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I just don't understand why people like this stuff. You don't see any "He-Man vs. Thundercats" or "Powerpuff Girls vs. My Little Pony" comics ?

Rated X wrote:I just don't understand why people like this stuff. You don't see any "He-Man vs. Thundercats" or "Powerpuff Girls vs. My Little Pony" comics ?

And the fact you don't see any is a crime in and of itself.

Lord Manhammer '74 wrote:

Rated X wrote:I just don't understand why people like this stuff. You don't see any "He-Man vs. Thundercats" or "Powerpuff Girls vs. My Little Pony" comics ?

And the fact you don't see any is a crime in and of itself.

[img][IMG]http://i1270.photobucket.com/albums/jj615/Silverager1969/436.jpg[/img]

dragons wrote:

Lord Manhammer '74 wrote:

Rated X wrote:I just don't understand why people like this stuff. You don't see any "He-Man vs. Thundercats" or "Powerpuff Girls vs. My Little Pony" comics ?

And the fact you don't see any is a crime in and of itself.

[img][IMG]http://i1270.photobucket.com/albums/jj615/Silverager1969/436.jpg[/img]

Well Ill be damned....

Let me step outside and see if I can spot any pigs flying....

The comeback by dragons and the response by Rated X is the best thing I've read all week.

Synopsis
IT GETS CRAZIER! The biggest space battle ever grows to universal proportions! Will the G.I. JOE team and the AUTOBOTS make peace—before COBRA and the DECEPTICONS end the war… the bad way?!



Story

I realise we have fallen behind on reviewing this series, and we will come back to fill in on the missing issues of the first volume of Transformers vs G.I. Joe. However, after a decent hiatus, the cosmic series by Tom Scioli and John Barber is back with its fifth issue, and we're here to remind you how amazing it is!



We're on Earth and Cybertron, as the latter moves closer to the former at the hands of Megatron, and G.I. Joe and Cybertronians alike are attempting to deal with the impending catastrophe - although each in their own way, with suspicion, and not all plans are working together, at all.



One of the main storylines we follow is that of Rodimus, as the attempts to regain control of Metroplex and the Autobot troops, his clash with one of the G1-est Grimlocks in a while, and the consequences of giant robot egos meeting each other's match, Megatron included, for the first time seen as potentially fallible.



The writing is fantastically scattered across the pages and cosmic stage that Scioli and Barber have set up, and even then, there is a lot more coherence than in the first couple of issues. The interactions and uncomfortable alliances between humans and Cybertronians lead to both amusing and fairly tense scenes, and definitely worth following around.

Art

Tom Scioli's double act as writer and artist still delivers in a fantastic correspondence between, arguably, intention and execution. He is not trying to do anything, he is not attempting to capture elements of *something* - this is his style, heavily influenced by early comics art, and it is something to amaze at, every time.



Every corner of every panel, even the round ones, has something going on, from the little tags identifying new characters to the Quintesson vinetacles, to the sheer amount on miniature scenes taking place across a single page, plus all the colour work, you can spend hours on an issue alone.



The addition of Chris Mowry's stellar lettering and design work make sure that all is in its place and with its own voice, too, and that the package matches the contents, with echoes of those comics art influences showing up in the book as book. Plus, to catch eyes from everywhere, we get an impressive array of covers by Scioli, Nick Pitarra/Megan Wilson on Soundwave and Slither and the thumbnailed Derek Charm [plus a slightly more questionable one by Jamie Tyndall/Ula Mos].


Thoughts
Spoilerish ahead

The marvellous incoherent cohesion of the multiple overlapping scripts and plots is what makes this series so appealing to many readers who are not generally into Transformers or G.I. Joe fictional universes. It's fine to get lost, we're actually invited to do so, and there's more to gain from it, if you want to.



We get references to Transformers lore, battles of wit, humour and ridiculous amounts of action, and it still feels as though we're being pulled through a story that doesn't care whether we're paying attention or not - much like the rest of the universe. This is a series that does exactly what it wants, and what it wants is to have fun with the medium and the casts. We're along for the ride, so buckle up.

if art in comic diditn make feel i was something from newspaper comic i buy it but art turns me off i know saying can me differnt for transfromer toy but comics differnt entirly, and most of alien transfromers that are bigger than humans are same size, few feet taller in animte series there bigger twice there size of humans

I'm not sure what you're saying, could you rephrase that please?

I believe he's saying one thing that really bugs him is the human/robot scale in the art.

morphobots wrote:I believe he's saying one thing that really bugs him is the human/robot scale in the art.

Ah, in true Transformers fashion.

