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Thanks to IDW colorist Josh Burcham, we have a preview page for FunPub's upcoming BotCon 2013 in San Diego, from June 27 till June 30. This comic page features characters from our five-figure box set, Hoist, Strika, Obsidian, and Skywarp. As the lore in Beast Machines would suggest, our two characters from the Beast era are notably Autobots in this rendition of Machine Wars Transformers lore. As Josh writes, these are not the final colors in particular for this page. Enjoy!

Is that Octane hanging out back there?

It's up on BotCon's website as well.

Actually, that looks like Thundercracker, not Skywarp.

Thundercracker is green with a dark head:


Skywarp is white with a yellow head:

What's up with Octane hanging out the Autobots?

Mindmaster wrote:What's up with Octane hanging out the Autobots?

It would seem that the Autobots and Decepticons had to team up under the command of Strika and Obsidian once Megaplex and his clone army forces killed Optimus Prime and Galvatron.

Panel 2 is expressive as heck, love it.

Sabrblade wrote:

Mindmaster wrote:What's up with Octane hanging out the Autobots?

It would seem that the Autobots and Decepticons had to team up under the command of Strika and Obsidian once Megaplex and his clone army forces killed Optimus Prime and Galvatron.

So it's like how Covenant Separatists teamed up with the UNSC when the Covenant Loyalists (or rather Jiralhanae and San 'Shyumm) started a mini-genocide against the Sangheili in the Halo franchise. Interesting.

Octane was pretty much on the outs with the Decepticons in season 3 of G1 when he was hanging out with Sandstorm, so him joining the Autobots wouldn't be odd, though given the franchise it's more likely they have teamed up to thwart an enemy that threatens them all.

Mindmaster wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

Mindmaster wrote:What's up with Octane hanging out the Autobots?

It would seem that the Autobots and Decepticons had to team up under the command of Strika and Obsidian once Megaplex and his clone army forces killed Optimus Prime and Galvatron.

So it's like how Covenant Separatists teamed up with the UNSC when the Covenant Loyalists (or rather Jiralhanae and San 'Shyumm) started a mini-genocide against the Sangheili in the Halo franchise. Interesting.

Not the first time we've seen Autobots and Decepticons team up to battle the Cybertronian Empire either.

And that looks like Universe Tankor there as Octane's model. Bit of an in-comic joke? Maybe G1 Thrust will show up too and ask Obsidian about loyalty just to reference us to death.

Though if Bots and Cons are teamed up here in the far-flung future of the Wings universe, that likely means we can use figures from our Classics shelf to go with the figures from the convention.

Henry921 wrote:And that looks like Universe Tankor there as Octane's model. Bit of an in-comic joke? Maybe G1 Thrust will show up too and ask Obsidian about loyalty just to reference us to death.

But Universe Tankor is Octane. What's there to joke about?

Henry921 wrote:Though if Bots and Cons are teamed up here in the far-flung future of the Wings universe, that likely means we can use figures from our Classics shelf to go with the figures from the convention.

Only in certain cases. Some characters have modern toy bodies, some have their original bodies, and we do know that at least all of the 1997 MW toy characters will make an appearance.

Sabrblade wrote:

Henry921 wrote:And that looks like Universe Tankor there as Octane's model. Bit of an in-comic joke? Maybe G1 Thrust will show up too and ask Obsidian about loyalty just to reference us to death.

But Universe Tankor is Octane. What's there to joke about?

An in-joke, my friend. Tankor, like from Beast Machines. Thrust, like from Beast Machines. A new character called Jetstorm, in case the reference wasn't apparent enough.

Oh, never mind.

Henry921 wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

Henry921 wrote:And that looks like Universe Tankor there as Octane's model. Bit of an in-comic joke? Maybe G1 Thrust will show up too and ask Obsidian about loyalty just to reference us to death.

But Universe Tankor is Octane. What's there to joke about?

An in-joke, my friend. Tankor, like from Beast Machines. Thrust, like from Beast Machines. A new character called Jetstorm, in case the reference wasn't apparent enough.

Oh, never mind.

It would feel more like an in-joke if he was called "Tankor" instead of "Octane", but he's not. He's "Octane".

Not my favourite art style, but The Club usually comes through in story telling.

Mkall wrote:Not my favourite art style, but The Club usually comes through in story telling.

Really? Have we been reading the same comics for the past 4 or 5 years?

Seibertron wrote:

Mkall wrote:Not my favourite art style, but The Club usually comes through in story telling.

Really? Have we been reading the same comics for the past 4 or 5 years?

To each his own, I guess.

I've met some who love nearly all the club comics, and those who basically can't stand just about any of their fiction.

Sabrblade wrote:

Seibertron wrote:

Mkall wrote:Not my favourite art style, but The Club usually comes through in story telling.

Really? Have we been reading the same comics for the past 4 or 5 years?

To each his own, I guess.

I've met some who love nearly all the club comics, and those who basically can't stand just about any of their fiction.

