In advance of his new Transformers comic series Sins of The Wreckers (sequel to the awesome Last Stand Of The Wreckers) we got to interview Mr. Nick Roche! 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): This is a very special episode. We are very excited for the special guest we have for you today. He’s both a writer and artist on several IDW Transformers comics and his work is a very large part of the foundation on which the modern IDW Transformers comic stories are built. Please welcome to the show Mr. Nick Roche!
Nick Roche: (muffled noises) Why are… Why have you brought me here?
TM (Charles): It’s an interview!
NR: The duck tape was completely unnecessary!
TM (Jeremy): That’s what J-P recommended that we use. Sorry! [ed- that’d be John-Paul Bove, Transformers artist and regular TransMissions guest!]
NR: Yes, well, J-P hasn’t got as much facial hair as I have and he never will!
TM (all): (laugh)
NR: Hey, you guys!
TM (Charles): How’re you doing?
NR: Yeah, I’m adequate. I’m very excited to be speaking to some/all of you. It’s good! No, it’s good because I’m a fan of the show so it’s weird how you’ve accompanied me on a few deadlines, you know. You brought in a few issues for me, so… this is great. This is great you guys! I’ve got lots of questions to ask you about… my comic… that’s coming out soon.
TM (Charles): (laughs) Ah, great, but I think, uh, we’re supposed to ask the questions here.
NR: Let’s start again.
TM (Charles): We’ll be looking for our credit on all the issues of Sins of the Wreckers [SOTW], right?
NR: Oh, I’ll be looking for a credit of myself mostly. Me first boys and then we’ll negotiate.
TM (Charles): (laughing) Alright, well let’s get right into it. Before we get to SOTW, we do want to know a little bit more about you. So, was thEere a certain point in your life that you can look back on and say that was the point I chose to become an artist?
NR: Jeepers. Um. No, I don’t think so. I think it was quite organic, I was always drawing. I was always drawing stories; I never just kind of wanted to draw a picture of my house with square windows in the corners or, you know, a picture of a nice train or a picture of road kill. I always wanted to draw something that kind of told a story. So I think I was just always into it.
I won an art competition when I was four, because one of the boys in my class was in hospital and I had to do a painting of him and somehow that got entered into the art competition. And it was what you’d imagine a four year-old painting would look like. It wasn’t an evocative sort of “World-War-I-esque” picture of a dying soldier or anything with that with beatific lights streaming through the windows making us question all our mortality. It was just a blue and red painting of a face. But because I think I liked winning in conjunction, I liked the attention that drawing gave me so the lofty ideals of I like to tell a story… yeah. But I like the attention as well that drawing gets me. So I think that might be the closest thing I can get to pinpointing the feeling of I like this, let’s do more of it.
TM (Charles): So you became an artist because you’re a narcissist.
NR: Yeah, yeah let’s get straight into it.
TM (Charles): (laughs)
NR: God, this is like the WTF of Transformers podcasts. You full on marroned me straight away you guys. When are we going to start talking about my relationship with my dad?
TM (Charles): Well, you said you only had an hour so those questions got cut unfortunately… (laughs)
NR: Yeah, good point, good point. Let’s save that for the Christmas episode, right?
TM (Charles): So, how did you break into the comics industry? Was your first paid work on Transformers?
NR: Yes, it was! I’d been trying to get in for a few years. Kind of seriously around the turn of the century and that was around the time that Dreamwave- I was trying to get into various other comics, and was sending off samples to DC and Marvel and then Dreamwave got the license to Transformers. I sent them off samples, but Dreamwave as you remember had quite a tight house style and they weren’t really open to experimentation, not the same way IDW are, and different interpretations of the characters and anyone who’s seen my stuff knows that I draw my way and not really anyone else’s way. For gGood or for ill. And so nothing was going to get in by the Dreamwave guys.
So I wasn’t really getting any comics work and I had initially planned to train as an animator in my teens and had decided against it. Come 2004-2005 I decided, nah, I’m going to try and put together a portfolio to go to animation college; this comic thing doesn’t seem to be working out. So the summer of 2005 I got accepted into animation college, but it was also the summer that IDW acquired the license to Transformers. And a friend of mine called Dave Hendrick who’s an amazing writer who’s had a work published this year in Ireland about an Irish pirate queen called Granuaile and anyway, he’s really good, google him if you’re looking for Irish pirate comics he’s the man to go to at the moment. He and I were going to do a creator owned series based on the Ireland gangland scene and we were just about to set sail on that venture. I’d done all the character designs, his script was ready and like a good friend he passed on my art portfolio to a guy he knew who worked with IDW called Beau Smith who passed it on to Chris Ryall [ed- then editor of Transformers] and within the same afternoon Chris Ryall had gotten in touch with me to ask me to start doing some work for Transformers. Which means I never got to do the work with my friend Dave and hopefully we’ll get to do something together even if it’s just covers or a short story with him at some stage, because I owe him loads. But that’s kind of how I got into Transformers.
So I started off doing the letters column artwork of Chris Ryall as Chrischarger. He was driving a red Honda at the time which is what Binaltech’s Windcharger figure turned into so he had me draw him as that Windcharger figure. So that was my first work, then the covers, that lead to interiors on Spotlight: Shockwave which led me to write Spotlight: Kup and so on and so forth.
TM (Charles): The rest is history.
NR: The rest is ancient history now! It’s 10 effing years ago. I can’t believe it was 10 years ago last week since Transformers Infiltration issue #0 came out and that had my first artwork for them. It had a picture of Chris Ryall as Chrischarger in it so I’ve been there since issue #0 which is kind of mad to think of. I think I might be one of the only guys working on Transformers now that was there at the very beginning of IDW which is… I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a really terrible thing (laughs).
TM (Charles): (laughing)
NR: It’s loyalty in one direction and I’m not sure which. (laughs)
TM (Charles): (laughs) Well, we’re very happy with the results. And as a reader I’ve been there since issue #0 too so it’s been great.
NR: I wasn’t sure if you were. I couldn’t remember what the set up with you guys were, because as Transformers fans we’re not always going to be at ground zero of each iteration every time. And the good thing is we can always go back to it. Like there have been so many TV shows over the years and video games I’ve missed out on, and I mean missed out on I know it’s my loss not to catch them, so I never really saw Transformers Prime, but I really got intOo Robots in Disguise this year, so there’s always something there for us. So I couldn’t remember which one of you guys was maybe not as into the comics or maybe had been there since the start of IDW or which way around it was, but there you go. Issue #0. Ten years of our lives, Charles!
TM (Charles): (laughs) Yes! I’m hoping 10 more, at least!
NR: Yeah, it’s kind of mental to think, because, you know, time expands or contracts the older we get so it feels like IDW have only had the license a wet weekend, but they’ve had it longer than anyone in continuous publishing and issues published. I think even in terms of page count John [Barber] and James [Roberts] must be getting up there against [Mr. Simon] Furman now.
TM (Jeremy): I think combined they’ve surpassed the Marvel US run by now.
NR: Yeah, it’s crazy isn’t it!
TM (Jeremy): Yeah, they’re both nearing #50 on their books.
NR: Of course, yeah! James would have the numbers in his head, but I can’t remember how many pages- I suppose he’s still a way off Simon I guess, James is.
TM (Jeremy): He is, if you count the UK stuff.
NR: Which is the only thing I count for god’s sake!
TM (Charles): (laughs)
NR: ‘Separatist!’ Yeah, no, of course, I think he’s a way off, but of course both those titles are the closest we’ve had to a singular vision in comics really for a sustained period of time. And it’s not even rare in Transformers comics, it’s rare in comics, full stop. The only comic I can think of with the same creative team that’s hit the same numbers that those guys are at the moment, is probably Batman. The Snyder/Capullo Batman series. There must be otheRr ones in the big two or even in Image. I mean, there’s Erik Larsen with Savage Dragon obviously, but yeah, it’s a rare feat this day and age for a writer to be on a title that long.
TM (Jeremy): Especially with the tendency of companies to just reboot everything, like DC.
NR: Yeah, yeah. And even Hasbro could- It’s clear they are fans at Hasbro of Transformers first and then the comics as well, quite rightly; and there has been a bit of turnover at Hasbro over the last ten years and there has been no real new brew. I mean there has been a couple of times, but we’ve had four years, nearly, of sustained… you know, the same titles, the same storyline, same vision on both those flagship titles. It’s just lucky that Hasbro kind of see the value in it that fans do. I’ve said enough good things about those guys though right? OK.
TM (Charles): We’re here to talk about you! (laughs)
NR: That’s me off script there for the rest of it. Good. OK.
TM (Charles): So, what is your process for drawing? Are you old school pencil and paper or do you do digital?
NR: Yeah, I really am old school. I’ve done a bit of digital. I think the first issue of More Than Meets the Eye [MTMTE] was done digitally and I kind of like that it lends itself well to a kind of looseness and a kind of bouncyness that those characters engender, I think. But I don’t think I can draw that kind of loosely or cartoony for Wreckers. Wreckers sort of seems to demand a bit more grit and detail, grime and… yeah. But in general, the way I draw is this, I pencil on the crappiest paper I can because it gives me permission to draw; which is this ridiculous, mental bridle I’ve built for myself I can’t seem to shake off, but if I draw on nice paper I can’t relax. But if I draw on real crap-
TM (Jeremy): You don’t want to waste the nice paper.
NR: Yeah! It’s exactly it. It’s like I’m still that poor boy who can’t afford descent paper. Well, I can damn it! IDW pay me a living wage. So I just draw on this kind of crappy, kind of cartridge paper. And usually less than the size that I end up inking in. So I pencil on rubbish paper, I scan that in using Photoshop. Then I convert the blue line. Then I print that on the higher spec paper, the Bristol board, then I ink on that and then I scan that.
