Transfans interview with Bob Budiansky

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Denyer
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Transfans interview with Bob Budiansky

Post by Denyer »

Spidey (not Jerusalem, the other one) has for you an interview with one of the fathers of TF fiction. :)

http://www.transfans.net/interviews_budiansky.php
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Nevermore
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Post by Nevermore »

Refreshingly honest. I love how Bob is pretty much "It's just a job for me", but in a positive sense, not so much "I don't care, just give me that paycheck already". :)
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Post by Misfire »

You can't help but wonder where he would've taken it if he hadn't had to have been pushing toys all the time. Maybe it would have had a longer life span?
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Post by redman prime »

bob sounds like he has had a good run of things in life, and i wonder how much of that set up transformers or was set up by Transformers?
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Post by another tf fan »

I think it's funny how he only said negative things about a movie he is adapting.
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Post by Angelophile »

"IDW sent me a current comic a few months ago, which I did read. Had no idea what was going on."

Glad to know I'm not the only one. :)
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T.V.
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Post by T.V. »

Nice interview.

Good to see where he stands and how he approaches the material.
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Post by Clogs »

Positive and upbeat interview. Much appreciate the honesty and Bob's shock at finding us lurking out here! I am going to get that Movie adaptation!
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Post by Cliffjumper »

Originally posted by redman prime
bob sounds like he has had a good run of things in life, and i wonder how much of that set up transformers or was set up by Transformers?


IIRC, he'd been working at Marvel for a lot of the late 1970s/early 1980s (including a run as writer/penciller on Ghost Writer, plus writing for The Avengers and Captain Britain) before moving over to Special Projects and thus Transformers... about the only post-TF work I've been able to track down writer/artist-wise for Bob is Sleepwalker (who Bob created, and not many people noticed...).

But yeh, it's nice to see him finally getting some dues off a lot more of fandom. He's also clearly a very nice man, totally sidestepping that horrid leading question where he was basically being asked to bag out Delbo, and rose above it where another man who wrote quite a few Transformers comics in the 1980s would have used it as an excuse to take a cheap shot at a former collaborator. Good bloke.
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Post by Ozz »

Originally posted by Cliffjumper
about the only post-TF work I've been able to track down writer/artist-wise for Bob is Sleepwalker (who Bob created, and not many people noticed...)
Was it any good? I've been meaning to read that, I think I even got first two issues somewhere on my HDs, but never got around to start.
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Post by redman prime »

ah ha..
i was curious about that, it had seemed like he was in the industry prior to TF, but i've heard his name here and not in much else..
do have to agree, seems like a guy that would answer a question for you if you ran into him on the streets.

and could pick him out of a crowd
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Post by Cliffjumper »

A lot of his Marvel wrok was "upstairs", if you like - I think he edited Daredevil duing Ann Nocenti's run, that sort of thing.
Originally posted by Ozz
Was it any good? I've been meaning to read that, I think I even got first two issues somewhere on my HDs, but never got around to start.


Not really from what I read... from my recollections, it was basically Moon Knight + Deathlok = Sleepwalker... :(
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Post by inflatable dalek »

He also had leading roles in Ghostbusters 2, Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie and All McBeal. Though sadly for the sake of poor comedy he looks less like that short curly haired guy in the photo with the interview than in other pics I've seen. :(

It's also a shame he had to be so honest about how rubish he thought the Movie was, it hardly inspires confidence in the forthcoming adaption...
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Post by Denyer »

It suggests he'll have tried to tighten up the coherence of it a bit...
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Post by inflatable dalek »

When the only major adition is one scene showing somthing that's fairly obvious in the finished Movie anyway? I've still lots of doubts, which is a shame because as has been pointed out he seems a nice bloke and deserves better for his big return. He certainly couldn't make an Evolutions title sillier than HOS...
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Post by Cliffjumper »

But Bob needs about 5-10 years to adapt to the comic business and everything, what with him having worked in it since before Ryall had his first pair of Huggies Optimus Pants.

I personally think IDW want the fan kudos of having Godfather Bob back in the fold ("Look, True Believers! Dreamwave never did that!"), but aren't actually going to let him do anything important... A bit like the way Marvel keep finding some book to hide Chris Claremont away on, even though he's a bit of a joke.

Rumour is if he spellchecks TF:TM well enough and keeps getting the coffee order correct, they might let him do the blurb on the back of the HoS TPB. Unless they have a work experience kid by then, anyway.
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Post by Halfshell »

Originally posted by Cliffjumper
A bit like the way Marvel keep finding some book to hide Chris Claremont away on, even though he's a bit of a joke.


Don't... Exiles started going downhill the moment it was even rumoured Claremont wanted to write it...
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Post by Cliffjumper »

I like the way they keep forgetting it's a Really Bad Idea to let him write the main books... He must be due a chance at rebooting them and ****ing them up all over again so Marvel have to pay a fortune for hip, trendy EDGY DC writers to make people realise they exist in a few months now...
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Post by inflatable dalek »

Originally posted by Cliffjumper
But Bob needs about 5-10 years to adapt to the comic business and everything


I have it on good authority all you need to survive in comics is a nice Porsche.

I think the reassesment of Bob's output in recent years is down to two factors. Firstly the Titan trades bringing just about everything he wrote back into print, starting with the good stuff. For peeps like me, who started reading the comic relatively late it was somthing of a suprise to learn that even the really daft stories didn't become unreadable until the dying days of his involvement [And whilst we Johny Come Latey's had pleanty of oportunity to reread clasic Furman due to the Collected Comics and the reprints in the man title, we never had the chance with Bob's golden age stuff].

The second is that, over the last few years the full details of Bob's involvement in the creation of the mythos has become much more clear. In the end Transformers is a camel (a horse designed by comitee), and a full list of those who made a signifigant impact on it's development would involve a dozen people across three continents, but it's undeniable Bob* had the biggest impact upon it. Without his tech spechs and concepts we wouldn't have Target: 2006, Dark Awakening, A Rage In Heaven or Code of Hero and everything else. That makes Monstorcon From Mars a little more forgivable...



*I'm betting now some smart arse will prove it is deniable.
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Post by Dinobot »

Originally posted by Nevermore
Refreshingly honest. I love how Bob is pretty much "It's just a job for me", but in a positive sense, not so much "I don't care, just give me that paycheck already". :)
Yeah, he gets some serious hate but the fact is he never got emotional involved like Furman. How many of us have some sentimental attachment to our jobs?
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