Interview with Bob Budiansky at BWTF

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Nevermore
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Interview with Bob Budiansky at BWTF

Post by Nevermore »

http://www.bwtf.com/interviews/bb204.shtml

Surprise, surprise - he really takes time for his answers and a) he doesn't claim he invented each and every 'Bot and 'Con and their grandmother, b) doesn't claim he doesn't remember anything (in fact, he has a rather good memory, better than the cartoon writers) and c) his insider information sounds a lot more credible (and better articulated) than that of a certain wannabe ghost.

Though I'm not really a fan of Bob's stories, I give him the credit for taking the time for the interview. :)
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Post by Strafe »

I think, for a very long time, people thought very negatively of your run on the book. They remember "Car Wash of Doom", but they don't remember the dozens of other great issues you wrote. Do you have any feelings or comments on that?

I really don't care. I've moved on, my life doesn't depend on what people think of me and Transformers. I got paid for it, I got royalties from it, I got paid by Hasbro for writing product copy and coming up with names. Transformers has been very, very good to me. So, years ago when the internet started blossoming and I did a search for my name, it came up with all these Transformers web sites. I looked and I thought "They hate me out there...wow! Who knew?!" I had no clue. You know, I wrote Transformers for a bunch of kids. Now there were adults who had these real strong opinions about me and frankly my feeling was "Get a life! I wrote this for kids! I wrote these for 8-10 year old boys back when I was writing them. You're not my audience." So, I'm sorry, but I don't really care. I don't really care how I come across to anybody, I don't mind talking about it. I'm not ashamed. I feel proud that I stuck it out for fifty issues or so, but it was a job.


Hahahahahaha suck it fanboys.
Strafe. You're a dick. Ishin_ookami - Dec 1st 2003
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Post by Cliffjumper »

I knew it even before The Hub interviewed him. Bob's a ****ing legend. A genuinely modest and nice chap, it seems... in some ways, people like Furman should feel a little ashamed that he's so down to Earth.
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Post by Nevermore »

His general attitude seems to be "Yeah, it was just a job... but that doesn't mean I didn't have some fun doing it."
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Post by Cyberman »

Originally posted by Nevermore
His general attitude seems to be "Yeah, it was just a job... but that doesn't mean I didn't have some fun doing it."


Indeed. Also, considering that "it was just a job" to him, he seemed to put a lot of effort into it.

A very interesting interview. A definite must-read.
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Post by inflatable dalek »

:laugh: Great interview, I don't think I'd ever be brave enough to ask someone what they thought of the fact a lota people think they're works ****e, and Bob seemed to deal with it in a good humore. People seem to be reasesing his work in light of the Titan reprints (myself included), and whatever I think of the stories he wrote toward the end he does deserve credit for shaping so much of the franchise we love. It's also odd to note that very few people who worked on the tf comic are still in the indusrty (except for the odd bit of work for Dreamwave), is tf cursed? Will Pat Lee be working in a butchers in ten years time?
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Post by Cyberman »

Originally posted by inflatable dalek
[Bis tf cursed? [/B]


In a way, it sure is. It´s all about the toys - that can be quite a curse, as we have seen in the cartoon, or read in this interview.

I´d like to see what TF would look like if there were no toys to be advertised behind it. Or if the toys were made to fit the fiction, not otherwise.
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Post by Nevermore »

Non-toy advertising comics would be War Within, in a way... those are all toy-based characters, but none of them (except Shockwave) exists as a toy in this form.
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Post by Commander Shockwav »

Yes, I can be counted amongst those who diss Budiansky for his 'Car Was of Doom' like story lines towards the end of his run.

But I have never forgotten how Bob, more than Furman even, shaped my TF world for me from the beginning with the TF comic. To this day, some of those early stories, particulary issue 7 and 8, stand out in my mind as the greatest TF comic stories told, Furman and Dreamwave included. The way Shockwave destroyed all the Autobots, the Shockwave vs. Megatron showdown, the first appearance of Devestator and how thrilled I was, Omega Supremes defense of the Ark and his ass kicking of Megatron and his band, the Blaster/Scrounge/Straxus Cybertron stories, Megatron vs. Predaking, etc. These stories are the stuff of legend to me, and had it not been for Bobs work, I would likely not have gotten into the Transformers.