So it’s probably making work for myself, but there’s less erasing as well. I really hate the whole- if you draw on a page you have to spend a good part of an hour rubbing out all the pencil lines. And a lot of time you’re taking off the ink tThat you’ve put on, because you’re using mixed media a lot of the time and you’re not using necessarily the same brands of ink and pen and brush all over the place. So some lines will stay on the page after you’ve rubbed the pencils away and then other lines you’ve got to go back and redraw. It’s just a pain in the slot, you know? So just draw, crap paper, scan that in, print it out blue line, ink that and then scan that in. And then that also means that when I’m selling original artwork, I can sell the finished images and I get to keep the crappy rough ones for myself and that’s my tradesman’s copy of the work then.
TM (Charles): So you’re the rare comics artist who does writing and art. So I’m curious what your writing process is and how you integrate it with the drawing. So do you do a full script and then draw from that or do you do a general outline? Do you storyboard things? How do you do that.
NR: I kind of do both at the same time. Less full script as I go on and as I realized that, and the editors have made me aware that, ‘We trust you. You’re the artist. You can do this!’ The script to Spotlight Kup, a 22 page comic, and it would have been close to 50 pages pRrobably because I was, with all the stage directions and panel descriptions, really trying to convince editorial at IDW that look, I know what I’m doing! Whereas obviously if I’d written less that would have shown them that I actually did know what I was doing (laughs).
But no, everything I’ve written I’ve kind of drawn really scribbly thumbnail as I’ve gone along. So it’s really easy to refer back to when I need to go to the finished artwork. And a lot of the time with SOTW, I will have drawn really simple, stick figures. I mean, looking at pages here now where I kind of drew out the action and that’s a really good thing, because then it tells you how much room you have for the dialogue, where it’s going to fit and the space you’re going to require. But then there are some parts of the story where the dialogue is the most important part: where you’re conveying the character’s motivation or it’s the big plot twist or it’s the one flashback scene that’s the whole story that the series hags on. So the words are most important there, so then you are probably going to write that out full script longhand first and then reverse engineer your artwork that way. But yeah, it’s a weird mixture of both. It does sort of help being the guy to- when you’re writing it knowing you’re the one drawing it, because you can leave a little room either way.
But I’m so dazzled by Tom Scioli’s; my word, his stuff is just insane. I think John Barber is actually not writing it at the moment; I think it is just Scioli’s comic. I think as of the next issue has just Scioli’s name credited. I’d like to know what his process is because it seems his writing brain and his drawing brain are kind of tethered perfectly. It’s just a complete, perfect synergy there and because he’s coloring it all as well. It’s just spilling out of what would I guess pass for the man’s brain, but it’s clearly something else, something extra-terrestrial there that we don’t have. An ancient alien sort of mind that he’s harnessing to send that out. It’s not quite that, but with me it’s a bit of half and half.
TM (Darryl): I want to jump in here. Do you appreciate what Scioli is putting on the page there? Because our podcast is divided on the Transformers vs G.I. Joe book.
NR: I can see why. But, yeah I can. I think- I’m going to sound like an absolute wanker, but I think as an artist you can appreciate it. And not because only I get it, but I can also sort of see why you don’t get it. To be honest it’s not my favorite Transformers title out there, but I’m still on the fucking floor with the effort that’s going into it. I don’t know how he’s doing it and so I buy it to try and figure out how the magic trick works as opposed to the story of G.I. Joe and Transformers, if that makes sense. I’m trying to figure out how the sausage is made as opposed to- as a process junkie, it’s probably why I’m reading it. Also, I’m not a G.I. Joe fan, so it’s lost me there. But I can see how- I’ve got friends who’d consider themselves big comics fans, but they can’t get on with Jack Kirby for example, they see him as caveman drawings. And it isn’t that, it’s just a different way of doing it. It’s an expressionist energetic, dynamic way where it has a lot to do with the composition first. It has a lot to do with the visceral and emotional as opposed to finely honing things. But it’s clear that Scioli knows his stuff; he’s just making choices on the page that suit him. I don’t want this to sound, sort of political – I think that’s genuinely how I feel about it. I’m not looking for a show of hands of who doesn’t dig it and who does, but I wouldn’t blame anyone for it not being their bag, you know?
TM (Darryl): Yeah. For me, it is the art. I cannot get past the art. Basically, for me personally, when I read a book I can get past any kind of bad writing, if the art is glorious, writing is for me personally secondary to the art. If the art is atrocious I cannot flip the pages. I just can’t get through the book.
NR: That’s really interesting.
TM (Darryl): For me, Scioli’s art doesn’t do anything for me. It seems like something I would have done in grade school myself. And I don’t want to insult him, he’s putting a lot on there, it’s just that it doesn’t look like it’s matured, as far as comic book art would have gone and this is from experiencing your art, Alex [Milne]’s art, [Andrew] Griffith’s art. Their stuff and your stuff are beautiful, immaculate pieces and the stuff that I’m seeing in Transformers vs G.I. Joe just seems so elementary by comparison. And that’s where I can’t get past the art and look into the story of it.
NR: You are of course correct to single out myself and Alex and Andrew as- but yeah, this is a genuinely interesting conversation and I want to get my teeth into this. Because it’s not an argument in that I’m trying to convince you otherwise. This is the way I look at it. As I say, it’s choices he’s making. I think it does have a sort of primitive execution to it, it does have a rough look to it, but I genuinely think it is designed to- this is opinion, it’s art and it’s subjective and stuff so, just because I feel this way I’m not trying to convince you. But the way I see it, he’s choosing to present that artwork that way to try and invoke that level of childishness I think, and that childlike energy. And back even as far as the 80’s, but definitely 60’s, 70’s comic art wasn’t as detailed and it was a lot more slapdashed out – you know what I mean? And the reason I bring that up is because it’s maybe trying to create a kind of faux nostalgia in you for the comics of your youth. So if you go into this with the mind of a younger reader then you’ll get more out of it because it is essentially two toy ranges fighting each other, but with more psychedelia.
The thing is, I don’t know Tom Scioli on a personal level at all the same way I do Alex and Andrew and all the other guys. We’ve retweeted each other a couple of times. We don’t have that back and forth. So I’m not defending him or expressing admiration because he’s my guy or he’s my buddy.
TM (Darryl): It’s mutual respect, yeah.
NR: Yeah, genuinely mutual respect, but I look at it too because I’ve heard a lot of people say that and there’s times I’ve given it a cursory look and gone yeah, that looks sort of childish, but then you’ll see he’ll do something with foreshortening with limbs, on the human figures especially and it’s like, no, he kind of knows what he’s at. And so it’s the weirdest thing. It’s like a punk musician I guess, who can play like Joe Satriani, but chooses to play three cords because those three cords are what grabs you in your gut. But they’re not going to grab everyone in their gut. That’s how I look at it.
TM (Darryl): OK. It’s interesting hearing about it coming from you, because you’re seeing things in it that the majority of readers aren’t seeing. You’re looking at it through an artist’s eye.
NR: Yeah, possibly, yeah. But it’s interesting you saying that thing about- because one of my favorite comics is Sandman, because I’m so edgy.
TM (all): (laugh)
NR: [It’s everyone’s] favorite comic. Once upon a time. In the first arc of that they were really, really finding their feet with artists at the time. So it’s written by Neil Gaiman, who’s Neil Gaiman. Knows what he’s doing, writes so confidently and is pulling all these esoteric references and it’s creating stuff that maybe hasn’t been seen on a comics page before. But there is some really wonky art on those first [volumes]. And so I just wonder then if you were to read that, chances are- I don’t know if you have read that or not, but chances are you might not have given it a shot. And it’s weird then because as good as the writing is, the art is what you go for. I completely get that because it’s equally valid for you to say how can you read X comic, Nick, because X comic’s art sucks. That’s equally valid and so I’m probably missing out on a comic writing wise, I mean- I don’t know if I’ve lost my analogy there, but hopefully you can edit this together so I sound like the effin’ genius that I’m trying to portray on TV.
TM (all): (laugh)
NR: Let’s all hang out in a bar somewhere and lets all talk about this the whole night.
TM (Darryl): We should.
NR: Yeah, I’d love to do it. I don’t get to talk about Transformers as a fan much anymore, because you don’t want to upset people too much. There are some bits that I do like about the comics and the cartoons and toys and stuff, but you’re only really a few degrees separated from the guy who’s responsible for it so… (laughs). You don’t want to say too much that people can take the wrong way. But, yeah, interesting stuff.
TM (Charles): At the risk of going to another interesting topic, but as a person in the comics industry, what do you think about the shift from physical to digital comics? Do you see that trend continuing in the next 5 to 10 years in the comic industry?
NR: It’s going to have to I think. I don’t have any amazing insight or wisdom soaked predictions for it. I have to admit as well, I’m not a digital guy. I only recently got a smartphone. I do use a Kindle or whatever, but I’m just a Luddite when it comes to comics I just want them in their paper-y, paper-y goodness. And as such, I’m way behind on everything, because I’ve not been to the comic shop in the last two months so I’m missing out on a great deal. So talking about the digital revolution seems kind of disingenuous. I don’t know, is there one? But from what I understand they don’t tend to count the sales digitally for the overall comic sales it would appear.
TM (Jeremy): They don’t release those numbers.
