Flint Dille acknowledges that he may have traumatized a generation. As the story consultant who handled rewrites on the animated 1986 Transformers movie, Dille masterminded one of the most wrenching cinematic deaths of the era: that of noble semi-truck robot Optimus Prime. As a story editor and writer overseeing the Transformers film and syndicated television series, Dille helped usher in the era of televisual geek entertainment that took itself and its audience seriously. Dille cheerily admits that '80s series like Transformers and G.I. Joe, where he served as story editor for the first season, were at heart toy commercials, where the scripts had to showcase product lines. But The Gamesmaster makes the case that bold storytelling transcends commercial interests. (The title comes from a particularly ambitious Dille-penned episode of G.I. Joe.)
Dille and his collaborators brought their own pulp passions to their work, aspiring to create shows that adults didn't feel embarrassed to watch with their kids--and paving the way for the 2000s geek entertainment explosion. His vivid, funny memoir bounces about 1980s Hollywood, including encounters with George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, hours playing games at Dungeons & Dragons co-creator Gary Gygax's mansion of debauchery, plus cameos from comic book luminaries Frank Miller, Steve Gerber and Jack Kirby. Kirby asks Dille to identify "the golden age of comics" and then says the answer is actually "twelve." Dille's upbeat, occasionally repetitious book illuminates the moment when Kirby's punchline stopped being true and comics culture no longer was considered just kids' stuff. --Alan Scherstuhl, freelance writer and editor