The breaking of the 82nd seal of the Roboplastic Apocalypse is the the sound of millions of Bon Jovis and Bruce Speingsteens crying out in terror as the Nostrodomatron invades New Jersey! Yes I hit up East Coast Comic Con 2015 at the Meadowlands Exposition Center and boy did I have a blast talking to the most Robotastic lineup of Marvel comic creators I have ever seen at one convention. Listen in horror as I get Mark Texeira to sign a cover he's always wanted people to know he did while the books I asked Herb Trimpe to sign weren't so lucky. Plus I get in some titanic conversations with the TechSpectacular Bob Budiansky and Darin' Dave Hunt that shake the very foundations of our understanding of life, the universe, toy robot comics, and kangaroos wearing robotic body armor. What happens when you sing showtunes to Larry Hama? What unpublished Marvel Transformers comic art did Dave Hunt have Dwelling in the Depths of his drawings? And did Hasbro keep Bob Budiansky locked in the back and feed him raw meat? Find out all that and more in this HUNT 'N BUD & HERB WITH TEX edition of the podcastalypse!
Or download it directly
See more of my East Coast Comic Con pictures at Flickr Macrocrania.
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COMICS CON AMIGOS
I could not have picked a better con for the final convention recorded episode of the Roboplastic Podcastalypse. It had a lineup of legendary comic creators, some of whom I was able to trick into doing a little talky talky while they signed comics and drew sketches and met with their fans. ECCC had that absolutely perfect mix of celebrity and fan interaction that I always hope to get when I go to a show. Above left you'll see someone doing a professional interview with Bob Budiansky with a camera and microphone and everything! Meanwhile, Herb Trimpe was sketching incredibly accurate likenesses of people on the backs of their shirts!
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THEY'RE SUCH CARDS!
Legendary professional fan Fred Hembeck was destroying the Marvel Universe way before Ultron made it cool. He brought a binder full of sketch cards that was worth the price of admission to just look through. He gave me the lowdown on why his ROM sketches are so tough to get even though he's constantly eBaying them all the time. I finally got Larry Hama to sign my Bucky O'Hare Christmas cards and I got to prove to him that I, too, had time to see plays. Massive thanks to the Real Life Peter Griffin for helping me with the outro to this episode.
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CONVENTION LIKE IT'S 1979!
My favorite dealer of the show award went to the RetroArtBlog.com. They had tons of stuff from the late 70s that blew me away like Micronaut Colorforms, Starbirds galore, metal lunchboxes up the wazoo, and even the super rare Godzilla tabletop game, which they demonstrated to a guy wearing a helmet made of plush puppies. They were even selling the control art for the Shogun Warrior Colorforms background and a crazy Japanese Super Robot Projector set that I'd never seen before in my life. If there's a thirty year old Colorforms set or ViewMaster reel you need, put on your bell bottoms, load up some Bee Gees in the 8 track player of your custom van and go hit them up.
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ALL THE WAY TO TEX'ES
Mark Texeira was an absolute firecracker as he always is and he finally settled the question of who penciled the cover to Transformers #3. He also settled the question of what he's doing now by telling me about his Law of Resistance book with PKMM Entertainment, his A Hero's Death Kickstarter project, the recent Ghost Rider cover he did, and his upcoming appearances at Big Wow ComicFest April 17-8, Motor City Comic Con in May, and HeroesCon in June!
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THE BEST LOUSY SKETCHER EVER!
It is always a pleasure catching up with my favorite lousy sketcher, Papercutz Editor-In-Chief Mr. Jim Salicrup. I bought a couple lousy sketches and although I didn't record it, we talked about Transformers and Visionaries and that time I interviewed him back at Miami Book Fair 2010. (Well maybe not that last one.) He signed my Transformers #4 and Visionaries #1 (which he wrote) and I asked him if he knew anything about The Night the Transformers Saved Christmas but he didn't know they did. I let him know how awesome those Papercutz Lego Ninjago books sold at my kid's first grade book fairs and I told him he really needs to come down to Florida more often so he can tell us some of his ol' Spidey Super Stories .
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DARIN' TO TALK WITH DAVE!
