Contest Announcement and Interview with Jim Sorenson on Transformers Animated: The AllSpark Almanac

Cliffjumper, commence countdown. Five, four,

three... Tune in next week for a much better

episode for now though courage hello and welcome

to the 49th episode of Toycast sponsored by big

bad toy store comm where you can save from 20

to 90 percent and over 1 ,000 items I am your

host if you and Mike and Joining me for two episodes

in a row is general techno. Hello. Hello everybody

on the intertubes. Oh That doesn't sound right

That just I could have made it sound worse easily.

I'm sure you could have. Actually, this is a

very special episode. We will be announcing a

contest for episode 50, and we will also have

my interview with Jim Sorensen, one of the co

-authors of Transformers animated the All -Spark

Almanac volumes 1 and 2. Sweet, you interviewed

him? Awesome. About three minutes ago, right

before I messaged you. Why didn't you just talk

toys with him? He's got a massive collection.

Well, the whole point of the interview was to

get more details out of him on volume two. Because

it's like, yeah, June can't get here fast enough.

Right. I'll definitely have to listen. Yes, you

will. It will also be featured as just a standalone

interview in all things transformers So if you

don't want to listen to your own voice in this

episode You can just listen to that one because

I'm gonna put that I'm gonna put the interview

together in like three different episodes It'll

be a good show to listen to because yeah, I mean

he's look just looking at the wealth of information

he has I mean, I'm sure he be pretty good as

just a toycast guest as well. Even like Derek

Wyatt, his collection is pretty impressive. Right,

but the thing about guys like that is that they're

so busy and they don't exactly have time. Like,

Jim's okay for interviews, but I wouldn't see

him as, I mean, even just a random guest. You

know, I mean, I'm sure he's very, very busy.

Now, that's not to say, you know, if Jim is listening

to this, which I am going to point this out to

him on Twitter in an email that we did this episode,

if he would like to come on Toycast and talk

toys, he's more than welcome to. But I just don't

see people like him and Derek, I just can't see

them as... Not that they wouldn't be good guests.

I just don't see them having the time to make

I think Granted these episodes only last anywhere

from 20 minutes to an hour I think the only episode

of toy cast that we ever had that went two hours

over was when we did the revenge of the fallen

Discussion and review when it was still in theaters

Yes, that was an epic episode that I listened

to and I was so upset that I wasn't in it So

it's been going on with you sir I don't know

much just school related and stuff. I'm Sending

out some toys for people as I mentioned I need

to get that stuff in the mail still Just being

a bit busy to get to the post office, but they'll

get out this weekend This Saturday I'm doing,

at a local comic shop, they're doing a 12 -hour

comic challenge every spring. It's a fundraiser

for the Big Brothers Big Sisters chapter in town.

So it's basically 12 pages, 12 hours for the

participants. So, you know, you get the adrenaline

going, you write your story, you draw it all

up and everything, and you have it all done in

12 hours, and then they print up books, they

do books as well, compiling all of the entries.

I guess it sounds like it's to some extent dependent

on demand, because there was a year that they

didn't do one, but it looks like that last year

there's a book that they're doing which is coming

out, which I actually have something in, so.

Cool. Yeah, I've just been Podcasting my butt

off like usual We are actually going to tie episode

50 into a contest. This is something that you

would wanted to do Suggested no, no, it's fine.

Well, I mean we can do it as long as doesn't

cost me any money. I don't care You had offered

to get some recon ravages for say the US listeners

that don't want to deal with the mail away stuff

and I said I could pick up a recon ravage and

make it a prize for something because I've picked

up a bunch anyway right and given that they all

that they shipped in assortments of just recon

ravages in every case I don't think it would

be very hard for me to go back and grab another

one right and the way that we're going to run

this contest is It also ties into the 50th episode

of Toycast where I've asked people to either

call into the voicemail line 502 -526 -5821 and

leave us a message either doing a toy review

of your own or you can just congratulate us on

making it to 50 episodes because honestly I didn't

ever think this show would hit 50 episodes or

you can send an mp3 file to tfg1podcast .gmail

.com and we will randomly draw out of all the

the voicemails and and mp3s that we that we receive

That gets pretty impressive 50 episodes and it

hasn't even been a year yet. That's just wow

well, you know I've said before this is one of

those shows where honestly, there's you know

the I've said it thousands of times before. I

feel like a broken record. This is pretty much

a show where a bunch of friends that have toys

or Transformers toys or whatever want to get

around, it's like going over to your best friend's

house and talking with toy collections you have.

These episodes can be recorded and released within

a matter of hours, let alone days. It's just

one of those easy shows where there's no research

really involved I mean, it's well. I mean there

there really isn't yes granted. We do look at

the TF wiki for You know just purposes of say

I don't have the toy that you have or you know

vice versa And I want to see what it looks like

or whatever. It's basically you know YouTube

reviews without the video is basically what it

is So yeah, it's very, very amazing. So again,

I'm going to actually extend the voicemail deadline.

The new voicemail deadline will be Monday, March

29th. That will be the last day that you can

get voicemails in. Like I said before, send them.

You can either call the voicemail number, 502

-526 -5821. Or you can send the mp3 file to me,

tfg1podcast .gmail .com. However many that we

receive, those names will go into a hat, and

Techno will pick random winner. I don't know

how many ravages you're actually planning on

picking up for this. If you're just going to

plan on picking up one. I'm just going to get

the one ravage. OK. That's fine. That's fine.