In my opinion, their stories are convoluted, full of unnecessary fan appeasements, confusing, lack direction, and have difficulty focusing on the primary subjects of the topic at hand ... written by people whose primary job isn't writing comic books. The Botcon comics were OK through the 2009 comic, but it's been downhill since. 2010 on has been an attention deficit disorder nightmare. All over the board. The books try to do too much. Instead of focusing on a few good points and expanding upon those ideas, it unsuccessfully tackles way to many characters and plot points which is simply confusing and accomplishes far less than if they were to focus on the exclusive characters. This is a perfect example where less would be more.

The Club comics have been a mess almost since the beginning for the same reasons as the BotCon comics.

They could also use some pointers regarding the fonts that they use for the Club and BotCon comics. There's a lot to be said for fonts that are easily read by the human eye (that's why Verdana and Arial are such popular computer fonts). The font they use for the speech bubbles is a very poor choice for the sake of readability.

Huh, 2010 also happens to be the year that the Club stopped having text stories, with their last one coming out that year. I wonder if the lack of prose stories might have affected their 2010-Present fiction.

Sabrblade wrote:Huh, 2010 also happens to be the year that the Club stopped having text stories, with their last one coming out that year. I wonder if the lack of prose stories might have affected their 2010-Present fiction.

The 2005 to 2009 comics were at least focused on the toys associated with the BotCons of those years. Having fiction of the toys I had just invested in helped sell whatever the "theme" was of that year. Having diverged from that since 2010 by not focusing on that year's set has significantly diluted the sets and whatever story they were pushing. Again, my opinion, but this year's lack of interest (as demonstrated by this week's extremely candid message about reallocating stock from attendee to non-attendee) seems to show that I'm onto something about the perceived decline or the lack of interest in the BotCon exclusives.

The initial Club comics, while extremely convoluted, also followed suit. Initially they were focused on the club toys which worked "OK" since the first 5 were all one set, but it has been downhill for quite a while.

It seems I pay a lot of money to read comics that do little for my enjoyment.

Seibertron wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Huh, 2010 also happens to be the year that the Club stopped having text stories, with their last one coming out that year. I wonder if the lack of prose stories might have affected their 2010-Present fiction.

The 2005 to 2009 comics were at least focused on the toys associated with the BotCons of those years. Having fiction of the toys I had just invested in helped sell whatever the "theme" was of that year. Having diverged from that since 2010 by not focusing on that year's set has significantly diluted the sets and whatever story they were pushing. Again, my opinion, but this year's lack of interest (as demonstrated by this week's extremely candid message about reallocating stock from attendee to non-attendee) seems to show that I'm onto something about the perceived decline or the lack of interest in the BotCon exclusives.

The initial Club comics, while extremely convoluted, also followed suit. Initially they were focused on the club toys which worked "OK" since the first 5 were all one set, but it has been downhill for quite a while.

It seems I pay a lot of money to read comics that do little for my enjoyment.

But I asked about the text stories, if the lack of them affected the writing style of the comics from 2010 and onward.

Sabrblade wrote:But I asked about the text stories, if the lack of them affected the writing style of the comics from 2010 and onward.

I have no idea ... I've never read any of the Club's text only stories.

I like it. I've enjoyed all the comics so far. I don't know what anyone is talking about saying they don't focus on the con figures. They're all in the comics, even if just a cameo. There's more than ten figures every year. You can't have them all drive a 32 page story. They get they the set-up done in an issue. Where the story goes from there? Your call. That or prose which we haven't gotten in some time. Not sure what else you want from it.

Flux Convoy wrote:I like it. I've enjoyed all the comics so far. I don't know what anyone is talking about saying they don't focus on the con figures. They're all in the comics, even if just a cameo. There's more than ten figures every year. You can't have them all drive a 32 page story. They get they the set-up done in an issue. Where the story goes from there? Your call. That or prose which we haven't gotten in some time. Not sure what else you want from it.

I'd like less focus on characters that aren't the exclusives so that the story can focus on the BotCon and Club exclusives. The BotCon 2010 set is a perfect example. The non-convention characters should've been cameo appearances, not the other way around. Same with the TFA Stunticon set the following year ... the Stunticons should've been the main focus of the comic.

Seibertron wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:But I asked about the text stories, if the lack of them affected the writing style of the comics from 2010 and onward.

I have no idea ... I've never read any of the Club's text only stories.

The lack of the text stories could have affected the comics since, when they were writing them, the prose stories were used to expand on the world-building of the comics' universes. Without, the comics might have suffered without having to rely on the text stories for the development and expansion of the comics' various realities, leaving that task to fall to the comics themselves.

As far as the text stories went, I did not long just how tediously long they were, but some of them did feel well worth the read. I've only got three left to read, as I'm still behind in my Club fiction reading.

Of the ones I've read, I recommend "Wreckers: Finale Part II", "Gone Too Far", "Eye in the Sky", and "Blitzwing Bop". The former two of which are my favorites.

I dunno, I always feel like they do a good job of integrating the con characters into a decent enough story. I've yet to be disappointed by any of them. I know our separate comic tastes vary wildly though. Those old G1 and G1 UK comics that you hold dear? To me, they're awful. I enjoy them for the history of it all but I don't enjoy reading them. They're a chore to me. My two cents. Looking forward to what I think will be another good Botcon comic.