It was a highlight of my convention interviewing life to finally meet Darin' Dave Hunt, the man who inked the majority of Jose Delbo's pencils during their run on Transformers. Mr. Hunt brought several binders of his work to show to fans, including a couple pages of never-before-published Transformers art! He was able to talk a lot about how much work Transformers was and why there were some books that were created but never published. He also explained who that guy was on the cover to People magazine he drew in Transformers #45! Check out his lengthy ComicBookDB.com profile and hit him up on Facebook!
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DWELLIN' IN THE DRAWINGS!
The pages above are part of an unpublished Transformers comic from the original Marvel run, whose existence had up to this point not been widely known. Mr. Hunt didn't really understand the magnitude of importance these three pages of unpublished Transformers comics art carried with them. As the artist he didn't really know the characters or the significance of a Transformer story that never made it to print, but I made sure to explain to him what a big deal it was. He did say he thought the characters he inked over Ian Akin's pencils were a noticeable departure from the designs he was used to drawing. That would make sense since these pages were from a story that was adapted from the Transformers cartoon, featuring characters that were never used in the mainstream Budiansky/Furman books. He told me he wished he knew more about Transformers so that he could have understood these things, but I told him he didn't have to know anything about them-he LIVED them for a good many years! He agreed with me and said he may not know much about the mythos, but boy could he draw the heck out of 'em.
UPDATE: The following sites picked up on the news of these pages' discovery and further commentary can be found at these links: Seibertron.com-Unpublished Marvel Transformers G1 Comic Art by Ian Akin and David Hunt - Dweller in the Depths TFormers.com-Unpublished Marvel Comics Adaptation of Dweller In The Depths Revealed By Dave Hunt The Allspark-Unpublished Marvel G1 comic art for an adaptation of "The Dweller in the Depths" TFArchive-"Lost" Marvel Issue Art Discovered. Transmasters UK-Unpublished Comics based on Marvel US cartoon OzFormers-Unproduced Marvel Gen1 comic story |
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THERE'S NO OTHER LIKE HIM!
Depending on what time it was, Bob Budiansky was at his table drawing all manner of superheroes, monsters, demons and robots. And some people even came by to get sketches from him, too! Yes I finally got the chance to sit down for a good 20 minutes and talk to the man who killed Optimus Prime about all sorts of stuff from the recent revival of interest in Sleepwalker and Brute Force to that time Hasbro locked him up and fed him raw meat. Unfortunately I did not get to ask him what Leader-1's tech spec motto would be or if the cover to The Interplanetary Wrestling Championship was a metaphor for a man's quest to rid one's self of toy robot addiction, but here's hoping maybe one day down the line he'll accidentally find himself at a 7-11 in Florida where I'm buying lotto tickets, hot dogs, and Tastycake lemon pies and our magical conversation lightning will strike again.
SHOW NOTES OF THE PODCASTALYPSE
Neal Adams sang me the Bucky O'Hare song!
- Hello from East Coast Comic Con!
- Stan Lee and Mecha Godzilla were at MegaCon
- Quickly talking to Mark Texeira
- The original cover art to Transformers #3 is on display at the Museum of Cartoon Art
- Mark Texeira's recent Ghost Rider cover
- Mark's work at PKMM Entertainment
- PKMM on Facebook
- The once in a lifetime picture I screwed up by not knowing he did the cover to issue #3
- That time I asked Mike Zeck about the cover to Transformers #3.
- Asking Herb Trimpe about his involvement in Dinosaurs Attack and The Night the Transformers Saved Christmas
- Singing The Ballad of Pirate Jenny to Larry Hama
- The time I met Larry Hama dressed as a GoBot.
- Fred Hembeck is doing ROM sketch cards
- Interview with Dave Hunt
- Dave Hunt / Jose Delbo collaborations
- Mr. Hunt explains the practice of inventory stories
- Papercutz losing the Lego license.
- The last time I talked to Jim Salicrup
- Me guesting on The Paunch Stevenson Show episode 262
- Interview with Bob Budiansky
- Sleepwalker #1 recently hitting $15 after his appearance in the last issues of Fantastic Four
- The return of Brute Force in the Deadpool Bi-Annual
- The relaunch of Sleepwalker by Robert Kirkman
- 1984 newspaper article where Hasbro admits feeding Bob raw meat.
- Don't Rocket Punch Your Friends!
A Hot Pocket for 20 cents is a steal any day of the week.
