Shane McCarthy

Tonight onTop Gear,Richard Hammond will drive a jet-powered dragster and a comic franchise into the ground.

Shane McCarthy(born July 24,1975) is anAustraliancomic book writer. His first major comics work was a back-up story inDetective Comics,and later he was responsible for the temporary reinvention of the Riddler during the five-part "Riddle Me That" storyline inBatman:Legends of the Dark Knight.Beginning withAll Hail Megatron,a "soft reboot" of2005 IDW continuity,McCarthy has written severalTransformerscomics forIDW Publishing.

McCarthy's comics are known for their decompressed storytelling andBrian Michael Bendis-style approach to dialog. The theme that runs through hisTransformerscomics is that both the Autobots and Decepticons have lost their grounding in their ideals. McCarthy's most contentious addition to the mythos, the characterDrift,serves as a mouthpiece for McCarthy's theme.

Outside of comics, one of Shane McCarthy's passions is swing dancing. He is the owner of the Swing It! swing dancing school in Perth, Western Australia.^[2]

Comic bibliography

IDW Publishing

• All Hail Megatron#1–12, half of #14.
• Spotlight#20 "Blurr"
• Spotlight#22 "Drift"
• Spotlight#23 "Cliffjumper"
• The Transformers: Drift(4-issue miniseries)
• Mars Attacks: The Transformers
• The Transformers: Drift - Empire of Stone

Notes

• The first details ofAll Hail Megatronwere revealed by McCarthy in a television interview on the disreputable Australian tabloid current affairs programmeToday Tonighton January 16, 2008. He was quoted saying that the story would be about a "world without theAutobots",but later retracted his comments, claiming he had been misquoted.^[3]Considering the quality ofToday Tonight'sjournalism (trust us, it's terrible), it's hard not to give Shane the benefit of the doubt on this one.
• He is not a fan of the2007Transformersmovie,^[4]nor the new incarnation ofDriftdepicted inAge of Extinction,deeming him a racist stereotype.
• He is a fan ofSimon Furman,has read everything he has produced, and would never ever do anything to "piss all over what that man did",^[5]though this didn't stop him from completely ruining the plans Furman had for the characterHunter O'Nionand his partnerSunstreaker.
• McCarthy reported on his blog that neither he nor artistGuido Guidiwere given complimentaryGenerationsDriftfigures fromHasbro.He considered this to be rather lame and agreed with a reader that Hasbro should be ashamed.^[6]

External links

• Shane McCarthy's website
• Shane McCarthy's MySpace page
• Shane McCarthy's blog(archived copy)
• Blog post talking about death inAll Hail Megatron(archived copy)

Interviews

• April 2008—Newsarama forums(defunct)
• May 2008—Comixfan(mirror)
• May 2008—The Pulse
• July 2008—Newsarama(withChris MowryandSimon Furman)
• October 2008—CBR
• June 2009—Moonbase 2
• 2009—9am with David & Kim(defunct)
• September 2010—Madman Entertainment
• October 2010—The Underbase
• November 2014—CBR
• July 2021—Ia-Con(withAndrew GriffithandLivio Ramondelli)

References

1. ↑Comment made on the Allspark forums, on November 2, 2008
2. ↑Swing It! About Us/Teachers page
3. ↑Shane McCarthy clarifiesAll Hail Megatrondetails on February 20, 2008 on the IDW forums
4. ↑Based upon his pleasure in a blog post about a fan praisingAll Hail Megatronwhile deriding the 2007 Movie
5. ↑Q&A with Shane McCarthy at oneshallstand;January, 2009
6. ↑Samurai For Sale, SMAcTalk, September 1, 2010