We recently had the chance to do another interview with James Roberts discussing his comic series More Than Meets The Eye, and in particular the Elegant Chaos story that finished with issue #38. Below is a full transcript of this interview for your reading pleasure.
Once again we wish to express our utmost thanks and appreciation for the time and effort put in by Marian Hilditch (@MMortAH) in transcribing the interview!
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TransMissions (Charles): So Yoshi’s not here today unfortunately, but we’re going to move on with the show. We have a very special guest today on the show. Known for tugging at your heartstrings and then ripping them to shreds, he’s the writer of the popular Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye [MTMTE] comic series. Please welcome Mr. James Roberts!
James Roberts: Hey! Hello! Sorry, I can’t welcome myself, can I? I can show you how excited I am to be here. I’m doing a small… dance, on the other side of the phone. You know, controlled movements. Hello! Yes! Thanks for having me. Thanks for inviting me on.
TM (Charles): We’re always happy to have you on. Thank you for joining us.
JR: No, we’re good. I don’t know when this will go out, but it’s been a crazy couple of days. A good few days. Issue #38 has just come out. People seem to be pleased with it generally.
TM (Charles): Yeah!
JR: Yeah, you’ve caught me at a good time.
TM (Charles): We’re at a high point here.
JR: The crash will follow. It may be during this interview. But right now, I’m flying high.
TM (Charles): (laughs) Alright, well, let’s start it off. Let’s get into some MTMTE talk.
JR: OK
TM (Charles): So, just to start it off, MTMTE, it seems, has been referred to by a lot of people as ‘the best comic you’re not reading.’ And I think this can be said for Transformers comics in general, that they’re not the hugest sellers. But definitely I think amongst the comics readers, we’ve noticed that the quality is definitely at a high point. Why do you think the sales don’t seem to match the quality and what can we do to improve and change that?
JR: I think there’s still a lot of resistance to picking up anything with Transformers on it. Any comic. And it’s the same, to different degrees, with other licensed titles. There’s a lot of baggage. Particularly when you’re talking about any franchise that’s been around for a long time and gone through various iterations, people are going to have certain preconceptions about what the stories are like and that can sometimes work against it.
Yeah, I don’t know, it’s funny. I think John [Barber] and I have talked about it before together and at different interviews, that people need that extra bit of convincing, it seems, to pick up a Transformers comic. And when they do, hopefully, they’ll see, OK, this maybe wasn’t what I was expecting and they jump right in. But it’s just that first nudge- the need to convince someone to give it a go. I think it’s to do with preconceptions and maybe a feeling that, and again this is the wrong feeling, but the feeling that it’s going to be simplistic or childish or black & white or just an extended advert for the toys, which it isn’t. So yes, there’s all those added conscious associations which people need to get past just to pick up an issue.
Now having said that, I’m sensing increasingly, thanks to the championing of both titles, MTMTE and RID [Robots in Disguise] or ex-RID, I’m sensing that more and more people are willing to give it a go. And there’s so much to be said for the power of word of mouth. And the more people pick up on the acronyms on Twitter, or on tumblr, or on comics forums, all stuff like that, the more good things I hear about it. It just sinks into their brain gradually, until they reach that tipping point where they think, what the hell, I’ll see what all the fuss is about. So, I always say, don’t underestimate the power of talking up these titles and keeping them out there, referencing them and sustaining the vibe around them. It’s starting to pay off I think.
The titles themselves are rock solid in terms of their numbers. They’re not spectacular as you say, but they’re really steady. And we’re three and half years in almost now and there’s been very little variance in the monthly figures in terms of hard copies, but I think that digitally, not only have they grown and have kept growing almost month after month in terms of copies sold digitally, but they are among IDW’s best selling digital comics, I think. And before we had this conversation today, somebody was saying on Twitter that the latest MTMTE is at #18 I think on Comixology in the US. In the UK I think it got to #9 last issue? And I don’t know what it is this time round. So they punch well above their weight digitally. And also in the trades, I can’t quote figures or exact proportions, but there’s a disproportionate leaning towards people buying the trades of the series, compared to the hard copies. So it’s all positive. And like I say, the more people show enthusiasm about them, then it’ll get through. I’m not an avid reader of lots and lots of comics, but those I do read it’ll be because they’ve been recommended to me by people whose tastes I trust or I see the same names, creators or titles coming up and up again in the sites I look at or the magazines I read until I think, OK, look, there’s got to be something in this so I’ll check it out.
TM (Charles): And I guess providing a little extra incentive, IDW surprised us with the new Humble Bundle that was just announced. [This deal expired on March 11, 2015 and is no longer available]
JR: Yeah! I don’t know whether it’ll still be available when this goes out, but it’s incredibly good value. You can pay whatever you feel you can afford to pay and get literally the entire run of MTMTE minus the very latest issue, so that’s 37 issues. And then if you pay a little bit extra (we’re talking £5 or, you know $11-13 dollars) you can get the run of Robots in Disguise [RID], you can get Dark Cybertron in there too. And I think it’s been up for 24 hours, but they’ve made about $70,000 and counting and they’ve shifted about 6,500 runs of MTMTE that people out there have picked up, so it’s all good. It’s all good stuff.
TM (Charles): Yeah, hopefully this will be up before the Humble Bundle ends, so if you’re listening and you haven’t tried the comics, that’s a great starting place. I mean for less that $15-20 you can get all issues of MTMTE and RID so that’s a great deal.
TM (Jeremy): I think it was like $155 worth of comics.
TM (Charles): Yeah.
JR: Yeah, so that’s not to be sniffed at. That’s a once in a lifetime opportunity. I don’t want to oversell it, but you know.
TM (Charles): (laughs)
JR: You will regret it. And I don’t want people to be screaming and the gnashing of teeth when this goes and they think oh why, you know. And people do. They carry these regrets through life and that will be one of them. You know, I don’t want to big it up, but, goodness me, you’d be a fool not to take up this offer. And it’s for charity. 95% of it goes to me and John [Barber] to spend on whatever we want. (laughs) That’s a joke.
TM (Charles): (laughs) So what are your thoughts on the transition between digital and physical comics? In the last year or so we’ve seen a huge shift where now with digital comics, especially with a service like Comixology, if you buy the comics you get a completely DRM free copy. So you can just download the whole issue, instead of having it locked to a device or anything.
JR: That was an important step forward. And I think IDW were one of the first to have pushed that, pioneered that. No, I think it’s the way it’s going. It’s like with all things like newspapers, everything physical that can be rendered digital, that is where the trend is, that’s where they’re heading towards. And fine, you know. I speak as somebody who fetishizes the physical. I mean I have my vinyl records and I’ve got my old physical fanzines and I get hard copies in trade, if not singles, of the comics I like. But I also download them digitally. The portability, the affordability – there’s no real downside to it as far as I can see. And as the Humble Bundle proves, because it costs very little, in terms of production, once you’ve created the product you’re offering it up whether 1,000 people get it or 1 person gets it, the cost of producing it is the same. It allows for all sorts of clever and generous offers. You can have a package of issues, introductory package, you can sample stuff for free – so yeah, it’s all good.
TM (Charles): Do you think there’s any kind of tension? I mean a lot of bundles look at the back catalog to kind of entice people to try things they haven’t looked at before. But with the newest comics, first run things that are coming out weekly, they don’t want to cannibalize the physical sales by marking down the digital comics right away. So do you think that’s ever going to shift or do you think that things are usually going to stay how they are now.
JR: For what it’s worth I think the fear of cannibalization will change, because ultimately it may be that they devise other ways to make money off the digital comics other than simply the cost of the sale price. Maybe they can add revenue in there or something. Or maybe companies will trade their own platforms on which to sell comics and there’s some revenue to be made there. And that I think will change the focus away from hard copy sales versus digital. But I think for those who measure the success of a title principally on the number of hard copies it’s sold, which seems to be the case these days, it’s difficult to ascertain the number of digital copies sold. And when you look at the charts, it’s usually on hard copies. So you can see why the desire at the moment is still to keep those sales healthy, to bump up the hard copies. I do think it’ll change. I don’t know if you said it, but it’s a transitional period we’re in now. And it’s only going to keep moving forward I think away from hard copies.
TM (Charles): OK, so let’s get into MTMTE a little bit. I think that MTMTE really lives up to its name in that we see a lot of subtext and nuance behind the surface story of transforming robots. I think people have talked a lot about how you use these stories to touch on a lot of very human themes, you know, the human condition. Do you sometimes see readers reading even more into the story than you intended?