So yeah, you can have a chance to win Recon Ravage

without having to deal with the mail away here

in the US. Which means you don't have to get

that inferior Bumblebee Soundwave 2 pack. Huzzah!

Why do Canadians and Brits always say huzzah?

That's a good question. Because we didn't betray

the motherland? Okay, I'm not touching that highly

charged topic. What toy are you going to be talking

about, sir? Well, I'm going to be doing something

that really, it's actually even a surprise to

myself to some extent, in that it's normally

when I buy toys and that kind of thing, I normally

make my judgments largely based on things like

posability and aesthetics. Accessories and all

those types of things, but I've kind of and I

don't like Giant hunks of plastic which can't

do very much, you know like stuff like supreme

cheetoir for instance but every once in a while

I do make exceptions and there's some stuff that

looks party that's look pretty darn cool in stores

for a while that Was of the case where oh if

I if I were to see that for a cheap price I'd

really be tempted to pick it up like For instance,

with the G .I. Joe Rise of Cobra line, there

were a lot of those vehicles which they kept

going on sale and I kept talking myself out of

buying them because it's like the last thing

you need is to start collecting vehicles. Well,

I caved onto some vehicles, it seems. A few weeks

back I was getting some stuff and noticed that

they had, for what I thought was a pretty good

price, a Night G .I. Joe Rise of Cobra Night

Raven vehicle. Now, this is an update, I guess,

of the original real American hero, Night Raven.

It's not as big as the original. I'm told the

original was like two feet long. So it's definitely

smaller, but that doesn't mean it's not cool

whatsoever. It's actually really, really awesome.

It's the type of thing that I enjoy it now, but

I would have enjoyed it even more if I was 10

years younger because it is so awesome as a vehicle.

like I mean the first thing is is it's just got

a whole bunch of accessories and Like for instance

with the cockpit the way that works is that there's

a little lever you pull that lowers the Cockpit

chair out of the bottom of the plane so then

you can put the pilot in there Mm -hmm. It's

like the actual window doesn't open but instead

a piece comes out of the bottom and it's actually

pretty cool for if you've got the plane landed

because then you can get him in and out really

easily and You know, it's got landing gear like

pretty much like most plane vehicles. The pilot

itself isn't anything really spectacular. It's

like just a pilot, generic pilot figure. It fits

any three, three -quarter inch GI Joe figure.

So I mean, there's, you could put your ripcord

in it if you wanted to reenact stuff from the

movie, for instance, and have Marlon Wayans speaking

in Celtic to try and shoot down warheads. Oh

God. Don't refine me But there's some really

sweet things like for instance one of the things

that makes this really nice is Well, it's a plane

and as everyone knows It's awesome when you can

have your planes and stuff like fly around when

you roll plane and that kind of stuff. Well this

It's got a firing missile system, but it goes

one better in that it has a fold -down trigger

in the back There's a trigger that folds down

so that you can actually hold the plane without

like holding onto the sides or something to make

it fly You hold it like you would hold like a

toy gun or something like that, right? And there's

nice red trigger button. That's right there and

you're probably not gonna really be able to hear

this well, but It's got lock and load action.

Oh wow. Yeah that came through Yes, you push

that you push the nose of the plane in and then

you go lock and load What it has is, next to

each engine where the weapons are, there is a

rotating piece that holds six missiles apiece.

They both move in sync when you lock and load,

so that it'll move to another slot. And then

when you press the trigger, you get the requisite

sounds. So yeah, you lock and load and shoot

and it fires off two missiles at once and then

you re -cock it and then fire another one So

really you've got and as with a lot of Hasbro's

missiles like the range is pretty good for these

things I've always loved the range that Hasbro

toys have no joke here like even as a kid because

I had a few toys where the range was just horrendously

horrible and it barely shot like a foot a missile,

but you can usually get several feet out of the

missiles that are on spring -loaded Hasbro toys,

which has always impressed me. Right. But yeah,

so you basically got a gun -shaped plane, essentially.

You know, I think the only reason why you wanted

to review that toy was because you have electronic

lights and sounds on it. Well, no, actually.

The electronic lights and sounds are sweet, but

I was pretty impressed before I even put the

batteries in. I was pretty impressed by it. But

it's got some other lights and sounds as well

though. I may as well show this off. It's actually

got some really good electronics in it. The engines

light up as well when you cue the sounds. So

it looks really good as a package. See, you've

got the plane cruising. It even has the startup

cruising noise. Yep. And then you've got dialogue

and stuff. Yeah, you know deliberately muffled

like it's going over radio chatter, yeah And

then I guess that's like a target lock sort of

sound there that you can do Yeah, and as you

as it was illustrated when I was firing off the

missiles it alternates between the rapid -fire

machine gun and just a missile fire But yeah,

it's a really nice. It's a really solid toy.

