Mike Costa on Writing Transformers

Hound · Post by **Hound** » Thu Dec 08, 2011 11:25 pm

Mike Costa has shared his thoughts on writing Transformers and the fandom in general.

http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-new ... rs-173922/

Post by **Kaylee** » Fri Dec 09, 2011 4:02 am

Everyone's favorite Insecticon Swarm pet "Bob" was actually never intended to be named "Bob". The truth is, Mike Costa wanted to name the character "Spike" (because, duh, he has spikes all over him). When Rodimus first meets with Ironhide and Sunstreaker on Cybertron, and they introduce him to their pet "Spike", it would be a meta-joke moment, which Costa thinks would have been very funny, where Rodimus is shocked because of the situation on Earth with human "Spike". The "powers that be upstairs" eventually nixed the idea, stating it would be too confusing. A short list of names was given, including "George", but eventually they settled on "Bob".

Surely there comes a time in a man's life when you suddenly realise you just used the phrase 'meta-joke', to describe a concept so weak it doesn't even qualify as a pun, and you know it's time to go get a real job: you're no good at this one?

Liking his photo though: "Mirror, mirror on the wall, how can I look like a shiftless, over-privileged goober today?"

Brendocon · Post by **Brendocon** » Fri Dec 09, 2011 1:32 pm

Which one was Mike Costa?

Serious question.

Post by **Best First** » Fri Dec 09, 2011 1:47 pm

Hahahahaha. Awesome. What a wally.

Metal Vendetta · Post by **Metal Vendetta** » Fri Dec 09, 2011 2:21 pm

You know when they announced Catherine Tate as the new Doctor Who assistant, and everyone went, "No, it'll be ****ing awful, haven't you learnt from Bonnie Langford?"

Yeah, that, except McCarthy is Langford and Costa is Tate.

DJ_Convoy · Post by **DJ_Convoy** » Fri Dec 09, 2011 4:33 pm

Uh oh:

From Chris Ryall's twitter:

Sometimes you spend your afternoon at the Magic Kingdom only to find an exploding inbox full of very avoidable problems.

Freelancers, really, take this to heart: if you're writing characters you don't own and want to keep writing them, mind what you say online.

Alright, well, now that I know what my tomorrow will be, might as well not think about it any more until then. G'night all.

Shanti418 · Post by **Shanti418** » Fri Dec 09, 2011 7:17 pm

DJ_Convoy wrote:Uh oh:

From Chris Ryall's twitter:

Sometimes you spend your afternoon at the Magic Kingdom only to find an exploding inbox full of very avoidable problems.

Freelancers, really, take this to heart: if you're writing characters you don't own and want to keep writing them, mind what you say online.

Alright, well, now that I know what my tomorrow will be, might as well not think about it any more until then. G'night all.

Well, good! That guy's a dick. I mean, it's one thing to like something, and then suck ass at writing/drawing it. Dreamwave, I'm looking at you. It's another thing when you apparently didn't "get" TF when you started, and STILL don't "get" TF now. Shots at the fanboys aside, these statements:

"They don’t get hungry, they don’t get tired, they don’t have women, they don’t have relationships that they value, because they don’t have females that they can love, maybe brotherly love but how, they don’t have parents?”

- “All the basic things that motivate a person in any kind of adventure story that motivate them, these characters do not have them. You have to manufacture them. Why would a robot that’s millions of years old have a personality like a human? That’s insane.”

- “Transformers are toys. They are toys. That’s why they’re giant robots that turn in to cars. They’re toys. There’s no reason a robot would turn in to a car, they’re toys. I guess you could come up with reasons for it – a lot of writers have – it’s just so strange.”

- “Cars and trucks in a comic book aren’t expressive – there’s no character to a car.”

- “My job as a writer is to understand why characters are doing certain things – beyond why they are doing things in a certain moment – to who they are as people, but that’s where questions start getting really confusing, because these ‘things’ aren’t people.”

Show that not only are you a poor writer, but you're also lazy. As opposed to "Oh! Transformers don't have typical motivations. Sounds like an interesting writing exercise to me! What DOES drive these characters? Oh! As robots, then turn into cars? Why DO they do that? Let me think up a good reason."

I mean, that's the basic idea behind LOTS of comic book writing. Fantastical things happening to fantastical individuals, and the writer has to ground the ideas in reality. We don't WANT human motivations grafted onto robots (See: Fembots).

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Fri Dec 09, 2011 10:10 pm

Wow.

Good news, everyone! Mike Costa is not only gone, he burned the bridge, pissed in the river and nuked the something this metaphor has gone too damn far!

