TFARCHIVE FORUMS

I've read the book! And I'm quite impressed.

Oh, the opinions expressed in the reviews themselves are often dead wrong on account of being dalek's, but I love the completely unapologetic tone of the whole thing. It's clearly one man's opinion and no ****s were given about rocking the boat or going against the popular opinions of about any given story, and that makes the whole thing a far more engaging read than any attempt at a "neutral" review could ever hope to be.

But as a non-Brit, the most interesting part of the whole endeavour was actually the bits that weren't about the stories. I've read all of this stuff by now either in collected form or as scans, so there weren't any huge surprises to me there. But the tidbits of info about early creators like Steve Parkhouse and Mike Collins were really interesting, as I really wasn't all that aware about how much (or little) some of these men had contributed over the years. And the wealth of information about letters pages, backup strips, features and articles was the real goldmine to me. Most of this is stuff I never knew existed, let alone seen, and it really places the stories in a different context to me. I'd also never really thought through the implications of delivering 11 pages of story weekly rather than 22 pages monthly, and the commentary on how well (or poorly) this worked both in the native UK strips and the chopped-up US ones was a real standout.

I did have some niggles, though.

Cliffjumper wrote:Nicely presented too, found the format really good and the typos unobtrusive, though there's a spell about 80% in where a few columns reverse order that is quite disorientating.

This was probably the biggest one. It really made it difficult to follow the reviews in which it happened.

The other thing that didn't really work for me was the addendums. The content itself was fine, but the way they were presented in the book was really distracting. Having them run on the right hand pages while the main reviews continued on the left really made it tough to keep track of where I was, and flipping three pages forward to read an addendum only to have to flip back and find where I'd left off was quite frustrating (especially since -- as my son will chew on any books I try to read at home -- I did most of my reading in half-hour chunks on the bus and often had to leave off in the middle of something). If Volume 2 found another way to present these, I think it'd be a big improvement.

P.S.: If I live to be a hundred I'll never understand the love you Brits have for Geoff Senior. He's fine and all, but I enjoy the work of a lot of other Marvel TF artists more than his.

We'll never live that page thing down.

Interesting thing about the addendums, do other folk feel the same? We can always change that for the next one.

And see, even colonials like it! Though that last sentence probably invalidates the entire opinion.

Yeah, I think I agree with Warcry having had another read through recently (although not about Geoff Senior). Perhaps put your addenums at the end of chapters / make a distinct break between issues.

We'll look into that then. The format with the bonus stuff was shamelessly stolen from the About Time books.

on the misplaced columns, I did look into editing the file on Lulu, but it seems (presumably because it has an ISBN number and therefore you can't just change the content) that I'd have had to start over and create a new book, which would have confused things in terms of aforementioned ISBN and Amazon listings.

Plus, I wasn't sure if it would be fair on people who bought early to present a better version almost immediately afterwards. If I ever get round to doing an ebook version, that'll be sorted as it'll probably just be straight text anyway.

I have started on Book 2, with the introduction, acknowledgements and "The Story of the Transformers--So Far!" sections done in first draft form. Though it's taken me long enough that it's probably going to be 2017 rather than before Christmas.

This may also be the time to mention I've sold two short stories to Mad Scientist Journal. The exciting one is for a proper book anthology: http://madscientistjournal.org/2016/04/ ... itting-in/, but even before that has been published they bought another for their March quarterly (which you'll then be able to read for free on the website in June. Based on that lead in time the Fitting In Book should be about Christmas/New Year as well), that's how good it is.

Plus the second story has me totally libel Denyer.

Expect lots more on this as these come out.

inflatable dalek wrote:Interesting thing about the addendums, do other folk feel the same? We can always change that for the next one.

Yeah. No longer own any About Time volumes and the layouts and effect on being annoying to dip into was a small part of that. The much bigger part was them being dry as f*ck a lot of the time and with an interest in detail bordering on the pathological, admittedly.

I've probably mentioned before but if the footer disclaimer is kept it needs a bit more margin between it and the page text.

Warcry wrote:If I live to be a hundred I'll never understand the love you Brits have for Geoff Senior. He's fine and all, but I enjoy the work of a lot of other Marvel TF artists more than his.

