Re: IDW More Than Meets The Eye #57 Discussion Thread
Posted: Sat Oct 01, 2016 1:15 amA thing from JRo.
End of the Road
I was too busy writing More Than Meets The Eye to witness the birth of my second child.
That’s not strictly true; in fact, it was a big fat lie to get your attention.
I was writing MTMTE a few days before Kid B was born. We’re not even talking labour, so you can't judge me. I was sitting next to the hospital bed at 11pm, notebook on my lap, trying to decide what to put in Brainstorm’s briefcase. And I was also thinking up cool names for spaceships, just like any other 34 year old expectant father.
It was December 2010 - a full 12 months before The Death of Optimus Prime, the one-shot that I co-wrote with John Barber. A few nights earlier, Andy Schmidt had offered me one of the two ongoings that would rise from the ashes of Mike Costa’s Chaos storyline. Not that it was called Chaos. On the IDW story document, it was just called EVENT. And after EVENT came SCHISM. And after that, Rodimus and Drift (“and others TBD”) set off to find the Knights of Cybertron. At least the Knights were mentioned by name…
Anyway, Andy had made the offer and I was now starting to pull together the crew and the stories. “Plan for 12 issues, 16 at a stretch” – that’s what I was told.
The weeks after the birth passed in a blur, as they would have done even if I hadn’t been trying to work out why the Autobots would be silly enough to put Overlord in the basement. And was Frail Light a good name for a spaceship? Stolen Light? *Something* light, definitely.
First issue. What should that be like? Transformers does Magnolia. Separate lives – separate threads – pulling together. A metaphor for the series (he says in hindsight). Powerglide trapped underground. A blink, and the war’s come and gone. He’s our surrogate. Magnus the grump. Rodimus the worst captain ever, but the BEST captain if you’re a writer. Drift… Drift… can’t get a handle on bloody Drift.
A little detour: I ask Andy if I can write a one-shot about Megatron, because I love the character and he’s just surrendered and my GOD what an opportunity to get inside his head. Impactor will be in it, and the DJD, and… no. Just him and Optimus. A two-hander. Red Dwarf’s Marooned meets Dostoyevsky’s Brothers Karamazov, because sometimes Transformers needs to be pretentious.
Alex Milne’s on pencils – it’s the first time we’ve worked together and hell’s bells the man can draw – and Joana Lafuente’s on colors. She’s an alchemist; each page is transformed. The one-shot is slotted into Mike’s ongoing, and one issue becomes two, and – somehow – in exploring why Megatron is the way he is, and in looking at a world bent out of shape by Functionism, MTMTE suddenly lays down roots.
Summer 2011, swimming at Saints Bay, aiming for a buoy that never seems to get any closer. On the shore, by my towel, another notebook; this one containing random words like ‘Delphi’ and ‘Pharma/Farmer’ and ‘sound bomb’; and, in big letters on the inside cover, ‘Justice League International’.
I’m inches from the buoy, and something happens that very rarely happens: a sustained rush of ideas. Fort Max, a hostage situation, Overlord, and Rewind projecting snuff movies onto the wall of Rung’s office. One of my favourite MTMTE stories, ‘Interiors’, takes shape by the time I’m heading back to shore. And when I get back to shore… Lost Light. That’s the one. Nice and alliterative.
The first six issues would be written by the time Death of Optimus Prime comes out in December 2011. Six issues, people. Six issues ahead. Something that would never happen again.
In the months leading up to Christmas I rewrite issue 1, spreading it over two issues (John’s suggestion, and a good one). The rewrite makes me more disciplined: I take the Delphi two-parter back off IDW and polish it, tightening the dialog. I’m getting a sense of how an issue of MTMTE should sound.
January 2012, a week or two after the youngest’s first birthday, and MTMTE #1 comes out. For nearly a year it’s had a typically smart arse placeholder name, ‘Launch Issue’, because, you know, the Lost Light takes off and there’s a problem – it explodes – and I know, I know, it’s awful. In the end, I subvert a Dexys Midnight Runners song title, ‘Liars, A to E’, and recycle the title of the first chapter of Eugenesis. Because if you think something sounds good you shouldn’t be afraid to show it to a wider audience.
The incomparable Nick Roche has by now designed our crew (Look at Whirl! Look at Magnus!) and is handling the interior art in issue #1. He’s also responsible for the JLI cover. (Yes, it’s been done to death, but to me, that cover and Alex Milne’s cover to the first trade… those images sum up MTMTE better than anything else I can think of.) Nick’s lines and Josh Burcham’s colors turn my try-hard script into a proper story. The characters feel real because they look real, and all of a sudden… we’re off.
Alex Milne arrives with issue #2 and makes the book his own. You think of MTMTE now and you don’t see my words in your mind, you see Alex’s lines. The noses, the floating question marks, sexy Rung, glowering Magnus… all down to him.
By Spring 2012 we’ve properly launched. We’re aloft. And somehow we’ve stayed aloft for 57 issues. Three months short of five years. I’m proud of that. I’m proud of Alex and Josh and Joana and Nick and Brendan Cahill and James Riaz and Atilio Rojo and Hayato Sakamoto and everyone else who has channelled their creative energies into the book.
I can’t really put into words what MTMTE means to me, which is a shameful admission coming from a writer. I suppose I live it through you, the people who read it. It sounds odd, but… I love that it has a readership! I love that people like it enough to read it! Because it’s a weird little book. It is. There’s not much fighting in it, and there’s not much transforming in it, and we haven’t refreshed the main cast in nearly five years, and in order to enjoy properly you kind of have to remember plot details for 40 issues ago, and we periodically kill people that you care about, and sometimes we focus on characters who never even existed as toys, and… yeah. God knows how it’s survived so long.
Actually, that’s another lie. I do know how it’s survived so long. It’s survived so long because my collaborators are all geniuses, and because IDW and Hasbro are supportive and committed, and because you – jaded G1-ers and jaded millennials alike – care enough to keep reading.
And MTMTE isn’t over. Let me restate that after pressing caps lock: MTMTE IS NOT OVER. The story continues under a different set of covers. You know that by now. Lost Light #1, December 2016. Because let me tell you – let me assure you – the MTMTE story is massive. It has a beginning, middle and end, and both IDW and I are determined to see it through. When we’re done you’ll know we’re done. And we’re not done yet. Not by a long shot.
So here we are. Here I am, nearly six years after sitting in that maternity ward. One has to be careful about disclosing too much on social media, and I’ve always avoided mentioning either of my children by name. But today is a special occasion, and so perhaps it’s appropriate that I share a little more than usual. I hereby dedicate the first 57 issues of the MTMTE/Lost Light saga to the little boy born days after I was given the best job of my life.
Minimus Dominus Rodimus Ambus Roberts... this one’s for you.