DJ_Convoy · Post by **DJ_Convoy** » Fri Dec 09, 2011 11:01 pm

I've talked this to death elsewhere. Probably not hard to figure out how I feel.

In the long run, he's gone (I highly doubt he'll be invited back to tell any more amazing adventures of Spike) and that's the main thing.

What bugs me is the spin and the anti-fandom backlash that crops up in situations like these. Can certain elements of the fandom be grating? Of course. ANY fandom can be. But I still see a lot of excuses, blameshifting and spin. A lot of good, cool people are being tarred with a "grr, angry, mean fandom aaaaaaaarggghhh" brush. That sucks. It's unfair. I also think that the elements telling people they don't have a right to be pissed off (or to calm down, or whatever) are very, very frustrating.

But again, in the end, dude's gone. It's the End of the Road, and this time, it DOES end.

Roberts. Furman. Transformer comics we can enjoy again. Go.

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Sat Dec 10, 2011 4:26 pm

It's interesting, and I thought about this for a bit. There's a Watership Down principle of writing here that Costa just didn't seem to get. What's the overarching feature of these things' evolution? Whatever it is, it will drive them.

In Richard Adams' novel, you never stop understanding that these are PREY animals, and all they do is to avoid getting eaten. Efrafra is so bizarre precisely because the rabbits there are recoiling against their nature as prey animals, and it's not the cause that Adams champions, since the Efrafran society is changed in the end. Hazel, Fiver and Bigwig rely on their skills and cleverness to avoid getting eaten.

It's actually how someone explained horses to me. When you're on top of a horse, and you demonstrate confidence and assuredness, this thing will carry you anywhere. When you don't, the horse will do what its instincts say and run from the threat.

So the TFs are robots. They are built to do one thing. They will, not like humans, adapt to a variety of tasks. Our evolutionary advantage is big, adaptable brains. Making war is the TFs' single solitary function. I think every good TF writer understood that.

I'm reading Exodus right now and though I suspect Alex Irvine wrote it in two days, he does get this. Right at the beginning, albeit clumsily, he establishes that the TFs are stuck in their societal niche. There is a caste system in place and thus Orion Pax can never be more than he is. It's funny because James is riffing quite a bit on Exodus's groundwork in Chaos Theory, but James obviously cares a bit more about the characters than Irvine.

At some point in the past, the prime directive of these robots, buried deeply in their circuits, changed from "Do my caste-assigned task" to "Fight the other side." This is prone to all sorts of interesting questions that lead to more interesting writing. Can we blame the Matrix for reprogramming them? What are the parallels to, say, two-party systems in politics now? How does a TF reprogram itself for peace? It should be much harder than it is for a human (and now I must read the Drift mini to see if it even tried to touch on the question of actual reprogramming). And in what way is a Prime really just a vehicle to maintain this program and monitor its success in other robots?

Yaya · Post by **Yaya** » Sat Dec 10, 2011 5:14 pm

bumblemusprime wrote:It's interesting, and I thought about this for a bit. There's a Watership Down principle of writing here that Costa just didn't seem to get. What's the overarching feature of these things' evolution? Whatever it is, it will drive them.

In Richard Adams' novel, you never stop understanding that these are PREY animals, and all they do is to avoid getting eaten. Efrafra is so bizarre precisely because the rabbits there are recoiling against their nature as prey animals, and it's not the cause that Adams champions, since the Efrafran society is changed in the end. Hazel, Fiver and Bigwig rely on their skills and cleverness to avoid getting eaten.

It's actually how someone explained horses to me. When you're on top of a horse, and you demonstrate confidence and assuredness, this thing will carry you anywhere. When you don't, the horse will do what its instincts say and run from the threat.

So the TFs are robots. They are built to do one thing. They will, not like humans, adapt to a variety of tasks. Our evolutionary advantage is big, adaptable brains. Making war is the TFs' single solitary function. I think every good TF writer understood that.

I'm reading Exodus right now and though I suspect Alex Irvine wrote it in two days, he does get this. Right at the beginning, albeit clumsily, he establishes that the TFs are stuck in their societal niche. There is a caste system in place and thus Orion Pax can never be more than he is. It's funny because James is riffing quite a bit on Exodus's groundwork in Chaos Theory, but James obviously cares a bit more about the characters than Irvine.

At some point in the past, the prime directive of these robots, buried deeply in their circuits, changed from "Do my caste-assigned task" to "Fight the other side." This is prone to all sorts of interesting questions that lead to more interesting writing. Can we blame the Matrix for reprogramming them? What are the parallels to, say, two-party systems in politics now? How does a TF reprogram itself for peace? It should be much harder than it is for a human (and now I must read the Drift mini to see if it even tried to touch on the question of actual reprogramming). And in what way is a Prime really just a vehicle to maintain this program and monitor its success in other robots?

