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No battloids were harmed during the making of this strip.
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Two months later, and I finally got around to another picfic. My wonderful Ricoh RDC-7 camera has gone kapootie. So I was forced to use my old Kodak DC-210. Then I discovered I had no batteries for it (uses AA batteries). Then I discovered I didn't have the flash card driver for my computer. Finally, everything came together, and I could put together an idea for a strip. The pictures look a bit different because I also discovered the wonderful "shapes" tool in PaintShop Pro 7. I don't have to draw my own dialogue boxes anymore. I also have no way to extend the exposure with the DC-210, so these pictures are PSP'd to be 50% brighter.
Again, I wanted to show Jetfire's playful side. Reading comics and making comments to himself. A bit of irony, he's commenting on War Within Jetfire. The book he's reading is War Within #4. I want to show the battloids actually doing things instead of just standing around. So for this strip, I decided that if the strip is centered on Jetfire, it should start with him. It should also show how quickly his mood changes.
This is also the first strip where we see Firefang. I named him after FangWing on Allspark. The day Firefang arrived, the only person on the #Allspark channel that seemed to care was FangWing, so I fit the "fang" bit into the battloid naming structure, and I had a new character. Armada Jetfire appears because I wanted to see what would happen if Jetfire met his Armada counterpart. I had a few ideas, and for some reason, all of them ended with Jetfire kicking Armada Jetfire's butt. The problem was what would set Jetfire off? I know he's got a short fuse, but I didn't want it to be something like an off-hand remark. Finally, it hit me. Those of you with a first-run Armada Jetfire know how ridiculous his "countdown" sound effect sounds. If you don't have a first-run Armada Jetfire, and you've never heard it before, I guess it isn't as funny.
Oh, and finally, the panel where Jetfire says "Oh, crap...." is an idea I stole from Futurama's Bender. And yes, the LED in Jetfire's megaphone gun is lit up in the countdown panel. Oddly enough, Jetfire's gun just magically appears in the fifth panel.