James Roberts

The name or term "James" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see James (disambiguation).

A proud smile, a sad smile.

James Roberts (born November 15, 1976) is a British writer and Transformers fan. He was one of the early members of fan club Transmasters UK (TMUK), and wrote a number of text stories and strips. The most famous of these is the absolutely massive Eugenesis, an unofficial novel he first published back in 2001.

His first shot at pro-work was pitching Spotlight: Octane with fellow TMUKer Nick Roche in 2007, where he wrote an extensive outline (some of which has shown up in his later comics). It wasn't picked up and Roberts forgot all about it until reminded in 2016. His first successful bit of work was helping out on All Hail Megatron #15, acting as a "sounding board" for Nick's script. While he didn't write any of the script, Nick made sure to include him in the credits.

After that, Roberts was brought in to co-write Last Stand of the Wreckers, in order to lessen the stress and workload for Roche. While the first issue was all pre-planned by Roche, from issue two onwards it became a collaborative effort. He went on to write the text story "Bullets" for the Wreckers trade and then became a co-writer on the ongoing for the "Chaos'" story. Following that, he co-wrote The Death of Optimus Prime and became the sole writer on the new ongoing, More than Meets the Eye.

One of his noted habits is massive world-building and drip-feeding character details & backstory throughout a run. He's cheerfully admitted he likes building up a character history in non-sequential order "so you fill in the blanks". His characters are prone to language- and literature-related digressions and witticisms, and sometimes self-aware to the point of straining the fourth wall. Due to all his long term plots, he obsesses a lot over every script and they all start as longhand before being refined ("I have a tower of notebooks full of my barely legible handwriting").

Always start off low, always start off with real people, y'know, because most of us are ordinary people.James Roberts,

Let’s just say that my interest in politics stems from time spent working closely with politicians.Roberts on his job before becoming a full-time writer.

Writing

• Last Stand of the Wreckers (co-written with Nick Roche)
  • "Dead Men's Boots"
  • "Bullets"
  • "Zero Point"
• The Transformers #22, #23, #24, #26, #28, #30, (co-plotter on #24, #26, #28, and #30 with Mike Costa)
• Transformers: The Death of Optimus Prime (co-written with John Barber)
• The Transformers Classics UK (essay writer)
• The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye
• The Transformers Spotlight: Orion Pax
• The Transformers Spotlight: Trailcutter
• The Transformers Spotlight: Hoist
• "Dark Cybertron" (with John Barber)
• "Silent Light", from The Transformers Holiday Special
• "The Last Autobot" (with Mairghread Scott and John Barber)
• The Transformers: Lost Light

Fiction

2005 IDW continuity

James Roberts was the author of a book Jimmy owned, whose title began with an E. Maximum Dinobots #3

Legends comic

A resident of the Legends World, James Roberts was saved from a Zamojin invasion by Skyquake and Thunder Clash toys that revealed themselves to be real Transformers. Legends World in Imminent Danger! Part Two When his world was destroyed, Roberts was evacuated to Cybertron of the G1 World. The Road to Legends' Revival Chapter 2

Convention appearances

• BotCon 2014

Notes

• He first got into Transformers in 1986, in time for the Triple Changers, and hunted down older toys and Ladybird Books at second-hand shops and fetes; key memories also include visiting the local shop and poring over their Hasbro retailer catalogue for new toys, with his mind being blown by Mega and Ultra Pretenders ("they're inside and oh my god that one transforms!"). The earliest toy he bought himself was Snapdragon. He's even said the Action Masters were "cool", explaining he felt those toys showed Hasbro's faith in the characters selling toys and not the transformation gimmick itself.
• He was nominated for Favourite Writer in the 2014 True Believers Awards.
• His first Transformers comic was issue #113. Because of that, the number 113 is constantly showing up in his work.

James Roberts: E(aster Egg)!