NR: Yeah! That’s what it is. Which is a shame because you can see with something like MTMTE that it’s got a very digital savvy fanbase. And it’s got a strong readership who’ll buy the paper copies as well, but it seems to have a lot of fans spread out across the world, in Japan in particular, whose only access to it is its digital format. So it is a good thing. What I’m hearing, is that a lot of people use digital as a try before you buy or they’ll buy the singles digitally and then they’ll shell out for a hard copy. Comics fans still seem to still respond to the tactility and the… you know you can zoom in on a screen and you can go in as far as the resolution allows you, but nothing really beats the resolution your own retina will give you. So if you’ve got a comic in front of you, pressing your nose up against it to catch all those criminal details that Alex Milne is sharting into every corner that he can and just showing off the rest of us. Nothing really beats that.
And there seem to be a lot more comic shops opening. I seem to know quite a few people. And not even that – comic shops are doing well! Comic shops that do exist locally here in Dublin, all of them are doing really well and a lot of them are expanding to larger premises and better locations. So there’s something about paper comics and comic shops that are always goOing to be the fly paper that catches a casual fan or the lapsed fan or the young fan I think. You bring a kid in front of the window of a Forbidden Planet or something like that and it’s going to be hard; you’re not going to win the fight of not getting them to go in. And then you’re probably going to lose the fight once you’re in there of picking up something. And hopefully it’s not a POP! Funko; one of the most culturally bankrupt devices known to man.
TM (Charles): (laughs)
NR: Sorry guys, you’re all big POP! Funko guys, I can tell. I’m so sorry. I’ve said the wrong thing.
TM (Charles): What? (laughs)
NR: They’re called POP! Funko or Funko POPs what are they called?
TM (Jeremy): Those little PVC figures.
NR: Yeah. But they’re all the same! BUT THEY’RE ALL THE SAME!
TM (Charles): (laughs)
NR: One is colored like Iron Man so he’s different!
TM (Charles): So we have also the dark side of digital with torrents and downloading where some might also say they’re doing a try before you buy, but it’s a little bit less accepted. So what are your thoughts on that?
NR: Yeah, it’s not good. I’ve got really close friends who use it. And that sounds like it’s me; sounds like I’m going to talk about myself there. I’m not! Like I said I don’t do digital legally or illegally, really. And it’s weird that they’ll rinse the torrents for the complete runs of comics and a lot of them wouldn’t always be Big Two comics, they’ll be indie comics. And they’ll come to me like ‘Ah yeah, have you read this?’, ‘No I haven’t the time man, is it any good?’, and they’re like ‘Yeah, yeah, it’s good’, ‘How did you read it?’ and they go ‘I just yoinked it off the internet’ and I’m like, ‘You know I work in that industry, right?’.
TM (Charles): (laughs)
NR: Yeah, it can’t be really abided. I have done it with music in the instances of try before you buy. Not even try before you buy, but the specific bands where I know I’m going to buy the physical copy, but I don’t- I know I just sound like I’m a cave man or whatever, but I don’t really use iTunes and things like that. I sound like someone who hates all media, Jesus (laughs), but I still enjoy buying hard copies of everything. So if a band really has a new single and I kind of fancy it… But I haven’t done that in a long time because streaming is the way to go. No band releases something and doesn’t stream it. So they’ve cottoned on to Tthat, they know that people are going to try before they buy, illegally. I can’t really stand by it to be honest.
It’s a shame when you google, like I’ve had to google old issues of Wreckers for reference at times when I’ve not had the hard copy beside me or whatever. So I’d be looking up old issues for a cover for reference or something like that, say Last Stand of the Wreckers [LSOTW] issue #2, and the next option is LSOTW issue #2 torrent. And you’re like, for god’s sake! (laughs) It’s heartbreaking when you see that. And whatever, about a comic that’s five years old, it happened this year when we did the Monster Motors comic and I googled Monster Motors to see who’s talking about it and you’d be like, oh, great, I can read it for free, thanks. It’s sad. It is kind of hard. I think I’d probably be a bit more passionate about it if it was an indie. Monster Motors hurt more than Transformers. Monster Motors was a creator owned comic so it is literally money being taAken from your mouth I guess. With Transformers it’s the money I’ve been paid already, I’m not going to get paid any more. I don’t mean that in a sort of a screw you, but it’s… yeah, that something that makes sense.
TM (Charles): Actually, that leads into my next question; because that’s one of the things we have noticed. For artists in other media, like books, TV, movies, music, even if they don’t own the copyright on whatever they produce, they get royalties and residuals for the work they produce. My understanding is that in the comics world, usually writers and artists don’t get that unless it’s creator owned.
NR: No, that’s not true. It’s, umm, it’s really just licensed comics that you don’t get your royalties on.
TM (Charles): Oh! OK.
NR: I only did three comics for Marvel so far and they weren’t big comics, they were New Warriors and Revolutionary War Death’s Head, you know, and I still do quite well on royalties for those.
TM (Charles): Ah, OK!
NR: And you don’t get royalties in Transformers. But you know that going into it. It’s a shame, but it is what it is. You work for a comic title because it’s the comic title you want to work on. I desperately wanted to do SOTW, so that’s why I’m doing SOTW. I’m doing it because there is a pay check in it, but I’m [also] doing it because there’s a story that I desperately wanted to do and have done for a long time. But you know going into it. So, say LSOTW came out as singles and then came out as the trade paperback and then came out as the hardback and then it was released digitally and then they released it as those Black Label editions that go for like $100 or near there; and there are no royalties in that. If you’re working on Transformers, you’re working on Transformers because you want to. There’s no way you can draw or write something that detailed or that knotty without being a huge fan of it. As I say, there are none of us doing it exclusively for the pay check, but it is a shame when you see something like Wreckers or like, for example, like MTMTE too, where you know it has this life elsewhere. It’s a shame that you can’t- But that’s the way it is, it’s not just Transformers, I’m pretty sure. It’s G.I. Joe, it’s My Little Pony, it’s Star Trek, it’s Doctor Who – it’s licensed comics, so, yeah.
TM (Charles): Yeah… It’s still a shame though, because I definitely think the writers and artists are making Hasbro’s property more popular by the output that they’re putting out there. I definitely think they should be compensated for it. That’s just an opinion, but-
NR: Yeah. It’s hard for me to get too involved in this one without throwing anyone under the bus.
TM (Charles): Yeah. (laughs)
NR: And also I’m in no way ungrateful. I’m not the guy that comes on a podcast to sell his comic and moans about his business issues. It’s not that at all. Everyone would like more, no matter what they’re doing. Understandably, those of us who work on licensed comics would love to be- Because as you say, some of the artists and writers have added value to the producTt. We’ve heard that from Hasbro. We know people there who work at Hasbro who say how much such a comic meant to them or- And it’s clear by the fact that they’re making toys based on the designs that we do as well. Also designs that, you know, we draw for free. (laughs)
TM (Charles): Right! (laughs) So let’s do a little deeper dive into Transformers. So how did you first get into Transformers? Were you a kid back in the 80’s picking up the comic in Dublin and starting off with issue #1 there?
NR: A few corrections: I live in Dublin, but not from Dublin. I’m from a place called Wexford which is in the southeast of Ireland. If you imagine Ireland as a seated teddy bear facing off to the left, I come from the arse of said teddy bear.
TM (Charles): (laughs) OK!
NR: And I am proud of it. And I smell like it too guys!
TM (Charles): There’s actually a Wexford near Pittsburgh too.
NR: Of course there is. Really?
TM (Charles): (laughs) Yes!
NR: That’s mental! There you go. Pittsburgh is in Pennsylvania, isn’t it?
TM (Charles): Yes; western part of Pennsylvania.
NR: And my cousin is living in Pennsylvania. He’s from Wexford. I wonder if he’s just gotten lost there, I don’t know.
TM (Charles): (laughs)
NR: Hi Damien, if you’re listening. He won’t be. So my first awareness of Transformers was the TV ads. It was just this guy shouting “Transformers! Turn from robot to car and back again!” And I’m like, what the fuck! So I genuinely didn’t believe these toys would transform, so I assumed that when I saw them in toy shops, you’d get a blister pack or a box and there’d be a figure of Optimus Prime or Jazz or someone like that and there’d be a car that comes with it and you’d have to pretend the robot turned into it. You know, like Action Masters. So I never thought that Transformers were possible. So that was my first introduction; the TV ads. And then it was the TV show. I happened to be watching kids TV on the morning that More Than Meets the Eye [Episode 1 of the G1 cartoon] aired over in the UK, which I’m not sure… I think it was 1984 over here, but I’m not sure. It could have been early 1985. But it’s so nuts that I kind of- because I was never up early in the mornings, you know? So what the hell was I doing the morning that Bumblebee and Wheeljack were buying fluorescent lights?
TM (Charles): (laughs)
TM (Jeremy): It was fate.
TM (Charles): And so when did you discover the comics after watching the show?
NR: Not until two years later. The first time I picked up the comics it was Target 2006, which is 1986 when that was going on. And I kind of knew guys in my class who had Transformers comics. And then the first one I read was the very first issue of Target 2006 – there’s a prelude issue, which isn’t the one I read, I read part 1 of Target 2006 which is issue #79 and it had Ultra Magnus and Galvatron on the front cover and the first page is Cyclonus and Scourge – splash page of them tearing through the air. And it’s the next page then that’s has got them and Galvatron is in pistol mode in Cyclonus’s cockpit and they’re on their way to depose Megatron and Soundwave. And they arrive at the Decepticon base, they bury Megatron and Soundwave under all this rubble and suddenly they’re in charge. Ultra Magnus is there on Earth looking for Optimus Prime who’s just disappeared and… oh, it’s the end of the issue, no, that’s what it is! Yeah, at very end of the issue Emirate Xaaron is on Cybertron. You get to go to Cybertron, you get to see what’s happening there and you meet a character called Impactor and Impactor is talking about this new warrior called Ultra Magnus. And that’s was my first comic that I read and it had Ultra Magnus, Galvatron and Impactor, so they’re my guys, you know what I mean? (laughs) They’re more than Prime or Megatron ever will be. The Transformers The Movie [TFTM] guys and the UK comics guys were. So that was it.
