Die, Hot Shot, die!
So, hey, Transformers: Drift #2 came out today. Last week, I made fun of Issue 1 for casually killing off G2 guys with reckless abandon, and Issue 2 does it one better! In the second and third panels of the first page, we see both Hot Shot and Shattered Glass Ravage all endeadened. Well, that’s conspicuous, isn’t it? The character I famously have a shrine of and the character I created?
And it’s not just a coincidence. Artist Alex Milne writes on the IDW forums:
when i started issue 2 i had a battle scene between the autobots and decepticons and i asked a few of my friends who to draw in there. a few of them said i should draw hot shot, and i was like hot shot??? why the hell do i want to draw him??? i’m not the biggest fan of armada anyways. then one of them said it was Walky’s favourite, but i still don’t know if that’s true or not, and i laughed, and i said, if you want me to put him in, i will. personally i don’t care. so at first i asked my friends what characters to add, they gave me a few choices and when i then wanted to know the reason behind there choice they told me, and i got a laugh out of it.
so, no lie here. no favourite characters of anyone who i hardly know in issue one. in issue 2, there is. did i do it because that guy upsets me. no. i don’t really care what he says. i did it because my friends thought it was be funny and it’s a character not in the G1-G2 line that will be used. oh, and i’m not the biggest fan of armada, so theres that too.
Sweet! So basically, Alex Milne has a friend who not only hates me, but also has incredible control over what he draws in his comics for Hasbro. I’m genuinely flattered! I’m serious. I made a difference in someone’s life. And I can’t really throw a fit or anything. I make fun of IDW’s comics plenty. I have little room for outrage. I’m mostly happy they (or their friends) know who I am.
Aimed for SG Ravage, but hit Glit.
I like attention.
The only thing that really bothered me about this whole affair was Editor Denton Tipton’s response to people being upset that their favorite characters were being casually offed in the backgrounds.
I have no control over what Milne says (outside of this forum). Just like he doesn’t have any control over what characters live or die. For the record: All those characters are generics. This wouldn’t even be an issue if it weren’t for the fascination with “canon.”
“Fascination with canon”? Really? You’re going to condescend to us for caring about the stories you sell to us for $3.99? If we see characters dying and we get upset, it’s our fault for caring? Great.
And if Milne really doesn’t have any control over who lives and who dies, maybe you should tell him not to draw characters dying. Because from where I’m looking, he sure does seem to be determining who lives and who dies. Or are we to disregard what we see in the comics we’re reading?
Comic books are still a partially visual medium, right? Or did I miss a memo?
Read the whole issue wondering when he would pop up to die, and he was dead from the beginning?
So basically, they are generic repaints that are dying and not any actual Hasbro/Takara characters is what they are saying? Makes sense to me.
Marley was dead from the beginning.
“So basically, they are generic repaints that are dying and not any actual Hasbro/Takara characters is what they are saying?”
S’what the man is saying.
Which is good enough for me, cause frankly it’s what I would have assumed if nobody had said anything.
There are many Hot Shots. And, I suppose, they have a plan.
A plan to get jaAm!
If you’re writing as a professional in a professional environment, such as on your company’s forum, you should use basic capitalization and grammar. Even if you’re an artist. And you should put some actual thought into who you kill off(or have the writer make the decision, which is what I’d prefer), instead of whoever you feel like. Or if it’s supposed to be a generic character dying, don’t draw easily-recognized characters, DRAW SOMEONE GENERIC.
And people want continuity from one book to the next. The fascination with canon is because whether or not something is canon determines what people can expect to show up in later books. This is basic.
Honestly, Willis, why do you read things produced by these hacks?
You can’t blame him for not drawing a new character or someone generic. Anything he draws up in these books automatically becomes owned by Hasbro/IDW. He’s better off drawing existing characters not in this continuity like Armada guys than spending time designing a new guy who gets killed in the same panel he’s created.
As for Milne’s forum behavior… well hell, I got no excuse, I think its great if people take the time to write and punctuate well. You don’t need to be a writer, just type the way you talk and use some skills you learned in grade school, assuming he finished 6 grade Milne should be able to diagram a sentence.
IDW soft-reboots their entire line very 2-3 years though.
That makes canon the enemy. They’re tired of constantly being hemmed in by what came before, or keeping track of which G2 characters have been killed.
I was gonna ask if, since this is G1 continuity, it’s actually Henkei Hot Rod, but I noticed the wiki already added it to his page. Hot damn
Glit, too.
So can I add “Alex Milne’s response” to my hope that it’s all Drift haveing some massive headtrip?
Dude, if it’s a bad creative team, just don’t buy those issues.
Milne 1, Willis 0
I’m pretty okay with that.
Ah, but as Willis is therefore in SOMEONE’S HEAD at IDW… it’s
Milne: 1, Willis: 1
It be a tie. Yarr.
Well, if you really wanna go all dick on this, and I do…
According to ICv2.com, the highest selling Transfomers book at IDW for August 2010 is TF: Ongoing #10 which came in at 11,951 orders.
