Incredible Change-Bots 2

This is Jeffrey Brown’s idiosyncratic version of, or perhaps love letter to, the Transformers. This second volume comes after the big battle of the two groups on Earth, and we find Shooterbot, head of the bad guys, recovering but without any memory. He is taken in by an old couple on a farm, not unlike Kal-El, and only gradually regains his memories, before being taken away by the government. Anyway, it all builds to another confrontation between the two groups, although this one is resolved in an unexpected way.

There isn’t so much to it as a story, but as a pastiche and parody it’s pretty delightful. It amuses every few pages (and that means at least fifty smiles), thanks to some pleasingly awkward dialogue and general silliness. I’m a sucker for lines like “And that means you have only one choice: submit to my authority, or suffer the consequences! So, two choices, actually.”

It’s all done with considerable charm and warmth – I’m sure Brown was a big fan of the TV show and comics in his youth. The charm is increased by the art – obviously he’s never been a slick artist, but the apparently crayoned colours of this suit him and add a level of brightness we aren’t accustomed to in his work, and there is a childlike directness to the emotions on show in the art, as well as Brown’s sense of fun about the whole thing.

I’m not sure quite who the audience is for something like this, really, but I think some of my friends who grew up in the ’80s would enjoy this a great deal, and anyone else prepared to give it a go would surely find it at the very least hugely likeable. I loved it.