JR: Yeah, you do sometimes. And it’s usually in a positive way. And sometimes it reflects on me in a way that I don’t deserve. Because they give me the benefit of a doubt if they detect a certain subtext or they detect some visual clues or something or whatever and they usually assume it was intentional. And often it is, but not always. I think the reading in, or the reading between the lines, the inferences and so on, perhaps the added interpretations that people bring to it is, I would hope, a testament to the extent to which they’re invested in the characters. Because it tends to be around characters and interactions and relationships that you get people filling in the blanks or, you know, making the extra effort to interpret and extrapolate and interpolate and so on. So I hope it reflects the connection that people feel with the characters and the book. And if that’s the case, then great.
TM (Charles): When you’re writing all these characters, do you have particular voices in your head for each one? Like do you envision the G1 voice actors or some other sets of voices as you’re writing them?
JR: In terms of literally do I hear different voices, not really, no. And I’m deficient in this area because I know for lots of people they do have very particular, you know, there’s an audible difference, if you like, in their head, as they listen to people. And there’s also a depth to saying OK, so in my mind, this character sounds like real life person X or Y – and I don’t really have that. Obviously what I do have is their voice in terms of their character voice. The way, and the type of things they would say and the way they would say them because of the type of person they are – because of the character they are. And that’s strong as you’d expect; as you’d hope. But no, in terms of, as banal as this sounds they all sound generically British I guess (laughs) in terms of how they would… And if put on the spot I wouldn’t try and promote this idea that in real life, so to speak, that’s what they sound like.
TM (Charles): What do you think in your opinion is the best work you’ve done…
JR: …In my head they’ve got certain speech patterns.
TM (Charles): (laughs)
JR: The best story…?
TM (Charles): (laughs) Yeah, the best work you’ve done if, say, you’re going for a writing job and you have to submit a portfolio of samples. What would you put in there that you think would be the most stand out? That you think would be the best representation of your work?
JR: OK, so the easy questions we’re going to get. Let me think about that.
TM (Charles): (laughs)
JR: I would possibly… This is going to sound cheesy, but I might say issue #40. Which is cheesy, because it’s yet to come. But that also makes me feel… what I… (laughing)
TM (Charles): (laughs) That’s not fair!
JR: I’ll expand on this of course. But not only does that get me off the hook in terms of saying something you haven’t seen yet so you can’t judge me on that, but also it avoids the terror the writer feels that their best work is behind them (laughs) and it’s only been downhill since.
TM (Charles): (laughs)
JR: Issue #6 (Interiors) is a nice, self containing, stand alone issue that I think was the first issue where I sort of felt I had the rhythms of a TV episode in terms of how it was structured. Which is sort of what, not always, but what I quite like to try and get with MTMTE. That had sort of more of the structure of a TV episode, like I said.
And Chaos Theory, I almost said in answer to your question, but then I thought that’s the first thing I did solo so what does that say (laughs). But in many respects, Chaos Theory lays the foundations in all sorts of ways for what came next with MTMTE. But Chaos Theory was a test of me as a writer, because a lot of it, was the spine of the story, certainly part 1, was two people in a room having a conversation. So if I was to try to sell myself to other people I might point to that.
TM (Charles): You talked a little bit about how in the past Transformers comics have been meant as an advertisement for the toys and we have seen a little bit, it’s not huge, but there has been a little bit of a return to that with Dark Cybertron last year and then Windblade and continuing this year with Combiner Wars. So we do see a lot of that, but I think it seems there is a lot more synergy between the comics writers and the toy company now. One thing that I have noticed is that with MTMTE, it seems like the reverse is happening; that Hasbro looks at what you’re doing in the comic and what Alex [Milne] and Nick Roche are doing with designs of the characters and they’re taking cues from that. And even Third Party designers are doing that as well. So what do you think of that? Are you gratified by that? How does it make you feel?
JR: Oh, it’s tremendously gratifying. And I think it’s, I was going to say, an unfair comparison really between the two titles, because with MTMTE from day 1 the idea was that these are a group, a real mixed bag of characters, and they include a lot of C-listers and D-listers and indeed entirely new characters. And I did that partly selfishly because it gave me more space around which to write stories I could create backstories for each of them and things and that was the motivation. And so because of that, MTMTE has had a sort of notionally fresh cast of characters, a lot of whom have had toys before, and so what you’re seeing in some case is like perhaps the inevitable return of certain toys, to an extent off the back of MTMTE characters and that is good to see. And you know RID, by contrast, had people like Starscream and Bumblebee and so on who would be characters, justifiably and often, who had usually a toy around them already. I mean, yeah, it’s great to see.
We’re talking now only a few weeks after the latest Ultra Magnus was released with Minimus Ambus as an actual real thing in it, which was unbelievable and I think that was the apotheosis to me, thus far, of that sort of synergy you’re talking about or the way that MTMTE to an extend has helped shape and inform the toy range and that’s mad and wonderful. And to see the little Minimus Ambus figure and the color scheme is the same and I think he’s even got a little moustache – that’s fantastic. I think it was only today I was told that on the back of the new Combiner Wars packaging, that you know, you’ve got the tech specs, you’ve got the bios and it’s Rung that is giving this bio. And that is immensely exciting and it makes me smile. Yeah, great, you know. If there can be a Nautica figure that would be great. Or a DJD set, you know, that would be great. Yeah, I don’t know, it’s a whole different level isn’t it. They make hundreds of thousands of these toys and we talked about the print runs for the comics and even the digital runs, you know they pale in comparison to the number of certain of these toys that are mass produced. And to think like a Minimus Ambus figure will be in thousands and thousands of homes played with by kids, that’s cool. Happy.
TM (Charles): Did you know about Minimus Ambus before Toy Fair? The announcement?
JR: No, not really. Not with certainty. I’d heard some rumblings, but I’m not really party to that side of things, so often it is a surprise to me. I didn’t know about the Rung thing either. That’s cool. It’s surprised me. (laughs) I don’t know what’s around the corner, so when I say oh, wouldn’t it be great if there was a MTMTE Rodimus figure, for example, that’s not me dropping a hint. That me, like other people that want a Rodimus figure, thinking ‘I wonder if there is going to be one.’
TM (Charles): Have you been asked to include any particular characters in MTMTE?
JR: Not outside of Dark Cybertron. Crosscut, and others, was the last one. There was, back when we hadn’t worked out exactly how Combiner Wars was going to play out then, the maneuvering of the Protectobots onto the Lost Light, with an anticipation of those coming out as toys and MTMTE having a bigger role to play in Combiner Wars.
I must say, in relation to that question and an earlier statement you made in to what extent each of the two main titles are carrying the weight of the toy promotions: MTMTE has an unfair advantage because of the structure of the story – because of the nature of the story. They’re on a quest. They’re physically far removed from the rest of the IDW Transformers universe, you know, from Windblade and Cybertron and Earth. If nothing else, the simple story logistics of bringing everyone back or finding a way to bring the casts together for the sake of a cross-over, it’s more difficult and it takes a high level of contrivance to bring them together. We did it once for Dark Cybertron. If you do it again, in my view, you undermine the whole notion of these guys questing forth and forging ahead into the unknown. It’s like you’re tugging the leash every so often and bringing them back to Earth and Cybertron. I think if anything if MTMTE, as far as Combiner Wars is concerned, is removed from the action, it’s because of the nature of the quest.
TM (Charles): Switching gears a little bit, do you have any plans for Transformers conventions this year? I know you’re a regular guest at Auto Assembly. Do you plan to get to any ones over here this year?
JR: Well, maybe. I haven’t been invited actually to any as things stand. So we’ll see. Obviously I expect the phone to start ringing as soon as the podcast goes out.
TM (Charles): (laughs)
JR: I’ll be inundated. No, not yet. I’ve done the big ticket Transformers ones in recent years. The North American and Canadian ones. And it tends to be that they don’t have the same guests every year, so I’m not necessarily expecting in 2015 to go back. We will see. I’ll be doing Auto Assembly again and I’ve had another invitation to one of the UK… ish [conventions] which we’ll see whether that pans out. It would be very good to get over to America again and see fans over there because it’s always amazing fun.
TM (Charles): OK, now let’s go into Elegant Chaos a little bit. So listeners, if you haven’t picked up MTMTE #38 yet, stop the podcast, go get it, read it and come back and join us because we’re going to go deep into the story here.