And years later I went to my first Transformers convention in 1999 in the UK. I was there as a fan, obviously, and they had an art competition. And the reason I went was because Simon Furman was going to be at it and he’d only really started to do public appearances. I think nostalgia was only really starting to kick in and there was a realization that people would actually want to listen to you talk about the comic that you worked on 10, 15 years ago, sort of thing. So he was judging an art competition; I entered the art competition. I drew a battlefield with Ratchet holding the hand of Wildrider who’d been shot down in battle and it was basically showing the compassionate side of Ratchet. I really must dig it out sometime. But anyway, Simon was judge at the competition and he picked mine out as the overall winner. And I got to win an original piece of artwork from the vVery first issue of Transformers I owned. So I own a page of issue #79 of Transformers that was given to me as a prize by Simon Furman on the first time I met him.
TM (Charles): Oh, wow!
NR: Yeah. So it’s kind of felt like, you know, like it was all going in the right direction from the start to be honest. I know it sounds like sort of, honestly, why don’t you make up your own origin story Nick?!
TM (Charles): (laughs)
NR: But, all I ever wanted to do was draw Transformers and all I ever wanted to do was work with Simon Furman, so even at that age, at 19, to get that weird universe aligning sort of thing, the pat on the head from him and I got to win that page and the page I got was the second page with Cyclonus and Scourge and Galvatron traveling to meet Megatron… So that was it. So I was hooked from thereon in basically. And as I say Target 2006 is the UK story that ties in with TFTM so it was all about Hot Rod and Kup and Blurr and Cyclonus and Scourge and Springer was in it and Wreckers are a big part of Target 2006, so it’s all been leading to this series, I think, feels like it. Better not screw it up. Too late.
TM (Charles): (laughs)
TM (Darryl): Did you ever remind Simon about meeting him when you were 19?
NR: Yeah, I have done! I dug out- let me see if I can find it to send to you guys to accompany with the podcast. I found a picture last year of he and I – he shaking my hand. I had queued to meet him so I’ve just got ridiculously lank straight hair to my shoulders and I’m wearing my Episode I longsleeve black sweatshirt because it was 1999, you know? So I’m wearing my Phantom Menace apparel.
TM (all): (laugh)
NR: So I reminded him of that and it gets to the stage now where I talk to him about being a fan at age 6 or 7 and he’s just like “Stop reminding me what age you are!”
TM (all): (laugh)
NR: I was watching Saturday morning TV when I was a kid in 1987 and Simon Furman was a guest, because the Marvel UK Transformers comic was getting huge numbers at the time and so they had them on to talk about the next stage of the Galvatron saga. He was on with some artwork featuring Rodimus Prime and it’s from issue #114, I think, so it’s the issue after the Death’s Head had been introduced. I remind him of that and he’s still weirded out by the fact that I was sitting home in my pajamas, scratching myself while he was coming on pimping like this.
TM (all): (laughing)
NR: And the interviewer would’ve ended with “Thanks to Simon, the new comic is out, and now let’s go to the studio with Swing Out Sister!” singing Breakout or something.
TM (Charles): Does that video exist anywhere online?
NR: I’ve looked for it so hard online and it hasn’t appeared yet, but he has a VHS of that. He knows where it is. He knows where the body is buried.
TM (Charles): (laughs)
NR: I remember they had all the toys that were available to that point, it seemed to be, on the studio desk where the guests where idly playing with them while they were chatting on panel. I’m pretty sure, in my mind’s eye, Trypticon was there. Trypticon was never available over here, you see, and I remember just going, what the…!! Desperately trying to figure out, can I write to them? Will they give that to me? This weird sense of entitlement, thinking, well, I like Transformers more than anyone and I can’t get that toy! Surely they’ll admire my chutzpah and send it to me. But I never did and so they never did. So it’s the toys and seeing the uncolored artwork that sticks out for me there. So yeah, I’ve been shadowing that man for nearly 30 years. I’ll eventually steal his soul.
TM (all): (laugh)
NR: I’ll use his spine as a toast rack.
TM (Charles): Become the new Simon Furman?
NR: If only. I just want to be old Simon Furman! Jesus.
TM (Charles): (laughs)
NR: I finished writing Sins of the Wreckers, but the thing is about the way I write and the way James writes, as well. We like lots and lots of words! And you read a Simon Furman script and he can do it in a fifth of the dialogue. And you still feel like you had a nourishing meal, it’s nuts. And he writes for artists as well. He writes so sparsely and even his dialogue descriptions and panel descriptions are so like ‘Prime punches Galvatron’ sort of thing. It’s completely up to interpretation. Whereas, James is very detailed in how he wants it composed and I’m kind of anal like that, even with myself I write ridiculously detailed stuff.
TM (Jeremy): Both Charles and I have bought some of James’s scripts and yeah, they’re pretty thick.
NR: They really are. I don’t know if you bought issue #6 of MTMTE.
TM (Charles): Yes!
NR: Imagine knowing that you’ve got to draw 22 pages, but the script is 60 effing pages. Oh, James!
TM (Charles): (laughing)
NR: But it’s alright. That’s the thing, it’s worth it with James. Because even still, issue #6 feels like 50 years ago and still it comes quite high in people’s favorite MTMTE issues, so I’m glad he asked me back for that one. The funny thing is I was re-reading LSOTW, which I felt was the least I could do before I wrote the sequel, and, compareEd to the way James and I write, it’s really sparsely written, because we were writing together and we really pared each other down and we edited each other to hell. We were really ruthless with telling each other, don’t need it, we can do without that. We just managed to get it down to the barebones or as barebones as he and I could possibly ever get it. So when we don’t write together we have characters talk a lot more; it’s interesting to notice that it’s not just a James trait or my trait, it’s both of us. We both have the sickness.
TM (Charles): Can you tell us a little bit about the fan group Transmasters UK and how you came to meet James Roberts?
NR: Transmasters had nothing to do with Transformers, it was just a little fetish club that James and I… No.
TM (Charles): (laughing)
NR: When the UK Generation 2 comic ended in 1994, they had a little blurb at the back of it basically saying come one, come all, we’re going to continue Generation 2 in a fanzine form and here’s a post office number- or not even post office, I think the guy’s house. A guy called Matt Dallas was running it and you could write off to it and you could read what fans were going to continue the story. And James had been a member of this fanclub before I think. I think he picked up fandom after the end of the US Generation 2 comic. I think he may have made some fanzine connections there. But I sent off for all these comics and it was mail order, it was all penpal-based shenanigans. And there was lots of genuinely good writing going on, but his stuff, as you can imagine, stood out. Because he wrote them as characters.
The great thing about it was there was a lot of interpretation of Transformers. There was one writer called Martin McVey who was very good at exploring the alien-ness and the other of Transformers and the fact that they were robots and when he drew them, because he drew as well, he used the toy designs to make them even more alien, eSspecially with Ratchet and Ironhide they looked really like alien robots. So that was one of the upsides of it. So yes, James’s stuff was just James, ridiculous, loved his stuff straight away and he’s been kind to say that when he saw artwork from myself and Jack Lawrence, another fan artist who’s gone to be a pro artist as well in the US industry, he thought shit just got real! (laughs) He felt the art leveled up a little bit or that those artists who had an eye on doing it professionally had gotten involved, which was kind of him to say.
We never worked together, was the thing. We were about to, because it was all a shared universe, it was all continuing on the Marvel Generation 2 universe and we were due to work together and then- the weird thing with fandoms is that they’re always at their most potent when the official output is quiet and so this fanzine scene was really strong in the mid to late 90s. But then when Dreamwave came along, you could get professionally rendered, written and drawn Transformers comics more than once a month really, so the fan output tended to dwindle, so he and I never really got to work together.
But it’s so interesting that – you know, the golden rule is, you never throw away an idea – and I see stuff in MTMTE the kernels of which are in stories that never got printed in the fanzines. Even the Lost Light, the idea of the a ship and crew of Autobots on a mission, takes a lot of its basis in an idea that James had going back 15-20 years now and he’s finally getting to realize it, you know. I don’t think anyone will think that I’m downplaying James’s achievement there, I’m definitely not, it’s just interesting to see that come to fruition.
So the first time I met James was in 2001 at a Transformers convention in the UK. He was publishing Eugenesis, this fan novel that he’d been working on for years and years. And James has always had a full time job, not like me. I was professionally unemployed for a while, while I was doing the artist thing, you know?
TM (Charles): (laughs)
NR: He’s a little bit older than me and he had a Mrs. and had a child and I didn’t have any of these things and he still managed to crap out a novel (laughs). So I met this dashing English guy that you’d find from central casting, sort of bumbling into this church hall or whatever it was, with a suitcase full of this beautifully designed, beautifully produced novel that he’d knocked together, this 500 page opus. We knew who each other were from speaking online and stuff – at that stage we were all online – but I made sure I was high up in the queue because those books were flying fast. So we stayed friends since. Eugenesis was my beach reading that year when I was on holiday and I didn’t think it was possible with Transformers, what he did with that. Now it’s old hat because he does it every week (laughs), but it was… Jesus, you can do this? You have permissions to do this with Transformers? You know. The thing is you didn’t, officially, that’s was why it was so good, because he didn’t have Hasbro breathing down his neck. But now he does and he’s still managing to show them how it’s done, I think. So that’s how he and I met. I’d been trying to get him work as best I could. He was going to end up where he ended up, but I had doors open for me so I was keen to open them for him whenever I could. It baffles me that I wrote a Transformers comic professionally before he did, but again, it’s just doors being open and it depends on the order that they open in. He’s here now and he ain’t going away!