According to Project Wonderful’s stats, Willis had 93,000 unique page views yesterday.
That may be apples and oranges as webcomics are a different market than print comics, but each one of those unique page views is a reader. Whether they’re buying or not, they’re a reader. Shortpacked has almost eight times the readers of the most popular Transformers book on the market.
That’s if you wanna be a dick about it.
Let’s go drive down to IDW and kick their asses… with… words or something
“That may be apples and oranges as webcomics are a different market than print comics”
That’s putting it mildly. It’s more like apples and a picture of an orange on the side of a fast-moving Volkswagen.
Well, my stuff is free, and pageviews aren’t the same as visitors.
Oh, I know that. They’re totally different, I understand that. I just wanted to be a dick about it.
In all honesty and fairness though, I just got curious and looked up the numbers, and kinda got surprised by how low or orders some of the ones I thought would be higher were.
*shrugs*
You know… I’ve sat here typing and retyping and retyping a reaction to that “Fascination with canon”… Basically… It kinda pisses me off. This is the editor saying that. And when he gets called out on not doing his job (and let’s face it, as editor, it is HIS job to make sure stuff like this doesn’t happen) he blames the artist and us? The fans? Their customers?
Uh-huh.
*sigh*
I’m just saying that if you don’t want people to care about canon, why are you writing comic books?
I mean, no one on earth is more obsessed with canon and continuity than comic book fans in general.
The thing with canon is… I get the argument that people obsess over it too much when it interferes with storytelling. “THERE WAS NO SHUTTLE ON THE ARK THEREFORE “THE AGENDA” CAN’T HAVE HAPPENED!” sort of thing, or “SISKO SORT OF SAID HE DIDN’T HAVE A DAD ONCE 4 YEARS AGO THEREFORE ANYTHING WITH HIS DAD IN ISN’T CANON!”
That sort of attitude is stupid. But it seems to have bred the Brannon Braga “I don’t give a shit about canon” attitude, where nothing seems to matter, characters can be dead/alive/dead again, and attitudes and personalities don’t have to follow from book to book. All of them; Transformers, Marvel, DC, Star Trek… they are shared universes. If you want us to care about them AS a shared universe, then you have to tread them as a whole, consistent universe.
Man.. I would not have even responded.
WhY mY ShOuLdErS hUrT…?
WhY tIpToN hAtE JaAm?!
Oh IDW. How I don’t miss buying your comics. “Fascination with canon”? Sounds like someone doesn’t like having their crap editor skills pointed out.
IDW is just butthurt over their own recap book being riddled with errors, inaccuracies and head-scratchers, and essentially making it clear their their own editors don’t read the books they publish.
Pfft. Everything would be so much easier if fans stopped caring about their stupid “canon” and just gave us direct access to their bank accounts.
And this guy’s an editor? I guess that’s why he’s pissy, fans caring about continuity make him DO HIS JOB.
This. :p
Alex Milne’s friend sounds like Paul Bettany in A Beautiful Mind.
It’s OK, they will just fix him up so he can be HOT SHOT! Part Deux.
And how do they know that he will never be used in their G1 books? He made it into Animated, so he could show up in G1. They should have killed Armada Sideswipe instead, there is no way he would ever be used for anything else ever.
“Fascinated with Canon” should be the new tagline of the wiki, IMO.
Canon is what makes continuity. Continuity makes long-term fans. Long-term fans keep buying the books month after month, even when it’s terrible.
Once again, IDW shows contempt for people who are loyal to the brand. I don’t know where they got this idea that they can continually alienate the fandom, and that casual readership can/will keep their books afloat.
Wait, we’re surprised at a shortsighted, blunt, and easily mockable comment from Tipton?
And we’re surprised that Milne took the anti-social dick-ish road?
Both of those guys lack a good deal of class. Much in the same way that Willis has made public petty outburst against other fan sites and groups.
Dickery begets dickery. Oh well.
YOUR IDEAS INTRIGUE ME.
DO YOU HAVE A NEWSLETTER THAT I MIGHT SUBSCRIBE TO?
So now g1 Hot Shot is in the Well of Allsparks cursing you for being your favourite character. Glit was axed too, but considering KP, you did him a favor.
At least Walky hasn’t been professing for years that Drift is his favorite character ever. Having Drift killed off on the first page of the second issue of his own mini-series would have been inconvenient for sales!
hahahha
I guess this is why I don’t buy, nor care about IDW. Does Hasbro know that what happens in comics affects the sale of certain characters? Do they realize that Alex is haphazardly tossing around character deaths on the whims of friends, or did this slip by? Because I’m pretty sure if he showed Soundwave blow up on the fifth page people would be pretty upset.
I can live with someone like Hot Shot getting killed off as a background easter egg – the chances of him actually appearing in a G1 comic are slim. But I’d at least like to think the artist was doing for more reason than just to annoy someone his friend doesn’t like.
