Interview With G1 Artist Jeff Mangiat

TFormers.com has posted an interview with Transformers (Generation One) box artist Jeff Mangiat, who is the one selling some of his art on eBay. While the name may but be familiar, if you are a long time Transformers fan you are likely very familiar with his art such as the Optimus Prime to the left that graced the front of every box back in the mid-eighties and still pops up on shirts and the like today. Below are snippets, the full interview can be found here.

TFormers: How did you get involved with doing art for the Transformers packaging?
Jeff: My next step was to join Mendola ltd.; the premier artist representatives founded by Joe Mendola, a pioneer in the field of Illustration. Early on I did covers for Newsweek magazine (many done overnight). One of my favorites was a painting of a robot with a monitor for a head and torso. On the torso screen was the superman logo. Supercomputer! My work quickly expanded to other fields, toys being one of them. I started working for Hasbro doing game boards. With my automotive background, the transformers were a natural fit, and the rest is history.

TFormers: Did you work on just the Transformers Generation 1 murals? How many of these paintings did you do?
Jeff: I did a good number of robots for the front panel. I couldn’t tell you how many. My favorite was the original Optimus Prime (how could it not be!) I remember doing the Porsche, F1 car and some of the jets. I did the 2nd and 3rd back of box paintings. The first being the Dinobots battling in space above an earth ravaged by war. How nice! And, of course, the battle moon one. I worked on them till they switched production back to Asia and the animation houses. A sad day.