TM (Charles): Well, let’s get into some SOTW talk. LSOTW is- I’d say is a high watermark; it’s a golden standard for Transformers comics writing. People really enjoyed that miniseries and people were really waiting for a follow up and what happens to, in particular, Springer’s been out there for a long time, people have been wondering what’s happening to him and the other characters. So how did you pitch SOTW and have you been planning it for a while?
NR: Yeah, it’s really been close to two years and it’s even been close to two years since I submitted the outline. I was trying to get work back into writing Transformers because they’d been asking me a lot to come back to drawing it and I felt like I’d done it all. I hadn’t, obviously, but I felt like I wasn’t able to bring much new stuff to Transformers from that angle, art wise. And I wasn’t maybe finding the satisfaction drawing them as I had been. The last thing I wrote and drew was Spotlight Megatron and I just really loved it. The thing that was missing was me writing my own stories. So I’ve been trying to get writing work with them for a while and they’d said it needs to be in continuity. I said I can pitch something and they said “You know what would be greenlit straight away? If you’d be willing to do a sequel to LSOTW.” And I’m like… I don’t know if I’d want to. Partially because it had been so well received, you know. Why would I- I know everyone will always have LSOTW, but I don’t want SOTW to be The Dark Knight Strikes Back to LSOTW to The Dark Knight Returns. You know what I’m saying, because yeah, I’m comparing it to the Dark Knight Returns now for god’s sake, what’s wrong with me!
TM (Charles): (laughs)
NR: But you know, some sequels, they do leave a bad taste in the mouth. There has to be the right reason for doing it and all that sort of stuff. So when they said they were looking for a sequel to LSOTW, they also said they were looking for a sequel from me, they weren’t- they’d had people trying to pitch Wreckers material before and they had told them blankly, no. That’s James’s and Nick’s stuff. If they want to do something with these characters and that set up, it’s theirs. So John was really, really good about keeping certain characters in their place for me in case I ever wanted to do something. Like, you know, Springer hasn’t done anything in five years and it’s because he wanted to see what my take would be or what James’s and my take would be had either of us decided to do it.
So I knew I had a green light there, or at least as close to a green light as I could get and so I eventually wrote an outline. Like I said, it was close to two years ago since I submitted it and the IDW comics lately have been so busy that it’s only been this year that it’s been greenlit. So when I knew there was a WreEckers follow up, I was trying to think where would you go next. The thing about SOTW is that it is a direct sequel to LSOTW. You can still read SOTW without reading LSOTW, but it’d be like Watching Empire Strikes Back without Star Wars [A New Hope]. Again, I’m comparing myself to great, great art. I’m just going to kill myself, this is terrible! But what I’m saying is I’m trying to invite and embrace new readers. But obviously, it’s more rewarding if you’re familiar with the previous story. So I tried to come up with what’s a conundrum for the Wreckers. Where would they go, trying to think about what do the Wreckers not like, trying to think about an adversary or an antagonist for them. So it really drew me to Prowl. A basic thought: Prowl doesn’t really like them and they don’t really like Prowl, so what if-
TM (Jeremy): Prowl doesn’t really like anybody.
NR: Exactly! I figured I didn’t need to waste my breath on that one (laughs). As I gasp my last, I’m like I didn’t really need to say that. But no, you’re dead right. It’s true, Prowl has got problems with everyone. And I figured, why not put the Wreckers in a position where- and you can’t top Overlord really. It’s going to be very hard to top Overlord and Garrus-9 and that set up of that prison, that hellhole of a prison with that kind of character like Overlord who’s that strong, so it was basically, well what if the Wreckers had to rescue Prowl and why would they want to? So I kind of worked backwards from there, trying to figure out why would Prowl- or well, pick your reasons why would someone want to kidnap Prowl. Then try to narrow it down to who, out of all the many people, would want to do that and then figure out how to get the Wreckers involved.
And the Wreckers being involved- it’s called Sins of the Wreckers, it’s about things the Wreckers had done themselves in the past and have had done to them. It’s not necessarily about, here’s a new team of Wreckers, you know, in the same way. I could have gone that way – there’s a draft of this story where I recruited a whole team of new Wreckers and did the whole new recruits thing and then I realized I could tell the exact same story without those characters and if you can do that, if you can tell a story and lose five characters, you should lose those five characters (laughs). Plus it means I can draw it in half the time as well if I lose half the cast. So it’s a shame because I liked a lot of the characters and a lot of the ideas I had for them, but it was a more economical way to do it. And it sets it out then as a follow on, as opposed to trying to emulate the previous story of like “Here’s a whole new story and here’s all the new characters, it’s a new team!” you know.
So the characters that you meet in SOTW are people who by and large, this isn’t their first rodeo. Characters like Hubcap and Stakeout are involved, but theYy’re and it’s not to the same extent as the greenness of Ironfist or the people being cCaught with stage fright the same way as Rotorstorm was at some stages. So that’s how I reversed engineered SOTW. It’s been there for close to two years and it’s been written since April, I think. It’s been completely written since then, so it’s been kind of like I had other work to do then artwise after that and so for the last couple of months I’ve been drawing it. But it’s all done! That’s the thing, it’s all done this time writing wise, so I won’t be able to discover any new wunderkind Transformers writers to pull from obscurity to steal the job from under my nose (laughs).
TM (Charles): (laughs) So do you plan to pick up on a lot of the plot threads from LSOTW?
NR: Yeah, you name it! Pretty much.
TM (Charles): So, basically we have Springer and I guess if you’ve read the prose stories at the back of the softcover and hardcover of LSOTW, we know Springer and Roadbuster are in one place, Impactor and Guzzle are somewhere, there’s still a mystery around Aequitas and what’s beneath it – I guess that comes from issue #6 of MTMTE – and Verity’s still got a copy of all those records that Prowl has. So there are lots of things that are swirling around.
NR: You’re setting things up beautifully, yeah. No seriously, that’s pretty much where we’ve left all the characters. I hate having to shill LSOTW too much, but in the hardcover version of LSOTW there is bonus material, some of which James wrote in text form and then I did a Verity story and a Guzzle and Impactor story. In the Roadbuster story, Springer’s still in a coma following his injuries at Garrus-9 and Roadbuster is essentially Florence Nightingale-ing him, trying to return him to full health on Debris, which is the Wreckers’ space station. So that storyline is very much followed up- Roadbuster is a very big part of the story. Very, very big part. And then the Guzzle/Impactor thing; basically Impactor at the end of LSOTW he’s trying to do the right thing by Springer showing him how to be more of an Autobot as opposed to be a Wrecker. And Guzzle is a guy who likes explosions and hurting people and likes seeing people in purple badges die. So Guzzle’s got a bloodlust thing going on and that’s kind of where we left him in the short story in the hardcover. And Impactor kind of likes that side of life too, but he’s trying to stay on the straight and narrow and trying to keep Guzzle on that same path. But in SOTW we find an Impactor who realizes he’s trying to fight against his own program; he’s trying to fight against what he is. And can anyone really change?
And that’s a big theme in SOTW, this cyclical nature of these characters and these Transformers who are so long lived. Do any of them really change? They live for so long, that they do change, but do they not just revert back? We’re seen Prowl have pangs of conscience and moments where he’s gone, no, I’ve gone too far, I must step off this path and right some wrongs, but we also know that’s he’s gone back on that. It’s not just Prowl that’s happened to, I think. These characters live too long that they’re doomed to repeat patterns of behavior. And that’s a big theme of SOTW. So in issue #1, we find out where Impactor and Roadbuster are and Springer and Guzzle and there are a lot of things that happen off panel between LSOTW and SOTW that account for how Roadbuster and Impactor currently feel and where they are. Not saying too much, because I can’t say too much, but that’s kind of it.
TM (Charles): One thing that I think should have a big effect on the Wreckers is that in LSOTW the war was still officially on. Now the war is mostly, officially, kind of, over.
NR: Yeah, all these caveats are needed (laughs).
TM (Charles): (laughs) So how does that change how they think about their place in the universe? Because there is no huge Decepticon threat to take on.
NR: That is literally the first conversation that you get between two Wreckers in SOTW, pretty much. It’s page 6, where that conversation is had in SOTW.
TM (Charles): Aww. My preview only goes up to four pages! (laughs)
NR: I know. And those four pages aren’t necessarily the first four pages either, so. Clever stuff, huh. Yeah, so it’s a good point. The Wreckers are at a loss what to do. That doesn’t mean there’s not battles to be fought and that’s partially where we find Impactor. He hasn’t been sitting on his hands. Well. He can’t sit on one of his hands, obviously, because he’d give himself a sore ass.
TM (Charles): (laughs)
NR: But yeah, he hasn’t been sitting idle. So there are definitely things out there to occupy people if they go looking for them. But even as far as figuring out where this story lands in continuity and in the bigger picture of “The War”, it does have a firm place. The thing about SOTW is, and John Barber, the editor, has been great at this, he’s been allowing me to tell a story that’s going to have repercussions, but is vague enough that you don’t need to have read John’s comic [ex-RID] or MTMTE to kKnow what’s going on. Because he pointed out that the thing about LSOTW is that you can pick that up and not need to know about what happened, really, in All Hail Megatron or what was going on in Costa’s ongoing or the Bumblebee mini that it ran with concurrently. So I can answer questions during issue #1, even, or after it to say where it takes place and this is why this is not being mentioned, but everything has been thought of. It will all fit, but it has been designed with a standalone story in mind. Purely because we got so much feedback about LSOTW that it was a lot of people’s first comic, sometimes, but first Transformers comic and it was the Transformers comic that was given to people who don’t read Transformers comics. A lot of people passed it on to friends to say, look, I know you think you don’t like this, but you might like it if you read this. And we managed to pull off; it seems in a lot of those instances it was what brought people back for more or showed people who said they didn’t like Transformers comics that it could be worth people’s time. And that’s what we’re trying to do with SOTW as well. And I know that sounds kind of highfalutin or kind of elitist, but it’s the opposite of elitism. I say in every interview almost, that any comic I write I try to write with my wife in mind and not because she’s stupid or has slow reading speed or anything like that (laughs), but she doesn’t read Transformers comics. She reads comics, but she’s not a Transformers ‘fan’. So if she can figure out who these characters are and why they’re doing what they’re doing then anyone can, who has picked this comic up dry. And that’s a good way to write any comic I think. We want new readers or it’s an industry that’s going to eat itself otherwise.
