As Greig and I get ready to release the first Transformers: REANIMATED comic book script this Wednesday morning I thought it would be fun to share with you how we got started on this project.
Back in March 2018, encouraged by IDW Publishing’s comic book colorist and letterer, Tom B. Long, I started work on the first Transformers: REANIMATED script that would eventually be named: A WHITE HOUSE FOR PEACE.
In January of 2019, I showed the completed first draft to my Aussie friend Greig Tansley, who became so excited about what I was working on that he pleaded with me to let him be involved.
After a few days ignoring Greig, who would not have it, I eventually agreed to give a partnership with him a try. There were two ground rules that had to be understood and accepted from the beginning, however. The first, being this was my vision and as such, I had final say on any and all scripts. The second was that if IDW decided to pick up our comic book, and we got asked to do interviews to promote it, that we always do them together. Greig agreed to my tyrannical rules and shortly after we had our first Skype session to go over my drafted script, aiming to get it to the point where it was submission ready.
That Skype session with Greig was amazing! What I mean by that is, it has been a long time since I have laughed that hard for that long. The two of us had such a blast putting the spit and polish on A WHITE HOUSE FOR PEACE, that we knew we’d struck collaborative gold.
The way we went about it was reading the script to each other from the beginning. All the while, doing our worst possible Optimus Prime and Megatron impersonations, developing and unspoken hatred for bumblebee by the rest of the characters, and somehow actually fixing the script so that it read and presented professionally.
Since then we have done five more stories the exact same way. Mostly because Greig refused to stop punching out script drafts, despite not being paid.
Essentially, we then found a formula that involves one of us writing out a whole draft of a script and then getting together over Skype to perfect it. This process takes us about two days of online calls, simply because we are laughing from all the bad jokes we both make. In the end, we are left with an entertaining script that is true to the G1 cartoon’s tone and feel.
Till All Are One,
Yoshi
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