TF Animated Exclusive: An Interview With Jim Sorenson and Bill Forster
Earlier this evening, I had the immense pleasure to interview Allspark Almanac creators Jim Sorenson and Bill Forster. We conducted it over AIM, and they gave a lot of great insight and observations about the Almanac, the new volume, and Animated in general.
Read on for the interview, but be warned - those of you who don't have it yet, there are spoilers.
Razorsaw: Thanks for meeting with me, Jim, Bill. Now, let's get right into it.
Jim Sorenson: Sure
Bill Forster: Okay
Razorsaw: First, let me begin by saying I really enjoyed the first volume. Your style of writing greatly matched the series. That said, how did the Almanac project originally come about?
Bill Forster: It came to us in a dream. Actually, were were looking to do another Ark book. The Almanac evolved from it.
Jim Sorenson: Flush with the success of our first book, and eagerly awaiting the publication of the second, we went to BotCon. We went to the Animated panel and decided to introduce ourselves to Derrick Wyatt. As it turned out, he was familiar with our work.
So, we asked him if he was interested, and he said yes. He helped us with a pitch to IDW, and they bought it. As Bill mentioned, we originally were thinking of something like The Ark: Animated. Once we got into the material, though, we realized that it could, and should, be much much more.
Razorsaw: I see. Yeah, I gathered that much from your blog posts.
Bill Forster: The real key point of the evelution from Ark to Almanac was realizing the potential of the In Universe voices. Then our imagination started running amuck.
Razorsaw: ah, that leads me to my next question. What then was your inspiration for certain parts of the book? More specifically... what led to the decision of having the characters do in universe commentary about the characters and setting?
Bill Forster: Then our imagination started running amuck. Basically, we didn't want the book to seem...dull. We thought the show was SO whimsical and unique we had to capture that. We toyed with a few ideas and settled on the idea that "we" would do as little talking as possible and let the characters talk for themselves. It simply fit the feel of the show.
Razorsaw: I can see that. It definately added some extra dimension to the characters. Let them see what they all thought of each other.That said, who were your favorite characters to write for?
Jim Sorenson: For me: Sentinel Prime, Porter C. Powell, Swindle. Blitzwing is also a hoot.
Bill Forster: For me it was Starscream. I have always loved him. I also enjoyed writing for Lugnut and Lockdown.
Razorsaw: I in particular really liked your approach to the Starscream clones.
Bill Forster: Thanks. We had great fun with them.
Jim Sorenson: That was all Bill.
Bill Forster: Jim added the little expresions on the models.
Razorsaw: Those are characters you can't really help but have fun with.
Jim Sorenson: I wish we had room in II for a full page of Thrust and Dirge; alas, we did not.
Razorsaw: Now, getting into Volume 2, which I'm sure everyone wants to hear about...
Jim Sorenson: Is that out yet?
Razorsaw: Ha! It is unless you ordered from Amazon.com. *beat*
Jim Sorenson: Amazon started shipping yesterday (7/6) for some people.
Razorsaw: Yes. Just a bit of good humor there, heh.
Bill Forster: Before you ask, yes its true. I am Sideways.
Razorsaw: Aren't we all Sideways? Deep down?
Bill Forster: True
Razorsaw: Anyway! Were there any particular challenges in creating volume 2 that weren't present in volume 1? There was definately a lot of characters that were... less established than the ones in the first part.
Bill Forster: Part 2
Bill Forster: The second part of the book was completely new for us
Jim Sorenson: Yes. As Bill says, trying to tackle the out-of-universe ideas of how a toy line is made, how a cartoon is made, what would have been in season four, and so on, was a new experience.
Bill Forster: I thought a big challenge we had was the Great War timeline.
Jim Sorenson: Writing for less well established characters wasn't particularly difficult. If anything, it gave us more freedom. Besides, we had Derrick, Marty and Matt to keep us true to the spirit of Animated.
Razorsaw: So the likes of Chase, Lightbright, et all didn't present any unique obstacles?
Jim Sorenson: More like unique opportunities. Though, we had some changes along the way.
Razorsaw: I'd imagine.
Jim Sorenson: I wrote Sky Garry as a pacifist originally; Derrick or Marty didn't like that, so we wound up sticking more closely to his Battlestars portrayal.
