would use "Everything's Coming Up Milhouse" to describe how we were feeling) or as a sign of some sort of schizophrenia.

So, sometimes, certain aspects of my life can be best described with Charlie Brown Karma. Somewhere something tempts me and I go for it and at the last second Lucy Van Pelt pulls the football away from me and I fall on my back. This is a RIDICULOUS feeling, because in reality someone dropped the ball on their end and it's not my fault at all. Because it has happened MORE than once, and because I ooze Catholic Guilt, I think it's because I WANTED SOMETHING and, because thou shalt not want, I am being punished for wanting something.**

This week was a double dose of anticipation and disappointments.

First up, I bought a few things from Shapeways, a 3d printing site. Clever people create schematics for their items, and Shapeways prints them up. For the fans who are impatient for 3rd party manufacturers not as impatient with Hasbro as they normally are, this is potentially AWESOME, and there's already a variety of products you can get to enhance certain action figures. There's a few things I haven't ordered that would solve a few custom ideas I have, but because I don't have what I consider to be the proper action figures to work with, well, that's why I haven't ordered it.

But I did order three items and blindly; I haven't seen these by any of the die hard local TF base. They took about three weeks to arrive. I was stoked when they did; I was having a bad day at work and this would have totally cheered me up. I could inspect it and then start a-paintin' it when I got home and added to my bizarro TF collection.

I will talk about the full haul, quality & service, later; for now, the one little guy I really wanted to check out? See the photo at the top. Yup, someone created a Targetmaster that TURNS INTO A CHAINSAW. Dudes. DUDES. You would have gotten such a blog entry about the Jackyl Lumberjack song once I painted him, believe me.

This is going to be the best...with joy, I opened up his little bag, and I put his arms on his body and the saw part in place...but, uh, how do the legs fit on? Um, they...don't?

Oh, I see...they forgot the thigh parts. From his torso to his feet, he has no legs.

I was DEVASTATED. I'm serious: this was a bummer. I didn't want to look at the other two items (I did, they were complete). I felt my Charlie Brown Karma kick in: I wanted this, but I don't get it. Shame on me for wanting something, and so badly.

The ziplock-style bag he came in was sealed tight, but I searched the small box he was shipped in and no tiny white legs. My sadness was great, but I figured I should write to Shapeways ASAP and let them know. Maybe they'd believe me? Maybe I can get a refund? Maybe they won't tell me to get lost? I took a pic with my cell phone and emailed it to them right away.

They got back to me a day or so later: if they don't find the parts, they'll ship me a new figure. Woah! Thanks, Shapeways! My anticipation grows again, and when I get the figure, a review. (And you can help me choose what to paint it. I'm thinking something orange and red for the non-chainsaw part of his body.)

The 2nd disappointment was less anticipation and more regret. I sat in at Quake, that toy store where I get a lot of loose figures, and I saw the GT-01 Head & Arms Set from Gear 4 Toys. So the owner sold me one of the two sets (one for G1 Ironhide, the one I got for G1 Ratchet). The concept: it's the top half of a robot body that fits over their G1 counterpart to make it look like the G1 cartoon. The Diaclone version of Ironhide was piloted by a Micronaut-sized figure, and thus Diaclone Ironhide always looked less like a Transformer than a robot piloted by someone, with the seat-sticker seeming to be a last minute substitution for a face.

It took me FOREVER to realize on Ratchet's box art that his robot mode featured with two eyes on his windshield. (Click on the Ratchet image.) That was the original plan, I guess, and how he was featured in the first issue of the Marvel TF comic. Obviously the cartoon had different plans, and some of us kids who got Ratchet for their birthday or xmas did our best to accept Ratchet with the help of our limited imaginations. Though he had a Classics Universe release, the Gear 4 Toys upgrade seemed like a very welcome enhancement for G1 Ratchet & Ironhide.

By the time you get through this caption, he's toppled over.

Note that the name of "Gear 4 Toys" could easily be mistaken for "iGear." Punchline: iGear makes good toys. OUCH. BURN!

That's my review. Maybe I got a bum set. Not helping is that my G1 Ratchet is uncooperatively loose on every limb. See the picture on the right? You won't believe how long it took me to get the piece to fit. The eyes light up, and that's a nice touch, but I'd rather have it FIT, and I think the space where the battery & electronics go to provide the light could have been used to make sure the piece fit over this seat-face. Instead, to make sure he stays on (because the vertically straight sides won't fit around the inclined windshield) you really need to fight with his old arms to hold the piece in place as it tries to pop out. And it has to be perfectly balanced, which is almost impossible if the feet are loose even in the slightest.

I'm a-keepin' it for now because the top part of my G1 Ratchet is broken and I can't sell him on eBay. But I say avoid this and use that money to buy an actual figure you don't have and would like to get. Or donate it to a church or buy some mutual funds. I don't know.

Until next time,
-paul

** My actual religious views (non-views!) are none of anyone's business.