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

AndyTurnbull · Post by **AndyTurnbull** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 11:46 pm

You can find out how it's doing against other UK titles here

And just to summarise (blatantly c & p'd from elsewhere)

It's about 10k behind Panini's Spectacular Spider-Man, almost doing double the Dandy's sales and 5k behind Beano Max. Twenty behind regular Beano, 110k behind Doctor Who adventures but coupled with it being a fortnightly title that might be doing it a disservice. It's also behind Scooby Doo - but these are all fairly established titles so I'd be more interested in seeing things in a year or so.

Andy

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 7:09 am

Issue 11!

After the shaky start I'm enjoying the Twilight story a lot now, it's not ball burstingly amazing but it's a good fun fast read.

Three thoughts on the rest of the issue:

The two reprints looked shorter than normal (though I need to check page counts and whatnot to be sure), are they going to eek an extra part out of these so all three stories end in issue 13 allowing them to do the 2000AD annual relaunch issue thing?

The art page doesn't have any examples of people's attempts at the "How to Draw" pieces, which tickled me for some reason.

Starscream taking the piss out of the txtspeak letter, horay!

AndyTurnbull · Post by **AndyTurnbull** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 10:35 am

I've a funny feeling that's what they're doing with the reprints.

I agree with you, the ongoing strip is a good fun read and Fabio Makoto Ono's work was splendid.

One thing that annoys me, the use of the robotic font for human dialogue as well. It just sticks out as being wrong.

Andy

Housewife2000 · Post by **Housewife2000** » Wed May 07, 2008 4:29 pm

Likes:
The artwork, in general is nice, with clean lines and some solid renderings of the movie style characters. The colours are good, and the story barrels along at a fairly solid pace.

Dislikes:
Some of the details in the art on the main strip - specifically the robot modes not matching the vehicle modes - lets the overall quality down.
The cover - truly horrible. It looks strangely like it was traced, the colours are poor and the background is non-existant. Oh for the days of the painted punchline covers of Marvel UK!
Finally, I'm just not grabbed by the story. I'd have thought the mission statement for doing a movie-verse TF story would be a focus on real world details, widescreen action and a strong sense of humour. Instead, it feels too simple, too cheesy. Perhaps that's a side effect of the small page count, but I'm just not sold.

Post by **zigzagger** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 2:08 pm

Once a U.K exclusive featured in the Titan TF UK magazine, is now available to everyone. These stories expand what has already been established from the IDW Movie Prequel books. This is your all purpose Saga of the Allspark #1 reaction and discussion thread. Come, tell us what you thought.

Due to arrive along with All Hail Mgeatron #1 July 10th according to grahamcrakers.com shipping schedule.
http://grahamcrackers.com/newcomics.htm

Post by **zigzagger** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 6:42 am

Well, eh heh heh, Devastator is STILL Devastator here (i.e. not Brawl). That is all.

By the way, would it make more sense if I just moved this into the existing Titan TF UK thread, and just change up the thread title (Titan TF UK/Saga of The Allspark)? Or would that just spoil it for those who haven't read the UK stuff already?

Post by **zigzagger** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 6:50 am

Well, heh heh heh, Devastator is STILL Devastator here (i.e. not Brawl). That is all.

By the way, would it make more sense if I just moved this into the existing Titan TF UK thread, and just change up the thread title (Titan TF UK/Saga of The Allspark)? Or would that just spoil it for those who haven't read the UK stuff already?

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 6:51 am

As the storyline is incompatible with Reign of Starscream I guess IDW weren't to bothered by the naming thing...

If the thread don't get much more action in the next few days I'd say merge'em.

Housewife2000 · Post by **Housewife2000** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 8:18 pm

While I already have the original Titan strips, I couldn't help picking up another copy - well a couple of copies - because GOOD GRAVY I'M IN PRINT!!!!! I've had a smile on my face all day since wandering into Forbidden Planet in London and seeing my Mosaic, The Passenger, get published.

Totally.
Awesome.

Blitzwing · Post by **Blitzwing** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 8:45 pm

I haven't decided whether or not I want to pick this up... what is it exactly? A prequel to the first movie that's different from the other IDW prequel? Or is this the series that continue's from the idea that Megatron and the Decepticons won the final battle in the first movie?

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 9:28 pm

It's the first two issues here:

http://tfarchive.com/comics/titan/guide ... itan_01_13

It's Prequel material that ties into the IDW Prequel (which it was printed alongside originally), but IDW aren't tieing into it themselves for Reign of Starscream. The alternate timeline arc doesn't start till issue 9 (or around #5 of these reprints).

The main selling point of this issue is some fine Senior and Roche art, the stories themselves are fun but throwaway.

Blitzwing · Post by **Blitzwing** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 10:33 pm

Hmm... I guess I'll give it a browse through next time I'm in the comic shop and buy it if I like the art enough.