Razorsaw: Who came up with those girls' names, by the way? I'm also interested as to where Sparkride and Horsepower came from.
Jim Sorenson: Girls name is a funny story; Bill and I came up with two names. Meanwhile, Monzo and Derrick came up with two different names. We all powwowed and used one from us (Lightbright) and one from them (Lickety Split).
Sparkride and Horsepower were originally Sparkride and Streetstar. Then the BotCon 2010 set was announced and Streetstar didn't seem obscure enough anymore, so I switched to Horsepower. Those drawings were by Boo, specifically for the book. They were based on the characters he had as guards in the Metroplex in The Arrival #6.
Razorsaw: I see. I was always partial to the name Mantis for the green one, myself. (If you can have Bumblebee and Wasp...)
Bill Forster: And the original cover was Transmutate!
Razorsaw: Transmutate would have been on the cover of the book?
Bill Forster: That was a joke.
Razorsaw: Razorsaw fails at humor. More at 11.
Razorsaw: Moving on, which "side" character was your favorite to flesh out?
Bill Forster: By side you mean?
Razorsaw: Ah, cameo characters. Bumper, Chase, and so on.
Jim Sorenson: For me, Beachcomber. I tried to make him die at the servos of Shockwave as originally scripted, but the darned guy showed up in a late season crowd scene.
Razorsaw: Someone get that bot Deployer shaped like a great dane.
Bill Forster: For the new book I did the (what I called) "bumble" models. I really enjoyed all of them. I guess Glyph and Bumber were my favs.
Jim Sorenson: (I thought his Searchlight and Bumper were fantastic.)
Bill Forster: I wanted Searchlight and Bumper to be Batman and Robin.
Razorsaw: The Bumblebee derivatives were who I was looking forward to most.
Jim Sorenson: Those were 90% Bill.
Bill Forster: Jim does the lion's share of the writing though.
Razorsaw: Any insight on where Chase came from? I don't recall seeing him in any crowd scenes.
Jim Sorenson: Let me check the model sheet number. [after a bit] "This Is Why I Hate Machines"
Jim Sorenson: I guess he didn't make the final cut.
Razorsaw: I see. Poor fellow.
Jim Sorenson: He's a blowhard, he deserves what he gets.
Razorsaw: Speaking of the bios, how did the likes of Mirage, Stretch, Straxus, and the like come to be? Were they developed for season 4, or did they just happen to be laying around?
Jim Sorenson: Some were developed specifically for this book, some were developed for S3 and cut for time. None of them were S4 specific.
Razorsaw: I see. They were a real treat either way.
Razorsaw: Forgive me if I missed him, but... why the lack of poor dead Sentinel Supreme? :P He's so nice Boo killed him twice.
Jim Sorenson: Space. The book was really tight. I wanted to use him. Boo gave me maybe two pages worth of models to use, but all I was able to squeeze in were the Jet twins and the ceremonial guards.
Razorsaw: I suppose he shall forever remain the Transformers equivelant of Kenny McFarlane.
Jim Sorenson: Boo is a talented and prolific guy... I wouldn't be surprised if good old Sentinel Supreme showed up somewhere else in the multiverse.
Razorsaw: Hopefully alive!
Jim Sorenson: Or is being dead the point?
Bill Forster: Undead
Razorsaw: We may never know.
Razorsaw: I noticed there was a great number of characters created for the book, like the cameos in the Great War board game, the McAddam's menu, and the Omega Sentinels and their autobot counterparts.
Bill Forster: I noticed that too
Razorsaw: What was the proccess for these? Were they your creations? Were Marty and Derrick involved in any way?
Jim Sorenson: Omega Sentinels were not created for this book, they were cut for time from Transwarped.
Bill Forster: Their pilots were our doing. As were most of the heads. A few were Derricks that I took from sketches and inked up
Jim Sorenson: Great War characters (new ones) were all Bill, except for the game pieces. Those were Javier.
Bill Forster: Yeah Javier is our hero
Razorsaw: Javier?
Jim Sorenson: Javier Reyes, our colorist.
Razorsaw: Ah!
Jim Sorenson: Derrick and Marty and Matt were given copies of the book to annotate, so while they didn't create those characters they signed off on them, so to speak. Derrick in particular gave us some really useful notes along the way.
