This afternoon I'm on the jet to Texas to totally rock AnimeFest, but before I go, I need to tell you something.

It's super-important.

Last Stand of the Wreckers is out in trade paperback now.

It's not just your usual trade.  It has, like, crazy extra stuff in it.  As I warned months back, the profiles in the individual issues aren't in the trade, but the trade has soooo much stuff the individual issues do not.  There's, like, a whole text story in here.  It's several pages long and excellent.  There's two new profiles for Overlord and Snare.  There's a page of trivia notes on the individual issues.  There's another page of designs and arts and what have you.  There's the one-page Wreckers comic, "Dead Men's Boots."  It's all magnificent.  All trades should be like this.  I mean, c'mon, a whole extra story in here!

And that's besides the main event being all super-awesome.  Buy the hell out of it.

Meanwhile, I need to get another box of books ready for AnimeFest.  I mailed two out to Texas ahead of time and only one arrived!  Shit!  I'll have to check a replacement box with me at the airport.  Glad I got some insurance on that missing box.  Hopefully it'll show up... somewhere...

Once a month for five months, God finds time to bless our planet with his holy ejaculate.  This is month four, and so today the latest issue of Last Stand of the Wreckers is now splashed warmly across our faces.

Sure, the immediate highlight of the issue is a single panel (spoilers) that packs more fanwankery into itself than should be physically possible.  But something more subtle I'd like to bring up, nospoilery-like, is this: Transformers are robots.  They lose arms, they lose heads, they suffer all sorts of damage.  I'm kinda numb to the idea.  But, man, in Last Stand of the Wreckers, when physical damage happens, I wince.  It's gross.  It looks painful.  It takes an emotional toll.

This is probably due to both the writing and the art.  I think of the characters as real beings, not only due to the strong characterization, but also in the way in which they are drawn.  They don't look like a pile of boxes being maneuvered around by the artist like a marionette.  They're singular entities.  And, man, if they get an ouchie, you can tell by the look on their faces.

I really like that.

And, man, Last Stand of the Wreckers really is an orgy of violence.  It's crude and dark and terrible.  Many Transformers stories attempt this, but most feel hollow.   This does not.  That's a feat in itself, above and beyond the easy geeky cameos.