[Titan] UK comic / IDW "Saga of the Allspark"

Clogs · Post by **Clogs** » Mon Dec 31, 2007 1:06 pm

So... Issue 7. Starscream. What do you think, um?

The storyline has distinct potential, what with proving, in this universe, that Sparks come as self-supporting mini-Underbases... er, AllSparks. Starscream fillets some of the machines brought to life in the movie, which is a sad farewell to Can Dew, and re-animates dead Decepticons to fight again; interestingly, the Sparks are simply a lifeforce and do not confer an identity on the recipient, indicating that that would be totally down to programming. The resurrected shells are nasty, violent and undirected, an echo of why Sector Seven had that badly damaged testing room under the Hoover Dam, perhaps.

Oh, nice tip of the hat to Starscream's Brigade.

However, the art was shameful. No, 'shameful' does not convey the sheer bloody depths of the horror of it. Even my Scraplets both complained that humans, let alone Cybertronians, are not those shapes. In many panels, it was hard to work out what was going on, since, additionally, the colouring was poor and sketchy. It all rather detracted from the intentions of the story.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Fri Jan 04, 2008 4:54 pm

Who the hell is this "Boo" character doing the art? Geoff Senior's poster had me weeping for what could have been.

Is the fact this issue claims the end of the film happened in LA the biggest goof in a Transformers comic ever? Where have Sam, Mikela and the soldiers gone? Why-in a storyline trying not to contradict any possible sequels- is Barricade one of the dead Decepticons?

By far the worst issue yet.

Housewife2000 · Post by **Housewife2000** » Sun Jan 06, 2008 7:23 pm

At first I thought the artist might be Boo Cook who does a lot of 2000AD strips, but the art style is more like Steve Roberts who did Bec & Cawl, although both artists are a lot better than this Transformers strip.

RUNAMOK · Post by **RUNAMOK** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 3:22 pm

For you little BOO seach, I have a little info on this "artist"

Aparantly Boo has a deviantart profile under the name TheBoo, I won't post a link due what it contains...

Other information is also known, but it's irellevant to this.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 8:49 pm

Ta Runsy, I think I've seen the Deviant link, but annoyingly it doesn't include the bloke/girls real name.

Neuronutter · Post by **Neuronutter** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 3:45 pm

So how did UK go from great artists like Senior, Don and Nick to Boo? Who's next and is the quality going to continue to be this bad? If so I will stop collecting these.

Clogs · Post by **Clogs** » Fri Jan 11, 2008 9:17 pm

Originally posted by Neuronutter
So how did UK go from great artists like Senior, Don and Nick to Boo? Who's next and is the quality going to continue to be this bad? If so I will stop collecting these.

No, don't stop collecting! They might ask one of my Scraplets to draw an up-coming feature! Must send in a portfolio right now!

Heh.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 12:30 am

Originally posted by Neuronutter
So how did UK go from great artists like Senior, Don and Nick to Boo? Who's next and is the quality going to continue to be this bad? If so I will stop collecting these.

And how did they go from people with actual names to Boo? I mean, I'll bet that Stewart Johnson had at least been in the industry a few years and gotten a reputation before asking to be credited as Staz...

Clogs · Post by **Clogs** » Wed Jan 30, 2008 9:05 pm

Issue 8 and I got sent the AUTOBOT freebies - again. I mean, on balance of probabilities, it could be Autobot every time. Or else the blastards know all about me and figure I'll just have to go buy the Decepticon version, too.

The storyline is fine and dandy, with another set of soldiers rather than having to borrow Lennox et al, who may, therefore, be adjudged to be appearing in film number 2(?) Even a hint that two of the new crew don't make it past their first encounter with Transformers. Straightforward story, no frills, and could this be the end for Scorponok?

Oh, and such lovely, lovely artwork! There's a sense of heat and sand and movement conveyed by both the drawing and colouring.

Housewife2000 · Post by **Housewife2000** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 10:01 am

Great, great art - everything feels grounded and realistic, which makes him perhaps the first artist to really gel with the movie aesthetic.
The story, however, seems a bit strange - all of the soldiers are individually introduced and named, but then go on to play the role of generic soldiers. Perhaps this is the set up for a string of future stories?