Bill Forster: Derrick is brilliant to work with.
Jim Sorenson: Seconded. He has a real passion and vision that he brings with him to every interaction.
Razorsaw: Speaking as a fan of RiD and the Unicron Trilogy, I really enjoyed the nods to them.
Bill Forster: Transformers is such a rich tapistry that we try to do nods and acknowledge every corner of it.
Razorsaw: Animated definately seems like the kind of melting pot for such a thing.
Bill Forster: Well I think because of it's whimsical tone it is easier to play around with the universe.
Jim Sorenson: That's one of the elements I loved about it. Exodus and War for Cybertron seem to be taking a similar approach. Exodus not so "whimsical" though.
Razorsaw: Both good observations.
That said... that sharky looking fellow on the Maccadam's menu. Sky-Byte, yes?
Bill Forster: What? Where?
Jim Sorenson: Sky-Who now? The guy from the BotCon set?
Razorsaw: Bottom of the 2nd column. Large grin, has multiple eyes?
Bill Forster: Oh that guy! Yeah. That's Sky-Byte! I made him share a similar body frame as Lugnut.
Razorsaw: Certainly makes sense. It looks like you had a lot of fun with him.
Jim Sorenson: Commander Sky-Byte
So much fun for Bill to draw
More fun to write for!
Bill Forster: I had a lot of trouble with him. I made several sketchs and found that the stranger and weirder I made him the more I like him. I wanted him to look happy but scary. I was a little afraid that it was TOO far out there, but in the end ...issn't Sky-Byte kinda...far out there?
Razorsaw: He's a poetic shark. Of course he is. And in a way, it evokes the design sensibilities of Transmetal 2 designs, making him look so freaky.
Jim Sorenson: I rather like asymmetrical designs like the TM2 guys.
Bill Forster: He turned out to be one of my favorite parts of the book. He reminds me now of Sam Keith's IZ characters from teh Maxx
Jim Sorenson: Bill and I used to joke around that BW Megatron always got stuck reading off the full toy names, while everyone else in BW got a pass. So, Cheetor called S3 Optimus, well, Optimus
Razorsaw: Got to sell that toy somehow.
Jim Sorenson: But BW Megatron had to call him 'Optimal Optimus.' The only character to do so, I believe. So we'd joke around, saying things (with a poor David Kaye impression) like "Well, if it isn't Wal*Mart exclusive Transmetal RatTrap, how positively delightful!"
Bill Forster: "I see your still Mint in box!"
Razorsaw: "Don't call me that... call me 'Wal*Mart exclusive Transmetal RatTrap repurposed as Packrat!'"
Moving on. Can you tell us anything interesting about the writing of the episode summaries? Anything you thought was particularly clever or fun to do?
Bill Forster: Sure. Furao's bio is a true story.
Razorsaw: Not quite what I meant, but go on.
Bill Forster: During WWII the USS Intrepid was struck by a torpedo that jammed its rudder and the ship could not move. Some clever sailor made a sail and extended it from the port side flight deck down toward the bottom of the ship and created a sail. The sail worked against the jammed rudder and allowed the ship to excape. So I Transformered the story up a little
Razorsaw: I see. That's very interesting.
Jim Sorenson: I LOVED writting the Yatter page. I think I did that in about 3 hours. It was completely effortless. I don't usually laugh at my own jokes, but I do when I read that page. I think "oh nos" is usually the line that does it for me.
Bill Forster: I like making Flareup and Warpath an item.
Jim Sorenson: Some of those really far-out pages take literally weeks to do. AlTernity TODAY took weeks
Razorsaw: And re: Yatter, Dr. Jones really needs to watch who his daughter makes friends with.
Jim Sorenson: No time for love, Doctor Jones.
Bill Forster: There is always time...for love!
Razorsaw: I now expect you to make Animated Shortround happen.
Jim Sorenson: What, you didn't find him yet?
Razorsaw: ... Well. I tip my hat to you, sirs. (Unless you're messing with me)
Bill Forster: IF you look at page 102 and squint really hard! (Unfortunately, he's still in his stasis pod)
Razorsaw: Speaking of messing with people.
Was there a deliberate effort to try and up the ante on your hidden clues and easter eggs? I suspect poor Chris McFeely is losing sleep. (Please don't kill me Chris.)