It's got it's dark a nice dark blue red plastic

it's also comes with a whole bunch of stickers

which I haven't actually applied yet myself because

they I just haven't gotten around to and it looks

really nice even without it like the stickers

have stuff like you know Cobra logos and all

the numbers and all the little details and stuff

because I guess that the vehicles have had a

lot of those like I've heard the most of the

detailing on the playset for instance apparently

is done by giant sticker sheets which you have

to put on your put on yourself That's what I've

seen in pictures and stuff But yeah, it's a really

nice vehicle. It's one of the it's something

that I don't really have so anywhere to put it

yet at this point So this lights around but it's

pretty it's a fun toy it's not it's not a great

display piece if only because the fact that It's

a plane and planes are kind of tricky to display

when you don't want them just with their landing

gear deployed Like a lot trickier than if they

just a general vehicle or even the amp seats

from avatar which are also awesome mmm like that

toy, but yeah, it's a pretty neat vehicle and

Heck, I guess this is probably a taster for when

they I eventually feel compelled to buy that

giant 880 8080 that Hasbro is putting out for

us Empire Strikes Back's anniversary this year

But how the holds like six figures in the cockpit

and stuff. Oh cool Yeah, that thing looks awesome

Like a Millennium Falcon for this year And you

all remember just the epicness that is the Millennium

Falcon in size I don't have one of those but

I don't have anywhere to put one anyway, so I

have one that transforms unfortunately, oh Does

it have a sombrero sombrero? No, no Millennium

Falcon that transforms. Oh I was referring to

the Han Solo Chewbacca duo come new where is

it chewy that has a sombrero I can't recall I

don't even remember I don't know Michael Wilson

sent me a whole bunch of you know half you know

mismatched toys and whatever else and I open

one thing and it's the Millennium Falcon holy

crap cool look on the side of it why the fuck

does a Millennium Falcon have a fist in the side

of it oh wait it transforms no thanks And I'm

not saying no, thanks to be a gift horse Mike,

you know looking a gift horse in Michael Wilson's

mouth I'm just saying, you know that toys staying

in Millennium Falcon mode. Oh, I don't blame

you like with the star with the Star Wars Transformers

I'm only got one of those just the Imperial shuttle

Palpatine that looks a lot better in shuttle

mode But honestly, the only reason I got it was

because the head kind of reminded me of G axis

from the G2 comics But they've gotten better

with the Star Wars Transformers I think but still

the big problem with those is Compared to the

Marvel ones anyway is because I've got a couple

of a few of the Marvel ones But those have the

advantage where they don't have to worry about

slavish vehicle accuracy So and they're more

interested in designing a cool robot that looks

like the character so that really comes through

in the design Plus also those things are also

for the most part designed by our Marcelo mater

the Transformers artist. For instance, that Ghost

Rider one that we're getting soon that looks

awesome, that's his design. Cool. Yeah, they

were designed to be fully fledged Transformers

by someone who knows the engineering and the

Star Wars ones, I think their problem was they

were probably designed more by a Star Wars team,

I'm guessing, and vehicle accuracy is probably

the number one factor and then trying to figure

out how to get a robot to fit into that vehicle.

That looks like a Star Wars character. Yeah.

So is that all you have to say about your little

toy there? I guess that's about all I have to

say right now, yeah. I mean, it's a fun rise

of Cobra Toy. It takes up a bit of space, but

not nearly as much as the pits. But it's not

that bad in terms of space. It's got a really

good arsenal of lights and sounds, plus the firing

missiles. Yeah, seriously, this is probably out

of the vehicles that I have in my that I still

have from all my childhood because I've still

got all those toys This is probably the best

vehicle that I've got and the other ones I've

got are like I've got a Batmobile I've got one

of the I've got the spaceship from the Space

Jam I've got a penguin the penguins plane from

the Batman Returns toy line and the Bob's car

from reboot Which has horrendous missile range

by the way it shoots them like a few inches All

right, well I am going to be continuing my robot

heroes coverage and This time we're going to

be talking about g1 robot heroes hound and blitzwing

Why the hell hound was packaged with blitzwing

I have no idea The simple fact that I also have

the Optimus Prime, Ravage combination. And I,

you know, I think that Hound would have been

better packaged with Ravage rather than Optimus.

Now I don't know, because I don't have the wiki

up, I don't know which wave Hound and Blitzwing

were in. I know that Optimus and Ravage were

in one of the most earliest waves. Yes, they

were. I mean, Prime was a no -brainer to be in

an early wave and Ravage is also a really popular

character. So that was also a no -brainer to

put early on, I imagine. Plus he's a cat, a cute

cat at that. Whereas characters like, I mean,

Hound, he's got a following and so does Blitzwing,

but I would count them as more second -tier characters.

And even when you look at their wavemates, they

were wavemates with Sunstreaker and Galvatron.

which is yet another one of those what two packs

yeah and i think also that i believe i could

be wrong here but i think that they also co -shipped

with the uh cheetor blackarachnia they co -shipped

with cheetor blackarachnia and uh who was it

uh was it beast wars megatron rattrap i can't

remember who the wait I'm not sure. But they

did code, but their wave mates were two of the

Beast Wars robot heroes, two packs. Right. Yeah,

I'm pretty sure it was Rat Trap Megatron and

Cheetor Black Racknia, so. Oh, cool. One of the

things that, it may just be my hound, my version

of hound, I don't know the one that I got. One

of the things that pisses me off about him, they

put all the budget in his waist articulation.

His waist turns 360 degrees at the Jeep front.

