Bryan Lee O'Malley's Transformers fan-art


Bryan Lee O'Malley, creator of the wonderful Scott Pilgrim comics, has posted some of the Transformers fan-art he created in 1988, when he was about 8 years old. The project, "Transformers Underground Mission," is described as "a choose your own adventure-style book." It's pretty wicked, as we said in the late 80s. It's also an important reminder of how creativity starts with learning by copying. A Bryan Lee O'Malley who was 8 years old in 2011 would almost certainly be posting his fan work online for his friends to see, and that work would be no less and no more infringing than O'Malley's work in 1988, but it would be much more likely to attract a legal threat and the attendant controversy and suppression.

Transformers Underground Mission, Bryan Lee O'Malley, July 1988

(via IO9)