Bill Forster: Honestly when we started the easter egg thing we were just amusung ourselves and figired some people would find a few here and there and it was just be a fun aspect of the book. McFeely took it as a challenge. We were SHOCKED by him. So yes, you bet! We tried to oout do ourselves. We would write stuff and giggle, "Wait until Chris reads that!"
Jim Sorenson: Maybe 2% of the book is written specifically for Chris. (We love Chris.)
Razorsaw: No problem. And really, he deserves a big hand for putting so much effort into unearthing all of that.
Bill Forster: Chris has become part of the Almanac.
Jim Sorenson: We thought so. We debated how to thank him, and ultimately decided to write him into the universe on page 137.
Bill Forster: When I gave copies of the first Almanac to friends and family I also gave them copoes all of the Annotated AllSpak Almanac.
Razorsaw: Few of us should be so lucky.
Can you give any insight on anyone else who made it into the book? You certainly had a lot of fun in Part 1.
Jim Sorenson: Humans, you mean?
Bill Forster: Real humans you mean?
Razorsaw: Yes.
Jim Sorenson: Not too many... Lisa Kane is someone Bill knows. Vangelus and Hydra were from Derrick.
Bill Forster: Umm...My friends Krista and Shana, Jim's mom
Jim Sorenson: Yeah, the first book we did it a bit more. The first book had a lot more humans.
Bill Forster: Oh yeah. i'm thinking both books. I think just Lisa Kane and Chris McFeely. Other than the people you know. Hydra...etc.
Razorsaw: well, Chris definately deserved it.
Well, I'm running out of questions. So I suppose I'll end this on a high note.
Jim Sorenson: C sharp?
Bill Forster: Carnage in C minor~
Razorsaw: Is there anything you'd both like to say to the fandom, regarding the Almanacs and the show itself?
Bill Forster: It's been a privilage making these books. I am honored that people love them so much. Thanks to the fans and the professionals!
Jim Sorenson: I'd say, thanks for caring so much! It makes writing these books a joy.
Razorsaw: Alright then! Thank you both very much for taking time out of your evening! I really appreciate it.
Bill Forster: Thank you. It was a plessure!
Jim Sorenson: You are welcome! Catch you on the IM!
Many thanks to Jim and Bill for the interview!
Read on for the interview, but be warned - those of you who don't have it yet, there are spoilers.
Razorsaw: Thanks for meeting with me, Jim, Bill. Now, let's get right into it.
Jim Sorenson: Sure
Bill Forster: Okay
Razorsaw: First, let me begin by saying I really enjoyed the first volume. Your style of writing greatly matched the series. That said, how did the Almanac project originally come about?
Bill Forster: It came to us in a dream. Actually, were were looking to do another Ark book. The Almanac evolved from it.
Jim Sorenson: Flush with the success of our first book, and eagerly awaiting the publication of the second, we went to BotCon. We went to the Animated panel and decided to introduce ourselves to Derrick Wyatt. As it turned out, he was familiar with our work.
So, we asked him if he was interested, and he said yes. He helped us with a pitch to IDW, and they bought it. As Bill mentioned, we originally were thinking of something like The Ark: Animated. Once we got into the material, though, we realized that it could, and should, be much much more.
Razorsaw: I see. Yeah, I gathered that much from your blog posts.
Bill Forster: The real key point of the evelution from Ark to Almanac was realizing the potential of the In Universe voices. Then our imagination started running amuck.
Razorsaw: ah, that leads me to my next question. What then was your inspiration for certain parts of the book? More specifically... what led to the decision of having the characters do in universe commentary about the characters and setting?
Bill Forster: Then our imagination started running amuck. Basically, we didn't want the book to seem...dull. We thought the show was SO whimsical and unique we had to capture that. We toyed with a few ideas and settled on the idea that "we" would do as little talking as possible and let the characters talk for themselves. It simply fit the feel of the show.
Razorsaw: I can see that. It definately added some extra dimension to the characters. Let them see what they all thought of each other.That said, who were your favorite characters to write for?
Jim Sorenson: For me: Sentinel Prime, Porter C. Powell, Swindle. Blitzwing is also a hoot.
Bill Forster: For me it was Starscream. I have always loved him. I also enjoyed writing for Lugnut and Lockdown.
