Botcon 2010 Bob Budiansky Panel Coverage

Wow, cool trivia so far in this one... (i love that I am reading this in bed on my iPad but I need to hit the shower and get to work...)

Much suspecting Ravage being named Stalker was rejected because of the GI Joe character. There wasn't much cross-pollination then.

A lot of these early names are kind of blowing my shit here. Bumblebee was always Goldbug? Woah. And this is all 'new' information, too, since a lot of the early pages we have pics of so far have mostly the final names (except Blowout and Spinout for Cliffy and Sunstreaker.)

Interesting bit of trivia. I think I remember reading somewhere that having a list of one cool name and a bunch of shitty names was standard practice for writers.

But why is it that live coverage thing keeps making me download stuff like "st-3.exe, st-4.exe, ect"?

Some selected photos from the slide show. A lot of the handwritten stuff is illegible.

You can make out some of it. Nice pics. You can see the names Bob came up with next to the case assortments. A great peak into the history of the toys and characters we love.

a real Spike Witwicky? That's awesome!

A couple more :

WOW, just WOW. For a Marvel nut like me, these are golden tidbits of information.

Now I want a Classics Ravage repainted in G1 Stalker's colors.

A real life Witwicky? Huh, we should find him and invite him for the next Botcon.

Funny how BB was intended to be Goldbug from the start. Ratchet as a girl strangely mirrors how (s)he would have been Red Alert, and a female in Animated.

Never knew Bob drew covers too. I guess we have him to thank for that sexy Jesse in the wet t-shirt on the Car Wash of Doom cover?

And at Shocky as evil Spock. Yeah, he is. That's why I like him so much.

The "One Flew Over the Cockoo's Nest" reference makes perfect sense. I remember him mentioning that on I believe it was the Shout boxset, but it was fun to hear some of his sources for inspiration again. Makes me want to Netflix that one actually!

"He also wrote all the bio quotes, so yes, Bob is the man who came up with "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings"

That was me asking that question! It was nice to meet him especially since I loved the original comics so much. I had him sign my copy of issue 5 (the main reason why Shockwave is still my favorite character) and he told me...

"Not a lot of people know this, but [that issue] was originally TWICE that long. It was edited down to half it's original size... but the original story was great. So if you ever wonder '...well, that ended kinda suddenly...' now, you know why..." ~ Bob