This is what I miss about Transformers comics.
So there’s a four-page Transformers comic in the latest “Generations” volume of Transformers infobooks. It’s a Japanese publication, despite the comic being by Simon Furman and Guido Guido. Which I’m perfectly fine with, because they’re two of my favorite people. (I should scan that art of Ratchet that Guido drew me at last year’s SDCC. And somewhere he has an Amber sketch that is not even 10% as awesome as my Ratchet.)
Anyway, why do I like it? It just feels like oldschool Transformers comics. You know, back when they were about selling toys, and the choice in characters determined who was required to appear? That’s right, I’m nostalgic for being sold to. But there’s just something undeniably vintage Transformers about reading a Transformers comic and it focusing on guys in bodies that are currently available for sale. IDW mostly avoids that with their comics. They make up their body designs and choose their character roster as they please, with a few exceptions.
But I miss the old Eighties demand for relevant product placement. Transformers has been graced with many talented creative types, and sometimes you squeeze the best material out of talented folks with some imposed guidelines. Sometimes restrictions aren’t bad. And sometimes those restrictions force creatives to use folks they wouldn’t have used otherwise, or make them consider other story or character alternatives.
Would Thunderwing or Bludgeon have become important characters if Hasbro hadn’t mandated Simon Furman to use toys they were currently selling in his late 80s work? Probably not.
That’s why I like this story in the Generations books. It’s about Stepper/Ricochet, of course, since that’s the exclusive toy that the magazine is trying to sell, but it’s also about a bunch of other guys in the United toyline. It’s nice to see guys like Wheeljack and Kup and Scourge and Lugnut and Wheeljack and Bumblebee all in their most recent toy designs. We don’t see that often enough. I like when I buy new toys of old characters, but there’s something missing when I don’t see those new toys in new stories.
And it doesn’t hurt that Guido drew and colored his comic pages like the original Marvel comics material, either.
I confess, the halftone made me squee a bit.
Here here.
Let’s look at the most recent TF fictions:
You already covered IDW
While there are plenty of movie toys out there, Bay has made it no secret that he couldn’t care less about the toyline.
WFC had 5 toys and stopped.
And the most baffling: Prime debuted at the end of last year and still no toys!
Animated did the same thing. Which makes have to ask the question: “Why would there ever be a transformer cartoon on tv if there wasn’t toys in store for it to sell? Why?”
I don’t understand the world anymore.
One reason why I love IDW’s movie comics is that it does tend to throw in lots of stuff you can find in stores currently.
And then murder them.
Yeah, it was “hi and then die” to most of my movie-collection.
Hoping the end of the movies will alleviate the need to keep killing their expanded-U cast.
People tend to forget that even eras like, say, Earthforce were prompted by a series of classic reissues in the UK, not a sudden desire to just “do the old characters.”
The reason Hasbro is releasing the cartoon before any toys are on the shelves is because they want it to be able to stand on its own. To move away from the perception that it’s just a glorified toy commercial. They want to present the franchise as being more about the stories and less about the need to sell merchandise.
While I agree with everything you said in your comments, I think one of the things that I love the MOST in that art is actual rendering. Great, old school line weight, drawn shadows and metallic shine. The great stuff left to the colorists to do pretty much since the “Dreamwave” days.
Excuse me, I’m just going to be over here squeeing over random Lugnut…
You have pretty much described my feelings for this comic. It does feel like I am being sold to with it.
If you hadn’t said anything, I’d have just assumed that comic picture was from the 80′s.
I just like the fact that it’s four pages long and yet somehow warrants not one, but TWO epilogues.
Furman looooves his double epilogues!
That was pretty cool, I too have been alittle disappointed that the IDW books don’t use the recent toy designs for the character models, as the new toys are for the most part, designed really well. Seems like a waste of cross marketing.
But what was “NOT the end” about it? Stepper saved the day and high fives were administered all around. What’s “not the end” about that?
Don’t you know? For Furman, “It never ends!”
I like how ONLY Drift can resist the affliction.
Wonder if Furman did that on purpose…
I have to confess, G1 Marvel comics has always been my favorite TF continuity (though the more of Animated I catch up on, the closer it becomes to being the new king).
I mean seriously, Furman took ACTION MASTERS and made an amazing subplot involving Grimlock out of them. That, my friends, takes mad skill.
Know what you mean about the comics. Hey, just read IDW ongoing #25 and have to say, it was pretty neat from Prowl’s POV. He hasn’t gotten this much characterization since the Furman days in any TF comic period. Looking forward to next year when the Marvel run is extended by Mr. F. himself. And then of course a soft reboot will happen in the main IDW-verse. I bet John Barber does Transformers Vs. Zombies or Old Man Optimus as a nod to his previous Marvel editing.