BotCon 2014 James Roberts Q&A Panel Notes

Discussion in 'Transformers News and Rumors' started by Deefuzz, Jun 21, 2014.

  1. Deefuzz

    Deefuzz Beard On! Beardmaster! Veteran

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  2. General Magnus

    General Magnus Da Custodes of the Emprah

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    Very nice, especially the DJD reference.
     
  3. WilyMech

    WilyMech Well-Known Member

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    Hmmm....I can't wait for season two.
     
  4. Autobot Burnout

    Autobot Burnout ...and I'll whisper "No."

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    Somebody ask why he is so awesome.

    Seriously, I'd love to know what Roberts thinks about being this generation's Furman.
     
  5. RedAlert Rescue

    RedAlert Rescue Banned

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    Laugh That comment by Autobot Burnout has different meaning depending on if you like Furman or not doesn't it? That seems like a rather empty room doesn't it. Was someone handing out free Booze in the lobby or something ?

    I was wondering has anyone actually asked the guy if he's got any ambition to try to write something for the new 2015 TV show ?
     
  6. General Magnus

    General Magnus Da Custodes of the Emprah

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    Difference is Furman was boooooooooring. Roberts is not.
     
  7. 1987olds442

    1987olds442 Cam Maximus

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    I would like to know if they ever plan on fixing Grimlock. I absolutely hate what they did with him.

    The rest of the story has been pretty good though.
     
  8. RedAlert Rescue

    RedAlert Rescue Banned

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    Furman and Roberts both like to re-write character personalities away from the established profiles, kill folks off, and use a great deal of dialogue in a given issue so they have those characteristic in common.

    I have what I would call the Furman test ; "Can you read what is written outloud in the voice of the character as it is on the TV show" (or any voice) If you can't then it's not good.

    If your tripping all over sub-clauses an excess of humanisms then you probably have what I'd call poor dialogue. I want Transformers to be human like in quite a lot of ways - but I find feeding them to much Human specific speech is more likely to push me out of the 4th wall completely. But then every time Trailcutter/Trailbreaker does his forcefield face it has the same effect too.
     
  9. 0JazzMeister0

    0JazzMeister0 Autobot Jo

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  10. hyruk

    hyruk Genericon

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    He better not kill rodimus,he is a very prominent character of the comics and if he dies the story will be dull....
     
  11. Omegashark18

    Omegashark18 Combaticon turned Autobot

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    This is so full of stuff! So much to happen and so much waiting.
     
  12. WilyMech

    WilyMech Well-Known Member

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    I think he did already. ^ The coffin
     
  13. 0JazzMeister0

    0JazzMeister0 Autobot Jo

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    Who's Ready to Voice Act?

    Doin' It Jazzy Style

    I'm going to leave these links here in response to what I've bolded in your quote.

    The entire MTMTE Tumblr fandom, myself included, gave it a go in voicing all their favorite characters. Heck, I'm going to record Swerve's latest recap in MTMTE 30 a little later on.

    Suffice it to say that if a group of people from different backgrounds, of various ages and nationalities, with varying accents can still read out and record the dialogue in MTMTE across different issues of the series, enough so to want to try and dub a whole issue... Pretty sure MTMTE as a whole passes your "Furman test".

    Sure we don't have all the fancy voice synthesizers and audio software to sound completely robotic, we're not even professional voice actors; some of us just record on our smartphones, but at least it shows you that yes, not only is the dialogue readable, you can have fun voicing it.
     
  14. RedAlert Rescue

    RedAlert Rescue Banned

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    Perhaps A Rodimus dies and later gets resurrected might be fresher than an Optimus Dies.... (etc).

    Besides in Modern comics everyone dies... they usually get over it though (apart from Uncle Ben).


    Jolly Good
    I don't recommend trying it with Translated Japanese comics though it soon gives you a headache....

    But you are right it's fun to attempt..

    View attachment clip5-mp3-converted.mp3

    View attachment clip6-mp3-converted.mp3
     
  15. 'Zakath

    'Zakath Well-Known Member

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    Then I'm betting you loath Brian Michael Bendis.

    Fact is, comics are their own medium. It has their own beat, their own rhythm, their own build-up and momentum. You can't write for a comic the way you write for a cartoon. So, going by your 'Furman test', ANY comic will fail.

