Author's Reflections- Comics #321-325

 

#321

 

 

#322

 

 

#323

 

#324

 

#325

#321-325

 

I wanted to take my time getting back into a lengthy story involving Unicron, and I had a new Decepticon toy, Fracture) to add into the comic. Since this particular character was female and wasn’t an established character in G1 lore (despite the coloration being based on the Go-Bot Crasher from Transformers’ rival toyline in the 80’s), I was free to my own devices for coming up with a backstory for her. One of the first ideas to come to mind was a parody of the 80’s cult movie Weird Science in which who “nerdy” high schoolers create their own ideal woman. Once I decided to take that route I knew the nerdy little Decepticon Shortround HAD to be involved, and since they had been introduced into the comic together, Cannonball was a no-brainer to be the partner. It was a perfect opportunity to give them more screentime and characterization, though they were still very much relegated to the stereotypical pirate and geeky gamer.

 

In reading these five comics again I was, as usual, going to try and point out some of my favorite bits of dialogue but I can say with total honesty that I love it all from top to bottom. Shortround especially shines here. “Sir Lord Runson Meatyard” and the “Magician’s Knapsack” were inside jokes between one of my best friends and I during a trip to Portland we had taken recently to visit another of our friends. They were fresh in my mind and worked perfectly for this story.

 

I had a few Gobots toys when I was a kid but I never watched the cartoon, and thus had no idea what Crasher was like so I decided to treat Fracture as a brand new character and not an homage to anyone. Her character wasn’t very strong since I chose to go the route of her being a ditzy girl, and she never really turned into anything extraordinary over the years, but even if her sole purpose in the comic was to make this particular storyline happen then I’m very happy to have included her in this comic.

 

One last thing of note; I had written the script for these comics, introducing a female character and started a relationship of sorts between her and Cannonball a week or two in advance and the day before I took the pictures I started dating the girl who would eventually be my wife.