So first of all, we did talk back in October at TFcon Chicago and at the time you mentioned how it was getting harder for you to seed a mystery without everyone solving it ahead of time, and I think we did see a little bit of that here. At least I know a lot of people had predicted the what of the last part of Elegant Chaos: Megatron, his spark is blue, we know he’s a Point One Percenter, blah blah blah, we know something’s going to happen, the sparks are going to get switched. So all that I think people had pretty much worked out, but what I think what was surprising was the motivation: why, what happened, who actually pulled the trigger there. All those things I think were very surprising, at least for me. Are you happy with the reaction to the story?
JR: To the story? Absolutely! I think it’s literally been the best reaction to a MTMTE story since we started, which is enormously gratifying when you’re 38 issues into it. And I never take, because you know, I’m very fortunate as usually there’s a positive reaction from the majority of people and that’s great, but I never assume that’s going to be the case. I have said, I did say on Twitter that I was personally proud of this issue in particular and so it’s very reassuring actually to see that most people feel that it was good. So can’t complain at all about the way it’s been received.
In terms of seeding a mystery, I did pick up that the Transformer fandom hive mind had set to work, analyzing the clues and had come to what I knew to be the right conclusion. In the first three pages, I think, of issue #38, the three pages you’re going to get as a preview, two weeks ahead of time normally, there’s the green glow coming out of Brainstorm’s stomach or chest, so if you were in any doubt as to whether your theory was sound, that would have cemented it. But I did know at least that there was more to it than that. Although having said that, I start to think, oh god, people are going to look at Nick’s cover to issue #38, which is Rodimus standing sort of symbolically between Whirl and Rewind, and I thought they’re going to guess now, aren’t they. They’re going to guess these are the two people referred to in the solicits. Because the clues are in there, in terms of Whirl’s discovery in part 2 that it was the Functionists that were behind his empurata and they know that Rewind is sort of gradually coming to learn more about the Functionist universe. So I thought uh, people are going to work out that Rung [ed- James means Whirl] will be the one to save Megatron and Rewind will be the one to shoot him and stuff. I don’t scour for all these things, I don’t wade through the forums looking, not least because I’ll be sad when people guess it, but I don’t think people guessed that element of the story which is a relief. But you know, it’s like I said to you last time, you’ve got to give some clues otherwise you haven’t earned the resolution. Anyone can withhold stuff, but it is going to be detrimental to the story if there aren’t some sort of clues, because you just think that’s come out of nowhere. I’ve not been carried towards that conclusion, because you’ve not given me any breadcrumbs so far.
TM (Charles): And I think with that cover most people would take the opposite conclusion from it; they’d think Whirl would be the one to want to kill Megatron and Rewind would be the one defending him. I think that’s a bit of a misdirection there, which is good.
JR: I think that was what would reassure me. That’s the obvious interpretation. And, this is going to sound self-pitying, but writing the solicits and giving Nick and Alex and others ideas for the covers without spoiling stuff- that balance between whetting people’s appetites and not giving the game away- sometimes is easier than others. You don’t want a bland solicit and you certainly don’t want a bland cover. And I don’t think Alex and Nick and others are even capable of giving a bland cover, but in terms of what it’s depicting you want something that is bold or striking, but which doesn’t give the whole thing away.
TM (Charles): To continue on with that theme, what do you think about- I know it’s necessary that comics companies in general, they release their solicits three months ahead of time and they release covers and things like that, but we also notice that sometimes IDW releases, kind of just to promote the books and try to entice readers, they do kind of sometimes give a little bit more of the game away than we would like and the spoilers, you know – I mean we on our show try to minimize the spoilers that we release and try to give as much warning as possible, but we do see that in the age of social media, that if one person has it it’s out there and you’d have to avoid every site if you didn’t want to see things. So does that bother you at all or do you think it’s a difficulty?
JR: I’m an anti-spoiler guy, I mean personally. In terms of the stuff I watch and follow. I’ll avoid spoilers, because for me it dilutes the experience really and you can only be spoiled once, you know, and I prefer to be spoiled when I’m reading or watching the thing in question. That’s me. There is a need to get people interested and you do want conversation, you do want speculation and you want people talking about the product and being involved in the story. It helps. It keeps the fandom alive if there’s a shared conversation to be had about what’s happened and what could be happening next. I get all that and I’m pleased to see that we’ve moved away from what used to be a seven page preview. There was a time when you’d be giving away the first third of the issue. And that’s now a five page thing.
It’s also, now whether this is by accident or design or whether it’s symptomatic of delays in shipping or whatever or there’s been some weird scheduling lately because of events outside of IDW’s control, but because of that there’s been previews coming out like 24 hours ahead of the release itself and that’s easier for people to avoid. The temptation isn’t there for as long if nothing else. And that’s great. For me, yeah, if there has to be previews, bring them out nearer the time and limit the length of them. Make it easier for people to turn away for 24 hours.
TM (Charles): Now with Elegant Chaos I think you’ve previously described it as kind of a third part of a trilogy consisting of Chaos Theory and then Shadowplay. And so basically if I can become a police interrogator and shine a spotlight on it, on you, how much did you know and when did you know it? (laughs) In terms of the story. What did you have planned out ahead of time?
JR: When I wrote Chaos Theory there’s a reference in there to Megatron. There’s a question around whether Megatron is constructed cold or forged and at that point I knew what the distinction was, bearing in mind that we didn’t really explain or define these terms until Remain in Light. But I was planning MTMTE so I knew why there was a difference and why that mattered. Which one of those Megatron was or indeed the fact that he’s a hybrid – that hadn’t come to mind yet. And the thing about the batch code number being missing, that was just to generate some mystery around the character. There’s no harm in – something I do when applicable or when I get the opportunity – but there’s no harm in creating these little story hooks that you may never go back to again and it won’t be to the detriment of the story overall, but should you want to go back and pick it up and have some fun with it, you can do that. These little pockets of opportunity you can create, and that was one of them.
When I came to write MTMTE, and by the time I was planning Shadowplay, in fact when I wrote issue #1 of MTMTE and I had the warning at the end, I absolutely knew then it was a warning from the past – it was being sent from the past not from the future. And I sort of wish I’d done more now. Because the thing is now it may look as if that’s an idea that’s come to me late and I’ve been able to retrofit it and make it applicable to the past. But there’s a bit in issue #1 where whoever is sending the message is interrupted by someone else and he pauses to say ‘what–?’ and then in issue #38 we see that’s Riptide interrupting Tailgate and correcting him after he says the word ‘future.’ So that’s, if you like, that’s my evidence, your Honor (laughs), that it was intended to be in the past and when I wrote the dialogue for issue #1 the intention always was that that was the point at which someone was saying to him – didn’t know it was Riptide at the time, Riptide didn’t exist then – but somebody was going to be interrupting the character. I think it was going to be Chromedome and Rewind sending the message and it was going to be one of them – Rewind – saying to Chromedone actually, you know, we’re technically in the past. So that was planned out.
And then I came to write Shadowplay with the Lost Light there, you know the model Lost Light, I knew then that I wanted to do this. I knew what I always wanted to do with a comic was to reintegrate old panels. I couldn’t be certain then and thank goodness it panned out as it did, but I couldn’t be certain that the same creative team would be involved in three years or whatever it was that I’d get to telling the actual time travel story.
It’s a bit like the old Marvel UK Simon Furman’s Galvatron saga in that the bulk of his run on the UK comic was defined by the Galvatron in the past story lines and the escapades of the future, post-movie Autobots. And then with Time Wars, which was the climax to his run in many ways. He brought the two together. You had the future Autobots going into the past en mass to get Galvatron. And so I didn’t set out to emulate that, but in a way it’s a similar theory or sort of ethos. You had Chaos Theory principally a tale of the past, Shadowplay was as well, and here we are with the climax to the trilogy you get what I hoped to be the best of both worlds: you got our heroes from the present day actually interacting with characters that you’d only discovered or read about through the device of somebody telling a story. So you know, the two things come together.
TM (Jeremy): Charles noticed the corners of the panels and pointed that out and I hadn’t even noticed it and it goes all the way back to issue #1.
TM (Charles): Yeah, the rounded corners are the flashback scenes.