Stories for 8-10 year olds only Bob? Well, I must be the biggest 10 year old you can find! :)
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Post by Cliffjumper »

Originally posted by inflatable dalek
It's also odd to note that very few people who worked on the tf comic are still in the indusrty (except for the odd bit of work for Dreamwave), is tf cursed?


Bryan bloody Hitch, Jim Lee, Dave Gibbons, Lee Sullivan, Richard Starkings [who basically runs the lettering business now], Jamie Delano, Alan Davis, Dwayne Turner...

Most of them, such as Bob, Yomtov, Springer, Delbo, Sienkiwicz etc. have simply retired because they're really old. Only Galan springs to mind as someone who simply left...
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Post by Civ »

From the interview he seems like the nice, down-to-earth guy who doesn't try to milk his TF fame, which I find to be very respectable.

On a side note, I found Strafe's comments to be quite interesting.
Hahahahahaha suck it fanboys.


I'm curious to find out what the train of thought is for these "fanboys." Do they think the comic was written for adults or something along those lines? I guess I'm looking for a more defined definition because I thought a fanboy was someone who couldn't accept a new idea outside the 1984 and 1985 era.
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Post by Cliffjumper »

Fanboy's a word that's been around a while... it was used in Doctor Who fandom from the mid-80s for one, although in a somewhat different way [don;'t get me sidetracked on Who fandom...]. It's a bit indefinable, as it's something which is a bit subjective. I personally broadly use it to describe those who can't accept reality and things moving on... in the case of Strafe's example, it's the way some fans can't deal with the fact that a professional, often staff, writer won't see scripting something Transformers related as their career highpoint, as something they took great care over, and still retain intricate knowledge of. A good example of this was the rather stunned reaction of some fans to Zobovor interviewing Don Glut, with the conclusions that he neither remembered nor cared about his work on the series, and pretty much admitted to being a lazy hack who took the money...

It's also pretty much anyone who worships any particular facet of anything simply because.
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Post by Bombshell »

Originally posted by Cliffjumper
A good example of this was the rather stunned reaction of some fans to Zobovor interviewing Don Glut, with the conclusions that he neither remembered nor cared about his work on the series, and pretty much admitted to being a lazy hack who took the money...


At least he can admit it that he did it for the cash, unlike others we can mention.

*cough*Pat Lee *cough*
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Post by Cyberman »

Originally posted by Civ
I'm curious to find out what the train of thought is for these "fanboys." Do they think the comic was written for adults or something along those lines


Compared to the cartoon, it sure was.
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Post by Hound »

In my eyes, a fanboy is someone whom lets their love for a particular hobby, show or whatever obsession blind them to it's faults.

In the case of Budiansky, it's where fanboy's can't understand that it wasn't Bob's fault that a fair amount of his work on Transformers was poor, it's that he was working under conditions that made it nearly impossible to churn out anything worthy of praise. The fact that several issues are quality reads is evidence that he wasn't untalented.

There's also a fair amount of fans who don't comprehend that working on Transformers isn't the end-all be-all of the careers for those who did. Most of the guys working on the cartoon were just making a living and were working on several other cartoons simultaneously.

As for me, I wouldn't want to work under the conditions he did but that doesn't make "Car Wash of Doom" any easier to read. Do I think he's great? No. Do I think he sucks? No.

He sounds like an ok guy to talk to though...
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Post by Osku »

Now it can be safely said that Budiansky is the creator of transformers. Character wise. :9

The earlier interview Budiansky mentions, can still be foundhere.
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Post by Fireflight »

You mentioned you started as an artist, did you work very closely with the artists and direct the artwork?
I generally laid out the covers. I did some of the covers too. But as far as the interior of the story, I pretty much left it to them. As time went on, not under Owsley, I don't remember under Carlin, but definitely under Don Daley I think I laid out every cover.


Does anyone know which covers Bob did?
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Post by Cliffjumper »

Gosh, I can never remember off the top of my head... #13, #14 & #21 were all his, I do know. He also did some of the pencilling on "Intergalactic Micromasters Legend Story Which Pisses All Over Underbase, Oh Yes It Does, and, Mr Furman, will make your first arc look even more amateurish than it actually was, which was Pretty ****ing Amateurish Anyway, Not to Mention Severly Underweight". I think that was what it was called, anyway.
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Post by Denyer »

Seems like an affable chap, and confirms various bits of speculation.
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Post by another tf fan »

at least bob remembers writing the transformers unlike the writers interviewed on the rhino dvds. they didn't seem to even remember the transformers.
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