RoadBoot

Those of you who make a habit of browsing the Java Hut will have seen the post by Jim Su describing new merchandise, as well as some mystery project, the details of which he would release December 3rd.

This morning Jim told the story to CC, who happened to be standing in front of him with a video camera.

You can download the high-quality video here (~16megs), or go watch the YouTube version. There is also an audio version(~4megs), and a transcript below.

“Hi, my name is Jim Su, and I’m here exhibiting the first official ReBoot merchandise in over five years. It’s a ReBoot poster that I drew. The drawing actually took place in 2003 as a pitch. I originally was working on season four of ReBoot, as the senior character modeler. And so what I did is, I also decided maybe it would be interesing to do a comic book of that series. And so I drew the artwork and tracked the picture to Phil Mitchel and Gavin Blair, who were still at Minframe at the time. Unfortunately those things didn’t take off, so I decided to license it as a poster[…] three years later.[…]

“Mainframe was my first CG animation job, I started in 1999. My first project that I worked on was Transformers: Beast Machines, and so I enjoyed my time at Mainframe very much, I was there for four years. They kinda call it “Mainframe University”. A lot of students that just graduate from places like Vancouver Film School or Sheridan, they wind up at Mainframe and start working on some terrific shows. […]

“I think that there are some very loyal and rabid ReBoot fans, they don’t call them ‘fans’ for nothing, short for ‘fanatics’. And I think that there is a groundswell of people who want to see ReBoot back on the air, in some form or another. I think what’s more important than the actual medium, the CGI, is that the stories are great. And so you can see it in all sorts of different forms, maybe in a comic book, or in traditional animated series. It doesn’t ncessarily have to be CG, and I think the fans would still be satiated for their need for more ReBoot Material.[…]

“Well, the special announcement is that Beachstudios and DMF Comics, we are releasing a ReBoot Artbook in February 2007. And that artbook will contain new material such as ReBoot re-imagined by leading comic book artists, as well as reprinting original character designs, CGI rendered images, promotional stills, and even some stuff that even the most hardcore ReBoot fan will have never seen before.”

Jim Su is selling the ReBoot Poster from his website, Beach-studios.com.

Now for some speculation. I think it interesting that the concept of a ReBoot comic book was pitched as early as 2003, since the idea only occured to me last week! (It has to mean something!) Even more interesting is the fact that Jim chose to focus on the adaptability of the ReBoot storylines to different mediums, almost as if he had been thinking a lot recently about how ReBoot could be easily ported to, well, everything he mentioned.

He’s right of course. When we were kids we loved the show because it was new, it was nothing we’d ever seen before. As has been pointed out numerous times since 1993, ReBoot was the first of its kind, the brainchild of true pioneers. But (and this is a big ‘but’) there are many ways of telling any tale, and method must always take a back stage to story. ReBoot’s story was better than the animation, which is what kept us fans coming back. The graphics eventually got old, but the characters never did and never will. (I mean, Matrix might have in season 4, but you know.) As a production and as a show, ReBoot never descended to become what I call “all-style-and-no-content”. In its day it was a perfect harmony of cutting edge eye-candy and timeless, endearing characters.

If we are serious about seeing more ReBoot then we need to convince some people with money that there is profit to be made. We can do that by buying things, silly as it seems. So buy it, my brothers! Buy it all! And buy me one too!

Now, in an idle moment I might ask Jim what it would take to get us a Reboot comic book. If I was asking myself that question (which I would NEVER do) I might say something like this:

“It would take a proper order of steps. First, a small test batch of something collectible and promotional, like a poster. Second, another test of something a little heavier, perhaps experimental, meant to celebrate the past and look to the future, and still promotional. Something one could take to a producer and say ‘we’ve already gotten started, and this is not a new, but a tried-and-true property’. Something like an art showcase, or a book.”

Then, with sales slips and bated breath I would sneak softly (oh, so softly) into the chamber of the snoring beast that poses, during the day, as a publishing house executive. Yes, with sales receipts and bated breath I would wait beneath the window for the sun to rise, knife at the ready, my left hand poised just so…….