Like his like his chest, but his head will not

turn whatsoever Like it it's like I'm actually

trying to force it to turn like it's looking

straight and it just it will not turn so I don't

know if it's my if it's the the package that

I picked up or if it's Supposed to be this way

on all of them I like how His left arm, if you

put it down, it looks like he's punching his

own knee. And he does come with his hologram,

projector, missile thingamajig. And overall,

I think it's a good representation of Hound in

the Robot Heroes style. Oh yeah, it looks like

a good Hound. I do wish that... Well, number

one, I wish all the Robot Heroes were the majority

of them. weren't crouching all the time. Again,

I think we can blame Pat Lee for that one. Well,

true. Well, we can blame Pat Lee for a lot of

crap. But, I mean, just really, really intuitive

to his G1 design, I think. Very, very cool. And

then you have Blitzwing. The coolest thing about

Blitzwing, or the two coolest things about Blitzwing

is the smirk on his face, or the cheesy grin

like this type of smile where he's baring his

teeth, and his energon sword thingamajig that

he's holding in his left hand. I was going to

say, I mean, if memory serves, he has his sword,

doesn't it? Because that's an accessory that

the toy had but you don't normally think of when

you think of Blitzwing. There is also, it's very

cool how they molded him with his tank and his

wings with his turret in between and then of

course obviously the wings are on the sides.

They actually molded, now I gotta compare to

the actual toy because I do have a crap, I do

have a G1 Blitzwing here. I'm not sure, maybe.

Yeah, closest I've seen to a complete G1 Blitzwing,

which, I mean, I've probably seen some at conventions,

but the closest thing I've seen to a complete

mint box one was the green and tan recolor that

Takara did in their reissue series. Well, one

of the reasons why I wanted to compare them,

obviously, because they're the same character,

but... On the robot heroes version on the do

you have yours with you? No, it's upstairs. Sorry.

Well when you go upstairs after we're done We're

doing this recording and you look at the g1 robot

heroes blitzwing look on the bottom of where

his turret is Right above his ass There are two

there are two silver markings that are like popped

out I think those are supposed to be some sort

of boosters on the robot heroes. I don't know

on the robot hero version of him whereas the

G1 version doesn't have that I don't know I mean

it's got booster like stuff on his feet but it

doesn't have it like like on his back type of

deal like it has on the robot heroes well did

the G1 animation model have anything like that

because sometimes they homage those I don't know

I'm not really sure and I'm not saying that this

that the robot heroes version was an homage of

the toy I'm just comparing the differences between

right to since I have them here and Surprisingly

blitzwing is another one of those weird g1 toys

that I can actually transform without breaking

it And I'm guessing that when you got here in

the package he came out really easily with nary

a twist. I Getting in the way. Well, it was g1

so and I bought him off of eBay so it came loose

so but it did come with the box Unfortunately,

my blitzwing box is in Spanish for some fucking

reason So it was probably Spanish release them

Probably or even like in because yet Mexico probably

would have had the trilingual cards. So I Have

no idea Well the other reason why I think it's

obviously Spanish because of the Spanish box,

but he also comes with His missiles or his his

weapons or whatever they're not there. They're

the tan brown. They're not the purple color I

Would have to go find them and it would take

me too long to find them, but yeah I Don't know

it's just just one of those things where strange

Granton, I only paid, I think I got him for like,

I don't know, 15, 20 bucks on eBay. Because even

though he did include his box, he was loose.

But anyway, to the robot heroes here, very, very

cool. Again, I wish they would have packaged

Hound with Ravage, I think it would have been

a better homage to G1. Like, I don't know, is

there an Astro Train Robot Heroes? No, they did

not do Astrachain. Blitzwing is the only one

of the triple changers who got one of those.

Damn it, Hasbro, you suck. Yeah, I'm also upset.

I'm mainly just upset that we never got Inferno

Tagatron. Because I wanted that Inferno badly.

Because Inferno is awesome. Uh, Inferno can burn.

The dude survived what was originally written

to be his death in season 2, that's impressive.

I know. When you consider just what he survived.

Yeah, I know. So that's gonna pretty much wrap

it up for us, I think. We are probably going

to cut to some clips of Sentinel Prime. And then

you will hear my interview with Jim Sorensen,

and then we will come back for the outro. So,

we will be right back. This message brought to

you by Sentinel Prime. No one's heard word one

from those goofbots in nearly a Deca -cycle.

Liquid falling from the sky? What is wrong with

this planet? I hate this planet. Hey everyone,

this is Mike TFG1Blanchard and I have the great

privilege to talk with Jim Sorensen, co -author

of Transformers Animated the AllSpark Almanac

Volumes 1 and 2. Hi Jim, how are you? Doing great,

thanks for having me. Uh, very cool to have you

on. Um, why don't you give a little, like, I

mean I know that you just were on Radio Free

Cybertron. a little while ago. Why don't you

give us some background as like where you grew

up and like when did your Transformers fandom

start and all that? Well I grew up in Long Island,

New York and my Transformers fandom started when

I was eight which would put it in 1984 when they

very first came out. I was really impressed with

that, with GoBoss, with Transformers, Robotech,

Voltron, I liked all that stuff. And I think

my first Transformer was Prowl, the first one

that I actually owned was Prowl, although I had

a lot of fun playing with a Ravage and a Soundwave.

I guess that's that one of my eight -year -old

peers had brought over to my house. Did my mom

go out immediately and try and find some Transformers.

