Like many Transformers fans, I was shocked to learn of the passing of
Derrick J. Wyatt, lead character designer for
Transformers: Animated, last month. While I didn't know him personally, I did get to meet him on a couple of occasions, as Derrick (himself a Transformers fan) was a regular attendee at conventions. The most recent of these occasions was BotCon 2016, where I purchased from him this sticker of his concept for what an
Animated Galvatron might look like. I never have gotten around to sticking this on anything (once you place a sticker, it's generally stuck there forever, and I'm not keen to lose this piece!), but it's a fun concept, and I'm glad to share it on this occasion.
I'm going to be in the process of a move to a new house in the next month and a half. While I hope to keep posting at my regular schedule (or at least close to it!), this may not be possible (especially as so many of the toys that I might be featuring have to get boxed up for the transition!), so please bear with me.
For this episode of Not Your Father's Autobot, we're discussing Transformers: Generation 2 issue #10, cover dated August, 1994. This issue can be found reprinted via the Transformers: Rage in Heaven paperback, which may be purchased via Amazon. Listeners may also wish to try to find a copy of either the collected paperback or the issue itself via eBay (purchases through these links do not support the podcast in any way).
When the "Generations" sub-line of the Transformers franchise evolved into Combiner Wars in 2015, it represented a shift in how the franchise handled Generation One homages. Up to that point, most G1 characters were given toys that weren't really intended to be "merely" updated versions of the originals, but indeed were "reimaginings" of them. Bumblebee became a small vehicle, but not really intended to be any kind of VW Beetle, for example. Classics Megatron may have been a hand-held weapon, but bore little resemblance to the Walther P-38 of the G1 toy. As of Combiner Wars, designs tended to shift more toward the G1 model, while still adding articulation and hewing closer to animation models when possible.