Great analogy, Sprunks. How can a 'seasoned writer' not get this?

The insults to the TF fandom don't bother me as much as the guy's ineptitude as a writer. "They're robots! How can we write about robots!" Seriously, Mike. More than ever before, with the admission of this 'struggle' you face in writing the TF, you reveal yourself to be very lacking and one dimensional as a writer. I hate to say this, but you need to take some courses on how to write. Seriously. A great writer sees robots or rabbits or trees or fairies and thinks "Wow! An opportunity to do something different! That should be a nice challenge", and they tackle it. They aren't stumped by it. Sheesh.

Post by **Kaylee** » Sun Dec 11, 2011 8:05 am

Yes, very fine, Spencer.

I must say I do agree with the great bozo about the 'fandom' (such as it is). It is quite contradictory, vocal and often none-too-shy about giving ill-thought out opinion [not us, obviously

].

However that's the nature of the beast for most fan audiences, as already pointed out. Basically we are the life of the franchise and we suck, but that's hardly an excuse for producing bad work.

Near as I can figure his whole post comes down to:

It weren't my fault, guv, it was the fandom, the toys themselves, the schedules, Dreamwave, the temperature and the phase of the moon.

I expect better than that from any of my colleagues at work, let alone a writer on a major comic book.

Post by **Best First** » Sun Dec 11, 2011 6:34 pm

Who would have thought it possible for someone to 'get' TFs less than Michael Bay?

bumblemusprime · Post by **bumblemusprime** » Tue Dec 13, 2011 5:06 pm

Bleeding Cool has picked up on it:

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2011/12/09/ ... otic-foot/

Professor Smooth · Post by **Professor Smooth** » Wed Dec 14, 2011 9:43 am

As somebody who has been paying money for years to read his work, some of those comments (in context or otherwise) are kind of upsetting.

So, you didn't enjoy writing the characters. In like once sentence, you knock The Transformers down to their most basic elements (incredibly old robots that fight and turn into cars) and follow it up by saying that it's all-but impossible to write or identify with those characters.

You say this about characters that have survived, with their fan-base intact, for nearly three decades.

But you continued to crank out stuff that you seemingly knew wasn't any good, continued to cash those checks, and then have the nerve to blame the people who continued to pay for it.

FOR YEARS!

Oh. And the "Transformers have no afterlife or religion" remark? How do you think Simon Furman reacted when he read that?

Hound · Post by **Hound** » Wed Dec 14, 2011 12:15 pm

it was the comment about Transformer fans reading only Transformers comics that pissed me off the most.

The UK Transformers comic is what made me fall in love with comics in the first place. Without it, I doubt I would ever have started buying Marvel & DC books, and I have been for the last 20 years...

Post by **Best First** » Wed Dec 14, 2011 1:56 pm

Hound wrote:it was the comment about Transformer fans reading only Transformers comics that pissed me off the most.

Word. The irony being i suspect it is those people who do only read TF comics who were largely in the 'we like Mike Costa' camp because they didn't realise how **** his stuff was compared to some of the other great stuff out there.

Brendocon · Post by **Brendocon** » Wed Dec 14, 2011 3:00 pm

Am I allowed to engage smug mode over not having bought the ongoing yet?

Hot Shot · Post by **Hot Shot** » Wed Dec 14, 2011 3:49 pm

Brendocon wrote:Am I allowed to engage smug mode over not having bought the ongoing yet?

Sure. I've been in smug mode since I completely avoided All Hail Megatron.

Yaya · Post by **Yaya** » Sun Dec 18, 2011 5:01 pm

I have to say, with these comments, Costa moves up to the number two spot for "Most Disliked TF Comic Creator" for me personally.

To rip an entire fanbase because they didn't like the **** he was churning out is juvenile. And then to claim he had no interest in the property when fans clearly remember him stating how thrilled and honored he was to take on this property he "always wanted to write"? Wow.

Post by **Best First** » Mon Dec 19, 2011 11:09 am

Yes but Yaya you have to realise that the above is all your fault. How could it be Mike's?

Yaya · Post by **Yaya** » Mon Dec 19, 2011 2:04 pm

Sadly, in a way, it is my fault. I continued to buy his **** knowing this day might come.

Costa insults TF fans left and right in that interview, but leaves out the only true criticism.

That we're gullible as hell.

DJ_Convoy · Post by **DJ_Convoy** » Mon Dec 19, 2011 2:21 pm

I blame you.

Post by **Kaylee** » Mon Dec 19, 2011 3:08 pm

DJ_Convoy wrote:I blame you.