I feel like I’ve answered a lot of questions that you didn’t ask me. I’m really sorry.
TM (Charles): (laughs) No, that’s great! So speaking of the four page preview, we did get a chance to get it thanks to one of our listeners who was at New York Comic-con and sent us a bunch of copies, so thank you to Tom Proscia who’s out there, one of our big fans. And the one thing I noticed is that does deal a lot with Kup, who is one character than has been a thread throughout a lot of the comics that you’ve written for IDW. So I did go back and read Spotlight: Kup and then All Hail Megatron #15 [Coda], where you showed how Kup had undergone the Pretender process. In this preview we see some of the repercussions of that. I’m wondering if his connection to Prowl is the thing there that’s going to be picked up within the story.
NR: It’s hard to… yeah. Being vague about it is almost an answer in itself, right?
TM (Charles): (laughing)
NR: The thing about the Kup strand is that there is a reading list ahead of SOTW. Again, you don’t need to read them, but as I said to you in an email earlier Charles, you’d be ahead of everyone if you read these comics. Those comics are basically everything I’ve ever written, bar Spotlight: Megatron I think – and I’d love to think that there is a connection in there somewhere (laughs), but I don’t think there is unfortunately.
So, Kup on that planet had gone out of his mind with radiation sickness and thinking he’s seeing zombies, when actually he’s seeing his rescuers. He was decommissioned after that and Prowl placed these protocols within him that meant Prowl could have a connection to him, because Kup is such a charismatic figure so he could use Kup as a mouthpiEece. Because Prowl’s logical and workable solutions to the Autobots winning the war around the All Hail Megatron era weren’t being listened to, because Prime would rather listen to someone like Ironhide and go with his gut a bit more, rather than do some of the more dubious stuff that Prowl was suggesting, but would have been more effective and possibly, maybe, sSaved more lives. But we never got to see that being used, because Kup got written off-screen in Infestation, pretty much as soon as that story had settled. Abnett and Lanning wrote him off, but at the same time they did use the mind control element, so it was so cool to realize the writers of Guardians of the Galaxy had read the Kup Spotlight, the zombie aspect of it, and they’d read the issue with the mind control and stuff like that and implemented it to write Kup off and banish him to the Dead Universe.
So I would hope that it won’t be too long before I write something for Transformers after SOTW. Maybe not drawing it, but I’d love to maybe write another mini or come up with something for IDW in the near future rather than waiting years and years again, so I’m not seeing this as a swansong necessarily. However, the pattern’s been that I tend to go years without writing something for them, so I’m trying to look at a lot of the plot threads that I’ve left dangling, a lot of the toys that I put in the toybox and I’m going to see if I can, if not destroy them, at least wipe my nose on them so that people aren’t going to want to touch them again after it. So if you read the Kup stories and LSOTW then all those little plot threads with Kup and stuff, Aequitas, all that is going to come to a nice neat, explosive, bloody, tear-soaked end.
TM (Charles): Alright. Going to some general Transformers stuff, is there any chance we’ll get you to a convention in North America next year?
NR: Oh, man, I’d love to! I’d love to! It’s really depending on the convention organizers summoning me, to be honest. I don’t know if I can have the budget at the moment to make it to a Transformers convention. That makes it sound like I’ve got holes in my trousers and stuff like that. I’m going to go full on Tiny Tim for Christmas. But it doesn’t always make sense; if I go to a convention I’m losing work time. I’ve heard rumblings that maybe one or two of the conventions may be interested in getting me over. I only hope that I can make it, genuinely, because I’ve got lots of things happening after SOTW and I’ve also got family-based stuff so I know I can’t in certain times of the year be available, so I just hope to god that a call does come through one of the conventions and I can make it.
I’m quite keen to make it to one of the New York shows in the near future, like the New York Comic-con special edition that happens in July which is very comics centric. I’ve heard so many good things about TFcon, no matter where it’s held and it’s been years since I’ve done a BotCon so I’d really love to do it. Jeez. I just wish it wasn’t so far away, that’s the main problem to be honest. It’s just the time taken when it comes to- because I can do the 2-3 nights at the convention, but it’s the three days worth of traveling that you need to do on either side of it. But if there is a convention that fancies bringing me over and has a tent that they can put me up in, then I’ll see you in 2016 folks!
But let’s be honest here, they might not want my action after SOTW comes out. People are thinking it’s going to be good, but there’s absolutely no reason to think it’s going to be any good. Like, you know, this could be the biggest disappointment. This could be The Phantom Menace. Or not even The Phantom Menace – The Phantom Menace is vaguely watchable. This could be an Attack of the Clones guys!
TM (Charles): (laughs) I doubt that. I very much doubt that.
NR: I told myself that in 2002 as well, didn’t I. But you know. No, if SOTW does well, then obviously that’ll increase my chances of people wanting to come see me and shake my hand and ruffle my hair and buy original artwork from SOTW available from November 18th [ed-November 25th now!] in all the good comic shops! (laughs)
TM (Charles): (laughs)
NR: Also, the last few years I’ve been connecting on Twitter and online and stuff and I just want to meet people, you know. And not in a sort of, I’m on one side of the desk, they’re on the other side of the desk sort of relationship. I just want to say hi to people. Talk comic art with them, you know. Have proper arguments. “No, you’re wrong about why you don’t like that artist!” Not mentioning anyone (laughs). That’s what conventions and these meetups are all about. Any reluctance I had to drawing Transformers comes from my own feelings about my own approach to drawing Transformers. It’s not coming to me aAs a consumer of it, you know. I still buy them. I still buy the toys, I still buy the comics, you know. I STILL HAVE TO BUY THE DAMN COMICS! When are my freebies comings in for crying out loud!
TM (Charles): (laughs) Speaking of the toys, real quick, the Springer design you did for LSOTW that did get turned into a toy in 2013. It actually won our poll for the best Hasbro Generations toy that year.
NR: Did it really!?
TM (Charles): It did, yeah. It got over, I think, 57% of the vote so it was a true majority.
NR: (many happy noises) Yikes!
TM (Charles): So in terms of the toys, did Hasbro work with you at all on designing that toy? And then another question is, do you see some of the Third Party toys that are made based on your designs from the comics. Darryl’s reminding me there’s a head add-on of Kup to make him look like his LSOTW incarnation from iGear.
NR: Yeah! You know the thing about that is that I didn’t design it, Guido [Guidi] drew that for All Hail Megatron because he had the cy-gar thing in his face. I tend to draw Kup’s head always grizzled because his head is the only original part of him left, you know what I mean? (laughs) Because he’s had the Pretender process and all that. But yeah, I have the IrRonfirst figure that they did a couple of years ago and that’s ridiculous, because that is literally my design. Same as the Springer thing. Well, except that Springer doesn’t turn into the copter and the car that I designed. They managed to completely reverse engineer workable Earth-esque modes, ish, for him, but still keep him looking like my robot.
But the thing about the Springer toy is, I was doing designs for Hasbro at the time, or actually back in 2010, and they asked me to design a SandsTtorm figure. And so I designed Sandstorm, the figure that came out that everyone thought was reverse engineered from Springer. But obviously, I designed Sandstorm, they designed that toy first and then they figured out a way to add on all the bits to make it look like my Springer. Which is just ridiculous.
TM (Charles): Wow, OK.
NR: It’s incredible. So that Sandstorm figure, especially the copter mode and the robot mode is exactly how I designed them pretty much. All the seams and all the details on him, he’s mine. And then, once they figured out his transformation, they managed to figure out a Springer for it as well, but an identical Springer as my design. So I designed both those toys, it’s kind of crazy. Although I say designed – I did a sketch and the designers [design engineered]. I don’t want to steal credit from the actual engineers and the actual Hasbro design team, but I character designed both those figures.
And it’s ridiculous seeing MTMTE stuff, like I’ve got Brainstorm here looking at me and I got Ultra Magnus for my birthday. It’s just incredible. I designed an Ultra Magnus toy now, you know, it’s like when was that!? When the hell did that happen! You know? And Springer as well. All the characters that are my favorites. They did that Takara Cloud Rodimus that’s based on a Springer/Sandstorm mold as well so again essentially I can pretend that I’ve designed a Hot Rod you know? (laughs) It’s all coming up Nick. It’s wonderful.
It’s a timing thing, but I’d love to have a dedicated time period to do some work with Hasbro again because they’re really supportive, they really let you go mad and they figure out all the hard stuff afterwards, you know. It’s cool. And it’s cool as well with SOTW, for the main cast I haven’t really done a huge amount of design work. I’ve been using Andrew Griffith’s Kup and Arcee because it ties in with the Ongoing on Earth and stuff. Stakeout pretty much looks like his Micromaster version. Hubcap is new and Roadbuster is my design, but a lot of the other characters you’re going to see are how they appeared before. And, yeah. Well. Yeah (laughs). Sorry, I’m just thinking of things that I- should I drop a hint about a whole other set of characters that no one’s going to guess…? Nah, I’ll keep it. Basically, there is a whole sub-section of characters that there isn’t even a sniff of yet and that people won’t expect. And you don’t even see them till sometime in issue #2, I think.
