Jun 10th, 2011, 09:13 PM
The WTF Bus....in spaaaaaace.
I bet you thought you'd heard the last of the WTF bus. Surely there couldn't be more out there. Surely there was nowhere else for this theme to go. Surely we've exhausted the possibilities for small green novelty buses with a badly-rendered and somehow inappropriate assortment of passengers.
Well, a few ladies and mostly gentlemen, I'm pleased and frankly astonished to inform you that my Fleet of the Damned has been expanded.
I got a package from Dextire. I'm including a partial scan of the letter because he needs credit for what he did here.
That's right, I give you the WTF Bus....in spaaaaaaaaaaaace.
Crack open the box, you say? Try and stop me!
At first glance, this incarnation beats the others hands down on execution. There may be lead paint, but at least it's quality lead. I probably won't get tetanus/hepatitis/hemmorrhagic fever from mishandling it. It's compact, it's shiny, and the passengers in the bus actually match the ones on the box...something I wasn't aware was possible. Plus....it's got a key.
That's right, this bus isn't just a little bewildering to look at. If it's going to defy the laws of physics, it's gonna go all the way. It....does something. With bumpers.
Right! Right! It will return when meets an object. The theory is that the front bumper will hit a wall and knock backwards, so that the bus will travel in the opposite direction. I can't see the specifics because this version of the WTF bus has a fully functional bottom to keep prying eyes away. None of your repurposed tin cans from Calcutta gutters here! Or at least, if that's what they are, there's a thick coat of lead paint over them. The lead has something to do with cosmic radiation.
We'll get back to the key, though. First order of business, wonder what the hell makes them think this thing could simply drive through space. These creators are operating at a level a few rungs under the Great Space Coaster people. I could bend my mind around the bumper issue, I guess...slightly. I wasn't a physics major. I was a biology major and I was thinking more of what's gonna happen when this redheaded kid gets off at his space-stop without a helmet:
I'm picturing something like this, only smaller and cuter. But with the same music.
As you can see, besides him you've got the usual group of cosmonauts, 50s b-movie extras, characters from M.A.S.K. and I think some guy who grew up with Rosie from the Jetsons.
Although, seeing the font in which they've scrawled "Space Bus" on the side, maybe they're just a shitty space-themed metal band and they're trying to do the gwar thing with the only stuff left at the costume rental place.
A passenger in a yellow tracksuit and flu mask is ready to give someone what-for with a transistor stun gun thingy, and the scuba diver behind her is just content to stare placidly ahead. She knows what's up. On the WTF Spacebus, you don't ask questions.
Especially about that guy.
This guy's name is Yuri and the woman behind him is Petra. I haven't fleshed out their backstory yet but it's coming. Something about a hot space affair and no-tell motels with self-contained gravitational fields, like the buses. And radio-knobs-for-eyes in front of him is in on it. He likes to watch.
DESTINATION: SPAAAAAAACE.
Here's something that to me was an immediate indicator of the jump in quality. Look how the passengers in the back window are (roughly) the same as the passengers in the back side windows. They didn't, you know, bother to make them point the same direction (because let's not be ridiculous here), but they are the same characters.
But what I think we all want to know is, will it return when meets an object?
Click below to see the WTF Spacebus in action.
We are here to serve you!
Last edited by Kitsa : Jun 10th, 2011 at 10:28 PM.
Reason: added a link to the original wtf bus post
So many of them looked like displaced divers that I did, in fact, wonder if dyslexia was rampant in space and they all thought they were boarding the WTF sub.
The backs at the back of the bus, are actually the backs of the people at the front of the bus.
I thought this for a moment, too, but there are subtle differences. I think you're right in regard to that being what they might have been going for (through some weird optical illusion that makes perfect sense in space).
However, the features of the robot (yellow ear thingies, for starters, and lack of antennae) match the robot in the back more than the robot in the front. The robot in the back window is gray, like the one up front...but the robot in the side window is sort of purplish. The scuba diver up front has two loops coming out of her head, but the one in back has only two small loops above her tanks in back.
I used to be good at those "spot the differences" puzzles, and I'm glad they prepared me for this.
What stuck out for me was the steering wheel is behind the doors
Is it? I only saw it in the front window. It struck me as odd that there a)appeared to be a second driver, although in space I guess you need a copilot, even if you don't give her a steering wheel, and b)that there are doors on both sides of the bus. It might be some sort of airlock situation, but either the driver sits in the airlock or they're wafer-thin.
But on further review that is perhaps not a steering wheel, it may be something far more disturbing. It may be someone's head. So there may be a dude's head in the driver's lap. Is there some sort of weird space BJ action going on in this bus? Is this a space psychopath who is so brazen a killer that he carries the severed head of his victim around in space public transportation? A more innocent observation may suggest that it is a space helmet, but one has to wonder how safe you are being if you are holding it in your lap instead of wearing it.
I truly hope it is a steering wheel though
EDIT: The more I look at this though the more I see. Look at the right hand side of the bus, there's a missile equipped on the side. That's multitasking, you shuttle people across the universe and on the way between stops, you make a tactical strike on Omicron Persei 8. That's real innovation for you
I think he's getting ready to disembark, taking his helmet off. I can't figure out why they have their helmets on IN the bus and take their helmets off to get OFF the bus.
That video had me on the edge of my seat. This is amazing.
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Haha I think this is easily the best bus so far. I just love the concept of a bus that drives around in space, let alone the people and robots who are riding in it. Awesome find Dextire, and great write-up Kitsa! And yeah, somebody needs to find a WTF Submarine next... there's gotta be one out there.
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