Evil Daffodil Haters
Now we’re into the meat of the thing. Or rather, now we’re into the hardest pages to draw in this story. Enjoy a compelling flashback rendered over several pages to an exacting 1980s standard.
STEEPLE – A Scary Go Round Comic
by John Allison
You can tell by the Kirby Crackle that the war was serious.
In the last panel, Gareth reflects on how humans just don’t understand.
He’s the robot, I’m the human. A classic.
To be fair, DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince were “all that” for their alotted fad period and Generic Cyber Changers just needed to wait their turn, like the Broccoli Plot Brats and G.I. Bill.
Looking forward to the Morrigatron as the bad guy.
Also when I contemplate Barry as potentially being the spiritual home of the Generic Cyber Changers, this is the soundtrack in my head. It works?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVyAiJy1EuI
Yet, I have a feeling that someone noticed the war and decided to launch a toy line inspired by them. Followed by successful animated series and many comic series.
Yes, but the toy line in question was Beanie Babies
Wait a moment. If two opposing groups of alien robots had been on Bobbinsverse Earth since the ’80s, surely they would have sought out Shelley by now due to some prophesy involving her part in ending the war (or interpreted that way, anyway).
They probably just landed, exhausted, in Robotania and settled down there to live together
“It’s unpronounceable in your language. It’s Welsh.”
Well played.
Great name!
I just love that none of these names have any hint of a cybertronian name scheme and they’re simultaneously mundane and generic sounding but also totally random.
They’re not random. They all relate to Wales.
Please explain for us across the pond?
Gareth: A common name in Wales.
Port Talbot: An industrial (steel-making) town in Wales.
Valleymen: Wales is a mountainous country, so a lot of communities there are in valleys.
Daffodil Haters: The daffodil is the traditional national flower of Wales, so hating daffodils would make someone anti-Welsh.
There’s a joke that all of the unintelligible words/speech in Lovecraft are just Welsh, so one is in good company on this satire!
I have no idea if that’s true or not, but I certainly want to believe it so I will.
This may not be too creative a choice but I’m kind of imaging Ralph Ineson for the voice of Gareth.
From what’s been revealed thus far in the story, I’m currently thinking that it’s Matthew Rhys or nothing.
Richard Burton for me.
O, terry cloth wristbands. I’ve missed you.
I’m not sure if these Generic Cyber Changers sexual dimorphism, but if they do, I suppose the heroic females would, like, totally be Valley Girls. Hmmmn. The song came out in 1982, so maybe at least Frank Zappa was paying attention to their arrival…
You’re thinking of the wrong valley. The valleys being alluded to here are the south wales valleys, butty 😆
If there is a female mechanoid valleyman, I wonder if it’s closest equivalent name would be Cerys?
(I was a fan of Catatonia…)
I appreciate the orange foam detail on the Walkman headphones
Typo: Presh Prince should probably be Fresh Prince.
Keep up the great work, as always.
Fixed it, thank you!
I was actually liking “Presh Prince”, as an alternate-world near facsimile. I was imagining maybe it was originally “Precious Prince” and then got twittered? But then I halfway expected to see “DJ Jazzy Geoff” or something.
Gazzy Geoff, with “Gazzy” using the pronunciation of “Gaol”
The Prince took the 80s by storm
I thought I heard a loud noise in the 80s.
No, that was me.
Oh, Talbot. This is an old, defunct Franco-British car brand. Its glory days were in the early 1950s as they won the French and the Belgian F1 grand prix in 1949 and the 24 Hours Le Mans rally in 1950. Then they started declining. They were bought out by Simca, which was itself bought by Chrysler, which resold Simca and Talbot to Peugeot, and so after a failed comeback attempt in the 1980s, the brand was definitively shut down in the 1990s.
But Port Talbot is a town in Wales.
Yes, and it’s a steel town. Still is.
Don’t it make his brown eyes blue?
So, he’s a Transfformer then?
Trynsffffdodfedegormwydfer
For the non-cymraegophiles out there, in Welsh the “f” sound is spelled as “ff”. An “f” by itself is pronounced like a “v”.
And “ff” is considered a single letter, with its own place in the alphabet.
As a person of Scottish descent, I can tell you that the most hilarious thing in the world is a Scotsman trying to read Welsh aloud. It sounds like a Russian cursing in Polish while falling down a long flight of stairs.
This, this is a concept worthy of illustration in its own right.
I only point that out because on the first read-through, I missed the joke in IP’s comment above.
Gareth now playing in my head starring the voice of Huw Stephens
I bought Transformers #1 in the store, and I can attest panel three is a perfect homage. Bravo!
I’m looking forward to John’s several-page depiction of my formative years, which may or may not have existed in a Generic Cyber Changer form.
The comic is funny enough, but the comments section today made me spit soup all over my computer screen.
If you tried to read it aloud, most of your soup would have been on the screen by the time you were half-way down.
And there was me thinking you were being facetious when you said the robot had a Welsh accent in the previous comments.
Every single name is somehow funnier than the last.
I’m pretty sure the line about his name being unpronouncable in their language comes directly from one of the old Transformers comics.
For a while now, I’ve imagined the Cybertronian language sounding a bit like an old ZX Spectrum loading a game.
The line appears a couple of times in The Canon, but notably in the “Man of Iron” story, which was about Transformers sneaking about in rural England, and was (I suspect deliberately) homaged earlier in this tale.
In Man of Iron, Jazz tells the fleshy protagonist that his actual name is unpronounceable by humans.
When I think of the name Gareth, the first thing that comes to mind is Lenny Henry in “Chef!”
“SEARCHING FOR AN ALTERNATE ENERGY SOURCE, WE STUMBLED UPON EARTH IN THE 1980S. MANY VALLEYMEN FELL TO THE SCOURGE OF COCAINE.”
The thing is, a lot of Wales looks like the landscapes of alien planets. At least, according to Dr. Who.
That’s modern Doctor Who. My understanding is that most alien planets in classic Doctor Who looked like disused gravel quarries.
That is what I was thinking of – my understanding was they were Welsh quarries.
Oh. THATS why everyone is making Welsh related japes.
Welsh Robot?
Took me a moment.
A phrase I only know for having appeared in these pages previously. Somewhere.
Mildred and Sonny’s grandfather, in the Selkie story, IIRC.
I am sad I cannot give more than one like.
As with Wales, my knowledge of Transformers lore is more or less limited to being aware it exists. But while I’m missing a lot of the references, I’m still enjoying the story immensely.
There’s an unusually high level of sneaky humor in this episode’s comments.
Expecting lots of awkward spandex. “Four more, three more, two more…”
Oh, bloody hell, it’s a Welsh Transformer, it is