The Energon Pub

I've been ordering comics out the ying yang on Booksamillion.com, including some older ones. Well, I didn't realize how old some were. I just got in the mail today the old 80s stuff, obviously aimed at children! Terrible, terrible art! And to make matters worse, I think I just ordered another one....eh, guess I can save them for when my sons are older. Maybe they should've been clearer about HOW old these suckers were.

eh? who published the comics that you have bought? cause the marvel series (yes, even the pilot comic books) had good storylines that are obviously not for children. though the art, compared to today's standards, leaves a lot to be desired for.

Are these Marvel comics?

Yes, it's Marvel Comics. And they are OLD. The stories aren't exactly terrible, but the art is. I mean, no disrespect, but there is no reason why the art should've been so bad, even for back then (the cartoon wasn't that horrid, so why should the comics be?).

Basically, I saw this online, along with a bunch of others that looked like it. The cover is not indicative of what's inside. It's a collection of about four or five different comics. I am trying to get into it, overlook the art, but it's tough. The art is as important as the story to me. I don't know...the synopsis seemed really cool. I'll finish the book and then decide what to do with it.

It is really more teh difference between hand drawn art from that era to the newwer computer edited art that has been cleaned up and corrected to near perfection. In those days well drawn art was more a credit to the artist than these days when anything can be cleaned up to look fairly decent. Not to mention the coloring and paper stock they use now is far better.

What books were they? What issues did they include, just curious.

The title of the collection is Treason.

They include:

#31 Buster Witwicky and the Car Wash of Doom

#32 Used Autobots

Uh...Child's Play ...#35 It has preschoolers in space!

Toy Soldiers

I still can't believe I bought this. I have "Prey" coming in the mail. Geez.

That one really isn't the best example of the Marvel comics. The really early stuff is considered pretty seminal and the later ones written by Simon Furman are some of my all time favourites. Prey collects some of Furman's early work on the UK title and may be more to your liking. As far as the art goes that's just what comics looked like in the eighties. The technology used was basically a four colour printing system with overlays of various combinations of the basic colours printed in a stiple form. In the nineties computer technology and improved printing methods led on to the more polished look that you're used to today. I wouldn't give up on the Marvel books just based on this first experience, there are some absolutely blinding stories out there. Top picks would be Primal Scream, Matrix Quest, All Fall Down and End of the Road from the US stuff and Target 2006, Fallen Angel, Legacy of Unicron and Time Wars from the UK material.

Are all of those last titles you mentioned in this art form, or are they more modern? Look, I can still love the original Star Trek even through its crap set design and bad fx, so I can give these a chance. But it's like they didn't even try to draw them well at all. I understand they didn't have the "polished" look, but they should've at least drawn the characters a little less sloppily.

The later US stuff generally has quite good line art, especially the stories drawn by Andrew Wildman. The UK stuff tends to be a bit more abstract but once you get into the whole Time Wars arc (which includes the four books I mentioned as well as Space Pirates, although that one isn't quite so essential) you should be blown away by the story, it's truely an epic. All of the Marvel collections are of eighties comics so the look is fairly consistant in terms of the colouring, but there were a huge number of artists involved between the US and UK books so there are quite a few different styles overall. It might be worth checking out the manga sized reprints of the later UK black and white material. These don't have the eighties style colouring to distract from the art and they've been reproduced so much smaller than the original UK magazine format that the art has come out looking really tight.

Moonbase2 wrote:Are all of those last titles you mentioned in this art form, or are they more modern? Look, I can still love the original Star Trek even through its crap set design and bad fx, so I can give these a chance. But it's like they didn't even try to draw them well at all. I understand they didn't have the "polished" look, but they should've at least drawn the characters a little less sloppily.

