Question on IDW's reprints (Dreamwave, Marvel UK etC)

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relak
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Question on IDW's reprints (Dreamwave, Marvel UK etC)

Post by relak »

I've recently purchased a bunch of books
- Transformers Armada 1-3
- Transformers Generation 1 vol 1 and 2
- Transformers: Best of UK Omnibus
- Transformers War Within Omnibus

They came cheap but im starting to suspect i was sold defective products.

The "Best of UK" omnibus had serious color issues. the colors seemed a lot more dull than usual. Darker colors like browns of blacks would totally mask the linework and turn the character into one big smudge. This is particularly apparent in the "Space Pirates" section.

Transformers Armada books had random pages where the art was literally BLURRED. As if someone jostled the printing machine while the pages were being printed.

Now here comes a problem i found with ALL the Dreamwave reproductions with the exception of most of War Within 1 and 2. Many pages seemed as if someone at IDW just Xeroxed their old Dreamwave comics instead of reprinting them from the original files. I mean COME ON! There are digital copies of those comics, in near perfect resolution, floating around the internet. USE THOSE instead of xeroxing some employees old collection.
The worst offenders of this is stuff like Armada's final chapter and War Within Preview chapter (meeting between Starscream and Grimlock).
Seriously, i can get better resolution than that using my handphone camera.

Now, can anyone tell me if i've just been swindled with defective books or is this the actual output from IDW???
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inflatable dalek
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Post by inflatable dalek »

The reprint of Armada was definitely a bit shoddy, like poor quality scans with at least one bad misprint on one page that wasn't on the original issue.

The second Classic UK book also manages to print a couple of pages out of order, alongside some fairly overt typos in the making of sections.
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Post by Cliffjumper »

It's IDW. They **** everything up because they're completely incompetent and they do not give a shit about quality as long as a bunch of submissive fans shell out for TF material.
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Post by inflatable dalek »

The oddest thing is a really overt factual error that's presumably the result of a brain fart on Roberts' part where he talks about Devastation Derby featuring Will Simpson's first art since Christmas Breaker despite the fact that earlier pages in this very book prove this wrong. Furman taking the chance to kick Simpson's art is a bit unpalatable as well, sure, I think Simpson is terrible (probably my least favourite of the regular artists) but I'm not the books one time editor who kept hiring him.

Shame as all the new info (ranging from how Marvel UK came close to doing a European comic with new content through to a great in-depth interview with James Hill, that really does show he was probably the first really enthusiastic person to be involved with writing Transformers. The pitch he made to IDW for a comic adaptation of the story is about 5000 times more interesting than Megatron Origin as well) is pure gold.
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Post by relak »

inflatable dalek wrote:The reprint of Armada was definitely a bit shoddy, like poor quality scans with at least one bad misprint on one page that wasn't on the original issue.

The second Classic UK book also manages to print a couple of pages out of order, alongside some fairly overt typos in the making of sections.
So they actually did grab some employee's old Dreamwave comics and xeroxed them?

Why even bother scanning when they can print from a digital copy?
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Post by Skyquake87 »

inflatable dalek wrote:The oddest thing is a really overt factual error that's presumably the result of a brain fart on Roberts' part where he talks about Devastation Derby featuring Will Simpson's first art since Christmas Breaker despite the fact that earlier pages in this very book prove this wrong. Furman taking the chance to kick Simpson's art is a bit unpalatable as well, sure, I think Simpson is terrible (probably my least favourite of the regular artists) but I'm not the books one time editor who kept hiring him.

Shame as all the new info (ranging from how Marvel UK came close to doing a European comic with new content through to a great in-depth interview with James Hill, that really does show he was probably the first really enthusiastic person to be involved with writing Transformers. The pitch he made to IDW for a comic adaptation of the story is about 5000 times more interesting than Megatron Origin as well) is pure gold.
Bad Furman, bad! I liked Will Simpson's art. It suffers from being a bit too busy (notably during Dinobot Hunt), but once he starts toning his linework down, it improves dramatically, I'm thinking from around The National Interest up. I wonder why James Hill was never given more work for the weekly - obviously, Furman becoming writer/editor would have nixed that, but I'm thinking earlier on. Was Furman cheaper/ more prolific?
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Post by Cliffjumper »

Yes, probably. Marvel had all sorts of writers on most of their other titles (ranging from Grant Morrison and Jamie Delano to whichever talentless piece of shit wrote that Blues Brothers rip-off 2000AD clearly rejected) and all we got on Transformers was Furman and occasional "script" by the British Jeph Loeb, Dan "Not the man, but a man, will that do?" Abnett.

I'd have a lot more time for Furman if he just shut his stupid shiny head a bit more often. He's got an astonishing ego for someone who's been cancelled more times than Star Trek.

