One of the guests at Iacon One was Bob Budiansky, who was responsible for much of the earliest work in developing the Transformers, back when it was simply a new line of toys that Hasbro was creating, based on a couple of little-known lines of changeable robot toys in Japan. Budiansky would go on to be the regular writer for the Transformers comic book series put out by Marvel Comic books for a little over four years.
I was especially thrilled to find a transcript of an interview with Bob Budiansky (and current comic artist Don Figueroa) at the alt.toys.transformers newsgroup (one of the original and longest-standing venues for Transformers communication on the Internet) compiled by "crazysteve," who I met at BotCon 2004 a couple of years ago and from whom I'd received this custom figure of a character named "Scrounge" only a couple of months previously for writing a silly little poem about the character to win a contest "crazysteve" was having. "Scrounge" was a character created by Budiansky who appeared in a particularly pivotal story in the comic book. You'll have to read the interview to learn more about him. ;)Anyway, the interview details some of the history behind how the Transformers came to be, from the memories of one of the people most involved in that early process. I encourage you to check it out.
I didn't think your poem was that silly.
ReplyDeleteI'd really like another shot at talking to Bob. When I got back home after attending Iacon One I went online to read other interviews he's done. I found that pretty much everything I asked was already asked by Ben Yee years ago. I find that only now after two weeks do I come up with good original questions to ask.
Compounding my frustration was finding out that my local comic shop did indeed have a really special Ghost Rider issue that Budiansky did the cover for. I looked for it before I left for Iacon One but because of my comic shop's poor organization I didn't find it the first time.
I need another shot at Bob!