Author's Reflections- Comic #118

#118

 

I took Megatron out of the story pretty early on because I wanted the remaining conflict to be between the Autobots and Unicron. It was much easier to reach the resolution I had in mind without getting the Decepticons involved. Kup’s long speech is most notable time I used Grandpa Simpson as direct inspiration. I changed quite a few words to reflect Kup’s history but the intent is the same. After dropping some heavy dialogue for Hot Shot in the previous strip I went back to basics and gave him some simple childlike lines here. I like that Hound and Cliffjumper were affected by Kup’s speech like Megatron was. I suppose the reason they weren’t sent into comas is that they’re used to hearing Kup’s speeches!

Author's Reflections- Comic #117

#117

 

In the cartoon, Springer and Ultra Magnus were pretty stereotypical soldier characters with no standout attributes, but Kup being an old guy always telling stories of the ‘good old days’ was something I could grasp onto and exploit to make for an interesting characterization in the comic. Admittedly my template for Kup’s rebooted ‘super old’ depiction was Grandpa Simpson, but he is a cliché old person anyway so although I used a few lines from The Simpsons it’s a broader stereotype than just that TV character. This marks the first time Hot Shot showed some form of cleverness, and I made sure I punctuated that by giving the trio an extra panel for Hound and Cliffjumper to stare at him in surprise. I’ve never come out and stated one way or another if Hot Shot really is mentally handicapped or if he’s just pretending and I doubt I ever will…I prefer the magic in mystery.

Author's Reflections- Comic #116

#116

 

Without giving too much away as to who the voice from the last strip was, a big clue was the sarcastic, almost insulting tone from the letter he left. Enough said about that. I got a big kick out of the part of the strip Ultra Magnus is excited to be a part of the action and name-drops several Autobots who Optimus apparently liked better than him, then in the next panel those same Autobots’ “phone numbers” are listed in the letter so the trio can contact them when they run into trouble. I like the Peanut Gallery panel since it was true, Ultra Magnus did far more in the cartoon in his one season appearance than Cliffjumper did in the previous two. Granted, Cliffjumper’s absence in season 3 is mainly due to Caser Kasem’s departure as a voice actor on the show, but it still worked to have Hound throw that tidbit in to rub it into my Cliffjumper’s face.

Author's Reflections - Comic #115

#115

 
I was still at a loss where to take the story so I had no script or pictures ready and I remember thinking I’d take a few weeks off to get everything figured out. Then I came up with the idea of featuring Ultra Magnus, Kup and Springer in their own little story that pertained to the underlining story arc as well. Ideas came pouring in, but I needed a way to introduce them into the story. Since I hadn’t planned on posting the strip for awhile the idea of ‘showing’ the three characters in a darkened closet and letting the dialogue move the story along. In fact I vaguely recall running home during my lunch break at work to take the picture for the Peanut Gallery panel so I could get going on it the same day. I won’t go into detail right now about who the mysterious voice was that showed the three out of the closet…it took me 255 comics and nearly two years to find the perfect opportunity to make the big reveal, but I knew exactly who I wanted it to be at this point. I’ll be talking more about that in  255 more commentaries!

Author's Reflections - Comic #114

#114

 
At this point I wasn’t completely sure where I wanted to take the storyline. I threw in this strip to give Megatron and Unicron some more interaction, but it didn’t really do anything for the storyline further than that. At the very least it completely gave the ‘Christmas Carol’ storyline some closure, and the Peanut Gallery panel was pretty amusing…but otherwise it still doesn’t do anything for me better or for worse.

Author's Reflections - Comics #112-113

#112

 

#113

 

#112-113

Looking back on them, I honestly could have lumped both of these strips together into one comic. With Rodimus still carrying the Matrix I thought it would be fun to add some conflict between him and Optimus, who was technically still in charge despite not holding the Matrix. Rather than portray Rodimus and an unsure borderline whiny character like he was in season 3 of the G1 cartoon I made him totally confident and enjoying his role as leader. It was really the turning point in Hot Rod/ Rodimus Prime’s characterization in my comic…up until now he was seen as an eager youngster eager to please Optimus in comparison to the power hungry sarcastic character who’s fed up with his leader’s incompetence he’s seen as now. But, as usual I’m getting ahead of myself and that’s something that can be discussed at further length later on.

Author's Reflections - Comic #111

#111

 

I decided to throw Ultra Magnus, Springer and Kup back into the mix of things and it made sense for fellow G1 season 3 character Hot Rod/ Rodimus Prime to be spending time with them since I had established that Optimus didn’t want much to do with them. This strip segued into an inadvertent little sub story featuring Magnus, Kup and Springer, which I actually enjoyed quite a bit despite the three of them not being some of my favorite childhood characters. I think that’s probably because they weren’t the standard Transformers I’d been used to writing for in the strip, so it gave me a chance to establish some new characters, as average as they may be. This is the first appearance of Optimus’ infamous ‘prodding stick’!