    It's fine not to like a certain writer. But, if you do so, at least use relevant arguments. Because now it sounds like you don't like certain fruits because they're round.

    On another note: Go watch some The West Wing episodes. Say, the first 2 seasons. Then come back to me with the argument that 'lots of dialogue' can't be said out loud on TV. Because any episode of the West Wing will feature 95% dialogue, which can go from legislature to the planet Mars to Jazz music to Syria in the span of 5 minutes, and it all fits, it's all being delivired in a way that makes compelte sense, and makes for magnificent TV.

    So, I'm sorry, but if you can't read what Roberts is writing out loud, that's more a failing of you, than of him.
     
  16. RedAlert Rescue

    RedAlert Rescue Banned

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    I was referring to excessive humanism in an alien race being an example of bad dialogue and characterisation. Not that comics have to many words these days (but they do).

    Comics are supposed to be a visual story medium that we are even having these conversations and no one hardly ever brings up the artists very much shows you something is out of balance in Transformers comics.

    Stormbringer is a comic I recall having good art - I can't recall much about the story though. I do remember bad art though when it's really bad like in the Kup oneshot.

    Nope I don't Loathe Bendis as luckily for me I stopped reading Marvel comics before he infected them with his huge ego.

    Actually I wasn't even specifically talking about Roberts dialogue (though I will admit I find it somewhat inappropriately humorous) But that's just me I don't think Transformers and Humour is an easy fit in terms of story telling unless you know what your doing in terms of how to pace the beats so as to not make the whole thing seems like a humour comic (which RID seems to be to me)... Fine if people want to read a Humour comic - but if they wanted to make Transformers a Humour comic maybe the publisher should be Archie comics not IDW. I certainly seem to see people talking about it as a humour title they never seem to talk about any "Gripping Drama" It's more oh look Rung/Swerve/Whirl did something silly again.

    I was actually thinking of bad Furman Dialogue in terms of how he wrote Shockwave and Soundwave in the 1980s more than anything else.

    As to the overarching milieu of IDW I'd love to find some positives for my tastes - but as it stands.. I'm still looking. But that 10,000 people who buy it seem to like it shame that the other tens of Thousands of fans can't get something directed to them that is more to the general tastes though than a humour title.

    Furman's written cartoons as well as comics

    I do give plenty of arguments heck I even said why in the original post... Overly Humanistic Dialogue, but I can add some more ; to many description boxes, to high a word count per bubble, bad framing of bubbles in the panel, dialogue and panels not matching in a readable order comes up a lot in all of IDW's stuff too. Poor colour balance also make it hard to tell who is who if Michael Bay robot look black IDW ones look yellowish.
    There's some reasons for you anyway since you asked.

    No thank you. I don't watch hardly any TV any more. I have no plans to ever watch the West Wing, Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, 24, Game of Thrones or a whole other host of things that were trendy with the Boxed set brigade. I'm sure others get entertainment from it but that sort of stuff just seems more likely to annoy me, than entertain me.

    I've never tried (But I shall consider doing so), But your sure can't do it with 1980's Furman without sniggering afterwards..
     
  17. taterx

    taterx Lurkin since Transfandom

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    You people that don't like Furman should stop taking a shit on him, the guy contributed much to this fandome & deserves respect. Also was that panel really half full? I'm shocked to hear that, this guys work is hailed as great in many circles. Comic book guy at my local shop last week actually said it was the best written book in comics right now & I about fainted. Never thought I'd live to see the day that a die hard comic snob type dude heaped praises on a transformers book. I was happy to hear that.
     
  18. spiritprime

    spiritprime Dudes, I'm a girl!

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    YAY! Drift is coming back? That's great!
     
  19. 0JazzMeister0

    0JazzMeister0 Autobot Jo

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    The picture used for this story was a troll pic taken by James before the panel. I heard the actual panel was pretty full. It was also the first panel of the day, starting at 9.30am I believe... Not there myself, but this was what I heard from people attending.
     
  20. RedAlert Rescue

    RedAlert Rescue Banned

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    I hear DC is dying on it's backside Lately, I don't know about Marvel or other Independents though. There is a lot less comics these days than there used to be though so I guess a comic shop worker would have chance to read more of them where as there used to be so many any someone working in a store might not be able to keep up.

    So just the one comic panel then ?

    Any mention of the relationship with Hasbro or is that more the sort of thing you'd expect a publisher to say rather than a writer.?