And we went and looked at props in the primary,

we went to about six different stores. And they

didn't have it because it probably wasn't actually

out yet at that point. So I decided if I couldn't

have a truck, at least a police car is pretty

cool too. I settled on Prowl. And that left its

mark because to this day, Prowl is one of my

favorite characters. And I guess my formal involvement

with the fandom came when I went to college and

I discovered the internet and this pretty cool

place called Alt Toys Transformers where I started

posting. under a couple of different names eventually

just went with Jim Sorenson because I'm a bit

of an egomaniac so no real sense hiding behind

the scream name but when I first started everybody

was hiding behind weird names so I did too, it's

just the culture. Right. Well you kind of mentioned

Prowl already but my next question would be do

you have a favorite cartoon or specific toy from

all of the incarnations of Transformers? favorite

cartoon yeah I love G1 the American G1 of course

because of the nostalgia I grew up with that

and then Beast Wars I was skeptical about it

first I remember watching it probably I think

it was a Sunday morning the pilot and I said

yeah there's potential here but it seems a little

derivative and I'm not sure about the CGI but

eventually they completely won me over I think

it was the I think it was the season finale when

they had the Unicron sort of Unicron cameo that

made me say, okay, well they're clearly versed

in the lore to a certain extent. And I went back

and rewatched them all and I said, oh, this is

actually quite good. And then the newer one,

of course, Animated, really I think is something

very special. So I'd say the G1 American, Beast

Wars and Animated are my favorites. It's hard

to actually choose which one I like best. do

different things very well. Favorite toy? I'd

probably go with Laser Optimus Prime from the

G2 line. I thought that was just a triumph of

engineering. I love the gimmicks, the various

guns that he has, the light piping that goes

through his sword or his gun, the missile launcher

that fires five missiles. I think he's a terrific

toy. And then I was actually in Japan when Car

robots came out. So I got the the black convoy

Scourge in America. I thought wow. Well, what

a great update for this mold. What a great deco.

This is before Every single optimus prime had

to have a black redeco. So great somewhat fresh

and new although I remember thinking to myself

that it was disappointing that they've gutted

the the light -up mechanism and I always intended

to find a beat -up old laser optimus prime and

take out the lights and replace it with my black

convoy but I never quite got around to doing

that. With Transformers Animated the All Spark

Almanac what made you want to put these books

together? As opposed to sort of the earlier work

that I've done? Well unfortunately I haven't

seen your earlier work I've only seen this but

because I was a fan of animated I'm just wondering

like Why did you choose to make basically a companion

book for this cartoon? Well, I guess it seemed

like a very natural progression after doing the

ARC books. So to really answer that question,

I have to say why I did the ARC books. And for

those of you who don't know, the ARC books were

collections of character animation models, black

and white character animation models from the

old Generation 1 cartoon. There were two of those.

The first one was American, all four seasons

of American animation models. And I actually

managed to track down every single character

model for toy characters. And quite a few of

the ones that were just get stars, like Alpha

Trion, and DevCon, and Junkion, and Unicron,

characters like that. And then the second one,

I did all the Japanese shows that came out. quite

get every character, but I got most of those

characters. And I did those books because I loved

animation models, and I had a little bit too

much time on my hands. And for those who know

me, they'll know that I can never be idle. I'm

always doing something. I'm actually usually

doing two or three things at once. And I was

between jobs at the time. I had left a stable

job to do an unstable one that was more fun.

being unstable, eventually, it was consulting,

and eventually our client decided they didn't

want to hire us anymore, so we basically were

out of work. So I had all this free time on my

hands, so I said, well, I've always intended

to make a website or something with these character

animation models. Why don't I try? And being

ambitious, I said, well, I'll try for a book.

So I put together a pitch for IDW, and IDW liked

it, and that's why I was able to make the art

books. And then the All Spark Almanac seemed

like a natural progression from there. pitch

the idea of doing Transformers animated as the

animation models from that. Partially because

I met Derek Wyatt at a convention. I think it

was probably BotCon 2008. And it turns out that

he was familiar with my animation model books

and he used them as reference in the show. So

I thought, well, wouldn't it be neat to then

turn around and do the same thing with animated.

So I pitched to IUW that we do a black and white

book of animated character models, and IUW said

sure. And then as I started getting material

from Derek, it turned out that, of course, they

did all the characters in color. In the old days,

in the 1980s, all of the animation was pretty

much done overseas, but the character models

were made in California or New York. So... they

would be faxed overseas. They didn't really have

any better way of transmitting them than that.

So they pretty much had to be in black and white.

They'd have color reference guides, but they

usually tended to only be the front and they

didn't have that many copies. So almost everything

was done in black and white. So that's why my

generation one books were in black and white.

But then, you know, in modern times, it's really

easy to just send an email with a color image

as an attachment. So everything's done up in

color. So I thought, okay, why not do it in color?

And then... As we started putting it together,

we realized that we had so much material. We

didn't just have the robots, but we also had

all the backgrounds and all the props. Literally,

we had everything that Cartoon Network had they

gave to us in terms of animation models and reference.

So we said, oh, we can cover everything. And

it started to require more and more explanations

to make sense of what you were looking at. It's

pretty simple. You don't need a lot of text if

all you're looking at is You can pretty much

get away with just labeling your character. But

when you start showing everything, you really

need to contextualize it more. And that's why

we decided to come up with bios for characters

and explanations for what you're looking at.

And then we started writing the bios, and they

turned out to be a little bit dry, as bios written

from a theoretically objective point of view

tend to be. So we said, well, why make it objective?