If you're looking for Dreamwave or IDW computer enhanced colors with shiney metal overlay, and panels that look like they're lifted from off the cartoon by artists who all draw the same. Then no. You're going to be disappointed again. (BTW: I'm not knocking any of the new TF artists, some of thier stuff is beautiful) That stuff just wasn't used for comics back then, and the artists used were comic book artists - they just had a job to do, and to them Transformers was just another comic book. They all had their own stylised way of drawing. That doesn't mean the art is bad, during the tail end of the run Andrew Wildman takes over, and the art is I guess what you would call improved, but they still don't look like they came from off the screen. (Though I have to admit, he does an awesome Action Master Grimlock).

And that particular book you just missing out on a quite a bit of back story. I didn't think the art was so bad in it, but that's just me. And the reason there's a jump between #32 and #35 is that they reprinted the "Man of Iron" UK story for issues 33 and 34, and wasn't essential to the story.

While I couldn't find anyone who has posting preview pics, I have found this site with synopsis and cover art for books "All Fall Down" and "End of the Road" argueably the best of Furman's run on Marvel US and the final 10 issues of the series - here:

http://www.tfarchive.com/comics/marvel/?s=us_71_80

The cover art is pretty consistent with the interior art.

Ha, if you were sitting here right now I'd hand the book right over to you. I don't appreciate a comic book where the artist obviously doesn't care. At least nowadays, you can tell that the artists really love the material and put their best into it.

if arts your thing id steer clear of the early marvel US run. the story's are good but the arts appalling. the only reason its picked up now is the people drawing em nowadays are fans. yes theres new technology but basically the talent is now there. back then transformers was just jobbing work for the artist and towards the end even budiansky admited he was phoning in the scripts.

this isnt unique to transformers, ALL comices have a period where they didnt sell that well or were pimped out to too many books resulting in crap art. it just seems to be the nature of the medium.

your best bet is to stick to the UK stuff. it came out at the same time but the colouring is a hell of alot better and considering TF was one of the only regular comics back then along with 2000ad it attracted some of the best artists in the country. many of whom are among marvels best sellers now (bryan hitch for instance). if i remember correctly the "prey" storyline conscerned prime versus the predacons and has some very good art in it. problem is the US did someting similar and i cant remember which was which.

fingers crossed for ya mate

partholon wrote:if arts your thing id steer clear of the early marvel US run. the story's are good but the arts appalling. the only reason its picked up now is the people drawing em nowadays are fans. yes theres new technology but basically the talent is now there. back then transformers was just jobbing work for the artist and towards the end even budiansky admited he was phoning in the scripts.

There was an interesting story printed in the front of "All Fall Down" TPB, in which Furman and co. began to realize that Hasbro wasn't paying them any attention anymore, so they sent in a rough draft of a story in which every Transformer died and mechanical sheep vied with giant nuns. And they approved the story. Furman decided he could pretty much do anything after that.

zemper wrote:eh? who published the comics that you have bought? cause the marvel series (yes, even the pilot comic books) had good storylines that are obviously not for children. though the art, compared to today's standards, leaves a lot to be desired for.

I hate to sound so cynical...but how is a toy commercial comic NOT aimed for children? I don't think it is very obvious at all, as you claim.

And to original poster: Yes, the old Marvel TF comic isn't very good looking, or even very well-written on the most part. I remember an interwiev of Bob Budiansky (it was somewhere around the net, probably found it on this site some years ago.), where he admitted he pretty much didn't care, because he was writing it for 10 year olds, or something like that And I don't think Marvel cared much either, it wasn't their own stuff after all, just advertisement for toy company.

Ghaax wrote:

zemper wrote:eh? who published the comics that you have bought? cause the marvel series (yes, even the pilot comic books) had good storylines that are obviously not for children. though the art, compared to today's standards, leaves a lot to be desired for.

I hate to sound so cynical...but how is a toy commercial comic NOT aimed for children? I don't think it is very obvious at all, as you claim.

And to original poster: Yes, the old Marvel TF comic isn't very good looking, or even very well-written on the most part. I remember an interwiev of Bob Budiansky (it was somewhere around the net, probably found it on this site some years ago.), where he admitted he pretty much didn't care, because he was writing it for 10 year olds, or something like that And I don't think Marvel cared much either, it wasn't their own stuff after all, just advertisement for toy company.

