Botcon Comic Preview (APRIL FOOLS!) and More Guests Announced This Week

Count me in with the "Too bad it's a joke - I really liked it" crowd.

On the upside though, the comic preview helped to nail down the conceptual details for a Botcon art show piece I wanted to do.

Damn you, ZAcWilliam! Stop saying what I want to better than me!!

Also, to Don, yeah, what he said ^^^

Well, it would really be hard to keep this exact level of tongue-in-cheek for a full 22 pages. Now, a 10-page mini-story I think we could handle, but it might start to wear thin after that point. We did the preview with maximum parody in mind. Something designed along these lines but meant to pace well would probably play a bit more like Young Frankenstein: still a plot, running gags, and weird, funny character interaction.

There's an entire gradient between grim and surreal hilarity, after all. We walk that line a lot with the text stories, balancing humor, peril and character development. In this we were really just trying to get together something that would make people think we'd lost our minds. Funny how that works. I mean, I expected Walky to like it, but the overall response has been a shock.

That said, Bug Bite the Laughing Renegade will forever live on in my heart.

-Trent

Best. April Fools Joke. Ever. I'm saving the pages for future amusement and hoping the actual Shattered Glass comic actually is more Yaniger-esque and not Dreamwave-More-Of-The-Same.

Anybody see how butthurt the G.I. Joe fans are getting over the prank pulled on them? Because a repainted figure with a 90s Range Viper head and a Crimson Immortal body shown turned out to be intentionally false, they're crying that the joke was "in bad taste."

edit: Actually, it looks like it's Barricade's body. Dunno. My Joe knowledge isn't as good as it used to be.

Really? THAT'S in bad taste? Now I'm glad the distribution on their 25th Anniversary figures sucks. Oh, wait... It sucks because they're scalping all the new figures and proudly proclaiming such on their message boards.

Joe Fans Are Creeps.

anyone got the original page 3 that didn't say April fool's on it saved somewhere? coule you PM or email it to me?

bjdolle24 @ Aol.com

I saved all three, and if you don't have them by the time I'm in my room again, I'll do it. Is that new page three even the same size as the other two?

Did they remove it from their page? I'd love to see it, but it doesn't appear on the main joe club page like ours did.

Yeah, it's the same size as the others.

http://joesightings.com/

Huh. To be fair, it only looks like there are 3 people currently even talking about it.

The page is mirrored here in TFW2005.

-airfox

True, but I don't think I've ever seen a thread there that had over five posts.

Don't blame me...I was only in it for the ho's...*Smiley face*

They said posting a "joke" not on April fools day is bad taste. I mean the point is to post something on the 1st that is good enough to be real but possibly fake and then goof people into being unsure if it is real or not. If you need to do it a day early to get people to believe the joke, the joke isn't that good.

If you want to get really good, you make multiple announcements and make some REAL. The *REAL* goof would have been releasing that ON April 1 and then it ending up being real.

I do think you bring up a good point here. Part of the near-universal love for this comic may be the small dose. This is, imho, the perfect tone for a three page story. Perhaps this could become a series of short stories rather than a single longer one.

That said, I think this is fantastic, and I'm still a little bummed that this won't be the whole story; however, getting a Don drawn book is a great consolation. And as far as Don's style, I've been enjoying his work since Macromasters, and it's unfortunate that it gets associated with the train wreck that was Dreamwave. War Within was the only aspect of Dreamwave that I liked.

This.


Finding out this is an April Fools joke is a huge let down.

Ah dammit.

This is the most disappointing fakeout since that fake script for the second live action tf movie.

At least I see I'm not the only one who's sad it's not real - I was expecting more people glad to be getting the usual.

Son. Of. A. Bitch.

That was GREAT! Gotta give them credit for putting so much effort into a great prank! Still looking forward to seeing how the real comic is.

Man, I'd like to see some more though. Great fun!

(though I have no idea what WOT means... I'm just not that hip. I still say bling and holla fer cryin' out loud*)


*just kidding about the bling and holla. Aiight?

I really am surprised that more people didn't see this as a prank. I mean....shrink ray used on the preds? The corny writing? Halt fiends?

I'm surprised there wasn't more outrage. Beast Machines made people write death threats but this sparked enthusiasm?

*reads thread*

Sigh, so many people lacking a sense of humor. Kudos to FP on a joke well done, lol.

I think the trick would be to keep it moving - after a few pages, leave Grimlock and focus on "I'll get you next time [strike]Gadget[/strike] Megatron, next time..." Prime and a group surrounding him. Then move onto a Megatron patterned after BW Silverbolt. And so on.

It wouldn't hold a series, but you could get a full issue out of it anyway.

shattered expectation is an appropriate name for this joke comic

Ah fraggity frag, I had a gut feeling something was "off." Well, played Pete & co. Well played, indeed.

Still looking forward to Don's artwork as usual of course.

I hope to see the return of gangsta' Jazz, genius Grimlock, and British Bugbyte in the future somewhere along the line. Can't get enough of G-2 era styled artwork (especially Senior and Yaniger's) and loved the corny dialogue with this april fool's joke.

Because this was fun.

Beast Machines was not.

i am relieved this was a joke cuz it wouldve made me really sad to miss out on that

GAH! When did they edit the last page to read "APRIL FOOLS'!"? o.o

Well, I was never a fan of the G2 style, so I wasnt completely enraptured by it, but I loved the sheer cheesiness of it. Evil Grimlock was hilarious, and I dont think I'm going to be able to imagine him NOT talking like that from now on. Still, as much as I laughed at it (And unlike a lot of people, I read it as a April fools joke), I dont think I could take a full comic of it.

But more people need to shout 'Tally Ho!' It's got a proud tradition.

See, it's weird...I loved the G2 style. Meanwhile, I thought this was a poor, poor imitation of it and therefore wasn't all that impressive to me (both before and after the March 31st Fool's gag). I was relieved to hear that Don is actually doing the artwork.

The main thing missing from the G2 style as I saw it was more black to define forms and make it more 'gritty'. The art itself was not quite up to Yaniger or Senior, but I'd say Manny Galan got beat pretty good.

Don INVENTED that particular "spin" on them; there are people here (myself included) who have been fans of Don's work since long before Dreamwave *puttup* bastardised it.
Research FTW, pal.