Why not make it... Completely subjective why

not put it in universe and once we hit that decision

the book started to look a lot like the final

product You know that kind of ties into my next

question because when I first bought volume one

And I started reading through it and I started

reading some of the characters bios as other

characters were writing like say Even though

I have it right here next to me. I don't remember

off top of my head say Say lug nut wrote the

bio for Blitzwing or vice versa or whatever You

know when I when I was reading through the bios

I could actually hear the voices of the characters

in my head How did you tap into the personalities

of each character writing the other characters

bios? We watched a lot of animated We we had

the whole thing on our Tevo that we were able

to go back and rewatch the episode. So if we

wanted to write an episode guide or a character

bio for, say, Blitzwing, and the first step is

to say, who would have the most interesting perspective

on Blitzwing? And we thought, okay, Lugnut. Lugnut

works next to Blitzwing. He knows him pretty

well. He respects him on some level, but he also

is annoyed with him on some other levels. So

there's a little bit of... tension there just

within love not so he seemed like a good choice

and then we watched a lot of animated to try

and internalize that voice and we wrote it out

and it helped that we had Derek and Marty reading

through the books too because they they gave

us some notes when they thought if they thought

we hadn't quite gotten something right they didn't

happen so often in terms of voice mostly it was

in terms of facts you know, we reference something

and he said, oh no, actually it turns out it

was some other way. But every once in a while

they had a note on the voice too. And the reason

it occurred to me is because of the specific

example you used, which with Lugnot, the notes

they said was every paragraph that comes out

of Lugnot's mouth should be centered around Megatron.

Doesn't really matter what the subject is, it

should be how it relates to Megatron. So when

we're talking about blipswing, it's not so much

that Blitzwing is unstable, it's that Blitzwing's

instability hinders his effectiveness in serving

Megatron's agenda. Ah! So, it helped. In that

specific case, it definitely helped to have,

vis -a -vis boys, it helped to have Marty's perspective.

Right. Now, when I first bought this, I thought

at the time, because at first I was skeptical

about Transformers Animated and then... Got to

watching it more because I at the time I wasn't

watching it very frequently like when it was

on air I eventually got the DVDs and eventually

caught up with season 3 when I first heard about

all spark almanac volume 1 Originally, I thought

it was the end all be all everything For the

entire show in one book. So was there because

when I got to the end of it really I'm like wait,

where's season 3 what? What the hell's going

on? So was there specific reasoning in having

two volumes of the book? Well, I wouldn't exactly

say specific reasonings in having two volumes.

I would say there were specific reasons for why

we cut it off at the end of season two. Okay.

And there's a number of reasons, but the main

reason is that when we wrote the book, season

three hadn't come out yet. Ah. We would have

had a hard time doing it. It's not that we...

absolutely couldn't have because we actually

had all the scripts and storyboards for season

three so we could have had a go at it but the

trouble is it can be really hard to read a script

and a storyboard and get the sense of what the

episode is actually going to feel like and sometimes

if you listen to people talk about doing adaptations

of movies and whatnot generally they're working

from scripts or storyboards and sometimes as

a result of that They choose to emphasize scenes

that really weren't that important in the movie,

or maybe even got cut out of the movie. For instance,

the Transformers movie adaptation, the classic

1986 movie, the first adaptation by Marvel, not

the more modern one by IDW, had the planet Junkion

fly towards Unicron. And that obviously was cut

out of the final movie. So we were hesitant to

try and review something that we hadn't. or not

review, but tried to make an episode guide to

a show that we hadn't actually watched. And then

the other reason was space. We originally allocated

208 pages, and we kept going back to IDW and

pushing and saying, well, can we have 212? Well,

can we have 250? And eventually, we got them

up to 220 and the inner cover, front and back

cover. So we effectively got an extra 14 pages

out of them. And they said, OK, that's Really,

guys, that's enough. You're going to have to

deal with the space you have. So we wanted to

be able to cover everything as thoroughly as

possible. So we thought it was a better idea

to do a really thorough, exhaustive job on seasons

one and two than to try and cram a whole other,

you know, there's a good maybe 50 characters

or so introduced in season three. A lot of them

are cameos, but a lot of them aren't. We wouldn't

want to short -change them. So if you wanted

to try and fit 50 more characters in, we would

have had to get rid of 50 pages of other material.

And I would have a hard time thinking what we'd

get rid of. There's some pieces that are a little

bit more modular than others, like maybe we didn't

need to cover Detroit. But I really wanted to

cover Detroit. And if we got all the characters

into the first volume, we definitely wouldn't

have been able to do a second volume, because

we just wouldn't have had much to cover. Nobody

wants to get a second volume that's just... Detroit

and backgrounds and stuff. You know, they're

gonna want characters, they're gonna want episodes.

So those are the two reasons that we weren't

sure we could do a good job with the show we

hadn't seen and that we didn't really have enough

room to do the kind of job we wanted to do. How

far along are you guys on volume two? We're pretty

far at this point. Our deadline's in about three

weeks. Part one is about 95 % done. Part one

is going to be season three, and we're going

to have a very similar feel to the first book.

And then part two is about 50 % done. That's

going to be more of the behind the scenes stuff.