Razorsaw: I in particular really liked your approach to the Starscream clones.
Bill Forster: Thanks. We had great fun with them.
Jim Sorenson: That was all Bill.
Bill Forster: Jim added the little expresions on the models.
Razorsaw: Those are characters you can't really help but have fun with.
Jim Sorenson: I wish we had room in II for a full page of Thrust and Dirge; alas, we did not.
Razorsaw: Now, getting into Volume 2, which I'm sure everyone wants to hear about...
Jim Sorenson: Is that out yet?
Razorsaw: Ha! It is unless you ordered from Amazon.com. *beat*
Jim Sorenson: Amazon started shipping yesterday (7/6) for some people.
Razorsaw: Yes. Just a bit of good humor there, heh.
Bill Forster: Before you ask, yes its true. I am Sideways.
Razorsaw: Aren't we all Sideways? Deep down?
Bill Forster: True
Razorsaw: Anyway! Were there any particular challenges in creating volume 2 that weren't present in volume 1? There was definately a lot of characters that were... less established than the ones in the first part.
Bill Forster: Part 2
Bill Forster: The second part of the book was completely new for us
Jim Sorenson: Yes. As Bill says, trying to tackle the out-of-universe ideas of how a toy line is made, how a cartoon is made, what would have been in season four, and so on, was a new experience.
Bill Forster: I thought a big challenge we had was the Great War timeline.
Jim Sorenson: Writing for less well established characters wasn't particularly difficult. If anything, it gave us more freedom. Besides, we had Derrick, Marty and Matt to keep us true to the spirit of Animated.
Razorsaw: So the likes of Chase, Lightbright, et all didn't present any unique obstacles?
Jim Sorenson: More like unique opportunities. Though, we had some changes along the way.
Razorsaw: I'd imagine.
Jim Sorenson: I wrote Sky Garry as a pacifist originally; Derrick or Marty didn't like that, so we wound up sticking more closely to his Battlestars portrayal.
Razorsaw: Who came up with those girls' names, by the way? I'm also interested as to where Sparkride and Horsepower came from.
Jim Sorenson: Girls name is a funny story; Bill and I came up with two names. Meanwhile, Monzo and Derrick came up with two different names. We all powwowed and used one from us (Lightbright) and one from them (Lickety Split).
Sparkride and Horsepower were originally Sparkride and Streetstar. Then the BotCon 2010 set was announced and Streetstar didn't seem obscure enough anymore, so I switched to Horsepower. Those drawings were by Boo, specifically for the book. They were based on the characters he had as guards in the Metroplex in The Arrival #6.
Razorsaw: I see. I was always partial to the name Mantis for the green one, myself. (If you can have Bumblebee and Wasp...)
Bill Forster: And the original cover was Transmutate!
Razorsaw: Transmutate would have been on the cover of the book?
Bill Forster: That was a joke.
Razorsaw: Razorsaw fails at humor. More at 11.
Razorsaw: Moving on, which "side" character was your favorite to flesh out?
Bill Forster: By side you mean?
Razorsaw: Ah, cameo characters. Bumper, Chase, and so on.
Jim Sorenson: For me, Beachcomber. I tried to make him die at the servos of Shockwave as originally scripted, but the darned guy showed up in a late season crowd scene.
Razorsaw: Someone get that bot Deployer shaped like a great dane.
Bill Forster: For the new book I did the (what I called) "bumble" models. I really enjoyed all of them. I guess Glyph and Bumber were my favs.
Jim Sorenson: (I thought his Searchlight and Bumper were fantastic.)
Bill Forster: I wanted Searchlight and Bumper to be Batman and Robin.
Razorsaw: The Bumblebee derivatives were who I was looking forward to most.
Jim Sorenson: Those were 90% Bill.
Bill Forster: Jim does the lion's share of the writing though.
Razorsaw: Any insight on where Chase came from? I don't recall seeing him in any crowd scenes.
Jim Sorenson: Let me check the model sheet number. [after a bit] "This Is Why I Hate Machines"
Jim Sorenson: I guess he didn't make the final cut.
Razorsaw: I see. Poor fellow.
Jim Sorenson: He's a blowhard, he deserves what he gets.