JR: Yeah, that’s certainly a Transformers UK device and I blithely assumed that was like comic book convention – which shows that I didn’t read many comic books between 1992 and early this century. But it was sort of the lingua franca of comic storytelling, I thought, but I’ve since discovered it’s less well known. It’s become, for readers of MTMTE, a device now and people are quicker to recognize it, but a huge amount would hinge on that visual language, because in part 2 of Elegant Chaos we’ve got that one flashback panel – it’s page 3 – when there’s a flashback to Cyclonus kicking Tailgate. It’s a flashback to issue #4. And you know, in writing that scene, I thought to myself – the very first draft to that scene didn’t even have that flashback panel, it just had Cyclonus turning to Tailgate and saying ‘I’m sorry’ and the success or failure of that moment would have depended entirely on the reader being familiar enough with the comic and the dynamic between those characters to think, “Oh OK, I assume he’s referring to what he did way back in issue #4.” But that was too big an ask of anybody. Not everyone has this obsessive knowledge of the comic as I do. So yes, we put the flashback panel in, so I put it in there to sort of hopefully avoid any ambiguity, but there was still some confusion and some people thinking actually, why has Cyclonus just wacked Tailgate during this otherwise very peaceful moment. It all relies on noticing the curved corners.
And that’s why in issue #1 I was quite pleased with the fact that the transition from past Tailgate into present day Tailgate, which could just be a second, is symbolized or is conveyed through the curved to non-curved corners.
TM (Charles): So when you were setting up, I mean you had the idea for the time travel story, did you know that it was going to center around Megatron at the time? You were writing Shadowplay I guess, you at that point knew that you were getting Megatron after Dark Cybertron right? Or you were in the planning stages for that.
JR: Yeah, when I wrote the message for issue #1 I didn’t know – well, it’s funny because I obviously didn’t know that Megatron was going to be the captain or an Autobot by that point – and it was very, very vague. I think I did have in mind that it was going to be a sort of let’s kill Hitler type story line, so they would have probably gone back to kill Megatron in a far less layered way (laughs) that we got to in the end. We got to a better place in the end, but it was probably no more than: I do love time travel stories, I’ve done Chaos Theory, I know that Shadowplay is coming up, I’d love to see a mash up between the two eras – and that was enough justification to have that message from the past.
TM (Charles): So how do you maintain all the threads and storylines and make sure things don’t contradict? I think people recognize that you’ve constructed a pretty intricate story, and you’ve been pretty careful in making sure that everything fits together. So as you keep moving forward, how do you maintain that and how do you deal with a significant change? I think Dark Cybertron, that cross over, might have thrown a wrench in the works for you in terms of it was an event that you weren’t planning at the beginning, but then were able to roll with it and incorporate a lot of things.
JR: Yeah and the big thing around that was it forced the thing about Brainstorm being technically sort of dead and that was utilized in a different way in the end to no great detriment that came forward differently. I think through luck more than desire I’ve been fortunate that a lot of the larger MTMTE story arcs, the ones that were seeded very early, haven’t had to be adjusted much to allow for Megatron being around. But in terms of how you keep track of it, well, MTMTE sits forever in my brain on some level and the scripts themselves go through so many iterations – drafts 7, 8, 9 and stuff. It’s like a cumulative thing. It’s like learning and relearning and rereading the same stuff so many times you just become so familiar with it. I’m not perfect, I do forget details and there’s times when I need to make corrections. Sometimes I do that in the trade if I can.
By and large you just… I’m incredibly invested in the title. I really want people to continue enjoying it as much as they are. I really, really, value the way in which, what I think is, the average MTMTE fan really dives deep into it and appreciates and looks out for and has come to expect the intricacy and is looking for the Chekhov’s guns and the little clues and will go back and reread it and get something different out of it. I think that’s a really valuable part of the reading experience. It’s certainly the way I like to write stories – you know, if you can construct a story like a little Chinese lock or like a little Chinese box and get all the little compartments sorted and get the keys fashioned in a certain way. And that’s great and I think adds another layer of satisfaction to the experience. So yeah, I don’t know, it’s always been what writing a comic like that has been about for me. And someone else said to me the other day, some of the payoffs had been a long time coming and the resolution, if you like, to the message from issue #1. That took 38 issues. That took over three years to get there. Who on Earth was to say that MTMTE was going to last that long? It looks like it’s a combination of naivete and extreme arrogance I think (laughs). I thought, yeah, we’ll get to that. And there’s other stuff, you know, in there which we’re nowhere near yet. So my naivete and arrogance is still there (laughs).
TM (Charles): Well just following on to that, do you think there is a danger of making the story too dense or self-referential? Do you think you need strike to strike a balance between making it accessible?
JR: I think there’s a danger of making it too self-referential and I think the Elegant Chaos finale is as close as you’re going to get. It’s a closed loop story, both conceptually in terms of the time travel approach it takes, but also in terms of cannibalizing its own history. And I was conscious actually that certainly with throwing in the origin of the Lost Light and the origin of the Sparkeater, that sailed very close to being too tidy. I satisfied myself that the benefit was there – the merits outweighted the demerits – and I went with it. But that I think is as a self-referential and as cannibalizing as you’re going to get. I don’t think – I go to back to what I said about what readers get out of MTMTE – I think that a certain level of intricacy is expected and appreciated. I absolutely love the idea, in the end, that we don’t dumb this down, we don’t patronize readers. We expect, and I can be confident that, people are going to read it closely. By which I mean they will reread it, they will look for clues, they will put in the time and effort to keep up to speed with the story. And why shouldn’t they? You know! I do that, you do that, we all did that with what we love and we enjoy, the TV we watch and stuff. You’ll dive straight into this stuff. And so if we can reward you, if we can reward that close attention then great, everyone’s happy.
TM (Charles): And I guess the other thing with Elegant Chaos: we are in 2015 so it’s the 30th anniversary of Back to the Future [BTTF]. It seems you’ve deliberately put in significant call outs and homages to BTTF. At the end of issue #38 there’s a clear reference there, but I mean even with the story structure and some of the actions that people take. I mean, we have Rodimus as Marty, trying to prevent Trailbreaker as Doc Brown from getting killed in the future.
JR: (laughs) Yeah.
TM (Charles): So I think it almost felt to me like these three issues were loosely analogous to the three BTTF movies. Would that be a fair assessment or am I reading too much into that? (laughs)
JR: It’s fair, but don’t give me too much credit like we were talking earlier. I mean certainly the biggest thing is in part 2 [of Elegant Chaos] and BTTF2 – genius film that it is – where they recycled footage from the first one and you looked at it from a different angle. That is one of the best devices in any film ever – any peace of entertainment ever. And so the recycling of Shadowplay and Chaos Theory panels was definitely BTTF2 inspired. And that was referenced explicitly, as you say, at the end when they’re watching that particular film.
I hadn’t really – I wasn’t really going for the Marty trying to save Doc’s life with part 1, but what you do get with this type of time travel story – and some of these time travel tropes can be laid at the feet of BTTF – but you do get a certain… time travel stories lend themselves to a certain type of character beat or whatever and one is trying to prevent something bad happening. And it can go one of two ways: either you succeed and something worse happens or you discover the predestination paradox – by trying to stop it you actually make it happen. And that is of course the whole of Elegant Chaos – it’s built around that idea. And I am obsessed with time travel stories and getting a time travel stories right in terms of deciding on what the internal logic of time travel is going to be and then being faithful to that logic.
And so I think probably more effort went into the concepts in Elegant Chaos than in anything else I’ve done with MTMTE, because I really wanted to have my cake and eat it. In every respect, bar one, this was a closed loop story. This was a universe within which time travel could happen, but there was only ever one timeline and one universe and the actions you take, however much you muck around in the past, your mucking about is what creates the conditions that lets you go back in time. So that’s the whole closed loop thing. So I wanted that because it’s fun, it’s satisfying, you’ve got opportunities to be clever with it and things – so that’s good.
But at the same time I wanted to have the dystopian future and I really like the idea. And in earlier drafts, the prologue with Rewind and Minimus Ambus sort of had Rewind phasing in and out of the dystopian Functionist reality – not so much a future, but a parallel reality – and the Lost Light one. So at one stage he was literally going to bridge the panels and walk – if you can imagine a two panel page, two columns – he was going to be walking out of one and into the other. It’s hard to convey in words, but you know, he was going to be moving between these two realities. So I had to come up with a way to allow myself to tell the story about another universe when really, how can that universe had been created if everything you do is sort of reinforcing one reality. And – as we now know – it was through having that one vulnerable point in space-time – when Brainstorm’s paradox trap, or the paradox locks he’d created, and Perceptor’s tampering with those locks – coinciding with the points when a sociotemporal hotspot is disrupted through the murder of Megatron. That created the extremely unique and unlikely moment where actually for that second or for that minute normal rules didn’t apply and it became possible to have parallel universes.
