ThunderPeel2001 Posted June 18, 2009 Share Posted June 18, 2009 I've been doing a bit research into this little oddity. Apparently it was the brainchild of Gary Winnick (whose name you might recall from Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island, Monkey Island II, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, The Dig, DOTT...). I don't understand the full story behind it, but it was apparently a videogame, a TV show (wasn't picked up) AND a comic. The concept was about Dynatron City, a place where its inhabitants mutated from the atomic energy in their "Proto-Cola". One of the Defenders whose name you might recognize is "Buzzsaw Girl", who appeared on a calendar in Monkey 2. It's interesting because this is obviously the most ambitious project that LucasArts embarked on: A videogame, a TV show AND a series of comics... all pretty much simultaneously. What's surprising is that the videogame, what LucasArts should have been best at, was apparently the weakest link. The TV pilot was not actually that bad. It featured Whoopi Goldberg and Tim Curry, for one, but also had decent animation, too. It seems like they put a decent amount of money behind it. Watch it for yourself: http://www.veoh.com/browse/videos/category/animation/watch/v15913870n8xzBbrm Then there was the comic-book series (six issues in all, I believe) that was written by non other than Steve Purcell (although, other than the covers, not drawn by). You can see some of the pages, here: http://www.centaursite.com/comics/dynatron/ I think there's probably a really interesting story to be told here... If anyone has the time to try and unearth all the facts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QueZTone Posted June 18, 2009 Share Posted June 18, 2009 i have the first comic depicted in that picture there.... but apart from it being a fun read.. that's really all i can tell of it too Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobMegone Posted June 18, 2009 Share Posted June 18, 2009 I've always wondered about this game, It was released on the NES only right? Id like to get a good quality scan of the dynatron comic cover(or NES game) maybe someone could posterise it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SyntheticGerbil Posted June 18, 2009 Share Posted June 18, 2009 I have all six of the comics, having a complete Steve Purcell comic collection aside from some Marvil pencil and ink gigs in the 80s. It is probably the worst comic (and series) Steve has ever written. The humor is really toned down and not at all irreverent like Sam and Max and the stories are all cookie cutter late 80s standard humor comic plots. Completely forgettable. I've never actually played the game and I'm not planning to. There is a review of the Dynatron show on Imdb, and while I may be wrong, it seems the pilot aired somewhere at least once. I can see exactly why none of this stuff succeeded, besides it all being very mediocre. Every single one of those releases are more than a few years out of date. The NES was being usurped by the SNES and Genesis, so that game was not in a good position, even if it sucked. Comics were evolving by 1992 (although not to my liking), and as I said, the Dynatron series would have flew in the 80s when just about any comic that looked like TMNT, had furries, had a team, or was a TV show tie-in comic would make a profit. The Sam and Max comic was ahead of it's time, but the Dynatron comic was behind and the inevitable independent crash following the boom helped by TMNT certainly didn't help books about humorous cartoon superheros, even if it was published by Marvel. By watching some of that pilot, I can see how painfully out of date that it was. DiC was there to make ****ty animation show tie-ins that merely served as promotional vehicles to mostly help sell action figures and sometimes video games. Just about every animator loathed working on this stuff, and DiC was dying out by the start of the 90s. Ren and Stimpy, Doug, and Rocko's Modern Life had already premiered and were enjoying very high ratings as well as being fun for actual animators to work on. Well, maybe not Doug, but anyways that short golden era didn't stay anyways. I could scan all of my comic covers, but some of them are a little bit beat up. Purcell didn't do every cover though, if that matters to anyone. Some covers aren't signed and I can't tell as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThunderPeel2001 Posted June 19, 2009 Author Share Posted June 19, 2009 More scans would be awesome! Purcell just posted this about Dynatron City on his blog: My best story about the animated pilot: Originally the voice of Doctor Mayhem was performed by Christopher Walken. It was lively and hilarious. For god-knows-what-reason the producers at the last minute replaced him with a more cartooney voice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SyntheticGerbil Posted June 19, 2009 Share Posted June 19, 2009 Wait, did Steve Purcell have anything to do with the pilot? I can't find the post on Spudvision though. Err... maybe I can scan some stuff next week. Are you sure you wouldn't rather have some Toybox comics or something? I also have two great stories, one about Batman, that Steve Purcell wrote and Mike Mignola drew. