INCREDIBLE CHANGE-BOTS
Top Shelf Productions
Release Date: August 1, 2007
By Jeffrey Brown

“Incredible Change-Bots,” a graphic novel by writer and artist Jeffrey Brown, is a gut-busting parody/tribute to the animated Transformers series of the ’80s. Fans unhappy with Michael Bay’s movie will probably prefer Brown’s screwball handling of the robots in disguise, who are featured more prominently in this story than their big-screen counterparts.

The story is familiar to Transformers fans. “Far away in space, there is a planet full of robots able to change from robot form to vehicle form — the Incredible Change-Bots! Leaving their war-torn planet, the Change-Bots arrive on Earth, where their battle continues.” The Autobots here are replaced with the Awesomebots, led by Big Rig, and their enemies are the Fantasticons, led by the maniacal Shootertron. They spend most of the story fighting each other over energy cubes, and skewering the Transformers legacy.

“Incredible Change-Bots” captures the true spirit and silliness of the original Transformers. It’s part parody, part nostalgic tribute. Jeffrey Brown does a great job of returning the reader to the era of the original Transformers and showing what made them so awesome and so silly. It’s a hilarious and fun look at those robots in disguise.