And actually, while I’m blathering on about this – because I don’t know how clear it is ultimately from the epilogue – that Functionist universe: within that universe parallel universes are possible and within those universes parallel universes are possible. And it’s possible that there’s been time travel in those universes which have gone further back, and created branchings of millions of years ago. So the phenomenally arrogant subtext there is that Brainstorm’s briefcase and MTMTE and this iteration of the Transformers Universe is the sort of base level universe. This is Universe Zero from which every other iteration of the Transformers continuities originated.
TM (Charles): So this is the birth of the Transformers Multiverse here? (laughs)
JR: Yeah… (laughs) until someone can contradict me. Until another story comes out which makes that impossible. But that was the intention. That was the sort of pay off on a vaguely meta level.
TM (Charles): So do you have a chalkboard with the timeline drawn out, like in BTTF2 where Doc’s explaining to Marty where it branched off?
JR: (laughs) I love that scene because it’s necessary, clearly, because that’s one of the most complicated ideas to get across to the average cinema audience then. So I love the scene, I love the way they do it. But that illustration more than anything invites the Riptide observation there, about, you know, if that’s the case, how did Biff get back…?
TM (Charles): (laughing) Right!
JR: You know, yeah. That’s the subject of the BTTF podcast, which I do every week so…
TM (Charles): (laughs) So if we can focus in on the characters now because everything within Elegant Chaos turned on the motivations of the characters, particularly Rewind and Whirl and it turns out, with Rewind’s motivation he explains how he wanted to prevent the rise of the Decepticons, but then at the end actually ended up ensuring it. So do you think that’s going to weigh on him in the future? I mean, he basically killed an innocent life for nothing.
JR: Yes…
TM (Charles): And it seems like at the end of the story that hadn’t sunk in for him at that point.
JR: Well, I’ve seen a few comments about that, about the Brainstorm Decepticon thing – we never got an answer to that really – and other things. As I said, bear in mind this wasn’t the last issue of MTMTE ever, you know. And neither are we in the business of having super neat and tidy… you know, we don’t wrap things up and put a bow on and move on to tell an entirely different story. This is a serialized story and I try to be faithful to character arcs and to follow actions through and to look at consequences. Not always, because there are a lot of characters and you can’t always devote as much time to every one of them and explore everything to an Nth degree and you do have to tell new stories. So some of those things will be looked at maybe sooner maybe later and some won’t. Not everything will be swept under the carpet. We got the DJD next issue, and then issue #40 is a closed ship episode so it’s all onboard the Lost Light, and it’s like the other Elegant Chaos epilogue if you like; the morning after the night before type thing.
What else… there was something else you said as well. Ah, yeah! Thank you for your observation that Elegant Chaos is character driven, because that was an explicit intention. I wanted – I know I’ve said it a lot, but usually the whole of the MTMTE storyline is driven forward by character motivation and decisions and it was really important to me and actually quite apart from the fact I got to play around the sort of predestination [time] loops and so on, but the satisfying part of issue #38 to me was the fact that most characters had a moment in the sun. They either had dialogue or they had a part to play in the scenes that had an impact, that drove the story forward, that changed the outcome, and that’s really important to me to be able to tell stories in that way.
TM (Charles): So I guess another thing with Megatron. I mean, Megatron is pretty much an observer at the end of this story. And we see definitely some tough facial expressions for him and he’s kind of left to ponder his existence here. It made me feel like it’s the reverse of It’s A Wonderful Life where George Bailey realizes that his life matters and he matters to people and it matters that he existed-
JR: Absolutely!
TM (Charles): -and here it’s the exact opposite.
JR: Yeah, you’re absolutely spot on. In fact that may even have survived into the script, because that was absolutely the intention. So that may even have been a note in the script, saying this is like the anti-Wonderful Life moment for Megatron, because he – it’s very carefully choreographed that scene, because it was important that we established Megatron could hear what Rewind was saying and that we dwelt on his reaction to this confirmation. And it’s something which none of us will ever have in real life. Here is established as fact, evidence that you’ve – if there was any doubt – you’ve quantifiably made the universe a worse place by existing. And you know, on some level Megatron would have already reached that conclusion, that’s why he’s contrite. But you know, lest there be any doubt, we’ve now got scientific proof that billions of people would be alive had you died or whatever – and that’s a sucker punch for Megatron. And I very deliberately took him out of the present day scenes after that point and we don’t see him again until he’s in his quarters, reflecting.
TM (Charles): Yeah. And just following on [from] that and just in general, you’ve, with these past stories, you’ve added a little bit of depth and, I would say, three dimensionality to the Decepticon movement. If feels like it resonates with something like the French or the Russian revolution and what’s interesting to me is that in those real world revolutions you kind of have an idealist who sparks the revolution and then later on you get a tyrant who kind of takes advantage of the chaos and the aftermath. And here, you’ve got Megatron as the same person, for both of those roles. Do you envision how the later Megatron rationalizes that? Like, you’ve mentioned and touched on a little bit on how he becomes this supremacist who goes and subjugates all the organic species. I think you called it technoism or neo-technoism-
JR: That’s right, yeah.
TM (Charles): -and that’s kind of in opposition to his original treatise which was all about equality.
JR: It’s something which is – I’m hesitating slightly because I’m thinking how much of it survived – but it’s something which is addressed in issue #39 actually. And if it isn’t, I know we go there and I know there was a longer scene which I had to reduce in size and don’t worry, anything which was cut out will find itself back in eventually. But, one thing we haven’t really explored in the Megatron story is – OK we know he started off as a miner, we know that he was railing against the injustices of the system, we know that he was oppressed, we know that he was a victim of state violence, we know how he reacted to that, we know that Terminus mentored him among others and encouraged him to take the lead against his judgement – against his will, if you know what I mean. So we know that and we know from Megatron: Origin how he ended up being in the Decepticons and so on. What we haven’t really explored yet is how that philosophy translated to one which involved striking out – going beyond Cybertron and sorting out the rest of the universe. And how his anti-Functionist position turned into an anti-organic position, which is different. So, you know, I recognize that’s unexplored and we touch upon that in issue #39 – there’s more to come. I’m focusing on one part of your question there, but, yeah… Where Megatron is now, I mean all of Season 2 is about – is following him. I mean he’s at the heart of virtually if not every story. It doesn’t always mean he’s on the page, it doesn’t always mean he’s at the heart of the action, but you know, events are happening around him and because of him. And hopefully we’re seeing him explore, in different ways, the impact of both his defection and the different ways in which he’s interpreting his legacy and looking back over what he’s done. And the latest iteration of that, if you like, is like I said, the anti-Wonderful Life moment, when he learns, you know what, things would have been much, much better had I not done what I did. So we’ve still got a way to go with that journey.
TM (Charles): Also, when you mentioned how we tied up a couple of mysteries from the very beginning of MTMTE with the sparkeater in particular, I tried to see if I could find any references to Brainstorm building that sparkeater gun. Can I assume that he kind of took the remains of the sparkeater and used that in his research to build that sparkeater gun?
JR: You can, and you know what – that’s right by the way – but that’s an example of me, that’s where I thought, there’s no way I can seed this earlier without someone guessing what’s going to happen, you know?
TM (Charles): (laughing)
JR: Even the scene in part 1 when they’re talking about raiding the experimental gun cabinet basically, was sailing close to the wind. And actually in the same spirit, the conversation that I have either in the prologue or in part 1 where they’re talking about spark compatibility, I tried to be honest in terms of thinking, OK the people that I’m picking to go back in time, unless I got this wrong, they do all share one of two spark types and it’s Brainstorm’s normal spark type and the Point One Percenter spark type that became Megatron.
TM (Charles): Ahh, OK!
JR: So I’m faithful to that concept. Everybody that went back in time, I think if you look in issue #31, the Twenty Plus One issue-
TM (Charles): Yeah, I’ve got it in my notes right here! (laughs) Vitreous-positive and Ferrum-negative are the two spark types.