Nevermore · Post by **Nevermore** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 7:14 pm

Okay, I haven't read the original Titan prints of these stories yet, so this is my first exposure to them.

Plot and dialogue are decent, though nothing stellar, there's no major "WTF they screwed up everything" like with All Hail Megatron right now.

Art...

...

Man, it's good to see Senior back, but damn, the movie designs don't work with his style. At all.

Also, why is Optimus Prime in his Earth robot mode complete with Peterbilt truck kibble and red and blue flame deco, and yet he transforms into a suddenly mostly grey (but not at all based-on-the-toy) Protoform pod mode?

Second story has better art by Nick Roche. Megatron's robot mode looks slightly odd on page 1, and while all have robot modes with apparently-Cybertronian-alt-mode kibble, it's odd that all of them already have their later Earth mode colors. Oh well. Layouts, dynamic and visual storytelling are decent, as are the faces. Nick > Senior, these days. Sorry, Geoff.

Cover by Nick Roche is nothing short of awesome.

Housewife2000 · Post by **Housewife2000** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 4:38 pm

Issue 14.

Tracing the movie publicity stills? Twice within the same strip?

Not cool beans Titan.

Not cool beans at all.

Drivaaar · Post by **Drivaaar** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 5:16 pm

Housewife2000 wrote:Issue 14.

Tracing the movie publicity stills? Twice within the same strip?

Not cool beans Titan.

Not cool beans at all.

Twice?! I wish... There's more than two occurances of this....

With the exception of page 2, every single shot of Strongarm is the same.

Every single shot Arcee (in robot mode) is the same.

Virtually every shot of Ratchet is the same.

With all the above there are slight variances in scale, or they've been tilted, or horizontally flipped.

Every shot of Prime from the back is the same.

Decepticon drone jets are cloned from about 3 different drawings.

Starscream's first appearance features two uses of the same jet in different panels, with a very very similar drawing as he flies away.

Humans fleeing from the attack have been copied and pasted too.

Quite a lot of the lineart in this issue was digitally manipulated it seems.

But I have to be honest - not my favourite UK TF art.

Sorry Mr Erskine....

Post by **zigzagger** » Fri Jul 18, 2008 4:02 am

DISCLAIMER: Due to lower traffic, the "Saga of the Allspark" thread has been merged with the Titan TF UK thread. Since the SOTA stories are IDW re-issues of the Titan stories, new readers should bring caution with them when posting here and expect spoilers.

(original post also updated)

EDIT: Though if it does become an issue, than I have no qualms with placing the SOTA posts back in their own thread. Shouldn't be too hard to tell the difference.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Fri Jul 18, 2008 8:49 am

It won't be an issue for a while anyway. Each of the early issues is effectively standalone despite a very lose connecting thread so knowing rough details of later issues won't ruin the enjoyment of the current ones to much.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Fri Jul 18, 2008 1:40 pm

Issue 14:

The art was a mixed bag and the notion of the US Government deciding all giant robots are teh evils was hugely stock and stupid (though at least some of them are under outside control). However, the use of the Gaia hypothesis was surprisingly adult for a comic aimed very much at the younger end of the market, even if I suspect Furman has just been watching Edge of Darkness on DVD.

Housewife2000 · Post by **Housewife2000** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 12:45 pm

Issue #19 (I think, I don't have it handy... and Titan's home page are still advertising October's strip...)

Interesting. On the one hand, last issues reveal of the surprise villain was pretty annoying - he really needs to be laid to rest for a while. But on the other hand, this month they actually seem to be taking the concept in a slightly different direction.

I like Cosmo's art a lot - loved his cover to #17. He seems to make the movie designs work despite simplifying them a hell of a lot. Titan's use of such a wide variety of artists harks back to the old days of Marvel UK - you get something different every week, for better or worse, and it's letting a lot of new or under appreciated talent reach a wider audience. I liked Davis-Hunt's work from a few months back, which seemed about a billion times better than his recent stint on 2000AD's Stalag 666.

As an aside, this is my first exposure to Megs: Origin and BW: Ascending. Neither seems to make any sense, but they're kinda pretty.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 12:55 pm

The use of Unicron (I think it's OK not to be shy about saying the name, he's on the cover of the current issue after all. Even if someone thankfully realised none of the target audience would know what he is and shoved Optimus in there as well) is down to one of three things:

1: A smart introduction to a new concept for the kids reading the comic that will also spark nostalgia in their parents who otherwise have had no exposure to Transformers media for twenty years.

2: A smart way of foreshadowing aspects of the Revenge of the Fallen script Furman saw.

3: Furman has no other ideas.

On the plus side I did like how the end of #18 gave Unicron some lines emphasising why him possessing Cybertron was a bad idea rather than just relying on a name most of the readers won't recognise to create a cliff-hanger.

Have the American reprints ended now then? Odd considering they weren't selling that much less than the officinal figures for All Hail Megatron and were all new money for old rope.

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

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