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThunderPeel2001 Posted June 19, 2009 Author Share Posted June 19, 2009 Wow! Steve Purcell and Mike Mignola?!?! That sounds awesome! Well, maybe just the six front covers would be cool, then Purcell was involved in the character designs, I'm sure. His name was in the credits. Considering how small LucasArts were at the time, I'm sure everyone was involved, or at least knew exactly what was going on. I can't get over how ambitious it was... If it had turned out to be the next TMNT it would have blown everyone's mind that this little game studio was behind it. God knows there was some real talent at LFG at the time, too. Purcell left a comment in his comments section: http://spudvisionblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/cartographers-cabin.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SyntheticGerbil Posted June 19, 2009 Share Posted June 19, 2009 Wow! Steve Purcell and Mike Mignola?!?! That sounds awesome!l[/url] If I'm not mistaken, they used to live together in the 80s. It's possible it was actually was right next door to eachother in the same apartment complex. Art Adams was in the mix there too. I know for sure from an old interview that it was those three that created the Fizzball game found in the Sam and Max comics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThunderPeel2001 Posted June 19, 2009 Author Share Posted June 19, 2009 Good lord... that's freaking awesome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SyntheticGerbil Posted June 24, 2009 Share Posted June 24, 2009 Okay Mr. Peel, here's some 200 dpi scans of the Dynatron covers. I didn't go too huge since Megaupload takes forever, but if you would like larger files, I suppose I can rescan: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=TDP4LB42 Also, sorry about issue 3, but mine is all wrinkled and water damaged. I bought all six of these for like 50 cents each some years back. And here's some bonus scans which are all Mike Mignola related one way or another! Here's the "lost" Clayface comic Mignola penciled and Steve wrote. It's just ridiculous, even though everyone is so straight faced. http://www.megaupload.com/?d=F3RVZJ2C I also scanned a bizarre short about the "King of Neptune" that Steve Purcell wrote and Mignola drew. This one is really neat, because I don't think I've seen Mignola draw anything this absurd. http://www.megaupload.com/?d=37DQZKX8 And last I scanned a hard to find Toybox comic that Purcell did in the late 90s that only appeared in the Hellboy Christmas Special one shot that is way out of print. The Hellboy stories in the special were all recollected but none of the other supporting comics made it since they weren't Hellboy related. I'm not so crazy about the digital coloring here, but it still looks great. http://www.megaupload.com/?d=T6TQRRQ3 Enjoy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThunderPeel2001 Posted June 24, 2009 Author Share Posted June 24, 2009 w00t! What an awesome collection! Thank you very much indeed, Mr. Gerbil. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giant Graffiti Posted June 24, 2009 Share Posted June 24, 2009 Here's the "lost" Clayface comic Mignola penciled and Steve wrote. It's just ridiculous, even though everyone is so straight faced. That comic is amazing! It's like Sam & Max, but Batman is Sam and Robin is Max. "<Gasp> It's like a lump of Boat putty or spackle or clay or something!" "As the Putty/Spackle/Clay-Faced intruder shucks off it's hat and coat--" "Eewww! He's clay all over!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SyntheticGerbil Posted June 24, 2009 Share Posted June 24, 2009 That comic is amazing! It's like Sam & Max, but Batman is Sam and Robin is Max. "<Gasp> It's like a lump of Boat putty or spackle or clay or something!" "As the Putty/Spackle/Clay-Faced intruder shucks off it's hat and coat--" "Eewww! He's clay all over!" Haha, apparently when they did it, DC hated it, and the comic was shelved for like a decade, until Mignola was much more famous. I have a great interview quote about that, I'll try to find it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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