I suspect any criticism of Simpson comes from him straying outside the little cabal they had. I like Will's stuff, TBH. He's great at grotesque stuff (the first look at Jazz in the torture machine in T2006, ****ing Hell; Christmas Break-er, etc.) and he's actually doing comic art rather than posing character models (Hi, Jeff! Hi, every Transformers artist of the past two decades except Nick Roche!).

I love the desert section he did in Dinobot Hunt. That's what the desert's like, it's not just the beach without the sea.
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Post by inflatable dalek »

relak wrote:So they actually did grab some employee's old Dreamwave comics and xeroxed them?

Why even bother scanning when they can print from a digital copy?
I'd guess using online scans would be a no-no due to their illegality, though that doesn't explain why they didn't do their own scans. It's not as if anything they've reprinted from Dreamwave is especially hard to find, only the (still?) up in legal limbo third series and difficult to do as a book WW3 and GI Joe 2 contain anything people might be holding on to.
Cliffjumper wrote: I suspect any criticism of Simpson comes from him straying outside the little cabal they had. I like Will's stuff, TBH. He's great at grotesque stuff (the first look at Jazz in the torture machine in T2006, ****ing Hell; Christmas Break-er, etc.) and he's actually doing comic art rather than posing character models (Hi, Jeff! Hi, every Transformers artist of the past two decades except Nick Roche!).
It does somewhat hilariously mention in the book that it wasn't any dissatisfaction with his work that saw him depart the book but the fact 2000 AD came calling for him shortly after it did Barry Kitson (who, incidentally, got a story credit on Robot Buster as a sweetener to try and keep him around, "OK, you don't like drawing robots, what would appeal to you?").

One of the great things about the UK comic, as much as it might have been nice to chain Geoff Senior to a desk and make him draw everything until his fingers bled, is that the sheer variety of artists and styles means there's something for everyone. Simpson doesn't do it for me personally, I find his work far too gangly myself (and it's always struck me as odd he kept using more toy based art long after everyone else stopped), but I'm the man who likes Dan Reed so what do I know?
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Post by Skyquake87 »

Cliffjumper wrote:Yes, probably. Marvel had all sorts of writers on most of their other titles (ranging from Grant Morrison and Jamie Delano to whichever talentless piece of shit wrote that Blues Brothers rip-off 2000AD clearly rejected) and all we got on Transformers was Furman and occasional "script" by the British Jeph Loeb, Dan "Not the man, but a man, will that do?" Abnett.

I'd have a lot more time for Furman if he just shut his stupid shiny head a bit more often. He's got an astonishing ego for someone who's been cancelled more times than Star Trek.

I suspect any criticism of Simpson comes from him straying outside the little cabal they had. I like Will's stuff, TBH. He's great at grotesque stuff (the first look at Jazz in the torture machine in T2006, ****ing Hell; Christmas Break-er, etc.) and he's actually doing comic art rather than posing character models (Hi, Jeff! Hi, every Transformers artist of the past two decades except Nick Roche!).

I love the desert section he did in Dinobot Hunt. That's what the desert's like, it's not just the beach without the sea.
that'll be sleeze brothers by andrew cartmel (really!) and andy lanning.it is rubbish.shame really as lanning's art was nice.
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Post by inflatable dalek »

Cartmel did the Sleeze Brothers? Bloody hell.

EDIT: Though, having checked as I thought it was odd the Cold Day in Hell trade extras didn't mention this, not according to the Wikiepdia page for the boys, which claims it was John Carnell.
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Post by Skyquake87 »

Whoops.my bad.put that down to my age.i have the comics (along with other marvel uk horrors) but am on the bus at the moment so not really convenient to check!
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Post by inflatable dalek »

Skyquake87 wrote:Whoops.my bad.put that down to my age.i have the comics (along with other marvel uk horrors) but am on the bus at the moment so not really convenient to check!
The names are similar enough to make mixing up understandable. The Who crossover strip is the only Sleeze Brothers I've read and blimey O'Reilly, it is bloody awful. A Time Bandits style (literally in the shamelessly cribbed Titanic sequence) black comedy where the Doctor accidentally causes lots of terrible disasters throughout history being chased by these bozos might have been good, but that wasn't anywhere near working.
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Post by Cliffjumper »

Yup, Carnell. Did ****-all else; probably something in Strip no-one read or whatever. It's a genuinely god-awful series, really pleased with itself despite the fact there's not a single new idea in it. The TF strips were the funniest thing about it, and they were like watching someone take a Stanley knife to a baby's face.