JR: I think everybody that went back in time falls into one of those categories, but I couldn’t put too fine a point on that without encouraging people to reach the green spark theory sooner than they did.
TM (Charles): Chris McFeely helpfully put that in the [TF]wiki so it was right there for everyone to see (laughs).
JR: Oh, is it? (laughs) So there we go. So you do take some things off the table from time to time. The sparkeater gun was another loop – closed loop. How did the technology that created the sparkeater – how did that first come into being? And it’s in part 2 when Whirl shoots the unnamed Heavy and that’s the last we see of that, but it was necessary to have a, if you like, a rogue sparkeater out there to create the myth in the first place. So you know, you can assume that that guy became a full blown sparkeater and there may well be some way of transmitting like an infection, making other people sparkeaters, which again perpetuates the myth and the legend and therefore that’s why when they do encounter this creature in issue #3 it’s got all this sort of mythological baggage to it.
TM (Charles): Right. So, another thing that we get with Elegant Chaos is we delve a lot more into the idea of Functionism and it’s a religious fundamentalism in Cybertron and we also see there’s some tension between the religious organization and the political organization. It almost felt to me like how this tension between the Functionist Council and the Senate – the Senate reminds me of cynical politicians who co-opt religiosity for political power and then-
JR: Until it becomes problematic.
TM (Charles): Yeah, exactly.
JR: Absolutely. That’s exactly it. And you can add a third leg to that, a sort of corner to the triangle which is the lineage of Primes as well.
TM (Charles): Yeah.
JR: I don’t know – at one point I was attempting to make it analogous to the American constitutional system and the different pillars there, but that served no purpose beyond being pretentious, so that’s the sort of – certainly the tension is between the Functionists and the Senate. And really Nominus Prime and his predecessors, they’ve sort of flared and had their time and they’re just been subsumed into the mechanics of the state really. They’ve become like the royal family, they’re just sort of symbolic now, by the time we get to Chaos Theory.
TM (Charles): And I’ve noticed that the Functionists all appear to have had themselves empurata-ed or it looks like they are. We’ve seen in the past in Shadowplay you introduced empurata as kind of a punishment, but the Functionists appear to have had it done to themselves on purpose.
JR: Yeah well, we won’t go into the Functionists yet, because it’s too much detail at this point. (laughs)
TM (Charles): OK! (laughs) Well, we’ll move on to something else!
JR: (laughing)
TM (Charles): One thing – and you mentioned Megatron: Origin [M:O] and I feel like you’ve added a lot of backstory and context to Megatron that precedes what happens in M:O and, to be honest, M:O to me feels relatively thin as a story. We don’t see a lot of his motivation. Do you think that what you’re adding still fits really nicely with M:O or would you like to go back and rebuild M:O maybe?
JR: No, I wouldn’t want to touch it. I hope that what I’ve done compliments it rather than contradicts it. And, OK, so we’re sort of blurring lines between the in-universe stuff and the rest, but I know that M:O was going to be longer than the 4 issues originally. It had to compress I think 6 issues worth of story into 4. Which may account for the pace at which it moves. But no, and I think particularly with Elegant Chaos, more explicitly than at any point prior to that, I’ve tried to say, look, the evolution of Megatron very much involves Chaos Theory and M:O and this story, and we explicitly say that the murder of a guard on Croteus-12 was part and parcel of what made him who he is. But I think, I sensed that there was ample scope – there were blanks to fill in and those blanks weren’t there because of bad writing or anything like that at all. It was just that you could spend 50 issues writing the origin of somebody like Megatron, you know. There’s so much you could explore and it was just fertile territory to revisit.
TM (Charles): And one thing that always, a little bit – and maybe I’m reading too much into this myself – but it confused me a little bit about Shadowplay and the plot where Sentinel was conspiring with the Senate to have a fake Matrix that had a bomb and everything. I guess, in M:O we don’t really see Sentinel Prime as someone who’s colluding with the Senate, as kind of a sinister guy. He seems more like a put upon peace keeper and even the Senate gets in his way. He feels like he’s at odds with the Senate because they tie his hands and they tend to not want to take action. I just wanted to ask, do you plan to delve into Sentinel’s story at all at some point?
JR: Possibly. Yeah, it’s funny isn’t it, you ask questions like that and it reminds of things in earlier iterations of stories. Yeah, your observation is sound and my view is the Senate is intensely, or certainly became intensely, factionalized. I mean, we know through Shadowplay that at one point there’s a kernel of particularly bad senators and it’s growing and they’re gravitating towards Sentinel. You can imagine, there is all sorts of power play going on and machinations and shifting allegiances and the Senate is a political body that’s been around for millions of years, so they’re going to go through various iterations as I say.
But, you know, Zeta falls into this category too. In part 1 of Elegant Chaos originally there was going to be a scene where this negotiation is taking place between Zeta and Sentinel. And Zeta is essentially saying, look, you know, I’ve now built up quite a body of resistance fighters – for want of a better term – and they are loyal to me. In exchange for you giving me some power, for letting us into the Senate and allowing us to influence the Senate I can stand them down, essentially. I can work with you, Sentinel , and we can implement reforms. And it was all part of Zeta’s plan, ultimately, to gain more power and so on. There was no space for that in the end – I don’t even think there was even just a reference to what Zeta was doing – had to come out because it didn’t serve that particular story in the end. But that’s off-stage stuff that’s happening. (laughs) I suppose the short answer is that there’s tons more stories you can tell around those characters and that era.
TM (Charles): I think we’re going to try to move along because I know it’s pretty late for you. This might be a question for both you and John Barber, but I noticed that we had originally with the MTMTE annual the creation myth with the Guiding Hand and the five first Transformers coming from Primus and now recently in RID, the Thirteen Primes have been introduced and there’s a question as to where the Knights of Cybertron fit in here. Where the colony worlds like Caminus fit in. Do you see that getting addressed in the next year or so? Seeing where all those pieces fit together?
JR: In the next year, I don’t know. My understanding is that, very crudely, the chronology would be: Primus, Guiding Hand, Knights and then the Thirteen Primes and so on. Very roughly. But it will be. It’s John Barber we’re talking about here. It’s going to line up perfectly and it’s going to be like the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, like the beam of light will come down it’ll be perfectly aligned and everything will be illuminated.
TM (Charles): OK! (laughs) A lot of the characters on the Lost Light, we do see it’s a kind of motley crew – they seem to have some significant psychological problems (laughs). Do you think the idea of – and you’ve touched on this a little bit with the idea of things like information creep; the idea of a Transformer with a really long life span, but a human-like personality just leads to mental instability?
JR: (laughs) I think probably the war is more to blame for that than the longevity. The information creep and stuff was really to address this problem of look, here we are, we’ve established that there is ambiguity around things which technically shouldn’t be ambiguous. It’s like imagine if – I’m trying to think of a religious figure, I don’t want to offend anybody – but let’s imagine, if we lived for a long long period of time and Jesus existed like a month ago, equivalently, and there were still people alive today that would have been alive then. They could say, you know what, I know as a matter of fact that this happened and that happened. And that was the problem from my perspective that we had with Transformers. They were ostensibly immortal, so the invention of information creep was to account for fuzziness around certain things – ambiguity. And then yeah, of course, that would contribute potentially to personality quirks. Let’s call them that, shall we.
TM (Charles): One thing for Transformers comics in general. They seem, at least more than other comics to be defined by their writers. I mean in particular with the original series we had, with very few exceptions, we had Bob Budiansky and Simon Furman kind of covering the whole run. Now with MTMTE and RID it’s John Barber and James Roberts and it’s hard to imagine someone else taking over either of those series. So I wanted to ask you, if for some reason you did leave MTMTE, but the series was going to continue on, who would you think would be a good person to replace you on the book?
JR: Oh, it would be Nick – Nick Roche, I think, yeah. Whether Nick would want to… (laughs). I think, to be honest, what would happen is that MTMTE would stop and there’d be something new. And if Nick were writing it then he’d create something from scratch that would be amazing. So, potentially Nick. Mairghread [Scott] as well, doing amazing stuff with Windblade – I could see her taking any of this stuff and just running with it. And it will happen, and these things do happen and there’ll be writers beyond John and I.
