G1 Autobot and Decepticon naming and faction insignia's

[Sky Shadow]

The names Autobot and Decepticon would have been coined by one of Bob Budiansky, Jim Shooter or Denny O'Neil. Like the faction symbols, they're obviously not very deep compound words based on automaton, robot, deception and con.

It's always been a shame that no stories from the multiverse have addressed why the faction symbols have Soundwave, Prowl, Bluestreak and Smokescreen's respective faces. Like a revelation that the Prowl 'mould' was the first of the Quintesson's production line of consumer goods. Or Megatron trying to draw a face for his revolution, continually stuffing it up and then getting Soundwave to pose for him.

[DELTAprime]

I remember with ROTF Hasbro (or Michael Bay, take your pick) tried to retcon the Decepticon logo as being The Fallen's face.

As for the actual origins according to TFwiki they are based on Soundwave and Prowl's faces and thats all they say. I guess this is a gap in the knowledge the fan base has.

[GoktimusPrime]

I remember with ROTF Hasbro (or Michael Bay, take your pick) tried to retcon the Decepticon logo as being The Fallen's face.

Yeah, and canonically speaking the Autobot logo is Primus' face. However there's no in-canon explanation as to why Soundwave and Prowl's faces happen to resemble the faces of The Fallen and Primus respectively.

[Sky Shadow]

Yeah, and canonically speaking the Autobot logo is Primus' face. However there's no in-canon explanation as to why Soundwave and Prowl's faces happen to resemble the faces of The Fallen and Primus respectively.

The Last Autobot and Vector Prime also have Autobot faces. It's like when people get plastic surgery to look like famous people.

[liegeprime]

The Last Autobot and Vector Prime also have Autobot faces. It's like when people get plastic surgery to look like famous people.

Speaking of Plastic Surgery - don't forget Tarn now that is a decepticon whose face is a sigil by choice hehehe

[Ultra Mackness]

I wonder if there'll be anything on this in the upcoming Transformers Legacy G1 artwork book?

[BigTransformerTrev]

I do like the variations they are using for the latest Botcon toys. The Autobot symbol with a sorta crown for the Knights, and the Decepticon symbol modified with some crossed blades below it for the Pirates. The Autobot symbol with the lines off each side for the Elite Guard was well done too.

I remember back when G2 came out, even as a teenager I got angry that they had changed the symbols, but then who knew how large the mythology would grow!

[DELTAprime]

Speaking of Plastic Surgery - don't forget Tarn now that is a decepticon whose face is a sigil by choice hehehe

I really think thats what makes Tarn a great evil character.

[Ravagecat]

Determined not to give up on this I have found a bunch of links on Seibertron.com relating to interviews or public appearances of Bob Budiansky that I have started to sift through. Surely someone has asked the same question in one of the interviews with him?
If anyone is interested in joining the search, the link is here (there are numbers at the bottom of the page with more links):

http://www.seibertron.com/search.php...nsky&sa=Search

I did find out one piece of humorous info about Bob through what I have read so far. When he was coming up with names for the Transformers, he put forward the name "Highbeams" which apparently was quietly rejected by the female Hasbro representative he was presenting to. When he asked why she had to advise him it was slang for particular parts of the female body.

[Ravagecat]

I had read about the idea of the insignias being based on transformer heads but dismissed it as something fans had made up

I would really like to get it from the horse's mouth (and not mach kick's )
An interview from Bob Budiansky or Jim Shooter's (Marvel's Editor-in-Chief at the time) talking about how they came up with the concepts would be awesome. I wonder whether Bob borrowed/reworked some of editor Denis O'neil's ideas "that did not meet with Hasbro's expectations" to get to what part he played in the TF creation process all those years ago??

What ever you can dig up would be great paulbot
I had spoken to Griffin about this and he suggested (if possible) contacting someone like Jim Sorenson - One of the authors from the recent "Transformers 30th Anniversary Collection" (TF Comic Books), as he has no doubt done a lot of research including interviewing a lot of the author's and editors etc of the time that were involved.