I thought this issue could have used some more focus. I get that it is this series' style to have an entire story encapsulated on one or two pages, but it seems like they kept on skipping the climaxes to the stories. Like the stories that were presented in this issue shows the set up, and then skips right to the aftermath. The Joes fight Blackarachnia, and then it skips to Fort Max being fine. The Joes have to fight their mind controlled pets, but then it is later said in the issue that everyone is fine. Grimlock and Hot Rod fight, and the next scene Grimlock is somewhere else entirely. There are a ton of moments like that in this chapter. I usually enjoy this series, but this was by far the weakest issue. There are even some events that I did not get even after reading the commentary.

Darth Jumpy wrote:I thought this issue could have used some more focus. I get that it is this series' style to have an entire story encapsulated on one or two pages, but it seems like they kept on skipping the climaxes to the stories. Like the stories that were presented in this issue shows the set up, and then skips right to the aftermath. The Joes fight Blackarachnia, and then it skips to Fort Max being fine. The Joes have to fight their mind controlled pets, but then it is later said in the issue that everyone is fine. Grimlock and Hot Rod fight, and the next scene Grimlock is somewhere else entirely. There are a ton of moments like that in this chapter. I usually enjoy this series, but this was by far the weakest issue. There are even some events that I did not get even after reading the commentary.

Yes, re-reading for the fifth (fourth) time makes me realise how scattered the focus actually is, compared to #3 and #4, for example.

I still really enjoyed it though.

It's been a while since we marvelled, jaw agape, at Tom Scioli and John Barber's cosmic effort in IDW Publishing Transformers vs G.I. Joe - but the wait is over, and thanks to comics website ComicsAlliance, we have a full preview for next week's issue #6. Check it out below! We'll have a Seibertron.com review up by the date of release, Wednesday, too, so head back here then.

Transformers vs G.I. JOE #6

Tom Scioli & John Barber (w) • Scioli (a & c)

THE SMASH HIT OF 2014 BECOMES THE GREATEST COMIC OF 2015! If you thought the war between G.I. JOE and the TRANSFORMERS was out of control before… well, brothers and sisters—wait’ll you get a load of issue 6!

FC • 32 pages • $3.99

Bullet points:
Heroes fall, but heroism triumphs!
One small step for the G.I. JOE team—one giant fall for the TRANSFORMERS!
Variant Cover by Antonio Fusso!

How the hell is this thing an ongoing? I like the robot designs but it's utter crap.

Thank you IDW. Once again you've failed me. Waited 20 years for Regeneration and it was a disappointing limited series.
Then they give us this and that angry birds crap.
Marvel and Dreamwave never disappointed like this.

This art style I use to draw as kid it's bad feel I'm in Napoleon dynamite movie art sucks make comic stop art is turn off

Every time I consider how terrible my own art is, I look at this book and am shown a glimmer of hope that there is still a chance to make in the comic book industry.
Thanks, IDW!

Every issue of this book is more insane than the next. Scioli is really building something unique (and blasphemous), and I can't stop reading.

The last page of #6 was fantastic.

In other IDW Transformers comics news, the extravagant architect of the Transformers vs G.I. Joe ongoing series - Tom Scioli - was interviewed by comics website Comics Alliance, about the world he is building for the series, the approach to the universes, layouts and the general madness of it all. Take a look below for some selected quotes, and read the whole piece here.

ComicsAlliance: The first thing I want to talk about is pacing. Jumping into Transformers vs. GI Joe #5, which is the start of the second paperback if people are reading it that way, they’re getting a comic that moves so fast that it is often hard for me to keep up.

Tom Scioli: Well, issue #5 would be the one, because issue #5 is where it really accelerates. I just find that so many comics have a lot of redundancy, a lot of over-explaining, a lot of images of basically the same thing, so part of the approach is to just eliminate redundancy and just give you the things you need to move the narrative forward. I sort of crossed a point of no return with it, I think, and where that came from is that I wrote a script for a Transformers vs. GI Joe movie adaptation.

You know, the movie doesn’t exist yet, but I made a comic as though I was adapting a movie, and how movie adaptations are. There are chunks missing, and jumps because of the time it takes to take an hour and a half movie and put it into a comic, you’re going to have to cut some things out. I wrote something with that sort of style in mind, and after I did that, I realized that’s a tool I could use any time. It doesn’t have to be restricted to this particular conceit, it’s just a tool in my arsenal now. It was really effective in that script, which hasn’t come out yet, but it was just a really intense reading experience.

[...]

CA: The interesting thing about that to me is that, like you said, there have been Transformers and GI Joe team-up books before, and now you’re doing it as an ongoing series and using the entire cast of both books, as they have existed for thirty years. There’s not a whole lot left on the table.

TS: That’s one thing I noticed. I was sort of going through all these characters and throwing them in, and now I’ve sort of reached the point where it’s like, “Oh, what Decepticon villain can show up?” and most of them are there already, pretty much. There’s an endless number of jets that I can go to, but most of the really resonant ones have shown up, so now it’s just getting weird, which is actually interesting. Now we’re getting into the Pretenders and the Predacons, all the weirder corners of the mythology.

