Generations...HOIST! And I interviewed Brian Shearer for Robots With Coffee.

So I mentioned the ROBOTS WITH COFFEE page. Well, BRIAN SHEARER, of whom I've referenced here in the past, did an email q&a with me for RwC. So check it out. It'll be reposted here sometime in the future. Enjoy! I'd rather you hit the like button and comment if you've got a FB account, but if not, go ahead and chime in on the comment section.

Hey, I found Hoist! My pals said they'd look for me, as they found him at the same place I'd check the day before. But now they don't have to. I passed on the FOC Thundercracker from this wave (for now) though I DO like the paint job on Thundercracker as opposed to the Flimsybot (tm) FOC Starscream. So maybe I'll see if someone wants to trade up or something.

Anyway, Hoist. He's like Trailbreaker but green, with a Hoist shaped head, and no "shield." The crane turns into a gun, and it's actually a cool weapon. I know there's 3rd party upgrades to replace one of his (and Trailbreaker's) hands buuuuuuut I'm not too concerned about it. Like the Trailbreaker comic, the one included with this toy is written by James Roberts, the writer behind IDW's More Than Meets The Eye series, and it's really good. Not sure what else to say about this, I'm happy with Trailbreaker so I'm equally happy with Hoist. I don't like the weak, hollow feel to this wave of smaller Generations, I'm not amazed by his or Trailbreaker's vehicle modes, but he's still a good stand in/homage for the G1 and I'm glad this character finally got a figure. So kudos! Just one picture, enjoy. (Whew! So many posts in such a short amount of time.)

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!

C2E2 - I bought a page.

Not a full report just yet, but I went to C2E2 (a comic convention) and had some fun.

And...I bought a page! A comic book page!

From Transformers: Robots in Disguise, issue 15! Brian Shearer, who inked the issue, sold it to me from his table in artist alley. (Artist Alley is always the best place to hang out at a comic convention.)

It featured Arcee and Sideswipe, two of my favorite TFs, though not because of this particular comic. They were both on the page. Actually, it's pretty action packed, and features Blitzwing, Starscream, Astrotrain, Dirge, Bumblebee, and Metalhawk. That's some Transformer star-power!

And, uh, Dirge!

And at a reasonable price!

I scanned the page! There is no color or text, so I filled in, from my memory, what I think was the dialogue.

Let me know what you think!