John Barber

There are a lot of amazing things about Tom Scioli and John Barber's Transformers vs. G.I. Joe, and one of the most amazing is that it somehow keeps getting weirder. I mean, it's been a pretty wild ride since day one, to the point where the fact that it even exists continues to be surprising, but next week, it looks like the bizarreness of a book that's already brought us the Serpentress is going to hit critical mass in an issue that opens with Snake Eyes and Duke -- who is wearing a t-shirt that says DUKE -- battling it out against Robothulhu. Yes: The Joes are fighting a multi-faced tentacle monster floating in hot pink space, and it is amazing. Check out a preview below!

If you asked me to pick my favorite comics of the year, there's not even a question about it: Transformers vs. G.I. Joe would be at the top of the list. Even aside from my well-known love of America's daring, highly-trained special missions force, writer/artist Tom Scioli and co-writer John Barber have been doing something amazing with this book, creating an ongoing series combining two toy franchises that has the kind of raw, unstoppable energy that you almost never see from corporate comics. Now, with the first volume of the series hitting shelves this week, I spoke to Scioli and Barber about how they created one of the most transgressive comics of the year, why they think of the Jose as "nasty, destructive creatures," and just how much more they want to push the book until it's as strange as they want it to be.

With the possible exception of those Sailor Moon toys that I dropped two hundred bucks on, Transforrmers vs. G.I. Joe #1 was the most exciting purchase I made last weekend at San Diego's Comic-Con International. It was pretty much guaranteed to be that way, too -- the #0 issue that came out on Free Comic Book Day and set up the ongoing story that Tom Scioli and John Barber would be telling was easily one of my favorite comics of the year so far. It was bright and engaging and weird, in exactly the way that a comic based on taking two toy properties and smashing them together to make one big story should be. As far as weirdness goes, though, this first issue outstrips it by a long shot, and it does it by taking the high concept that I think we all expected from another Transformers vs. G.I. Joe story and turning it upside down, launching it into an entirely new echelon of strangeness. And it is great.

Transformers vs. G.I. Joe is a crossover that sells it self, but the downside of that is that it's been done often enough that it can be difficult to get excited about the next version. Unless, of course, you tell me that it's going to be co-written, drawn, and lettered by Tom Scioli, the man who wrote the line "Robot Dracula is an efficient torturer" and rendered all other comics obsole

It was announced recently, on this very site, that I'll be co-writing, with John Barber, and drawing Transformers vs. G.I. Joe series for IDW. While my car was being inspected, I stopped at a nearby comics shop and bought $70 worth of dollar back issues of Larry Hama's Marvel G.I. Joe comic. It's since become one of my all-time favorite comics. I wish I would've read these sooner, but I'm kind of

At this point, Transformers and G.I. Joe have crossed over so many times that it takes something pretty special to get our attention, and today, IDW did exactly that with the announcement that the latest Transformers/G.I. Joe series will be drawn and co-written by the amazing Tom Scioli. Seriously, whoever used one of their magic lamp wishes to make this happen, everyone here at ComicsAlliance sin

When more casual Transformers fans think of Prowl, a loyal police car 'bot with shoulder-mounted cannons usually comes to mind. So you can imagine my surprise when I cracked open a first-look at IDW's Transformers: Robots in Disguise #14 to see the dude pointing laser guns at some surprising robo faces...

This past fall I got super into Activision and High Moon's Transformers: War For Cybertron and Transformers: Fall of Cybertron games and had a blast rediscovering what I dug about a number of Autobots and Decepticons. I've watched my share of TF cartoons (and, yeah, the Bayformers movies), but these games marked the first time that I thought of guys like Skywarp and Thundercracker as much more tha

As demonstrated by the first trailer and latest commercial, there's potentially plenty to love about the upcoming G.I. Joe Retaliation movie. From the looks the five-page preview of G.I. Joe Retaliation #1 that IDW's shared with us, the same kind of ninja-slaying action displayed in the film promos will be on display in John Barber and Salvador Navarro's prelude series as it bridges the gap betwee

Are you a big Transformers fan? I've never been one. My knowledge of the enduringly popular Hasbro franchise about sentient robots who can turn into vehicles and weapons is limited to the toys I played with as a child (I still have my Fortress Maximus U JELLY...