So, hey, Transformers: Drift #2 came out today. Last week, I made fun of Issue 1 for casually killing off G2 guys with reckless abandon, and Issue 2 does it one better! In the second and third panels of the first page, we see both Hot Shot and Shattered Glass Ravage all endeadened.  Well, that's conspicuous, isn't it?  The character I famously have a shrine of and the character I created?

And it's not just a coincidence.  Artist Alex Milne writes on the IDW forums:

when i started issue 2 i had a battle scene between the autobots and decepticons and i asked a few of my friends who to draw in there. a few of them said i should draw hot shot, and i was like hot shot??? why the hell do i want to draw him??? i'm not the biggest fan of armada anyways. then one of them said it was Walky's favourite, but i still don't know if that's true or not, and i laughed, and i said, if you want me to put him in, i will. personally i don't care. so at first i asked my friends what characters to add, they gave me a few choices and when i then wanted to know the reason behind there choice they told me, and i got a laugh out of it.

so, no lie here. no favourite characters of anyone who i hardly know in issue one. in issue 2, there is. did i do it because that guy upsets me. no. i don't really care what he says. i did it because my friends thought it was be funny and it's a character not in the G1-G2 line that will be used. oh, and i'm not the biggest fan of armada, so theres that too.

Sweet!  So basically, Alex Milne has a friend who not only hates me, but also has incredible control over what he draws in his comics for Hasbro.  I'm genuinely flattered!  I'm serious.  I made a difference in someone's life.  And I can't really throw a fit or anything.  I make fun of IDW's comics plenty.  I have little room for outrage.  I'm mostly happy they (or their friends) know who I am.

I like attention.

The only thing that really bothered me about this whole affair was Editor Denton Tipton's response to people being upset that their favorite characters were being casually offed in the backgrounds.

I have no control over what Milne says (outside of this forum). Just like he doesn't have any control over what characters live or die. For the record: All those characters are generics. This wouldn't even be an issue if it weren't for the fascination with "canon."

"Fascination with canon"?  Really?  You're going to condescend to us for caring about the stories you sell to us for $3.99?  If we see characters dying and we get upset, it's our fault for caring?  Great.

And if Milne really doesn't have any control over who lives and who dies, maybe you should tell him not to draw characters dying. Because from where I'm looking, he sure does seem to be determining who lives and who dies.  Or are we to disregard what we see in the comics we're reading?

Comic books are still a partially visual medium, right?  Or did I miss a memo?

I won't have anything new toy-wise to talk about until about Thursday night, if this UPS tracking remains correct, so we'll just have to fill the emptiness with promises of future things to talk about.

Check out the cover of the next Transformers Collectors' Club magazine.  Generations Wreck-Gar is coming!  (Oh, and Perceptor truck, I guess, but meh!)  And check out the pegs under his crotch and the matching peg holes on his motorcycle seat.  If you get more than one, he can ride himself.  I dig the asymmetric stuff going on with his body, plus how they managed to update him while harkening back to the original.  He still rocks the facial hair, plus they kept his gun-tits!  Hooray!

Oh, and the second Recordicons strip should be inside!  Woooo!

Since we're on an M-W-F schedule this week 'cuz I'm taking some time off to draw the remaining Joyce and Walky! subscription strips (got five done this morning!), I'll link you today's Dumbing of Age.  Technically there's still a new strip on this site today!  Sort of!  If you came here first!

On the left is some awesome (framed!) art by Jason Meador, who drew art for my AnimeFest badge.  He thought Maggie was going to be there too, and drew art for her badge as well.  I showed you mine that weekend, but here's a photo of our framed copy of Maggie's art hanging on our bedroom wall.  It's super-sweet!  There's a tech-spec on the back and everything.  (She's "Maggie Supreme.") Super thanks to Jason Meador (who posts to this site, so say hello!) for drawing that for us.

I'd meant to gab on about Generations Red Alert back on Monday night along with that week's Toy News International strip, but the Mike statues done shown up on my porch and Red got knocked back.

(Only a handful of Mike statues remain!)

As the TNI strip mentions, there's a lotta versions of this mold right now.  I own five, but there are about four more between Japanese versions of three of these guys and an additional (super super rare) G2 version of Sideswipe.  It's not the greatest mold, but it isn't terrible.  How is it that the toys that get redecoed the most are the ones that are actually pretty mediocre?  The original Seeker mold, the Classics Seeker mold, Dinobot... (SHUT UP SHUT UP DINOBOT IS AWESOME)

As I've mentioned previously, no matter how terrible the toy, the more versions of one toy I accumulate, the more desirable extra versions become.  It's absolutely nuts.   Maybe it's like mob mentality, how people get dumber in groups.  Well, these large groups make me dumber!

Red Alert himself isn't a bad version of the mold.  If I had to rank him by prettiness compared to the others, he'd probably rank a distant second after Breakdown.  Breakdown's color scheme has no equal, so that's just not terribly fair, but them's the breaks, Red.  The way the white and gray and sharp red play off each other is striking, just enough to edge him out over his primary color brothers.

As for the tooling itself, he's probably second-to-worst, just ahead of Tiny Head McGee, aka Mr. Punch/Counterpunch.  Why?  Well, because of the light bar on the roof, you can't mount his engine thingy on his back in robot mode anymore.  In addition, the holes on his shoulders are no longer large enough for him to peg his weapon into.  So Red Alert's forced into having to wrap the engine thingy around the gun and peg the whole thing into his wrist... which is an incredibly unstable arrangement even before we realize that this larger gun configuration conflicts with his forearm kibble.

So that's annoying.

I got word from Patch Together that there are fewer than 12 Mike statues remaining before he's all gone!  So if you need one, time is of the essence!  Find him available for purchase here.

And, yeah, I'm aware that DoA isn't working right now.  We're trying to fix it.

There was a box for me on my front porch today!  There were Mikes inside!  Wooooooooooooooo!

Here's a photo I snapped for you of Mike standing beside the Amber statue.  Also, here are some more photos from Starline and TheBlotSays, who also received theirs.  And, hey, guess what, there are still a few statues left for folks to buy!  Go grab him while he's still there.

The Mike statue is basically my most favorite thing ever.  I want to carry it around like an Academy Award.

Or, like, get that TF/GIJoe poster and have him stare down Roadblock.

Or just point to him in lieu of telling a Your Mom joke.  When someone's over at the house, and they say something like, "I paid a nickel for this!" I can just point to the Mike statue and it will be understood that I am mentally responding with "I paid a nickel for your mom."

See?  A time saver.

And, as I said, limited quantities. Don't be left out!

I'm setting up my booth at Intervention right now, and I only have room for one of my display banners.  I decided using the Roomies! one was most appropriate, considering its thirteenth anniversary today!

It might be the last time I ever display it, too, since I should probably replace all of my current banners with ones for just Dumbing of Age and Shortpacked! next year.  Ah, memories.

(Anybody wanna buy it?)