Transformers: Daniel Warren Johnson Brings the Robots In Diguise to Skybound’s Energon Universe

The Transformers join Skybound Entertainment’s Energon Universe in next week’s Transformers #1, written and drawn by Daniel Warren Johnson (Do a Powerbomb, Extremity). The launch is a big moment for Skybound’s nascent shared universe, which also includes another Hasbro property, G.I. Joe, and Void Rivals. Johnson is helming the first Transformers comics in this new universe, featuring a relatively small number of characters compared to the large casts of previous Transformers comics. Optimus Prime, Ratchet, Cliffjumper, Arcee, and Wheeljack represent the Autobots, while Starscream, Rumble, Skywarp, Laserbeak, and Soundwave fight for the Decepticons.

ComicBook.com had the chance to speak to Johnson about launching his new era of Transformers, which is scratching an artistic itch he’s had since childhood, and how he hopes to surprise readers with the series. Here’s what he had to say:

Jamie Lovett, ComicsBook.com: My first question after reading the preview PDF is, did I just witness Optimus Prime deliver a Rainmaker to Starscream? Did I imagine that? Did I dream that? Because it feels surreal, honestly.

Daniel Warren Johnson: You didn’t dream it. You didn’t imagine it. It is real. This is the world we’re living in now.

My headcanon now is that Optimus Prime fights the way Kazuchika Okada wrestles, and I’m sticking with it until proven otherwise. But there’s also a German suplex in there. There are wrestling-style fights in this book. Is that the result of you being in the habit of drawing that stuff after putting out Do a Powerbomb? Or was that part of your idea immediately, that giant robots fight like professional wrestlers? How did that end up a part of the book?

I think a big part of it is my continuing desire, to want to keep things fresh, and there are only so many ways I can have somebody getting kicked in the face before it starts looking old. And there’s a million ways to do it. I want to try new things, and I love pro wrestling, so why not marry the two, comics and pro wrestling, in my wrestling comics and also, in my nonwrestling comics? Because I can. Also, dude, I won’t lie, man, I got my toys right here. I was like, “Can Optimus give Starscream a German suplex?” And I totally set it up, and I was like, “Oh, he can, yeah, and it works. It’s not easy, but I can do it. And why not?” I will say, a little exclusive for you guys, a Burning Hammer is on its way in issue three. Keep an eye out.

With Transformers, whether it’s in the movies or comics or whatever, people often talk about it being like watching somebody play with action figures. I appreciate that, in this case, it is almost literally a comic book of you playing with your action figures.

And I will have you know, every time now that I buy a new Optimus Prime toy, I write it off in my taxes. Thank you, government.

Your comics tend to be about the things you love. Is that the same with Transformers? Were you one of those kids who grew up watching and loving Transformers? Were you generally more into giant robots and animation? What was the thing that hooked you and made you want to do Transformers in the first place?

I think a big part is the television show. A big part is, when my grandfather bought me the Optimus Prime toy at Toys”R”Us, and even though it was in the American packaging, I could see that design aesthetic raging through the plastic, right into my eyeballs. And I was like, “I need this. This is amazing.” So it was that toy, it was the cartoon. And then, as I started getting more into comics, as I got older, my mom and dad were pretty strict about the things that I read. But they allowed me to read old comics, and that included the old ’80s Marvel comics. They put out The Transformers, where Spider-Man shows up. A total trip. You’re like, “What is Spider-Man doing here?”

Weird times.

Yeah, dude. I bought those wherever I could find them, and they did not really exist in a lot of shops because nobody really bought them, and always trying to find the issues that had Optimus Prime in them. And then, in turn, with the comics and with those visuals, I was always trying to draw Optimus Prime and draw these characters, and failing miserably, because I just couldn’t quite get the design elements correct and the proportions. So when I did get the call to work on Transformers, I didn’t say yes right away, but I thought in my head, I was like, “I need to start figuring this out. I need to be able to draw Optimus Prime right.” And I have. I figured it out. It feels like I’ve scratched this itch on my back that I’ve had for like 36 years.