Hard lines and shading techniques. It's mostly done to be presented in black and white, and balances expressiveness with relative minimalism a lot of the time. Didn't work well with modern colouring when he popped back on the Titan movie comic (although having to simplify the movie designs didn't help).

Don't engage with Warcry on his crazy Geoff Senior opinions, it just makes them look valid.

I'm delighted at least one person has read it more than once.

inflatable dalek wrote:Don't engage with Warcry on his crazy Geoff Senior opinions, it just makes them look valid.

Oh hush. He does a good job of storytelling but his robots and humans both look like they've been chipped from blocks of stone. I tend to think that his stuff does look a lot better in black-and-white, as Denyer alluded to, but even then he's far from my favourite.

But it's not like I'm comparing him to Jose Delbo, Dan Reed or Manny Galan either. He's not bad, I just don't get his style at all.

Skyquake87 wrote:Perhaps put your addenums at the end of chapters / make a distinct break between issues.

That's what I was thinking too. Maybe have them clustered in between each year's worth of reviews, or something like that?

Denyer wrote:I've probably mentioned before but if the footer disclaimer is kept it needs a bit more margin between it and the page text.

A smaller/different font would help a bit too, I think. My eyes kept tricking me into thinking it was a part of the text.

Not necessary apart from the covers anyway, really.

And the current Lulu code with get yo 15% off and free postage before Sunday with SHIPSAVE16: http://www.lulu.com/shop/stuart-webb/tr ... 89496.html

Not sure you've noticed, but the months and days of 1989 match up with 2017.

You can use the classic covers calendars then.

Ha, that's awesome.

To keep all my self pimping in one thread, my first pro short story in the anthology Fitting In is now out! It's perfect for the long winter evenings, indeed, thanks to the magic of kindle people can still just about read it and the other misunderstood ghoul and spooks filled stories on Halloween itself!

More details and various Amazon links: http://thesolarpool.weebly.com/blog/com ... -anthology

If you hadn't said which story it was, it would probably still have been readily apparent (although read the first vampire one then skipped ahead... will have to dig into more at some point). Always interesting to read stuff in the author's voice. Tightly written.

'Grats Dalek. You're currently the only person at the center of a Venn diagram of my friends who are TF fans and friends who write short fiction.

The rough draft of Transformation Volume 2 is now done and in the hands of Denyer who can actually proof read!

Also, my second short story is out now, in the Spring 2017 issue of Mad Scientist Journal! Complete with a joke about Denyer!

Wait, maybe that wasn't a good idea, who replaced all the words in Transformation 2 with "Twat" over and over?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0997793651/ ... st+journal

(It's on all the other Amazons as well)

Which issues does the second volume cover? Odds are I'll actually properly buy this one without needing to be tricked!

(Mildly jealous that you got a story (or two) published before me, by the way, but I suppose that's what I get for getting distracted by having a life and a family. Ah, well. One day!)

Warcry wrote:Which issues does the second volume cover? Odds are I'll actually properly buy this one without needing to be tricked!

Issues 113 (you might have heard of that one) to 222! So Death's Head to Survivors.

(Mildly jealous that you got a story (or two) published before me, by the way, but I suppose that's what I get for getting distracted by having a life and a family. Ah, well. One day!)

I HAVE A LIFE. :0

Annoyingly they've got another open submissions thing at the moment, but I'd need to write something in like a day to meet the deadline...

My aforementioned second short story can now be read for free on the Mad Scientist website!:

http://madscientistjournal.org/2017/06/ ... emembered/

Meaning you don't even have to pay now to read me insult Denyer.

Transformation 2 should formally be out by next week, assuming the proof copy arrives nicely with no need for future alterations.

Meaning I should have copies in time for TFN! Reserve one by reading here (I've limited how to get in touch to ask for one to two options this year so as to make it easier for me to keep track of):

http://thesolarpool.weebly.com/blog/tra ... rders-open

And the proof copy has arrived!

https://twitter.com/InflatableDalek/sta ... 7148059648

Transformation 2 is out now! Lulu at the moment, but Amazon and the rest will follow. The code BOOKSHIP17 will get you 10% off before midnight, after that, check the Lulu main page for whatever discounts they're offering at the time:

http://www.lulu.com/shop/stuart-webb/tr ... 65043.html