That's mostly where we're working now. There's

a few last minute, like, harder pieces from one

that we're still working on. But for the most

part, one looks like it's going to look. And

we also haven't done any of the or many of the

interstitials yet to separate out the chapters

and learn from the things like the table of contents

or the the introduction or the the acknowledgement

section right which isn't isn't it is non -trivial

work because we do have to make new artwork for

it and or or find existing artwork that we think

would go there because we don't waste a single

page we try and make sure that every page has

some sort of model on it or drawing or at least

an interesting factoid. Right, right. You had

mentioned in the Radio Free Cybertron interview

that you did that you wanted to explore, like

you just said, the behind the scenes stuff. Did

Hasbro give you any of the Transformers animated

toys that have not been released yet, such as

Rotimus or anything like that? Hasbro has given

us some Some things we can use from toys that

haven't yet come out. Cool. How many cover designs

did you look at before the final cover was chosen?

Because the final cover, I believe it's the final

cover, has been shut off with the Amazon listing.

Now, is that the final cover, or... How many

other designs did you look at? Yeah, the cover

design on Amazon is the final cover, or 99 %

the final cover. It's possible something might

shift a millimeter or something. But basically,

that's the cover that's going to be on the book.

How many cover designs did we look at? We went

through a lot of sketches and a lot of ideas.

We were thinking that maybe it would be nice

to do some Decepticons, because the first book

featured Autobots, and that way we could sort

of mirror it a bit. And the challenge there was

that we also wanted to keep a nice sense of fun.

And the Decepticons don't lend themselves as

well. You could do some stuff with Lugnut maybe,

he can be a little goofy, or the Constructicons,

but a lot of the Decepticons are just too menacing

to really have be fun. And then even with characters

like the Constructicons, we also wanted to make

sure that at least one of the characters on the

cover was one of the sort of iconic core characters.

So that sort of limited our ideas, and we bounced

them around, and eventually we Bill actually

came up with the idea for the cover that we wound

up using, and Marcelo, I thought, did a terrific

job with it. Yeah, I'm looking at it now. I think

it's very funny that you guys have them holding

or looking at other toys or the toy boxes. That's

very, very cool. One of the things that really

kind of shocked me with Season 3 was what Derek

did with Shockwave. Can you tell us if True Colors

Shockwave will be in the book or not? The animation

model? The bio, animation model, anything. Oh

yeah, we'll have material about it. Way cool.

Can you tease us with anything else from Volume

2? You have to be a little bit more specific

than that. How much Rodimus coverage are we getting?

There'll be a decent amount on Rodimus. Don't

think Rod and his fans will be unhappy. Okay.

Are we gonna get a shot of him being cosmic rusted?

That's possible Very very cool All right. Well,

I guess to wrap this up. Where can people either

find or interact with you on the internet? I

have a blog called the cycles of bullpacks. That's

probably the best place to reach me. I try and

update it A few times a week I do reviews of

comic books and some television shows I watch.

And on Tuesdays I try to post new character models

from generation one that haven't been forwarded

and published. Because I have quite a backlog

of stuff that didn't make it into the art books.

So I usually can find something interesting to

share with the audience. I'm also on the the

transformers wiki and I post on Twitter as Sentinel

Prime, so I'm not too hard to find Okay, I got

to bring this up. Why did you choose Sentinel

as your Twitter? personality Sentinel is my favorite

character from animated really I can't get enough

of them. I think he was one of the real breakaway

characters I mean Sentinel Prime has been part

of the mythology of transformers and You know,

sometime in the late 1980s, Simon Furman was

talking about him as part of the lineage of crimes,

but he'd always been something of a cipher, a

non -entity. Even in Megatron Origin, where he

played a substantial role, he didn't really get

a whole lot of characterization, maybe a little

bit. So the idea of him as this rival, this antagonist,

but basically meaning well, I thought was...

really fun. I thought they executed it well.

I think Calvin Coleman did a fantastic job with

the character. I really like him. That's the

short answer to why I picked him. Also, he's

such a lovable buffoon that I can play dumb.

And playing dumb is... Well, it's a surprisingly

effective tool sometimes. You know, you can just...

you just don't get certain things. Somebody brings

up some innuendo and it just goes right over

your head. So it can be a fun position to take

sometimes. And I certainly think that there's

a reason that Sentinel wrote perhaps just a little

bit more than a fair share of the bios in the

first book. And that trend will probably continue

a bit in the second. as far as other characters

running other characters bios have you guys decided

who will writes a majority of the bios outside

of sentinel like who's gonna write say rodimus

is bio or true color shock will will true color

shockwave have the same bio as volume one or

will it be different true color shockwave won't

be getting a bio per se well it is the same characters

just different colors but That's cool. Yeah,

we went back and forth. The truth is we're very

tight on space. We have a lot more material than

we have room for. So certain characters that

have new designs, every character that had a

new design, we had to decide how much we wanted

to dwell on that. I think we managed to get all

the designs into the book, but they didn't all

get a new bio to go with it because Frankly,

we wouldn't have all that much more to say about

it. Shockwave's personality as it was laid out

in the first book hasn't really changed. Whereas,

someone like Wasp has. So, Wasp is a character

that actually does get additional space devoted

to him for a new bio. Also, Wasp had a substantial

redesign. Going from Cybertronian mode to Earth

mode and then to the techno -organic form is,

I think, a much bigger transition. just new colors.

But the character of Shockwave, I felt like there's

pretty good continuation there. We learned a

little bit more about him, but most of that we

are going to work into the episode guys. Right.