• Roche snuck Eugenesis into a bookshelf in Maximum Dinobots #3.
• The original Eugenesis cover looked like a Penguin Classics book (even sporting the tagline "Polyhex 21st Century Classics"). Roberts has said this was him poking fun at his own "lofty" aspirations. [1]
• Shockwave's death in The Legacy of Unicron! has haunted Roberts since childhood...
• Mike Costa has joked that because of James's popularity among the nerdier fans, he thought that even if people didn't like Chaos, "they'd have to pretend they did because James' name was on it!"
• In Eugenesis, Roberts listed some of his creative influences (circa 2001): Simon Furman, Martin Amis, Chris Carter, Graham Greene, Neil Hannon, Vladimir Nabokov and Morrissey, "who I doubt have ever been acknowledged in the same sentence". He's since brought up his admiration for Russell T Davies' TV work (including his run on Doctor Who); Peter David, Grant Morrison's Zenith, and Justice League International in comics; and Don DeLillo, Philip Roth, and John Updike's "Rabbit" books in literature. Science fiction prose isn't his thing though, instead gravitating to literary fiction.
• Roberts admitted to being "a control freak when it comes to my scripts", and that they are often 50 pages long with precise panel-by-panel descriptions. However, he concedes artists like Alex Milne have "a far, far superior grasp of visual storytelling than I do", and "unless the way a particular shot is framed is integral to the plot", they can feel free to deviate. Nick Roche strongly implied in 2015 that these masses of detailed panels are why they hadn't worked together for a while, though they are still friends, you paranoid person.
• His biceps are huge.

External links

• James Roberts' Twitter feed
• Indexed archive of Roberts' Twitter answers from 2012-2018

Interviews

• February 2007—TransFans
• December 2009—One Shall Stand (with Nick Roche)
• April 2010—Moonbase 2
• August 2010—Auto Assembly (with Nick Roche)
• July 2011—The Underbase (with Andrew Griffith)
• August 2011—The Underbase
• August 2011—The Underbase (with Nick Roche)
• February 2012—CraveOnline
• May 2012—CBR (with John Barber)
• June 2012—TFW2005
• August 2012—The Underbase
• December 2012—Facebook
• January 2013—Multiversity Comics (with John Barber)
• May 2013—Facebook
• August 2013—Full Metal Hero (defunct)
• August 2013—The Underbase (with Nick Roche)
• August 2013—The Underbase (with Alex Milne)
• September 2013—Auto Assembly (with Alex Milne, Nick Roche, and Andrew Griffith)
• October 2013—Newsarama (with John Barber)
• October 2013—The Underbase
• November 2013—Moonbase 2
• February 2014—Iacon Underground (with John Barber)
• February 2014—Bleeding Cool
• April 2014—The Underbase
• June 2014—Sequart (Part 1, Part 2)
• June 2014—Transmissions / The Underbase (with John Barber and Mairghread Scott)
• July 2014—BotCon
• October 2014—TFCon (incomplete)
• October 2014—TransMissions (transcript)
• February 2015—Women Write About Comics
• March 2015—TransMissions (transcript)
• March 2015—The Solar Pool
• March 2015—Seibertron.com Twincast / Podcast
• April 2015—Fanboy vs Transformers
• July 2015—TransMissions (transcript)
• July 2015—TFCon (incomplete)
• September 2015—Pajiba
• September 2015—GamesRadar
• October 2015—Vangelus
• January 2016—Movie Trailer Reviews
• March 2016—TransMissions (with John Barber)
• April 2016—Toy Meets World
• July 2016—Comics Alliance (with John Barber and Mairghread Scott)
• August 2016—Gizmodo
• August 2016—Den of Geek (with John Barber)
• August 2016—Podcast Maximus
• October 2016—Moonbase 2
• November 2016—Movie Trailer Reviews
• December 2016—The Guardian
• December 2016—Forces of Geek
• April 2017—BoroughCon
• July 2017—CBC News (with John Barber and Mairghread Scott)
• August 2017—Podcast Maximus
• August 2017—ITV
• September 2017—TFCon Q&A (incomplete notes)
• October 2017—TransMissions (with Casey Coller, Andrew Griffith, and Josh Burcham)
• June 2018—The Beat
• July 2018—RetCon (with Nick Roche)
• November 2018—Instagram Q&A (incomplete recording, incomplete transcript)
• January 2019—Real Transformers News
• March 2019—Guernsey Geek On