And Tipton’s comments sum up IDW pretty succinctly really. All (attempted) style and no substance. It took them three volumes of Classic GI Joe reprints (ignoring the Marvel ones they reprinted) to bother commissioning new covers. And while Jonboy Meyer’s cover to Classic 9 is nice, it’s a bit irrelevant (compared to the Marvel-commissioned JSC ones that actually sum up the contents of the issue) and the first Special Missions one prominently features Snake Eyes and Scarlett, who aren’t even in the damn volume. Would it really have killed them to read the actual issues and tell the cover artist who’s in them?
I don’t think that Hasbro worries too much, ’cause we all know in a year or two, someone at IDW will throw the whole “hey, this is 2 complicated now, let’s throw the reset button!” card, and poor Furman will have to create a brand new universe for them.
Again.
“lol continuity”
After reading those comments I’m glad I never got into IDW’s stuff. I read a few issues and just felt…meh about the whole thing and stopped reading. The only issues I picked up was “Last Stand of the Wreckers”, and only because I’m a Wrecker/Mayhem Squad fan, and who they got to write the series.
As much as I’d hate to sound like an ass, I took a look at Milne’s DevianART page and it confirmed a lot of what I took from that initial little bit of text. His lack of punctuation and general “who give’s a poop” attitude about what he says on the internet speaks teenager. After all, no one takes the internet seriously and it’s the internet, not an essay, right? After looking at that page it does look like my friends teenage son’s Myspace page, just with more yuppie smeared all over it.
Honestly, IDW, I’d hire professionals or at least keep people like him locked in the proverbial closet and not all over your forums.
The Editor’s comment of “For the record: All those characters are generics. This wouldn’t even be an issue if it weren’t for the fascination with “canon.”” is more annoying however. It’s that “canon” that keeps people reading the stories. Without canon there is no worthwhile plot. Soon, if that keeps up, we’ll have G1 all over again with characters, dead and alive, appearing randomly in places with no explanation and then be gone a few panels later without a mention or a care.
Looking at Denton’s resume, he started a comic shop and left that to do editing for two newspapers. He did that for a long while (almost 8 years all told at 2 papers) and then jumped right over to IDW and right into the editor’s seat. That explains a lot, actually. He’s probably not used to fans and people actually paying attention to details in what they read. After all, who the hell reads a paper anymore or pays attention to what’s in it? And newspapers have no continuity to speak of. Or canon for that matter. I’m going to, generously, write that off as adjustment for now.
Actually, that COULD be Henkei Hot Rod, for all it’s worth.
That’s how TFWiki treats it, as that’s the version of Hot Shot that exists in the G1 continuity family.
This kind of attitude towards the fans, hmm, and to think I wanted to get into Transformers comics. Meh, I’ll just find LSOTW, then wait for Rocherts to become editor. Dirft dying and Hunter coming back would be a welcome bonus.
Sweet as. They just saved me a whole bunch of money. Last Stand of the Wreckers is where it ends.
Yet another reason to hope Hasbro awards the license to another company very soon. Can’t get enough of that Bayformer Figueroa art. “HEYZ MICHAEL, FIGUEROA IS A KARACTER IN BAYFORMERZ ONE111″-Blow Murphy
Frankly, Don’s “movie-esque” art is the best stuff I think he’s ever done.
Is that saying you normally like him and his “movie-esque” stuff is even better, or that you don’t particularly care for him normally but like the movie-esque style?
I don’t like him nearly as much as the rest of the fandom does, but I appreciate and respect an artist who’s willing to experiment and try to grow. Plus, he’s really improved in the years since War Within.
I also don’t have a hate-on for the “Bayformer” look.
This seems much ado about nothing, I mean, this isn’t any different than “Soundwave” saving Nightscream in Beast Machines, Wheelie and Fortmax in Armada being part of Hot Shot’s regiment , The G1 characters in Cybertron, or having G1 footage in animated. Doesn’t mean it’s a literal counterpart, just a reused character model. Hell, it doesn’t even deserve a mention in the wiki beyond a cameo footnote.
Those are completely different in context. In the Beast shows, new models are prohibitively expensive, so of course their only option is to reuse stuff they’ve already made, like Soundwave and Prowl.
Also, it’s not like we’re for want of fiction starring Soundwave and Prowl — they’re all over the place! This isn’t like Soundwave and Prowl never ever ever ever ever show up, and finally they get to show up, but now they’re dead.
Of course, nobody’s actually crying about Hot Shot or SG Ravage possibly being dead. Now, all the guys who died prominently in previous issues who totally were those guys and were making their first appearances ever… yeah, reason to be upset.
Also, I don’t think that Bob Skir sat in his office thinking “I know, I’ll get Mainframe to kill off Soundwave because he’s totally this internet guy’s favourite character.”
If you actually look at the details of the BM ‘Soundwave’ his colors and even texture layout were completely altered for the BM appearance.
Does he still look a LOT like Soundwave? Yes. But Mainframe at least TRIED to make him look different.
Psssssst.
I know who Milne’s friend is.
It’s Daniel “Protoman” Arsenault.