Razorsaw: Speaking of the bios, how did the likes of Mirage, Stretch, Straxus, and the like come to be? Were they developed for season 4, or did they just happen to be laying around?
Jim Sorenson: Some were developed specifically for this book, some were developed for S3 and cut for time. None of them were S4 specific.
Razorsaw: I see. They were a real treat either way.
Razorsaw: Forgive me if I missed him, but... why the lack of poor dead Sentinel Supreme? :P He's so nice Boo killed him twice.
Jim Sorenson: Space. The book was really tight. I wanted to use him. Boo gave me maybe two pages worth of models to use, but all I was able to squeeze in were the Jet twins and the ceremonial guards.
Razorsaw: I suppose he shall forever remain the Transformers equivelant of Kenny McFarlane.
Jim Sorenson: Boo is a talented and prolific guy... I wouldn't be surprised if good old Sentinel Supreme showed up somewhere else in the multiverse.
Razorsaw: Hopefully alive!
Jim Sorenson: Or is being dead the point?
Bill Forster: Undead
Razorsaw: We may never know.
Razorsaw: I noticed there was a great number of characters created for the book, like the cameos in the Great War board game, the McAddam's menu, and the Omega Sentinels and their autobot counterparts.
Bill Forster: I noticed that too
Razorsaw: What was the proccess for these? Were they your creations? Were Marty and Derrick involved in any way?
Jim Sorenson: Omega Sentinels were not created for this book, they were cut for time from Transwarped.
Bill Forster: Their pilots were our doing. As were most of the heads. A few were Derricks that I took from sketches and inked up
Jim Sorenson: Great War characters (new ones) were all Bill, except for the game pieces. Those were Javier.
Bill Forster: Yeah Javier is our hero
Razorsaw: Javier?
Jim Sorenson: Javier Reyes, our colorist.
Razorsaw: Ah!
Jim Sorenson: Derrick and Marty and Matt were given copies of the book to annotate, so while they didn't create those characters they signed off on them, so to speak. Derrick in particular gave us some really useful notes along the way.
Bill Forster: Derrick is brilliant to work with.
Jim Sorenson: Seconded. He has a real passion and vision that he brings with him to every interaction.
Razorsaw: Speaking as a fan of RiD and the Unicron Trilogy, I really enjoyed the nods to them.
Bill Forster: Transformers is such a rich tapistry that we try to do nods and acknowledge every corner of it.
Razorsaw: Animated definately seems like the kind of melting pot for such a thing.
Bill Forster: Well I think because of it's whimsical tone it is easier to play around with the universe.
Jim Sorenson: That's one of the elements I loved about it. Exodus and War for Cybertron seem to be taking a similar approach. Exodus not so "whimsical" though.
Razorsaw: Both good observations.
That said... that sharky looking fellow on the Maccadam's menu. Sky-Byte, yes?
Bill Forster: What? Where?
Jim Sorenson: Sky-Who now? The guy from the BotCon set?
Razorsaw: Bottom of the 2nd column. Large grin, has multiple eyes?
Bill Forster: Oh that guy! Yeah. That's Sky-Byte! I made him share a similar body frame as Lugnut.
Razorsaw: Certainly makes sense. It looks like you had a lot of fun with him.
Jim Sorenson: Commander Sky-Byte
So much fun for Bill to draw
More fun to write for!
Bill Forster: I had a lot of trouble with him. I made several sketchs and found that the stranger and weirder I made him the more I like him. I wanted him to look happy but scary. I was a little afraid that it was TOO far out there, but in the end ...issn't Sky-Byte kinda...far out there?
Razorsaw: He's a poetic shark. Of course he is. And in a way, it evokes the design sensibilities of Transmetal 2 designs, making him look so freaky.
Jim Sorenson: I rather like asymmetrical designs like the TM2 guys.
Bill Forster: He turned out to be one of my favorite parts of the book. He reminds me now of Sam Keith's IZ characters from teh Maxx
Jim Sorenson: Bill and I used to joke around that BW Megatron always got stuck reading off the full toy names, while everyone else in BW got a pass. So, Cheetor called S3 Optimus, well, Optimus
Razorsaw: Got to sell that toy somehow.
Jim Sorenson: But BW Megatron had to call him 'Optimal Optimus.' The only character to do so, I believe. So we'd joke around, saying things (with a poor David Kaye impression) like "Well, if it isn't Wal*Mart exclusive Transmetal RatTrap, how positively delightful!"
