IDW Publishing's Editor-in-Chief has updated his blog with some news about new project they will be rolling out in 2009. The post informs us of a new series with the first book being called "I AM OPTIMUS PRIME" and described as a hard cover picture book featuring characters that are modeled on the "Robot Heroes" toy line.

In the original ZOMBIES VS ROBOTS, there was one surviving human character, a baby named after my daughter. She, uh, didn't make it out of the story intact (the character, I mean--the real kid is fine). But since then, I've felt a little guilty and figured I needed to do something in comics that would make her proud of me. I might've hit on that thing, at least until she outgrows these kinds of books.

In May, we're going to be doing a TRANSFORMERS picture book--that is, a hardcover-with-dustjacket, squarebound, 32-page thing, similar to the other kids' books we've been doing through our Worthwhile Books like. I wrote this first one, called I AM OPTIMUS PRIME. The art is being handled by Joe & Rob Sharp, and the image here is the art that will make up the wraparound dustjacket.

The characters are being modeled after the "Robot Heroes" toy line, but the book itself will be something new: not quite a normal picture book and not quite a comic book, but rather some sort of hybrid of both, with lushly painted art from the Sharps. And since this sort of book is exactly what my kid is into right now, AND she knows who Bumblebee and Optimus Prime are, well, this will hopefully make up for the ZvR thing. At least until she's old enough to read.

Stay tuned to Tformers.com for more details as they are made available. Your best resource for all the Transformers news and community every day.