You’re right in that there was the Budiansky era and Furman for a long time actually, kept the flame burning. And I don’t want to speak as if he’s retired – he still writes and Regeneration One is very recent and I’m sure he’ll be doing more stuff. But you know, it does tend to be one or two people that do the bulk of the writing for a long time. Now I don’t know whether that says something about, almost, the specialist nature of the franchise in a way. For some reason it’s proven difficult for people to just drop by and do a few issues and then off they go again. It seems to be something which you really need to roll up your sleeves and get stuck into and then you stick around for a while.
TM (Charles): And in general we talked a little bit about how you like to make the story very dense with MTMTE and provide a lot of Easter eggs or call outs for people to pick up on. Is there any reason why you don’t use a lot of the explicit call backs where you put a little asterisk at the bottom of the page and say see issue whatever?
JR: I think I did do a lot of that. If you pick us any issue of Remain in Light, you’ll probably see a handful of those. It’s not a conscious decision to avoid them, except in the instance of when Cyclonus kicked Tailgate and we talked a bit earlier about using – I went so far as a curved corner panel. But to me putting an asterisk in there… and actually you wouldn’t have been asterisking it I think, because there was no dialogue, but even a little footnote saying ‘see issue #4’ it just would have pulled you out of the moment, I think. Even though you do condition yourself to go with the flow and accept those footnotes – they don’t generally interrupt the story – but I think in that instance it would have done so. But actually, perversely, I quite like the – I don’t know what on earth it says about me, in terms of my geek credibility or not – but I like to see a little asterisk that says ‘see issue #3’ and you know, you’re reading issue #76 or something – you’re like, yeah OK! This is long form storytelling and I like the fact that you have relied upon an event which took place 4-5 years or so – I like that! (laughs)
TM (Charles): Is there a series or a character outside of Transformers that you would dream of writing, that would be, like, your holy grail?
JR: Oh, I would love to write Doctor Who.
TM (Charles): Oh, OK!
JR: X-Files as well. Funnily enough TV franchises really, aren’t they. Spider-Man as well. And Death’s Head of course! But I’d like a good 10th Doctor or indeed any Doctor story would be fun. The trouble is that there’s about 400,000 amazing writers that are queued up to write Doctor Who so (laughs) it’s like, get to the back, you know.
TM (Charles): And if you could change anything about the Transformers live action movies, the story in the Transformers live action movies, is there something that you would do differently when handling that story?
JR: If I can speak in general terms, I’d like there to be far more differentiation between the Transformers characters. And more time spent bringing those to life as personalities. We can talk a long time about the movies, but you know, that’s pretty much what it’s, um, yeah.
TM (Charles): And I got to ask, this is kind of a silly question from me, but it’s something I picked up on in the last few years, that in all the Transformers comics, it seems like in general, when the characters talk about transforming they avoid using the word ‘transform’ and I wondered if there was some kind of mandate against doing that?
JR: There is, there is. We can’t use it. Ultimately it’s to do with the risk of rendering the ‘Transformers’ word – you know the brand itself – generic. So obviously there’s a need to protect ‘Transformers’ as a description of the range and of the characters themselves. But because ‘transform’ is a verb, this is my reading of it anyway, if we do anything to contribute to the generification of that term then it would be dangerous. It’s a relatively hard and fast rule. I know I made special pleading way back in issue #1 and got – and it’s testament to Hasbro being cool about this stuff – but they did allow that one line about the NAIL transforming himself to death.
TM (Charles): Ah, yes.
JR: Because there will be times when no other word will do, you know?
TM (Charles): Right! Well, yeah and also, recently in RID, I think, in issue #28, we have Prime use the classic line, ‘Transform and roll out’.
JR: Yes, that’s true! It’s used sparingly. It’s like break glass type thing. Otherwise it’s ‘change’ or ‘morph’ or get the thesaurus, you know.
TM (Charles): Do you have any advice for people trying to break into writing, particularly for comics?
JR: Particularly for comics? Yeah, it’s advice I may not necessarily have followed myself, but particularly these days, in the digital age, if you can just get your work out there on a digital platform, it should be cheaper to produce and distribute. Have something to show people, to say this is evidence of what I can do. I think it is harder for writers to get a break, because with artists it’s easier to make talent scouts, for want of a better word, to make a quick assessment of your skills or potential skills or otherwise. But [for a writer] you need for someone to sit down and read your stuff and often to read enough of your stuff to form a view. It’s harder for those opportunities really. So if you can just – if it’s comics we’re talking about – if you can write, but you’re not an artist, then hook up with people who can draw and put something out there and help it find its way to the right people. That sounds rather glib, but that’s the best I can offer.
TM (Charles): Yeah, I remember a few years ago the Transformers Mosaic was a vehicle for a lot of people to get noticed by IDW.
JR: Yeah, absolutely. And it may be, if you’re thinking particularly I want to write Transformers, it may not necessarily be the best thing to do to just do Transformers stuff. Really, I imagine, that the people who make these decisions to hire are looking for evidence that you work well in the medium generally and you’re comfortable at telling comic book stories. It doesn’t have to be that. And here’s a rule thumb – certainly do not attempt to fix any actual or perceived continuity problems or anything like that (laughs).
TM (Charles): (laughing)
JR: That’s not the best way to get in there, you know: “I’ve done a Transformers story! It fixes…” It may fix things amazingly well…! But the idea is to demonstrate that you can tell a story, that you can structure it properly, that you’ve got the dialogue nailed down and you can do that without resorting to continuity heavy stuff. And you can do that without actually making it about Transformers.
TM (Charles): Alright, thank you so much for sitting down with us and staying up late with us to talk Transformers!
JR: That’s alright; I’ve got BBC News 24 on the loop in the background so I’ll have dreams about planes skidding on ice and Harrison Ford crashing and stuff. God, I hope he’s alright now I’ve said that! By the time this goes out… yeah, take that bit out if anything bad happens to Harrison Ford! (laughs) He’s OK as we speak alright! He’s hospitalized but he looks OK!
No, no thank you. Thanks for letting me take one of your questions and spend an average of 9 or 10 minutes answering each one.
TM (Charles): (laughs) I’m sure our listeners will enjoy every minute so…
JR: Well, you know, guys, those of you who have stayed awake for the duration, thank you for holding out.
TM (Charles): Alright, so we’re going to finish up the interview with our rapid fire questions! This is going to help us get a little bit of insight into who you are, James!
JR: OK. Be careful. Once we go down this rabbit hole, there’s no going back. So switch off now. OK, no I’m ready, I’m ready for this.
TM (Charles): OK. Autobot or Decepticon?
JR: Autobot.
TM (Charles): And who’s your favorite Autobot?
JR: Uhh… right now, I, uhh… Nautica! No, she’s not an Autobot technically. Oh, see I’m already getting confused.
TM (Charles): (laughs) She has a symbol!
JR: She does have a badge, doesn’t she! I’m thinking, when she turned up in Dark Cybertron she’s got a badge, hasn’t she. I’m going to go with that. OK, ask me again.
TM (Charles): Alright, who’s your favorite Autobot?
JR: Oh Nautica, obviously.
TM (Charles): OK! We might edit that part out. (laughs)
JR: (laughing) Hey, don’t spare my blushes. I’m sure there’s far worse we can find to edit out. But anyway, right, OK. Not very quick fire, are they.
TM (Charles): Alright, Transformers live action movie: 1, 2, 3 or 4?
JR: Uh… 1.
TM (Charles): Megan Fox, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Nicola Peltz, Shia LaBeouf or Mark Wahlberg?
JR: I don’t know what criteria are we judging them by, but I’ll say Shia LaBeouf, OK?
TM (Charles): MTMTE or RID?
JR: Oh, Robots… well, RID. And John [Barber] better have said MTMTE at this point.
TM (Charles): (laughs) We’ll go back and check the tape, I don’t remember what he said.
JR: OK, I’m going to answer both ways and you can edit it accordingly.
TM (Charles): Third Party toys – yes or no?
JR: No. You know, that’s a bit. Uhm. That’s a difficult question to ask me, because it’s difficult for me to endorse unofficial stuff.
TM (Charles): Yeah, yeah. Cats or dogs?
JR: Cats. I’ve got one here actually.
TM (Charles): Coffee or tea?
JR: Coffee. This is more like it, I’m in my comfort zone now.
TM (Charles): (laughs) Chicken or steak?
JR: Steak.
TM (Charles): Pepsi or Coke?
JR: Pepsi.
TM (Charles): Burger King or McDonalds?
JR: Oooh – Burger King? We don’t have either over here you know.
TM (Charles): You can say something else or neither too.
