The Energon Pub

so i would like to present my case.

i'd like to present this from an industrial design perspective, which is academically considered as falling under the Arts department, as there are infact many industrial design museums around the world.

Certian designer products have made history, for example
Pininfarina designs of 1960 Ferrari cars and also the famous fiat 500.
Some Alessi kitchen design (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alessi_(company)
and of course Le Corbousier

vintage Toy transformers g1 seem to be attributed value
a) because of fan love for a particular character (eg optimus)
b) because of rarity (dino cassettes, marlboro wheeljack)
c) because they represented iconic cars of the 80s (jazz, wheeljack)


but
transformer 80s toys have a value as industrial design products. Speaking frankly, as 'objects of art' (in the same sense of warhol's tomato soup). In these regards i would like to repeat a trivia about G1 Slag on transformers wiki:"A Slag toy can be seen in the recreation of the Scottish artist Sir Eduardo Paolozzi's studio at the Scottish Dean Gallery This makes him the second Dinobot to have a toy in a museum"

now Paolozzi is all over london (see tottenham courtroad tube station it rocks) and is/was a mainstream recognized sculpture, I dont think he appreciated slag as a toy (he was way to old to appreciate tfs in the 80s) but rather appreciated the object as "design" and admired it enuff to put one in his studio.

That in itself is recognition, and i as a fan want a masterpiece slag. now... pls...

Interesting case for it but in truth I don't think you have to even work that hard to make your claim.
I think we all want Dinobots MPs, especially after Grimlock.
However if you want to elaborate on the design aspect of his existence, I would be really curious as to what direction you would take it.

2 topics about Slag?

You really dig old Slag don't you? Why not change your avatar to him (and I mean it with no malice).

Anyways talking about him, best scene I remember was in the 1986 movie when he should a little decorum to the Quints and the scene in DW's take on MTMTE. ...he turned Octane's head into an ash tray

i'll wait til Milne does a proper portrait of slag. or roche gives it another go. i love the look these two give to their bots, just not with slag, I might be wrong but it just seems to me Slag has been 'wearing' his war/fall of cybertron look ever since and nobody has proposed newer interpretations.

and as much as i am growing to like Raimondelli's pen, i still feel monstrosity does slag no justice. Raimondelli pen is more functional storywise than characterwise, Roche and Milne are the exact opposite, going for the cool character looks and then the whole picture/panel.

Yup that bit of trivia was added by me, after returning from my school trip to Edinburgh.
Slag was not the only toy in that exhibit, there where loads of Star Trek, Gundam, Macross, and other various Scifi toys in there, both still in box, MISB, MOSC and loose.

The guy loved his Scifi, that's basically what he did, he also made sculptures based on Terminator, Metropolis Lost in Space etc. So while it's likely the main thing he liked about Slag, it's possible he had a little more interest in TFs as a whole.

I would have taken pictures of the studio, but that was forbidden.

But yes, the dude had a major hard on for Scifi and especially robots.


However, neither the Museum, nor the Natural History Museum view their Slag and Grimlock as a piece of art, Slag was just something the artist had in his study when he died, and Grimlock is part of the Dinosaurs in popular culture exhibit.

And people wanted an MP Slag ever since MP 01 came out.