That’s the thing about SOTW; it’s a mystery story, is the idea. Who kidnapped Prowl and why? And so you’ve got a whodunit element to it. From the four page preview we see Verity has a motive and she was the last person to have contacted Prowl and she hHas dirt on him, so could be her. But there are other people that we know and that we meet that- He’s crossed everyone, he’s ruined so many lives. There are plenty of reasons to suspect someone. And so that’s kind of what it is. It’s a slow burn and we’re solving the mystery with the Wreckers, with the characters. We’re not really in the know before anyone else. We’re not two issues ahead of the Wreckers as far as what’s going on. So it’s not as crash, bang and wallop as LSOTW. It hasn’t got a big ridiculous prison break on the first page, it’s got a creepy sort of atmosphere.
A lot of it is about the environment. I feel like I’ve completely commandeered this question to plug the comic, but it’s stuff that I wanted to get across and [have been] working hard on and Josh Burcham, the colorist, is where he’s coming to the fore, the environment and the atmosphere. And he changes the style to match the styles that I change all the flipping time. But it always seems to suit the story. And we’re trying to evoke that kind of eerie coldness, especially with issue #1 of SOTW – a kind of sense of being alone, of isolation.
And there’s something in every issue of SOTW which I can confidently say you’ll definitely will have not seen in a Transformers comic and possibly not in any comic. We’re doing some suitably bonkers stuff and there are some visuals that are like, yeah, didn’t see it coming! And thanks to John Barber again for letting me do that as well. I’m not even necessarily talking about paneling or storytelling things. I just mean you never would have guessed that character X would have done thing Y (laughs).
I can’t wait and I’m dreading it as well because things are a bit more instant feedback-wise on the Internet than maybe it was even five years ago. There are message boards, but I have a Twitter account now. And people don’t usually ask someone to be dickheads genuinely. I know it does happen and in comics it doesn’t happen that often, but it’s hard not to discover when someone isn’t happy and carry that around with you as well. You don’t expect to please everyone and you don’t want to please everyone either, but you do want everyone to give it a fair shake and if you’ve been working on it long enough and hard enough, you just want people to give it a chance. If it’s not for you, then it’s not for you, but I think if you like Transformers and especially if you liked LSOTW and if you want to know what’s been happening to your old mates since then and, look, if you want to see Prowl in serious, serious trouble (laughs), I think it’s the place to be really. I’m drawing stuff at the moment which really puts Prowl in a bad way. People like that, don’t they?
TM (Charles): Yes (laughs). I’ve got to tell you that doesn’t sound anywhere near as lame as Attack of the Clones, so I think we’re all going to enjoy it.
NR: Yeah, Attack of the Clones sounded good on paper.
TM (Charles): (laughs)
NR: Yeah, no, I hope so, I hope so. It’s funny because it’s the sequel to LSOTW, it’s the Wreckers series, it’s Wreckers Part II, it’s very much an organic follow on, but you do find that when Prowl is involved, he does dominate, even when he’s off screen, he’s on screen. My only worry would be people would be sort of like, it’s very Prowl-centric, but it’s very Wrecker-centric as well; no other characters would be involved in this transaction, this level of interaction with Prowl on this level.
And the thing I’m happiest about is the fact that Verity is first and foremost involved. I love that she’s the instigator for the story really; shEe kicks it off and she’s got a really great arc all of her own. Some people thought she wasn’t essential to LSOTW and she was, she definitely needed to be there. Even from a point of view of- I’m a firm believer that when drawing Transformers youU need a little bit of context and the humans offer the context that they are giant aliens. And that they’re robots, otherwise they do feel- and I don’t mean that in a bad way, but it’s nice to be reminded of the Transformery-ness of Transformers and Verity adds that. And setting it on Earth as well, I think that’s important. I really wanted to see these characters interact and I really wanted to draw Earth. It’s nice making up locations and drawing lots of bases and tech heavy environments, but I really wanted to draw an Earth environment this time around.
TM (Charles): Cool. So, for our guests, we like to end the interview with a set of rapid fire questions. I think you might have heard these before?
NR: Yes, I have!
TM (Charles): So (laughs), you ready?
NR: Yeah!
TM (Charles): Autobot or Decept–
NR: Autobot.
TM (Charles): And your favourite Autob–
NR: Hot Rod
TM (Charles): OK!
NR: I know. So whitebread.
TM (Charles): (laughs)
NR: He’s so Poochie, I know. But he’s not though, he’s not. He’s been there since pretty much my beginning. I just relate to him. He’s such a knucklehead. He is. I am him (laughs).
TM (Charles): (laughing)
NR: And you know, I’m not him. I’m nowhere near as cool as him and that’s how uncool I am (laughs). But yeah, he’s brilliant, I love him.
TM (Charles): Alright. Transformers live action movie 1, 2, 3 or 4?
NR: 1. Haven’t seen 4. Followed by 3 as my second favorite. 2 is a disaster, but as I say I haven’t seen 4. 1 I’d think would still – I’m elaborating in a rapid fire – but 1 I’d still watch and enjoy and would show to people and say this is OK, isn’t it? Yeah, it’s OK, it’s really good. It’s a good fish-out-of-water introduction to Transformers, I think. I think it is a good film. I think it is a good Transformers film. It’s not a great Transformers film, but it’s a good Transformers film. I’m sorry if that means I have to hand in my card. I’m sorry.
TM (Charles): Megan Fox, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley or Nicola Peltz?
NR: For what?
TM (Charles): Just pick which one you like. I don’t know. You make a choice (laughs).
NR: Jeepers. I have to pick one!
TM (Charles): Whatever criteria you want to use.
NR: Crickey O’Blimey. Acting wise, it would have to be the one I haven’t seen yet (laughs). So that’s on that criteria. I think so. On oiliness, then Megan Fox wins. She seems to be shot in a glistening oil in both those films. I kind of worry that the girl’s pores might be blocked due to whatever Michael Bay had her coated it. I don’t mean like that. She’s just shot in a weird- yeah, she just looks a bit too shiny. But again, deliberately so. Same as everything in these films; shiny. And that’s the thing; she’s clearly a thing in those films, isn’t she. I don’t think she’s a person on the page or as an actress, bless her, I think she’s been imported as a prop by Michael Bay. That’s what I think.
TM (Charles): OK! MTMTE or not-RID?
NR: Oh, you prick! Oh god. I can legitimately say MTMTE because I worked on issue #1 and I designed a lot of the characters, so it doesn’t seem like a weird playing favorites thing. It’s the football team – because I’m so sporty – it’s the team I play on so I have an affinity for them. So that’s it. But, having said that, Barber’s comic, especially at the moment is, maybe, the one I would prefer to be drawing. Not script-wise, but set-wise, location-wise, setting-wise. It’s set on Earth. They’re in Earth alt-modes, there are people in it and it’s got Earth environments so if you asked me which one I’d want to draw then it might be that one. Again, partially because I’ve done MTMTE, so I’d want to do something different. But yeah, it’s MTMTE. Why am I elaborating on rapid fire!? It’s like I don’t understand rapid fire!
TM (Charles): No problem. Third Party toys, yes or no?
NR: Shit! (laughs) No, nodding my head. I’m nodding my head ‘yes’. But shaking my mouth ‘no’. They’re bad. But I’m looking at my Ironfist (laughs). I haven’t bought them in a long time. Mmm, rapid fire. It’s good when they do something that’s not going to be done by Hasbro. That’s the right thing to say. And so stuff like Impactor and Ironfist and things like that. They’re very well made some of them, aren’t they. They’re very evil, all of them, don’t buy them. But look at how nicely made they are. But you’re a terrible person if you buy them. Yeah, but they’re characters that I like. Yeah, but you’re probably supporting ISIS.
So that’s how I feel about it. Conflicted.
TM (Charles): OK! (laughs) Cats or dogs?
NR: Dogs! Jesus, that was easy.
TM (Charles): Coffee or tea?
NR: Tea, please! Thank you. Only a little bit of sugar, but a good bit of milk, thanks.
TM (Charles): Chicken or steak?
NR: Oh, I’m so common, chicken.
TM (Charles): Pepsi or coke?
NR: Coke.
TM (Charles): Burger King or McDonalds?
NR: Burger King. Haven’t had either in about ten years, but I could easily fall into the scag addiction that was my Burger King flirtation a decade ago. So yeah, I could quite happily die bloated and obese and puss covered in a Burger King world. God, get me a double bacon cheeseburger. No, but don’t!
…It’s like Third Party toys all over again.
TM (Charles): History or science?
NR: History, I think. Just because I can access it easier. Science is probably more important. Science is going to get us out of this, but I can always go back to History.
TM (Charles): XBox or PlayStation?
NR: PlayStation. Because mommy wouldn’t let me have an XBox.
TM (Charles): Call of Duty or Battlefield?
NR: I’ve never played neither of them games, sir. I’m really crap at playing modern games. Umm… Singstar?
TM (Charles): Transformers: Devastation maybe?
NR: Oh, I’m dying to play that. I’m going to wait until I think it’s safe to wait until SOTW is finished before I crack that one open to be honest. I don’t need it in my life. Well, I do need it in my life, that’s the thing. It looks incredible. It looks ridiculous. People, like friends who aren’t necessarily comics fans or gamers or whatever, keep sending me YouTube videos going, you getting this? I’m like, I will do. I still have Fall of Cybertron. Or War for Cybertron. Which one is the second one?
TM (Charles): Fall of Cybertron.