JR: Oh, really? Oh, now we get the more nuanced thing. Oh, OK. No, I’m going to stick with my Burger King.
TM (Charles): OK. History or science?
JR: History.
TM (Charles): Xbox or Playstation?
JR: Oh, I’ve never had a single console. If they’re even still called that. Um, Xbox.
TM (Charles): …OK
JR: The silence.
TM (Charles): (laughs)
JR: I’ve committed a faux pas. OK, go on, right.
TM (Charles): Call of Duty or Battlefield?
JR: Oh, OK, these are both games yeah? OK, uhm, I haven’t played either of them. I’ll go for Battlefield.
TM (Charles): OK (laughs).
JR: Because Call of Duty is violent, ay? [hushed voice] It’s violent!
TM (Charles): I think they’re both pretty violent! (laughs)
JR: I thought maybe Battlefield could be some sort of strategic daisy planting game or something, I don’t know.
TM (Charles): (laughing)
TM (Jeremy): You can go with Plants vs. Zombies.
JR: Yes, um. Or maybe some golf simulation game, I don’t know. That’s the last time I played a computer game. It was, you know, trying to land a plane or something. And it took about 4 weeks to load. That’s how long it’s been.
TM (Charles): Well, you know, reading your comics, we wouldn’t think you’d be one to shy away from violence.
JR: Well, I knew you’d think that, but it’s complicated.
TM (Charles): OK! (laughs) PC or Mac?
JR: Mac.
TM (Charles): iPhone or Android?
JR: iPhone. Which is what we’re, we’re having this conversation on one now.
TM (Charles): Oh, really? OK. So what is the phone app that you cannot live without?
JR: Ohh, god. There’s a good… Hype Machine! Which is like an aggregator, it lines up all the music blogs so you can find out new music or if there’s a new song out you can type it in and if someone’s put it on a blog somewhere you can listen to it.
TM (Charles): Cool. Marvel or DC?
JR: Marvel.
TM (Charles): And who’s your favorite Marvel character?
JR: Oh, Death’s Head.
TM (Charles): Oh, nice, yes.
JR: He and I go way back, otherwise Spidey.
TM (Charles): Ah, OK. Stallone or Schwarzenegger?
JR: Umm… oh uh, that should be easy, because we’ve got posters of the guy all around here so, Stallone.
TM (Charles): Scarlett Johansson, Angelina Jolie?
JR: Johansson. (laughs) But can I just say for the people listening, I sense like I’m being marked.
TM (Charles): (laughing)
JR: There’s a slight pause. It’s almost like a polygraph test. You’re going to get to the end of this or something and you’re going to certificate me. Oh, I’m sorry, you failed. These are the wrong answers, those opinions you gave. Anyway, yes, OK.
TM (Charles): We’ve got the tactical team right outside your house, ready to pick you up.
JR: There’s a strange red dot actually, moving around my chest at this point. Ever since I answered that Battlefield/Call of Duty thing. Anyway, OK.
TM (Charles): Twilight or Hunger Games?
JR: Hunger Games.
TM (Charles): Pixar or DreamWorks.
JR: Pixar. That’s easy.
TM (Charles): Star Wars or Star Trek.
JR: Ohh, that’s not easy! Uh – Star Wars…?
TM (Charles): Simpsons or Family Guy.
JR: Simpsons. That’s easy.
TM (Charles): Walking Dead or Game of Thrones?
JR: Oh, you know, I haven’t seen either. But I’m going to go for Walking Dead because, you know, comics.
TM (Charles): Sports team. So this is US sports, but we’ll add in some European football as well. NFL, Major League Baseball, National Hockey League, MBA or European soccer. Or I should say football.
JR: Baseball actually, baseball. But don’t presume any knowledge beyond that answer, OK? I can picture baseball, it involves a ball and a bat and, so yeah. That’d be it.
TM (Charles): Porsche, Ferrari or Lamborghini?
JR: They’re all cars – is that the right answer? I feel like what we’re doing really is creating an edifice of my lack of knowledge in huge areas of life really. Um, Porsche.
TM (Charles): Alright! And last question: blonde, brunette or redhead?
JR: (laughs) Redhead. That’s the X-Files fan me coming back to the surface.
TM (Charles): Alright, that’s it! Thank you! Thank you for going through the gauntlet
JR: That’s OK. Wow, no, OK. Did I win the prize?
TM (Charles): Yes, you won a lifetime of writing Transformers comics.
JR: (laughs) Has it happened already?
TM (Darryl): Your answers are being filed away.
JR: Yeah. Fed into the surveillance machine. So we’ll see, yeah. Wow, OK. Thank you. Thank you for making me question myself.
TM (Charles): (laughs)
JR: There were some searching questions there. You know, there’s a radio show over here called, ‘I’ve Never Watched Star Wars’ and in each episode a guest has had to have tried 3 things they’ve never done before – usually quite obvious things – and they talk about the experience. So, were this like that, I would have to now go play Battlefield and get a console and watch Game of Thrones and stuff like that.
TM (Charles): (laughs) Well, we’re not going to hold you to that.
JR: Good. (laughs)
TM (Charles): We want to thank James Roberts again for joining us in this episode of TransMissions.
JR: Thanks. It’s always fun and you keep me on my toes, so you know, thanks.
TM (Charles): (laughs) Any time you want to come back, we’re happy to have another chat, I’m sure there’ll be lots more of revelations with MTMTE this year so we’ll definitely want to come back to you.
JR: Absolutely. We’re pretty much half way through Season 2 now and Elegant Chaos was sort of in my mind it was like the old school, you know the Sweeps episodes, like a mid-season finale type thing. So this was a little tent pole in the season, but now we’re heading towards, well, a title exists for the season finale, but we won’t go there yet. But we’re now on the path to that.
TM (Charles): And I guess we’ve seen on Twitter, is issue #50 the big plan for the season finale? Is that the big one?
JR: Issue #50 kicks off the season finale.
TM (Charles): Oh, OK!
JR: And yeah, it’s going to be huge! So stick around. Actually, it would have been – let’s not tempt fate here, but that’s, for John [Barber]’s title as well, but it’s going to be the second time in 30 years that an American Transformers title’s reached issue #50, so you can expect some fun and games and fanfare and celebrations around that, should we get to that, unless there’s a massive nose dive within the next 9 months or whatever it is. 10 months. Oh, no it’s a year away isn’t it.
TM (Charles): Can we expect some a la the 90s – can we expect some double issue with a holofoil cover?
JR: Yeah, we’re going to pretty much load every possible cover gimmick. We’re going to have a trading card bagged with it – that’s how 90s it’s going to be.
TM (Charles): (laughs)
JR: Yeah, it’s going to have a lenticular thing. I don’t even know what that is.
TM (Charles): (laughs) Yeah!
JR: Is that like a… Do they still do those?
TM (Charles): I hope not. (laughs)
JR: Yeah, it’s going to be full embossed and yeah, all that stuff. Because that’s what people want. They want shiny stuff on the front.
TM (Jeremy): It needs to fold open like the G2 #1.
JR: Yes! Absolutely. And it’s going to be – is it die cut or something? I don’t know – yeah, we’re going to invent something. It’s going to have lasers that shoot about 40 feet into the sky. It’s going to have a degree of artificial intelligence, so you’ll be able to have a moderately interesting conversation with it. Yeah, right now most of IDW’s attention is focused on creating new technology around these two issue #50s. So yeah, I think we’re going to do live action versions of them as well.
TM (Charles): (laughs) So before we go, how can people reach you online? I know you’re big on Twitter right?
JR: Yeah. I can get my phone number out now if it’s easier.
TM (Charles): (laughs)
JR: No, Twitter is my preferred means of communication these days so it’s @jroberts332 on Twitter.
TM (Charles): Yes. We’ll link in the show notes so people will –
JR: Will you? Thank you. I do try to answer questions and the only time I really don’t is when we’re slap-bang in the middle of a story and to answer would be madness. There we go; it’s 2am here now so I’m just going to go collapse or something mid-way through this sentence and I’ll just sort of be dead air for an hour til the battery on my phone runs out. So yeah, thank you for the chat!
TM (Charles): Alright, thank you for staying up and hopefully you’ll get to sleep in tomorrow morning a little bit.
JR: Yeah… that would be nice. (laughs) We’ll see if my children agree with that. Cool, OK, thanks guys. I’ll see you next time.
TM (Charles): Alright. Bye bye.
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