So do I

Post by **snarl** » Mon Dec 19, 2011 4:23 pm

What a ****.

So...

he says "I had to write **** comics because the limitations of these being robots meant I couldn't write about TF kids, TF sex or other stuff..."

Completely forgetting that he basically did write about TF kids, TF sex and other lame things.

Touch wood he falls down the stairs tonight, backwards.

Post by **snarl** » Mon Dec 19, 2011 4:35 pm

In a way, it's funny.

He says one of the reasons his job was so dificult is that the fandom aren't united behind anything...

Well it seems his swansong is to unite the lot of us, cause pretty much everybody on the boards I've just scanned seem to agree:

In the words of Dr. Peter Venkman.

This man has no dick.

DJ_Convoy · Post by **DJ_Convoy** » Mon Dec 19, 2011 5:46 pm

Well, you are forgetting the "desperate to prove they're not who he was referring to, so they're defending Costa even tho' they've slated him in the past" crowd.

This is what niggles me. I can think of at least one board (but probably more) where, if Costa showed up RIGHT NOW, the anger would give way to obseqious, sycophantic nonsense (for some posters... not everybody... but enough).

If you don't like the guy and his work... at least be CONSISTANT in your presentation of these feelings! Be polite... you don't have to attack the guy... but don't do a 180 and suddenly thank the guy for his "'efforts" because you're vaguely star-struck or tell people that they misunderstood what Costa was trying to say! Don't stick up for him in one breath and tell everyone else to get over it (his run, his comments, whatever) in another when, in the past, you've made the same criticisms everyone else has!

Anyway.

inflatable dalek · Post by **inflatable dalek** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 9:37 am

My full thoughts on the whole thing (sadly I only just found out about the Ryall tweets or I'd have mentioned those. That magical kingdom crap actually puts me on Costa's side more than anything. Considering that as editor in chief he was ultimately responsible for hiring the guy who didn't get it for two years it's a bit late for pot shots now):

http://thesolarpool.weebly.com/1/post/2 ... omics.html

I actually suspect Ryall's annoyance isn't in defence of the fans, but down to Costa telling a different version of the origin of the two new books ("Andy Schmidt wanted two or three three series running at once and we had to gear the stories towards that") is somewhat different to the Offical Line ("It's a totally organic outgrowing of the end of Chaos that demanded two books"). Not that any of us are surprised IDW are cash whore, right?

In complete fairness to Costa, anyone who hasn't heard the interview should at least give it a go for context, he's not nearly as much of an arrogant tosser as the quotes make him sound (which are taken from an hour and a half interview). He actually comes across as fairly nice. He's just completely and utterly wrong about everything.

Yaya · Post by **Yaya** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 2:55 pm

Projecting his own deficiencies onto fans and the property itself is just asinine. Hey Mike, how about reevaluating yourself as a writer in your assessment of how the wheels came off? That's what's most annoying to me. First he loves Transformers, then he pretty much labels it impossible to write well.

He's pompous. Or maybe it's all for show and he's just insecure.

Whatever, he's annoying.

DJ_Convoy · Post by **DJ_Convoy** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 5:00 pm

inflatable dalek wrote:My full thoughts on the whole thing (sadly I only just found out about the Ryall tweets or I'd have mentioned those. That magical kingdom crap actually puts me on Costa's side more than anything. Considering that as editor in chief he was ultimately responsible for hiring the guy who didn't get it for two years it's a bit late for pot shots now):

http://thesolarpool.weebly.com/1/post/2 ... omics.html

I actually suspect Ryall's annoyance isn't in defence of the fans, but down to Costa telling a different version of the origin of the two new books ("Andy Schmidt wanted two or three three series running at once and we had to gear the stories towards that") is somewhat different to the Offical Line ("It's a totally organic outgrowing of the end of Chaos that demanded two books"). Not that any of us are surprised IDW are cash whore, right?

In complete fairness to Costa, anyone who hasn't heard the interview should at least give it a go for context, he's not nearly as much of an arrogant tosser as the quotes make him sound (which are taken from an hour and a half interview). He actually comes across as fairly nice. He's just completely and utterly wrong about everything.

Don't know if I agree about the relative level of arrogance (he seemed to think that his ideas were let down by us, different/wrong collaborators, the "underpinnings" of TFs, etc.)... but I absolutely agree 100% with everything else you said (especially the point that the blame doesn't merely rest with Costa, but with IDW Editorial). We checked out of the comics largely the same way at the same time... my experience was very, very similar to yours... and I saw largely the same things. The same red flags that many of us saw. A fine analysis.

I do have some faith in the new, new, new, NEW direction... but that faith can be measured by inches. If pretty much anything happens that I don't like... I'm gone. Solid gone.