pictures submitted by Geoff Gayan, words Dave Waugh

 
 
 
"It all began on Christmas morn, 1977, at the Long Island home of my parents…my son had just reduced a mountain of X-mas presents to disposable rubble and sat, in the midst of this mess of paper tearing a group of tiny shiny figurines out of their vacuum sealed packages. The figures seemed to catch the sparkle of the lights from my parents' Christmas tree. They were unlike any toys I'd ever seen - and I've run the gamut, in my time, from Dodge City to the Shogun Warriors. I asked Adam (that's my son's name) if I could see them before they went the way of all plastic and, when he handed them to me, I held in my palm the four basic figures of a new concept in toys called…The Micronauts."
  
 

In this issue of Comics Journal magazine #40, June 1978, Bill Mantlo is describing his idea for a new book he's about to begin called the Micronauts. Something he envisioned as not a "super hero" comic, but more of a "space fantasy", a genre he apparently wanted to work with for a while. Bill goes onto describe what all the characters identities will be, as he sees that the toys have a lot of hardware but virtually no back-story.

He then goes on and on about each character and what role they will play in the series, and even hints at a big surprise he has in store for the climax of the first arc. It's quite plain to see that Bill was totally psyched to get started on The Micronauts as soon as possible!

"The Micronauts is different, exciting, conceptual, and intriguing. It's also gonna be one helluva lot of fun! And that's really the entire point of my creativity." Bill said.
 
The gist of this article written by Bill is to introduce The Micronauts to the comic's buying industry. And one of the cooler things shown in this amazing interview are some almost "never before seen" concept images drawn by Bob Hall. It seems Bob's take on the Micronaut characters more closely resembles the toys themselves, whereas Michael Golden's were a bit different. Here you can see some of the concepts that Bill had in mind for the Micros, small beings caught in a giant world. He goes on to explain, however, that the action will take place back and forth between Earth and the Micronauts "Homeworld".
 
 

"Whether we succeed or not will have to be judged by you the people out there when The Micronauts go on sale sometime this summer or fall. We (Bill, Mike Golden, Joe Rubenstein and Jim Shooter) believe there's a tremendous capacity for excitement still to be found in comics, and it is my personal felling that most books fail not because of reader disinterest, but because of a lack of conceptualization in the creation of a new book. Too many times - and Marvel's been as guilty of this as anyone - a new book is whipped together and thrown at the fans as if they should be glad we're offering them a Collector's Edition. I'm sorry, but too many new titles this year weren't worth buying, let alone collecting - and too many good ideas never got a chance because skewed commercial analyses convinced publishers that only "super-hero" books sell." Bill's words still ring true today, over 20 years later.

The Micronauts would go on to last from 1978 until 1984 - six years and 59 issues. Volume two for 20 issues. Bill Mantlo is currently disabled due to an accident. The Micronauts live on, however, thanks to the folks at Devil's Due Publishing.