Bill Forster: "I see your still Mint in box!"
Razorsaw: "Don't call me that... call me 'Wal*Mart exclusive Transmetal RatTrap repurposed as Packrat!'"
Moving on. Can you tell us anything interesting about the writing of the episode summaries? Anything you thought was particularly clever or fun to do?
Bill Forster: Sure. Furao's bio is a true story.
Razorsaw: Not quite what I meant, but go on.
Bill Forster: During WWII the USS Intrepid was struck by a torpedo that jammed its rudder and the ship could not move. Some clever sailor made a sail and extended it from the port side flight deck down toward the bottom of the ship and created a sail. The sail worked against the jammed rudder and allowed the ship to excape. So I Transformered the story up a little
Razorsaw: I see. That's very interesting.
Jim Sorenson: I LOVED writting the Yatter page. I think I did that in about 3 hours. It was completely effortless. I don't usually laugh at my own jokes, but I do when I read that page. I think "oh nos" is usually the line that does it for me.
Bill Forster: I like making Flareup and Warpath an item.
Jim Sorenson: Some of those really far-out pages take literally weeks to do. AlTernity TODAY took weeks
Razorsaw: And re: Yatter, Dr. Jones really needs to watch who his daughter makes friends with.
Jim Sorenson: No time for love, Doctor Jones.
Bill Forster: There is always time...for love!
Razorsaw: I now expect you to make Animated Shortround happen.
Jim Sorenson: What, you didn't find him yet?
Razorsaw: ... Well. I tip my hat to you, sirs. (Unless you're messing with me)
Bill Forster: IF you look at page 102 and squint really hard! (Unfortunately, he's still in his stasis pod)
Razorsaw: Speaking of messing with people.
Was there a deliberate effort to try and up the ante on your hidden clues and easter eggs? I suspect poor Chris McFeely is losing sleep. (Please don't kill me Chris.)
Bill Forster: Honestly when we started the easter egg thing we were just amusung ourselves and figired some people would find a few here and there and it was just be a fun aspect of the book. McFeely took it as a challenge. We were SHOCKED by him. So yes, you bet! We tried to oout do ourselves. We would write stuff and giggle, "Wait until Chris reads that!"
Jim Sorenson: Maybe 2% of the book is written specifically for Chris. (We love Chris.)
Razorsaw: No problem. And really, he deserves a big hand for putting so much effort into unearthing all of that.
Bill Forster: Chris has become part of the Almanac.
Jim Sorenson: We thought so. We debated how to thank him, and ultimately decided to write him into the universe on page 137.
Bill Forster: When I gave copies of the first Almanac to friends and family I also gave them copoes all of the Annotated AllSpak Almanac.
Razorsaw: Few of us should be so lucky.
Can you give any insight on anyone else who made it into the book? You certainly had a lot of fun in Part 1.
Jim Sorenson: Humans, you mean?
Bill Forster: Real humans you mean?
Razorsaw: Yes.
Jim Sorenson: Not too many... Lisa Kane is someone Bill knows. Vangelus and Hydra were from Derrick.
Bill Forster: Umm...My friends Krista and Shana, Jim's mom
Jim Sorenson: Yeah, the first book we did it a bit more. The first book had a lot more humans.
Bill Forster: Oh yeah. i'm thinking both books. I think just Lisa Kane and Chris McFeely. Other than the people you know. Hydra...etc.
Razorsaw: well, Chris definately deserved it.
Well, I'm running out of questions. So I suppose I'll end this on a high note.
Jim Sorenson: C sharp?
Bill Forster: Carnage in C minor~
Razorsaw: Is there anything you'd both like to say to the fandom, regarding the Almanacs and the show itself?
Bill Forster: It's been a privilage making these books. I am honored that people love them so much. Thanks to the fans and the professionals!
Jim Sorenson: I'd say, thanks for caring so much! It makes writing these books a joy.
Razorsaw: Alright then! Thank you both very much for taking time out of your evening! I really appreciate it.
Bill Forster: Thank you. It was a plessure!
Jim Sorenson: You are welcome! Catch you on the IM!
Many thanks to Jim and Bill for the interview!