Were there challenges in trying to draw Transformers in your style? One common complaint with Transformers media is that it’s hard to tell all of the many robot characters apart or keep track of them. Was that an issue? What was the process like for you in designing your take on Transformers?

I think I really wanted to stick as close as I could to those original cartoon designs because that’s what spurred my love for the franchise in the first place. I have been using the Transformers animated movie from 1986 as my visual bible, as far as head sculpts and design aesthetics and everything like that, the color palette. I sent [colorist Mike Spicer] some screenshots from the movie to give him a vibe like “I’m going to make it look like the movie.” And that’s where I wanted to take it and deliver something that I had always wanted to see as a kid myself. And the ’86 movie really gets me there. It’s something. I still love it. It’s still one of my favorite movies of all time. And to that end, it’s a little hard, especially when you’re growing up, to look at animation as basically 2D images that are just playing on a reel. And to that end, if you pause at certain points in that movie, the character’s arms stretch, and things are out of proportion to show movement and style.

And it’s something that I felt I wasn’t seeing a lot of in any of the Transformers comics. I wanted to see more of that fluidity, flex, and looseness that I was not seeing anywhere else. It even took me a little while, even while drawing the first issue, to figure it out, because every time I’d have to draw a truck or a van or a plane, in some other of my comics, I like having representational backgrounds and mechanical elements to make everything seem pretty solid, so I would naturally stiffen up my line and my wrist as I would draw these mechanical things, and I found myself doing that with the Transformers in the first few pages. “This is not working, they look dead.” And that’s because I’m drawing them like they’re not living. Whenever I draw a human character or a character that has sentience in a comic, I’m always using a brush, and I’m always being loose.

I’m trying to make it as natural as possible, because the more fiddly I get with it, the more it weighs them down. And so, it’s been a weird process of having to go backward in the sense of, not backward, but reassessing and going back to my roots of like, “Okay, the looser this shoulder on Optimus Prime looks, the better it’s going to turn out,” which is hard to trust because you’re drawing these, I don’t know, freaking Optimus Prime is all blocks. And it’s basically like trying to draw a LEGO set, and it gets really unfun really fast if you take it too seriously. So just have to be okay with the wobble.

Trying to draw with a brush, a straight line, I’m not turning the page and getting every line exactly right, because I don’t have time for that. So I’ll just go wherever I am on the page at that moment for whatever line that I need. And a lot of times, I’ll get that Charles Schulz wiggle, because my hand is a little unsteady. But it actually totally works, and it keeps me from taking it too seriously and also keeps it fun. And the end product reads better. So it was a bit of a process of letting go and relearning how to be free when it comes to making lines.

Since you referenced that movie, every time I open up one of these comics, I’m going to put “The Touch” on repeat until the issue’s over.

That’s one of my favorite soundtracks of all time. It’s one of my favorite records of all time. Maybe top 10. I was listening to that when I was 11. I’ve listened to the soundtrack before I saw the movie.

It’s almost a running joke that a lot of artists hate drawing cars. They’re the bane of certain artists’ existence. Was this an issue? Did that give you pause? “Do I want to draw this many cars?” Or were you game for it from the start?

Drawing cars. It’s one of those things where, when I was first trying to make comics, and I had not started Space-Mullet yet, I was going to do a fantasy webcomic, because it would be easier to draw nature than perspective and corridors and sci-fi stuff. And I thought to myself, “Well then, I’m not going to get any good at it and I want to be good at it, so the only way to be good at it is to do it.” And it sucked. It was really hard to figure that out. Same thing with when I worked on The Ghost Fleet with Donny [Cates]. He’s like, “There’s a ton of trucks.” I’m like, “I don’t know how to draw trucks. I guess I better start practicing.” And I drew a crap ton of trucks until I figured it out.

And it was not easy, but it was so fun, dude. It was so fun, just to learn to be bad at something and get better at it. I wish I could have that same attitude with golf, but with drawing cars, it takes work and effort. But now, it’s something I have in my back pocket that I can pull out at any time. And it’s really fun when you get good at something. It allows me to put my own flair on it, but still have it have life. Not like a technical illustration, but something that is a little more fun than that, that has weight and you can move around. It’s just the best. It’s so fun.