Drivaaar · Post by **Drivaaar** » Sun Feb 24, 2008 10:43 am

Hi everyone

Just received my copy of issue 9 in the post (featuring art by Simon Williams, and colours by myself). Hope you guys enjoy it!

Post by **Denyer** » Sun Feb 24, 2008 4:58 pm

Neat. Am considering picking up the reprints once they come out, as I've read the other material it's being collected with...

http://idwpublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=58200

^ On the subject of Titan, anyone have any guesses on this Amazon listing?

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Sun Feb 24, 2008 5:34 pm

I'm guessing stuff circs Edge of Extinction, more from the credit listing rather than the synopsis (which as you say, is all over the shop). If this is going to be an series of reprints hopefully they'll focus more initialy on the stuff IDW can't do (Death's Head, ect).

Post by **Denyer** » Sun Feb 24, 2008 7:32 pm

I'm more speculating on how this has arisen -- if Titan could reprint anything they wanted, they'd surely do the Marvel stuff that's in most demand. Ergo I figure it's a co-operative with IDW.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 8:05 am

Denyer wrote:I'm more speculating on how this has arisen -- if Titan could reprint anything they wanted, they'd surely do the Marvel stuff that's in most demand. Ergo I figure it's a co-operative with IDW.

I'd imagine it's not most likely the case that when they were putting the book of their own stuff together someone realised they still had the rights to the old stuff so they slapped together something based on what sold well last time in a belated bit of Movie Bandwagon Jumping.

Post by **Denyer** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 8:33 am

inflatable dalek wrote:I'd imagine it's not most likely the case that

Um. Is that sentence meant to have punctuation?

There's nothing stopping IDW from distributing to the UK / internationally -- as happened quite publicly with DW: http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=580 -- and the license has thus far been offered on the basis of territories.

Possibly related, IDW trades seem to have gotten cheaper... Target: 2006 / Spotlights V2 / etc. are £12.99 on Amazon; Devastation and Dinobots are £10.15 -- they also have US dollar prices in the advance listings. Ditto the BW Sourcebook having a US list price. Wonder if this is because they're advanced listings copied over from Amazon US or because of license use changes?

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Thu Feb 28, 2008 9:04 pm

Issue 9-

Once again the quality of the issue is determined by the quality of the artist, with Simon Williams doing a good job (I know he did some stuff for the BW Sourcebook, but hows about letting him on a Spotlight IDW?). The script is probably the laziest Furman has done yet, he's just taken Rhythms of Darkness and changed the names. Will it be the American flag that stops the other countries nuking the US this time? And why would Optimus only have one guard on him (that's less security than Megatron had)?

The only interesting thing to look forward to is weather or not this is going to feed into the main continuity or not- From the contents page talk of "Realities being torn" my guess is this is a Yesterday's Enterprise situation.

Are Arcee and Arcee in G1 colours different characters in the toyline then?

Oh, and bad show to the contents page, for bigging up the mystery of what Bumblebee is after only to have a pic of the Frozen prime right there staring you in the face...

Drivaaar · Post by **Drivaaar** » Fri Feb 29, 2008 12:32 am

inflatable dalek wrote:Issue 9-
Are Arcee and Arcee in G1 colours different characters in the toyline then?

The script for this issue states that the "Arcee in G1 colours" is called Elita-One.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Fri Feb 29, 2008 6:45 am

Drivaaar wrote:The script for this issue states that the "Arcee in G1 colours" is called Elita-One.

Insider knowledge,thank you.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Sun Mar 30, 2008 8:21 pm

Issue 10:

part two improves things greatly, there's not much in the way of plot but the action scenes are all handled well and it's fun to see the Decepticon's just let loose.

The rotating art team is a shame in one respect though as everyone seems to have had a slight redesign (the aformentioned Elita-One now having a head like her G1 namesake is the biggest one).

And we have our first firm confirmation of sales figures, the 2007 issues averaged a circulation of 45092. No idea how good that is for the UK comics industry, but that compares very well to IDW's sales.