CA: That’s something I wanted to bring up, because you’re at the point now where you’re creating new stuff.

TS: I want to go more in that direction. I thought doing a comic like this, that’s an established thing, would be easier — having a universe that’s already established that I’m just building up. But I’m seeing the limitations of it. I really do want to just create more and add more to it. It’s not so complete a cosmology that there’s a character for every season. I thought there would be a character for every occasion, and in a lot of cases there are. I needed a character who was a chef, and, okay, Roadblock is a chef, I can use him. But there are a lot of holes in the mythology that I’m trying to fill in.

That last Transformers movie… they went nuts. It almost wasn’t even Transformers anymore, it was this infinite universe of every kind of creature you can imagine, and that freed me up too, realizing that I could make this universe whatever I wanted it to be. It doesn’t have to just be giant robots that turn into cars or dinosaurs, it can be a universe.

If you've read Part 1 of Tom Scioli's interview with Comics Alliance, you're not going to want to miss the second half! Tom Scioli and John Barber‘s are of course the masterminds behind IDW's Transformers vs. GI Joe, and have brought quite a nutty flavor to the book. See the mayhem behind the scenes in the interview right here, some snippets below, and stay tuned to Seibertron.com for all your Transformers News!

To say that Tom Scioli and John Barber‘s Transformers vs. GI Joe is an unusual comic is underselling things quite a bit. On paper, it’s a natural fit, an ongoing series that follows in the footsteps of earlier books that have combined the two toy lines into one massive interplanetary battle. In practice, though, it’s something a lot bigger, a comic that almost assaults the reader by cramming in as much big, wild stuff as it possibly can — a toy comic so weird, and so great, that it almost feels like it shouldn’t exist.

With the book’s second storyline well under way, throwing in everything from Vikings to old gods to Dinobots (and a new printing of his amazing American Barbarian on the way this summer), I talked to cowriter, artist and occasional ComicsAlliance guest contributor Tom Scioli about the series. Today, he talks about building a history for a universe that’s even more important than our own, the two-page Free Comic Book Day story, and why his book isn’t a paean to Snake Eyes. You can read the first part of this interview here.

[...]

CA: The next specific scene that I wanted to talk about was the first page of #6. Every time I think this comic can’t get any wilder, it gets bigger and weirder in a way that I find really enjoyable. This comic opens with Adam and Eve being expelled from the Garden of Eden by floating Transformers with laser swords.

TS: Yeah.

TS: It’s a universe. It’s a whole universe. My thought is that the Transformers vs. GI Joe universe is the most important universe there is, and while you’re reading it, it’s even more important than our universe. There’s an Alpha to that universe and there’s an Omega to that universe, and what you were witnessing was Roadblock’s reading of the Cobra Bible, the Decepticobranomicon, so what you’re reading may well be an actual accounting of what happened. It might be mythology. It might be disinformation. It could be any number of things. There’s a deep history to this world.

CA: I’ve said this before, and I mean it in the best way possible, but I’m always surprised this book exists.

TS: Right. [Laughs]

In other IDW Publishing news, this week also sees the release of the next issue in the Tom Scioli (with some Barber) Transformers vs G.I. Joe ongoing series - what space-wide madness awaits in issue 7? Find out in the full preview below, and check backin later this week for the Seibertron.com review!

Transformers vs G.I. JOE #7
Tom Scioli & John Barber (w) • Scioli (a & c)
THE WORLD AS THEY MAKE IT! Alliance are forged! Enemies are enraged! The war burns on Earth and Cybertron! And now… now the real battle begins.
FC • 32 pages • $3.99

Bullet points:
If you’ve ever liked anything, you’ll love this!
If you’ve never liked anything—this will be the first thing you love!
Variant Cover by Kody Chamerlain!

Good God, these are hideous. Honestly, the worst thing about old comics, in my opinion at least, was the crummy artwork and the cheap paper they were printed on. Trying to emulate that look in this day and age makes no sense to me, other than appealing to a sense of nostalgia in older fans. I can't imagine any kids flipping through this on a comic book store shelf and being impressed. It's like using a broom to clean your floor when you have a vacuum cleaner handy... The vacuum does the job faster, more efficiently and you get a better result, so why stick to "old technology?" But hey, whatever floats your boat, I guess.

Well, this has taken an interesting turn. One of the things I love about this comic is that I legitimately never know what is going to happen from page to page or issue to issue.

The comic still looks horrid. I do like the colors. And that cover looks nice.

Whoof, this is getting dark.

You know, this art was weird at first, but it's rather entertaining. In fact, I went back to my comic store and bought all of the earlier issues. I also collect covers so I bought all the different versions of it. For those criticizing the art work, just read a couple of issues without reservations or bias and you might find that it's more thoughtful and more creative than the newer ones. The art is actually more complicated than what's on the surface. Each panel is layered with other elements of art. Frat job Tom Scioli and John Barber!