One thing I appreciate about that first issue is that it’s definitely a Transformers comic, but it still feels like a Daniel Warren Johnson comic book.

Oh, I’m glad.

What was your narrative, or thematic inroad when deciding where to take Transformers? Or did you start at, “Well, I’m drawing Transformers. That’s cool,” and let it work itself out as you went? Was there something you saw an opportunity to express through the Transformers when you started working on the book?

It’s tough. There’s an element of “Just get it done,” when it comes to licensed comics or work-for-hire gigs, but then, there’s also this pull of, “I want to make the best Transformers comic in the universe.” So the latter, I think, is something maybe to strive for, but is not necessarily a goal, because you don’t want to be unhealthy about it. All that to say — I don’t know how to say this without sounding like a complete butthead — there’s something about nostalgia that fuels us as readers of genre fiction and Transformers lovers and toys.

And there’s a reason I have a toy chest full of Optimus Prime back there. I don’t know why, but there’s an element of, when you look into the past and you’re seeing through that window of what your life used to be like in that time, it’s almost like the things that you had around you and the things you were experiencing during those times is almost like the vessel that transports you back into remembering what it was like to feel that way when maybe the world wasn’t so crappy. Or it was always crappy, you were just more naive. And I think, along with that naivete comes a little bit of a fresh look at story and how you look at problems and conflict. And so, I was trying to channel that and make something that’s super fun and super action-packed, but along with that naivete comes a fresh way to view conflicts and problems in the world and life. And so, that’s something that I was trying to channel in Transformers.

And I hesitate to talk about it too much because I don’t want to seem like a pretentious asshole. But I also want to make a Transformers comic that means a little more than what you might expect a Transformers comic could deliver. So maybe that’s silly to even try for, I honestly don’t know, man. It might not be worth the effort, but it’s the only thing I know how to do. So I’m going to try and do it.

This is a big title for the Energon Universe that Skybound is building, which started with Void Rivals. What has your experience working on this been like? You did Wonder Woman: Dead Earth for DC which was outside the main DC universe, and you did Beta Ray Bill, which was in the Marvel Universe. How has working on this been as an experience, compared to that stuff? Are there a lot of group story meetings with the G.I. Joe people and Robert Kirkman, or are they pretty much letting you do your thing and rolling with what comes out of it?

When I first started the project, before I signed on the dotted line, they gave me a document of some big moments that they had planned for the overall series. We’re talking way in the future, which I was totally okay with because I don’t really want to have to think about those big things anyway because it’s this combined universe, where there are going to be logistical things that I have no desire to try and workshop creatively. I like, as you said, being left in my little corner and making what I’m going to make. So for the most part, it’s been me, especially in the first arc, setting the tone, setting the characters up, getting people excited about the project and about the story. And I’ve been mostly left to my own devices as far as the world goes. There are a few things here and there that they asked me to sprinkle in, but it’s mostly Easter eggs. And there haven’t been really any story meetings yet, because it’s so early on. It’s so early days. I’m sure that’ll come.

I am supposed to write a few issues after I finish writing and drawing, and I’m way more willing to pal around and have fun when just writing it because there’s a distance that comes when I write something. When I’m writing and drawing something, I’m over here trying to bang out the meaning of life on a frigging 2D page. When I write, the stakes are a little lower again, and I’m trying to make something special, but also, it’s just a natural thing that happens. There’s a difference in how I approach the work and the work that comes out because I am collaborating and it’s not fair for me to expect the same level of tone and vibe that I would bring myself alone to a project. So because of that expectation adjustment, it makes it easier for me to step away in a healthy way, from whatever title I’m working on, and thus, me being way more cool with like, “Okay, this is going to happen and this is going to happen, and then, this thing is going to happen from this issue over here, and I’m going to have to write my way through those avenues,” which is honestly fun. It’s like a fun storytelling logistical problem, that is something I’m not super experienced with, but I think iron sharpens iron. And so far, it’s been a great experience overall. 

Transformers #1 goes on sale on October 4th.