THE TRANS F****ERS – MORE THAN MEETS FOUR EYES!

This somewhat vulgar faux ad sketchbook scribble needs some explaining... ?®@N$ƒ?©?€®$!? Yes, in short, it was a teenage me trying to make something I liked cool for my vulgar teenage classmates (as they "outgrew" them). One can leave it at that, but if you want a longer story, then:

In 1984, The Transformers (now known as Transformers: Generation One) hit the world by storm. Toys transformed from realistic planes, vehicles, and household items into robots. Comics, books, and cartoons elaborated how they were warring clans of ancient sentient robots who transformed for disguise. In early 1984, I didn't like the creepy kids in the commercials. But then classmates brought some to school and I started watching the cartoon. By late 1984, I was hooked. And hooked for life. My parents didn't make much money but still managed to buy me and my bro every single one under the condition that we'd take care of them. The same went for Star Wars, G.I. Joe, MASK, WWF/WWE Wrestling figures, and on and on.

G1 Optimus Prime (by me). — G1 Optimus Prime (by me, 1997).

My mom, even though not loaded by any stretch of the imagination (most of my friends considered my family to be poor -- my dad was lower-middle-income and laid off on and off), spoiled us under the condition that we simply took care of them. And that we did. To this day, I never stopped collecting G1 Transformers. But back then, in the late 1980s, Transformers were dying. What was once the most popular toy and cartoon for young boys was in trouble. The problems were multiple.

Firstly, nearly all of the beloved characters from the 1st two seasons of the original cartoons were killed off in Transformers: The Movie, including most notably the iconic and heroic Autobot leader, Optimus Prime. Secondly, those young boys started hitting puberty and (mostly) noticing girls. Add to that, they stopped making new episodes of the cartoon just a year later (the cartoon sold the characters that sold the toys and it absolutely zapped the impact of the new toys when they stopped airing new ones after 1987), and the comic was too different from the cartoon and inconsistently/nonsensically weird to make up for it and carry that weight. And lastly, the toys' alternate modes were once real-world earth vehicles, planes, and household items were now garishly colored futuristic alien vehicles with little to no bearing on real-world vehicles and items. Add "Pretenders" to the mix and it really started getting ugly and sad. It was a 5-strike combo that even the most hardcore collector/fan lost interest.

So flashback to 1988. I was the kid who still liked Transformers. I was still quoting the cartoons and had all the toys on my shelf. Most of my friends and classmates thought I was immature and needed to grow up because I still liked toys. They either blew theirs up with firecrackers and threw them away or their parents gave them away. But I kept all mine. (In hindsight, who was more mature? See the secondary market prices?) Now, it's a different answer as all the toys are worth a lot of money and the cartoons are beloved. Back then, my way of dealing with it was to try and "spice them up". I bragged about TF:TM had swear words and characters actually died! And.. when I was 14, I drew comics where I used adult vulgarity to try and sell to my buddies that TFs were still cool. And this is what that was. I was doing "Adult Swim" and "Family Guy" type of stuff back before it existed. Probably why I am a tad jaded and jealous that people made money and fame doing this sort of thing, and I didn't.

Maybe someday I'll remaster and finish it. But for now, I leave it as it was in 1988, just pencils on lined paper. Flash forward and various incarnations brought it back from death, (G2, Beast Wars, a few assorted reboots, but none more of a boon to the franchise than the live-action movies from the 2000s. Many old-school fans hate them because they're not exactly like the old cartoons, toys, and comics, and while that may be true to a certain degree, it still saved TFs from obscurity as many young kids got into them and adults got nostalgic for the old ones. Love or hate, that's what they did. In the meantime, here were a few of my actual Transformer drawings from the early 1990s. I think I made them to try out for comic book companies but never did.

More art, and this time, not a parody:

Some uncolored pencil and ink drawings of some of the more popular G1 cartoon characters, and a few of my personal styles of a G1/G2 hybrid comic. All drawn in the early 1990s.