Author's Reflections- Comic #73

#73

Right off the bat I threw in a Futurama reference with Megatron’s Crushinator comment. Here we see the first appearance of the initial group of Knockoffs. I got these at a KB Toy Liquidation Outlet for super cheap. They’re of terrible quality but interesting to mess around with. The short Knockoffs (now known as ‘Double Turn’) random lines are straight from real-life exchanges with my friends in the past. I had already put Autobot and Decepticon labels on the Knockoffs I had bought in preparation for this story arc so I realized I had to come up with an excuse for them. The explanation of the characters having them to signify if they’re good or bad worked out alright. Not one of my better ideas, but I could have done worse I think. Up until this point Hot Shot had remained fairly neutral for the most part so I thought I’d have him and Cliffjumper gang up on poor Hound a couple times just to mix things up.

Author's Reflections- Comic #72

#72

Something I never pointed out in the strip was the comparison to the music notes in Megatron’s speech bubble compared to the ones in Optimus’ back in strip #49…obviously, Megatron is a better vocalist! The song here is completely random and cheesy. As noted in the panel, it’s set to the verse melody from Guns N’ Roses quintessential song Welcome to the Jungle. Megatron actually sneezing wasn’t in the original script but I decided to do it while taking the pictures for the strip. Something else small and insignificant is this marks the first time I used the little computer in the strip! It’s actually a radio speaker my dad got at a work convention. It’s come in handy several times. Looking back on it now, I really like the way this strip was set up, even down to the campy ‘rope’ drawn in from MS paint and Megatron’s “I regret nothing!” line.

Author's Reflections- Comics #70 & 71

#70

#71

I can’t remember exactly why I decided to make it a ‘blue’ hole, but it rolls off the tongue nicely. The shot of Shockwave being blasted through the hole turned out really well, and I’m still really proud of it! This is the last time He’s seen for the duration of the time I lived in my apartment. Having him disappear for so long wasn’t my original idea at all. In fact, my original plan was for Hot Shot to jump through the Blue Hole at some point and pull him back in. Hindsight is 20/20 and I’m glad I inadvertently let him disappear for so long because it came in handy much later when I moved, but I won’t go into that right now. That’s my cat Butters’ rear end you can see there on the window sill in panel 4!

Author's Reflections- Comic #69

#69

 
This strip begins my first extra-long story arc, the Blue Hole Saga. I tend to think about the comics comprised of long story arcs overall so I’ll do my best to break it down as far as I can with that mindset without getting too far ahead of myself. I think Megatron’s overcomplicated plan works in the ‘over the top 1980’s super villain’ way, even if the other Decepticons don’t seem to think so! I liked writing the back and forth dialogue between the different Megatrons, and throwing in the Beast Wars nod with the Transwarp Cell Technology being in its ‘infant stages’ was very satisyfing to me. The actual ‘Transwarp Cell’ is an accessory from another 1980’s toyline, M.A.S.K. It worked nicely for what I was doing.

Author's Reflections- Comics #67 & 68

#67

#68

After I decided to add even more characters on the Decepticon’s side, I thought having two Shockwaves would open some entertaining ideas. And like so many others, I never really explored them as originally intended. In fact, this strip here has been the only interaction between the two in the lifetime of the comic strip. Shockblast really has been an underused character overall, mainly relegated to standing around in the background. That mianly has to do with the poor poseability of the toy thanks in no small part to the gigantic gun arm which is pretty much one solid piece of plastic with electronics and carries most of the overall weight of the toy. Maybe in the future I’ll throw him out there more often, but there will always be this initial strip to look back on. Hot Shot’s line in the last panel of #67 never sounded right to me…once again it was too wordy. I really should have come up with a better analogy. Live and learn! The panel in #68 that shows the charred Decepticons makes me laugh. The Microsoft Paint add-ins are campy enough to be funny (to me at least), especially Astrotrain’s enormous bug eye.