RE: DW masters, they might be using scans. Just because the rights reverted to Hasbro when DW folded doesn't necessarily mean negatives and digital masters have been handed over, and I doubt Hasbro or IDW give enough of a **** to physically seize them if they are still with Pat and Roger or whatever. It's not much different from the way they legally own toy moulds that are in the possession of Chinese bootleggers.

Any actual scanning is probably menial intern/dogsbody work, and considering IDW's writers and editors can't be ****ed to do anything properly the scanners are unlikely to be motivated individuals striving to deliver quality work.
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Post by relak »

Cliffjumper wrote:
RE: DW masters, they might be using scans. Just because the rights reverted to Hasbro when DW folded doesn't necessarily mean negatives and digital masters have been handed over, and I doubt Hasbro or IDW give enough of a **** to physically seize them if they are still with Pat and Roger or whatever. It's not much different from the way they legally own toy moulds that are in the possession of Chinese bootleggers.

Any actual scanning is probably menial intern/dogsbody work, and considering IDW's writers and editors can't be ****ed to do anything properly the scanners are unlikely to be motivated individuals striving to deliver quality work.
Good points.
But whats weird is that especially with Armada's "Worlds Collide" chapters, its not as if a whole issue was badly scanned.

A few pages were badly scanned then the rest of the pages were perfect, just like on the single issues, then the last few pages were badly scanned again.

Its as if the only had the negatives or digital masters for the odd page here and there.

Oh IDW, was it really that hard to secure EVERYTHING to do with the story (rights, original art masters, etc) before reprinting it?
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Post by inflatable dalek »

relak wrote: Oh IDW, was it really that hard to secure EVERYTHING to do with the story (rights, original art masters, etc) before reprinting it?
Probably, IDW may have the reprint rights but even if Dreamwave hadn't gone pffft in a little puff of smoke they, like Marvel, wouldn't be under any obligation to hand over the masters that presumably do remain their property even if they can't use them. With the collapse I suspect there were other, more papery and green coloured, things higher on the list people wanted to get out of the Lee brothers.

Still doesn't excuse the poor scanning or lack of basic proof reading though.
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Post by relak »

inflatable dalek wrote:Probably, IDW may have the reprint rights but even if Dreamwave hadn't gone pffft in a little puff of smoke they, like Marvel, wouldn't be under any obligation to hand over the masters that presumably do remain their property even if they can't use them. With the collapse I suspect there were other, more papery and green coloured, things higher on the list people wanted to get out of the Lee brothers.

Still doesn't excuse the poor scanning or lack of basic proof reading though.
If it really was about money, then wont it be a win win situation?

IDW pays the lee brothers for the original masters on the dreamwave TF comics.

Lee brothers are then able to pay off the people they duped.
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Post by Cliffjumper »

IDW once horded convention-only comics, 'found' them a short while down the line and then sold them via the site store for $50 apiece. They like spending as little as possible with maximum return, which is why most of their TF comics have about nine covers.

TBH, scans of back issues should have been more than adequate - it's a surprisingly common route for a lot of collections. It just sounds like IDW haven't done a good job of it, just accepting the first results without bothering checking if they're any good. It's an unsurprising extension of their general ethos, same as the way they can't even be bothered to make sure speech bubbles point at the right characters or find out if Furman had any plans to make his stories go anywhere before publishing 30-odd issues.
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Post by inflatable dalek »

Yeah, it's worth remembering that some, very likely all, of the Titan trades were scans as well (Furman was the one who actually had to hunt down issues on Ebay, IIRC he specifically mentioned Headmasters issue 4. Presumably Target: 2006 was still lost in a postal sorting office somewhere as well) with very few problems. A bit of a printing fubar on a page of On The Edge of Extinction being about their worst cock up.
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Post by Cliffjumper »

With minor league stuff like Transformers, especially anything that's handed around multiple publishers, hi-res scans are probably a lot easier than the expense and risk of shipping around negatives these days. If nothing else I suspect Marvel or whoever would want Titan/IDW/whoever to pay for the freight and probably wouldn't be overly helpful for digging stuff out in the first place.
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Post by relak »

inflatable dalek wrote:Yeah, it's worth remembering that some, very likely all, of the Titan trades were scans as well (Furman was the one who actually had to hunt down issues on Ebay, IIRC he specifically mentioned Headmasters issue 4. Presumably Target: 2006 was still lost in a postal sorting office somewhere as well) with very few problems. A bit of a printing fubar on a page of On The Edge of Extinction being about their worst cock up.
seriously??

I found the titan reprints of the Marvel US stuff (yes other than the blurred pages in End of the Road) to be the best so far among all the releases.

I have sat down with my Titan tpb and compared page by page with Generations, Classic Transformers and the latest Transformers Classics vol 1. The comparison was made using "Warrior School" as a common reference.
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