Transformers expert Jim Sorenson
Jim Sorenson is as big a Transformers fan as they come. For starters, he has amassed thousands of Transformers in his collection. Next up, he has written 5 Transformers guidebooks with IDW Publishing (The Ark: A Complete Compendium of Character Designs, The Ark II — A Compendium of Japanese Character Designs, The Complete Ark, Transformers Animated: The AllSpark Almanac and Transformers Animated: The AllSpark Almanac II).
In addition to sharing his musings and some rare unpublished Transformers artifacts on his blog, “Disciples of Boltax,” he is perhaps best known in the fandom for deciphering the Maximal and Predacon languages as used in the Beast Wars show and making the text, in canonical order, available as a true-type font. Crave caught up with Jim (who finds 27 hours in a day) to learn more about this ultimate fan and how he collects.
Let’s start with the basics. How many TFs do you have in your collection?
Too many to comfortably count. It’s in the thousands.
When did you become a fan of Transformers?
I first became interested in Transformers back in 1984, when I saw a commercial for them.
I was already a fan of robots, after watching Star Wars and buying imported Japanese imports from Fourth World in Manhattan, so Transformers really captured my eight-year-old imagination.
Do you remember the first TF you ever got?
Prowl. I wanted Optimus Prime, and my mom drove around with me looking for him, but he was nowhere to be found. I reasoned that a police car is still pretty cool.
Do you still have it?
His roof broke off a long time ago. I used to pretend that it was a separate sensor drone that he could deploy. I upgraded to a much better version of Prowl perhaps ten years ago. I think I’m still using my original missiles for him, though. I was always pretty good about saving the accessories.
Which one of your figures is your favorite?
Probably Laser Optimus Prime, from 1995, though I soaked the sticker off his trailer.
Do you have a favorite figure series? (G1, G2, Classics, Alternators, etc.?) Why?
Probably G1, mostly for the nostalgia. That’s the only line that I’ve gotten 100% complete.
When did you first get involved with IDW publishing? Can you tell us a bit about how that came about?
My first book with them came out in 2007, and I’d pitched it to them twice. The first time was BotCon 2005, and they were a bit interested but passed. The second time they gave me the green light, perhaps largely thanks to some cover art for the project that I’d commissioned from Don Figueroa.
What other TF resources, both official and unofficial, do you participate in?
I’ve been a guest of BotCon, the official Transformers convention, a few times. I’ve also worked with the fan club on some articles, and will be doing so again in the future. Unofficially, I have a blog (Disciples of Boltax) where I’ve been posting scripts and animation models from back in the 80s.
I think the fact that you deciphered/translated the Maximal and Predacon languages and created Autobot/Decepticon fonts using the original show and comics as resources is incredibly cool! Can you tell us how you did it?
I’ve been a fan of alien language fonts from science fiction media for quite a while. I used to maintain a blog that mirrored in one place lots of science fiction and fantasy fonts, called Giedi Prime Fonts. I got a copy of Fontographer and started playing around with making my own. I’d draw them out first, longhand, then scan them in and tweak them in Fontographer. In addition to Transformers, I made fonts for Predator, The Last Starfighter, Ultima, Robotech, Independence Day, and probably a few others.
As for cracking the language, I noticed in an early episode of Beast Wars that the text was really clear and easy to read. There were some gibberish characters flashing, something like !@#$%^ &*#%()+. They were talking about the shield failing, so I made the leap that the sign read “SHIELD FAILURE.” Note how the 5th letter in the first word matches the fourth letter in the second word, and the third letter in the first word matched the third letter in the second word. This gave me a certain degree of confidence. Once you’re armed with a few letters, anyone who does cryptoquotes can tell you that it gets a lot easier to assign all the other characters. It also helps that occasionally they’d have episodes where they ran the alphabet in sequence.
And what was the most amusing message you translated?
In ‘Maximal No More’ Dinobot begins the episode by looking at a comparison of Megatron’s outposts and the Golden Disk. Just after this, a bunch of text appears on the left.
Translated, it reads, “THEY KILLED KENNY THOSE BASTARDS.” That was just too much for me!
What did you think about the fonts you created being made official with their incorporation into the AllSpark Wars mini-ARG (alternate reality game) as well as other materials?
I’m pretty proud of it. I just wish that I’d done a better job with those very early fonts. They were made by me back in the mid 90s, and I’m a much better fonter now.
With buzz starting over Dark of the Moon, we’ve seen a pretty clear division between our fans who like the movies and those who feel it diverges too far from the true spirit of Transformers. What’s your take on the live action films?
I don’t see how it’s possible to ‘diverge too far from the true spirit of Transformers.’ To me, the true spirit of Transformers is change. Let’s face it, different iterations of this franchise have featured organic beings turning into the heads, guns, and engines of robots, 20 foot tall organic monster disguises for the Decepticons, Transformers who can’t transform, Transformers who turn into furry organic animals, and that’s just the first decade!
What’s next for you and Transformers? Is there currently another book in the works or are you thinking about doing one?
I’m always thinking of doing more Transformers books, though actually I’ve been looking at some other franchises for full-length books. I’m going to be doing some Transformers work with the fanclub again this year, though, so I’m not abandoning Transformers completely.
Anything else you think our fans might like to know about you?
I’m almost as big a fan of bacon as I am of Transformers!
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You can stay updated with Jim’s musings on Twitter via @SentinelPrime or at his blog Disciples of Boltax (boltax.blogspot.com).
