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On this episode we sit down with writer James Roberts to talk about his IDW comic series Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye! We explore the depths of James’ world-building, and get all the secrets behind the latest time traveling story arc Elegant Chaos. All this and much, much more on this episode of TransMissions!
You can read a full transcript of this interview here.
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Show Notes:
- Cold Open [0:00:43]
- Intro [0:02:30]
- James Roberts Interview [0:03:26]
- Follow James Roberts (@jroberts332) on Twitter
- Elegant Chaos Explored (SPOILERS for MTMTE #38) [0:28:14]
- General MTMTE World-Building Questions [1:10:17]
- Rapid Fire Questions [1:29:56]
- Listen to our interview with Transformers (formerly) Robots In Disguise writer John Barber to compare his rapid fire answers!
- Hype Machine iOS app (App website)
- Interview Wrap-up [1:38:57]
- Closing [1:43:35]
- Thanks again to James Roberts for joining us on the show! You are welcome back anytime!
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OK ,this should be pretty good, i hope that we get more “insights” from Mr. Roberts on his ..”Version”..of “back to the future”, I’ve read all the parts to this so far and there’s a lot of ground i feel i have yet to cover, or perhaps re-cover is the better word to use, but in the end of issue of MTMTE 38 left me with a few minor questions/head scratching moments that i hope i can get answers to .I love time travel and have been following this sort of thing since i was 6 years old, following a “madman/idiot” in a blue box, and when you do, you find out that time travel ..well how has he put it : “first things first, but not necessarily in that order”, and then of course there’s “Star Trek as well EX “tomorrow is yesterday” you kind find out that some events happen before their cause (depending on your “time line POV”),or that events play like a “choose your own adventure” book (showing my age here again) you cannot read it in order, because it would not make ANY sense, unless you followed the path you took/chose with in it.
..of course my very first one was “the time raider” by R.L. Stine, WAY,WAY back in the day before “Goosebumps” made him more of a popular name. (If you haven’t guessed it already it was about time travel).
Notes pending……(of course)
one further thing: time travel has a part to do with my screen name as well, its not just a tongue twister as well, as per Yoshi will tell you. Perhaps I can go over it with you transmissions crew someday say,… perhaps….. ep 101 in the future
This is one of the best parts of the podcast. When you guys have guests like the soon to be Legendary James Roberts on the podcast for a great interview. I loved hearing all his thoughts and the tidbits on the Great More Than Meets The Eye comic series. I will admit Charles is Good on his Comic Knowledge of the IDW books. I have always felt I was good and knowledgeable on the Marvel run. And I will admit I do need to reread my DW and IDW comics again to try and get my knowledge like Charles. I know I have read the Marvel line at least a couple dozen times where I’ve only read the DW and IDW runs 1 or 2 times.
i will admit that the low part of this episode is the man who is missing “Rubber Tires Yoshi” I hope nothing is seriously wrong to keep him from the show. If he or is family is sick, I want to send my get well wishes and hope “Rubber Tires Yoshi” will be back soon.
Don’t worry, Yoshi is fine. We were only able to schedule the interview during the week on short notice, and the time difference between Alaska and the UK made it hard for us to get Yoshi and James both on at a reasonable time. We still got Yoshi to do his signature intro so he’s there in spirit! 🙂
Yeah I kind of thought it was something like that. Had to be sure though “Rubber Tires Yoshi” MIGHT BE the main reason some people listen. Though me personally I love you all, you have such a great crew that one member down doesn’t really hurt the show at all.
Glad I’m not the only one to leave feed back here,and im in the same boat the dino max is in ,I need to set some time aside to re read some idw again here soon,and I too missed the “yoshihamma” tire man as well.
Thanks to Transmissions and James Roberts (I saw the retweet), I was able to take advantage of the Humble Bundle offer. Now to read all these glorious comics!
I’ve only read Shadowplay so far, but was really impressed with the writing. James Roberts even made the political aspects interesting, and that’s no small feat. If the rest of the run is full of as much humor, intrigue, action, and sophistication (and I know it will be), then this series needs to be the framework for an animated feature-length TF series.
Damn, I wish I could write so good. Actually, I write pretty good. Well…gooder than most.
Not to be rude but is there a reason you didn’t ask any questions about Brainstorm?
You’re right, this is an omission I should have realized at the time. The story turns on the motivations of Brainstorm, Rewind, and Whirl. I do think Brainstorm’s motivations and reasoning is pretty well detailed in the story itself. Before this issue came out, pretty much everyone had guessed Brainstorm was trying to prevent the war from starting.
The reveal that his motivation was to save the life of his unrequited love Quark was a surprise, but I think it’s easy to identify with wanting to change the past to save someone you love. But I think the parts Rewind (sacrifice everything you know and love to give unknown billions a future they never had) and Whirl (condemn billions to death and ensure the survival of your worst enemy just to exact petty revenge on people who hurt you) played surprised me more, and maybe that’s why I overlooked Brainstorm.
I wasn’t trying to gloss over the fact that we have a reveal of a second instance of, as you say, same-gender romantic interest in MTMTE. But I think maybe I took it for granted that MTMTE has made it clear (with Rewind, Chromedome, and Dominus Ambus) that these relationships are the norm for Cybertronians, and I didn’t ascribe as much importance to it. Roberts has been asked in the past about the reaction to Rewind and Chromedome as the first same-gender couple in Transformers, and he’s mentioned how there’s been an overwhelmingly positive response to it.
I did prepare a question about Brainstorm’s Decepticon double agent status, which seemed to be a red herring. But we figured it was kind of an obvious question that couldn’t be answered since it’s clearly been left dangling intentionally to be resolved in a future story, and we didn’t ask it. Roberts would just dodge it like he did the question about the Functionists and Empurata (which I didn’t have an inkling was leading into a future story).
Thanks for the feedback, and I hope this answers your question.
Yeah that makes sense. The main this that seemed “new” to me in this issue was just further/more explicit confirmation that this is a “queer-normative” society, but you’re right that that was kind of already established. Thanks for answering and addressing my concerns!