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Monday 6 July 2015

Incredible Change-Bots Two Point Something Something by Jeffrey Brown Review


Jeffrey Brown’s hit upon a million-dollar idea: robots that transform into other objects, like trucks and planes – it’s brilliant! But some robots – in disguise – are good and some are bad. They fight each other with laser guns and junk. NOBODY has ever seen anything quite this original. Robots that transform – they need a catchy name… how about Incredible Change-Bots! Genius – why isn’t EVERYONE talking about this ORIGINAL, AMAZING comic?!

Oh that’s right, Transformers exists and has done for several decades now.

Well, this comic is just garbage! And I don’t mean because it’s a crap homage to Transformers, a concept that works well as the toy line it was designed as and not at all in any other medium; no, this sucks robot donkey balls because it’s so unbelievably tedious.

It doesn’t help that I’m not a Transformers fan to start with but I generally like Brown’s comics and thought his take might be interesting in some way – satirical, maybe, or clever somehow. Nope! Watch as Brown shows us one interchangeable, unfunny robot (he transforms into a microwave!) shooting lasers at another (he transforms into a tape deck!). Then watch it again with dozens of forgettable robots, again and again, for an obnoxious 250 pages!

The tone is a bit weird. The only audience I see appreciating this drek is kids because they’re dumb. But I wouldn’t rec this to any parents because Brown includes some dull relationship-type stories here that, I think, are intended to be winks at the kind of comics he used to make (Clumsy, etc.). And then the robots get “rust, down there”, a thinly veiled reference to STDs which isn’t appropriate for kids who wouldn’t understand it anyway. And it’s not funny for adults either. So, suckage all round!

Brown tries for comedy in some one-on-one-type interviews with the Change-Bots which are beyond excruciating to read because the back and forths are so uninteresting. “Do you like being a robot or a vehicle?” is asked repeatedly and their opinions on fighting – some like it, some don’t.

Fuuuuuuuucking hell!

Like I said, Brown’s a pretty good cartoonist and I’ve enjoyed his other books like Funny Misshapen Body, A Matter of Life, and the Darth Vader series. Incredible Change-Bots though is multiple kinds of terrible. Absolute boring shit in book form that even fans of this cartoonist will struggle with.

Incredible Change-Bots Two Point Something Something

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