I'm actually flipping through volume one now.

I'm actually looking for actually my favorite

page, which is the jazz page and the blur page.

I just love how you guys took the book and just

gave all kinds of view aspects of each character.

I don't know, for some odd reason I was really

drawn to Jazz out of animated. I don't know if

it's Phil Lamar's voicing of the character or

if the way he looks. And the funny thing is,

even though I love G1 Jazz and I love Scatman

Crota's doing that voice, I actually prefer animated

Jazz over the G1 version. I don't know why. You

know, The Generation 1 Jazz was in a lot of episodes.

He had a whole lot of direct characterization.

Maybe I'm wrong about that, but it seemed like

he was mostly being Prime's number two. It didn't

feel like there were a whole lot of episodes

that really starred Jazz. There were a couple,

but out of the 65 or so season one episodes where

Jazz was really one of the main characters, I

didn't feel like you got to know him all that

well. Even though obviously he's in a lot fewer

episodes, I thought maybe he had a little bit

more to do. Oh yeah, oh yeah, and just the way,

now I don't know how Phil Lamar approached the

voicing of him, but just the way that, you know,

the whole retro, and I know that on the season

two commentary of one of the episodes, the creators

said that... You know, they wanted to make him

kind of like retro and stuff like that where

he's, you know, he pretty much takes to Earth

as soon as he gets there, whereas Daniel, on

the other hand, doesn't know how to drive, doesn't

like the rain, can't stand the fleshy bots. It's

a great contrast between those two. But to answer

a question that you asked a couple of minutes

ago, all of the bios for part one are written

at this point. And almost all the pages of biographies

are laid out. So that's all pretty much done.

Very, very cool. All right, Jim, I would like

to thank you for talking with me. People will

be able to find this interview on the Toycast

feed and all things Transformers. I may actually

also pass this on to my other friends at thisweekengeek

.net. And I may have them put this up as a, hopefully

they'll put this up as a special interview for

thisweekengeek .net so it'll get the word out

about. Transformers animated the AllSpark Almanac

Volume 2. When abouts, I know you said in the

RFC interview, it's releasing either right around

BotCon or after BotCon? Yeah, right now it's

looking like it's either the week before or the

week after BotCon. I'm not sure which. If it

is the week after BotCon, they very well might

have a few copies to sell at BotCon, but I can't

promise that. That's going to be up to IEW. Yeah,

true. Okay, thank you very much, Jim. We'll ask

you to hold the line and we will be right back.

Don't you answer your hailing frequencies anymore,

Optimus? So, you bots been ignoring me all this

time? Or are you just too busy cozying up to

organics to pick up a comlink? You have more

important things to do than listen to your excuses,

Optimus. We're in hot pursuit of a convicted

Decepticon spy! Oh, you mean the one you just

let get away? You slag well better have proof!

Well, don't just sit there with your engines

idling! This location needs to be locked down!

I need a sitrep stat! I'd like to thank Jim Sorensen

for taking the time out to talk with me about

the upcoming release of Transformers Animated

AllSpark Almanac Volume 2. Jim did say that it

will be released either a week before or a week

after BotCon. He did say that if it's released

a week before that they may or may not have copies

being sold at BotCon. He just doesn't know yet.

I'd like to thank him for the time that he took

to talk with me. So the contest. The contest

starts as soon as this episode goes up. Basically

what we're looking for you to do is send in a

voicemail for our 50th episode. You can either

do a toy review or you can just give us some

constructive criticism or if you want to give

us praise, that's always good. And Techno will

take however many voicemails there are, he will

take those, put them in a hat and randomly draw

one name to win a recon ravage. He's a really

nice figure, as I said last episode. That chrome

is godly just in how it's implemented. Yeah,

I saw your pictures on twitpick when you were

pitting him against What's -her -name? Oh yeah,

yeah, my Revoltec Yoko, yeah. Yeah, the red -headed

chick. Yeah. Alright. Did you see the ones I

put with her in Zat Brannigan? Um, I might have,

I don't know, I'll have to look in a minute.

Okay, so we have anything else we want to say?

Only just, I guess, to get people buy the Allspark

Almanac Volume 2 when it comes out. You shouldn't

need Fred Willard wheeling and dealing in order

to get you to buy it. Yeah, I know. Which, again,

that would be a cool interview. Oh, geez, you

just gave me another damn idea. Ah, I hate this

crap. Six minutes. Again, the deadline for voicemails

is Monday, March 29th. It is no longer Sunday

the 21st. It is now Monday, March 29th. So get

those voicemails in and you could win a recon

ravage. Thank you for joining us here on Toycast.

There are several ways to get in contact with

us. We'll leave feedback for the show. First

is you can stop by geekcastradio .com. Check

out all the other podcasts there. The second

is you can stop by productandempire .com slash

nexus. Those are our forums. And the third is

you can leave the show feedback in iTunes. I'm

gonna have to check that and see if we have any

new reviews. I don't think we do, but I'll check

it. We have a voicemail line, like I said. Call

us and leave us your thoughts on each episode.

Be sure to say which show you're leaving a message

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We hope you enjoyed this episode of Toycast,

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and more. For now, I am TFG1Mike, with GeneralTechno,

saying any more words than Optimus Prime, Transform

and Roll Out, and thank you for listening. Until

next time.