Finding Beetletrunk

I recently found a wealth of "material" to dissect (mock) in this format. An absolute cornucopia of the absurd that provides me with no end of chuckle-time. I delightfully refer to the discovery of my childhood scrapbook. What I saved, and why I saved some things is a complete mystery to me. Perhaps here I can solve these mysteries and if not solve them, then at least make fun of what a weird kid i was (am). If I'm lucky I will re-open some old wounds. Because, we all know that pain = funny.

While somethings remain a mystery to me, the following gem does not. In fact this is a work I am still proud of today. I am glad that I had the foresight to hold on to this nugget of creativity/plagiarism, so that I could use it as reminder as to why I will never be an author. I'm pretty sure my writing skills peaked at this point.

I was a big fan of Transformers during their glory years of the early-mid 80s. I had a fair number of the toys, but the cartoon I could not miss. I remember my mom taking me to see the movie, and how shocked I was when Optimus Prime died. I'm not entirely sure I'm over it. At some point in the show (it's all a bit fuzzy) they pulled a soap opera move and brought him back from the dead. I did some half-assed research and I see that this happened during season 3 - 1986/1987.


The cover is pretty decent. Simple, classy. Sure I had some perspective issues with the truck, but it's not terrible. The only change I would go back and make, would be to include a little more space between the top of the cover and start of the text. Other than that it's perfect. Oh, and my penmanship needs work. Like my writing skills, my penmanship peaked at this point as well.



I just launch right into the story. I don't take any time giving you background or setting the scene too much. I assume that the reader is familiar with the Transformers world and what's been going on up to this point. It didn't take me long, but i found the exact episode that I was "inspired" by. The ep. was called Dark Awakening and it aired in Oct. of 86. Assuming I am watching this on first air, this would make me 8 years old...ok...almost 9. I was really hoping it would be older than that :( Anyways, I put the reader right into the heat of battle. The Decepticons, Cyclonus, Scourge and the Sweeps are in hot pursuit of some autobots. There is some typical 8 year old level dialogue and the autobots need to find some place to land. Notice I start in cursive, then quickly abandon it due to effort required to maintain a constant pencil stroke. Interestingly enough, I have not written in cursive since. Click on the pages if you are at all interested in seeing larger images.


I like how consistent I am with the quotations to indicate when a character is speaking. grammar is important to a uh grammar school student. I wonder if the mausoleum referenced in the story was as sloppy as i drew it. I mean, was all Ratchet ever known for was his mechanic skills? Hmmm, Mirage could turn invisible? Thats cool. Sucks he died. Haha "metal plates". Looks like I messed up quite a bit as well, since there appears to be heavy eraser marks under re-written sections. I guess I had to get it just right. Artistically, the space scene is pretty compelling. I took some artistic liberty with adding a Saturn-like planet. To me there is nothing cooler than planets with rings.

Ooh, looks like the gettin's good on these pages. Actual Transformer action. I must have had a special interest in Sky Lynx as he factors heavily into this page and this page only. Wheelie makes a decision to contact him, but it's never revealed in this story as to why. For that matter, isnt it a bit excessive to change into a pterodactyl (peretactyl) , a lynx, AND a space shuttle? Srsly. I also bring in the Duocons (Duelcons) and Throttlebots for no apparent reason, as they do not factor in to the story at all after this. Maybe I tried to cram too much into a small format story? Ultimately I feel that these pages could be removed without affecting the story. No dialogue on these pages either.



The heavy hitters come in here. I always loved it when the smaller ones would form to create a giant (in real life fragile) robot. I have alot of questions regarding the theory in general now, but back then it was magic. I like how the respective leaders order them into the combined forms. "Terrorcons emerge into obomulus". Obomulus, while a cooler name is actually "Abominus". I actually had the Terrorcons, and myself was able to demand them to "emerge" into Obomulus whenever I wanted. In fact this fall, I plan to vote for Obomulus for president. If I remember correctly the Technobots were the nemesis of the Terrorcons. I have no doubt that Computron was at least a match for Obomulus. These guys look familiar, so I think I had them too. I always liked the Decepticons better though. It felt so good to be bad. Poor Obomulus...hit by a mystery blast originating from outside the book. That's no way to go. Especially after such a "Great" battle.



I'm obviously getting bored at this point, as I wrap things up very quickly. I like the "Can't talk now" line before building a ship and zooming off. I spend alot of time summoning Sky Lynx, the Duocons, Throttlebots, etc... but I completely jump over going after Prime and Daniel. Almost as if it was not an important part of the story. You know what, it probably wasnt. I doubt there were any "great battles". But yeah, i was definitely done writing at this point. I do remember that drawing a hallway posed some great challenge. I presume that is Optimus Prime's leg as he darts down the "hall".

The next 4 pages of my book look like this. The story was told, nothing further was required.

All in all, not a bad story. I've read worse. I borrowed heavily from the episode, yet I like to think I put my unique spin on it. Most likely the random battles and the confusing jumps in action. I stayed true to theme of the story, whatever the hell it was. I probably could have tried a little harder on the illustrations, but I've never been one to really give something "my all". I do find it interesting that this theme of mediocrity in my life was set over 20 years ago. Another thing to note, is that I apparently did not do this for a school project, it was just something to kill time as I waited for Night Court to come on. Boy, now that show was pretty fucking awesome.