NR: I still have that in its cellophane downstairs. What sort of dickbag does that? Me! That’s the answer. So I’ll crack that open first. But Devastation looks irresponsible amounts of fun, doesn’t it. Have you guys played it?
TM (Charles): Yes! We’re enjoying it. Darryl’s already beat it.
NR: It works as a Transformers game and as a game on its own?
TM (Charles): Definitely.
NR: I’ll get into it. I’ll make it happen.
TM (Charles): PC or Mac?
NR: PC. I feel like I’m painting a horrible, horrible profile of myself here. I feel I’m being judged, already, by your listeners. But they’re your listeners, they can’t judge me!
TM (Charles): iPhone or Android?
NR: Android.
TM (Charles): What phone app can you not live without?
NR: I don’t use them. Viber I guess? Probably, because I’m cheap. I only just got a smartphone for the first time this year, because my brother and my sister moved to different countries and so this is literally the only reason I got a smartphone, so I can use Skype and Viber and things like that on the move. Otherwise I’d be quite happy texting from 1998. Also, I know that if I had apps I would use them. I did some work this year for a tablet-based and mobile-based video game and I know I’m never going to play that game, it’s really weird. Which hopefully, I can tell you more about soon. It’s one of those. But yeah, the app that makes me call my mom, is the one I can’t live without, yeah.
TM (Charles): Marvel or DC?
NR: Marvel.
TM (Charles): And your favourite Marvel character?
NR: Death’s Head! I was going to say Spider-Man.
TM (Charles): He’s a favorite!
NR: Again, so whitebread Nick. You just like all the quippy youths. Yeah, I’d love to draw Spidey. I got to draw Transformers as my first professional comic and the only comic I ever wanted to draw and it’s the same with Marvel. The Marvel comic I wanted to draw most in the world was Death’s Head and I got to draw that. So I’m takin ’em off. I can die by the time I’m 40. See you there kids.
TM (Charles): Stallone or Schwarzenegger?
NR: Stallone. The more and more I experience of Stallone, the more I legitimately think he’s a force for good in this world. I saw First Blood for the first time a few weeks ago. Actual good film. But in the same way that a film is good, not just a good Stallone film, I think it was a good film. I haven’t seen the sequels, but I have read they become more and more explosive and ridiculous and overblown. So yeah, Stallone. I think, Schwarzenegger, you’re a chancer. You’re a chancer mate, come at me.
TM (Charles): (laughs) OK, I’ll have to figure out what a chancer is.
NR: Someone who is bluffing their way through life. You know, getting by with minimum amount of skill and talent, but look at him. While, Stallone can write, you know. Stallone was nominated for a writing Oscar, you know? And he played Judge Dredd. That time.
TM (Charles): Zoe Saldana or Scarlett Johansson?
NR: Hmm. If you pick one you’re a racist…
TM (Charles): (laughing) No!
NR: That’s the way Irish people think. We only see redheaded pale people over here, so we try to come across as cosmopolitan. To be honest, I think Zoe. But again, for what now? I’m trying to buck my male objectifying ways! Let me think. I’ve only seen Scarlett Johansson in two films, one of which is an Avengers film and the other which is Lost in Translation. And I’ve seen Zoe Saldana in two films. Yeah, I think Saldana to be honest. I’m going to go Navi-ho. Not that she’s a ‘ho. I mean Navajo. Oh god, I’m not a bad person! I said that wrong. That was a slip of the tongue.
TM (Charles): OK, next question. Twilight or Hunger Games?
NR: I tried not to be racist, but I came out sexist and it wasn’t. It’s just kind of late at night over here. I didn’t mean it like that guys, you know I didn’t, come on. What was the question? Hunger Games. I haven’t seen it or read it, but I have seen Twilight, so Hunger Games.
TM (Charles): (laughs) OK! Pixar or Dreamworks?
NR: Pixar because they don’t shoehorn ridiculous pop culture references and dance sequences to contemporary music tracks in at a moment’s notice and they have heart and charm, but yeah otherwise they’re identical. Yeah, no, Pixar.
TM (Charles): Star Wars or Star Trek?
NR: It’s weird to ask that in the week that we’ve had isn’t it, with the Star Wars trailer? Yeah. Back to the Future. Is my genuine answer.
TM (Charles): (laughing) OK! That is acceptable.
NR: But I’m struggling with both of them, because I love them both an awful lot. They both scratch different itches, don’t they. It’s like, what do you prefer, shoes or underwear? Depends who’s wearing them.
TM (Charles): Simpsons or Family Guy?
NR: Simpsons.
TM (Charles): Walking Dead or Game of Thrones?
NR: Right, so this is where I have to admit that I have never seen either of those things. Actually, no, I’ve seen the pilot of Walking Dead and as good as it was, it obviously didn’t make me watch any more of it. I think I’d gone off the comics at that stage, so I probably thought I’ll ultimately go off the TV show at some stage, so why bother (laughs). So I will to say Walking Dead, because the pilot was a great stand alone horror thing. It was really, really good. But yes, I know it’s my loss for missing out. You know, I just meant Navajo as in, it’s just a word that came to me. I wasn’t- I know I’m drawing attention to the fact I said Navi-ho, right. I know I’m digging my grave.
TM (Charles): I was trying to help you by moving on, Nick! (laughs)
NR: I know. If we could switch the video on now you could see how red faced I am. Oh, god. I’ll do better. As a human. I’m sorry.
TM (Charles): Alright. NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA or European Football?
NR: What the fuck are you talking about? (laughing)
TM (Charles): (laughs) You don’t do sports, so we can skip that.
NR: I don’t do acronyms. No, I don’t have an answer to that, I’m sorry. Hang on a second. Do I? Yes, I do. Is one of the answers NBA Jam?
TM (Charles): …sure!
NR: He’s on fire! From downtown!
TM (Charles): Porsche, Ferrari or Lamborghini?
NR: (whistles) Lamborghini because of Sideswipe and Sunstreaker.
TM (Charles): Nice! And last question: blond, brunette or redhead?
NR: Jeepers guys. I have an answer, right? But, I’m also a man who’s patently aware of what he’s just said (laughs) and also aware that we’re supposed to be better than that, you guys! But, there’s a way around this! And I can tell you that I’m married to a brunette. And therefore, that is the correct answer on all levels.
TM (Charles): Great. We’re done.
NR: (sigh of relief)
TM (Charles): You made it!
NR: Let’s find out tomorrow after everyone hears this.
TM (Charles): (laughs) Well, Nick, thanks so much for coming on. You actually stayed a little bit extra so thanks so much for spending some extra time with us.
NR: No worries. It’s hard to stop isn’t it. I’m glad I did it, I’m glad I got to spend time with you guys. I’ll tell you now, I won’t be listening to this one. And let’s be honest, not all of us were listening to this one anyway, so it’s fine.
TM (Charles): (laughs) Alright, so I think we’re going to wrap it up here, so thanks again to Nick Roche for joining us and Nick, you mentioned you’re on Twitter, so where can people find you on the Internet?
NR: @jroberts332
TM (Charles): (laughing)
NR: Anything you don’t like about Wreckers or SOTW send it that way please. I’m @NickRoche and yeah, that’s me. Come say hi to me please. On the run up to SOTW I’m posting little previews and a lot of the time I’m posting pencil art or unfinished artwork from issues further in the run as well maybe a bit nearer the time I might start leaking lines of dialogue as well. I know that’s a fun thing to do ahead of a release. Please buy it guys and please ask your lapsed Transformers comics fans, friends to buy it and please ask your comics fans who don’t read Transformers to buy it!? It’d be really good to send the message out, obviously based on the fact if you like it or not, but send a message to IDW that it’s something that people were asking for and hopefully we’ve delivered. Obviously, let’s let the numbers speak for themselves, but I know that Josh and I are really, really proud of what we’ve put together and we think, as different as it is from LSOTW, it can stand fairly proudly with it and it can stand alone also. We’ll find out in the next month.
TM (Charles): Awesome.
NR: (cry of anguish)
TM (Darryl): I’m sure your work’s very good. We can’t speak for Josh.
NR: To be honest, I don’t pay attention to his side of it. As soon as the artwork’s sent in I’m not bothered. I mean, those colors in those four pages looked OK, didn’t they? I haven’t seen them, but you know. No, he’s the man. He’s the MVP of the book. He’s great. This is Josh Perez we’re talking about, yeah?
TM (Darryl): Yes.
TM (Charles): (laughing)
NR: Yeah, he’s good. He’s good isn’t he. No, yeah, Burcham all the way this time, until Perez turns my head next time and then I’ll whorishly find my way in his swatch-laden bed.
TM (Darryl): Awesome.
TM (Charles): Alright, thanks again Nick and we will talk to everyone next time. Thanks to everyone for listening to Transmissions. This has been a special episode with Last Stand and Sins of the Wreckers artist and writer Nick Roche. Thanks for joining us and maybe we’ll have you back when the miniseries is over. We can do a post-mortem on the whole story.
NR: Yeah, I would flippin’ love to do that, I really hope so. As long as everyone is still talking to me, not only for the work that I did, but also for the slip of the tongue earlier.
TM (Charles): (laughing) Alright, bye everyone!
NR: Merry Christmas!
TM (Darryl): Bye.
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- Contact the hosts on Twitter:
Wow I HAVE TO ADMIRE when someone does something like this. Like I told ya yakko,this podcast has its fans that enjoy it SO MUCH,that one of them takes the timeout and puts it down to words to read,and perhaps to be enjoyed by someone else who may not be able to listen to it…
Many thanks Marian for doing this,big “S.T.A.R.S”..to you!!
(Who gets the reference to this?)
If that’s RPD S.T.A.R.S, I’ll take it 😛