I don't know about the Buiansky part, other than it was just another job for him (as were most comic writers at the time), but I think Marvel cared a great deal about the series. Otherwise, they would have canceled it long before the axe finally fell. Transformers was not one of their top sellers, but it did have a following. What they were trapped with was mandates by Hasbro to use certain characters at upon their introduction to the market - after all, to Hasbro it was just a marketing tool. Hence the reason several new character were added in just about every issue, and very few actually got character development.
As I said before, it was Hasbro that didn't really care that much anymore, and when Furman realized that he could get away with just about anything, he threw the mandate out and began to do his own thing.

Well, now I know what to stay away from. I know it's not fair to dislike something on the art alone, but that is half the reason I buy a comic. And if the art isn't all that hot, the story better be! I think the Nightbeat Spotlight didn't have great art, but I enjoyed the story enough to overlook it. In this book, even the stories so far suck. Like I said, I might keep it for when my children are older. If they don't get spoiled on the good stuff, that is.

Glyph wrote:
In many ways, you picked just about the worst book you could have chosen for an introduction to the Marvel series - some particularly weak stories from Budiansky's "get me off this kids' rag" phase, not helped by the not-so-hot US pencillers and the utterly lamentable colourist Nel 'Crayola' Yomtov.

Didn't Chris Ryall say he's looking into publishing Essentials style collections? I'd love to see that - the colouring in the Marvel comics is pathetic, and most of the time makes even the best art look worse than it should. Black and white could only help!

Loki120 wrote:

Ghaax wrote:

zemper wrote:eh? who published the comics that you have bought? cause the marvel series (yes, even the pilot comic books) had good storylines that are obviously not for children. though the art, compared to today's standards, leaves a lot to be desired for.

I hate to sound so cynical...but how is a toy commercial comic NOT aimed for children? I don't think it is very obvious at all, as you claim.

And to original poster: Yes, the old Marvel TF comic isn't very good looking, or even very well-written on the most part. I remember an interwiev of Bob Budiansky (it was somewhere around the net, probably found it on this site some years ago.), where he admitted he pretty much didn't care, because he was writing it for 10 year olds, or something like that And I don't think Marvel cared much either, it wasn't their own stuff after all, just advertisement for toy company.

I don't know about the Buiansky part, other than it was just another job for him (as were most comic writers at the time), but I think Marvel cared a great deal about the series. Otherwise, they would have canceled it long before the axe finally fell. Transformers was not one of their top sellers, but it did have a following. What they were trapped with was mandates by Hasbro to use certain characters at upon their introduction to the market - after all, to Hasbro it was just a marketing tool. Hence the reason several new character were added in just about every issue, and very few actually got character development.
As I said before, it was Hasbro that didn't really care that much anymore, and when Furman realized that he could get away with just about anything, he threw the mandate out and began to do his own thing.

I guess you are probably right, I just sometimes have a really pessimistic way of thinking

But what you said makes sense actually, it must have been profitable enough for Marvel to keep it going for so long. Don't know why I never thought of it from that point of wiev before.

Ghaax wrote:But what you said makes sense actually, it must have been profitable enough for Marvel to keep it going for so long. Don't know why I never thought of it from that point of wiev before.

What really makes me sad is that the book was cancelled because of low sales, however, it was was selling more copies during it's final issues than some of the top sellers for Marvel today. It just goes to show how much has changed with comic collecting today.

Loki120 wrote:What really makes me sad is that the book was cancelled because of low sales, however, it was was selling more copies during it's final issues than some of the top sellers for Marvel today. It just goes to show how much has changed with comic collecting today.

I think it's said that comic book sales are on the decline these days. Though it it really dramatic if today's best sellers are selling less than bad sellers 15+ years ago

I think the publishers themselves are guilty for that, though. I was lot more interesting in comic books when I was younger, but nowadays they do all these massive crossovers and then you have to buy who knows how many different titles at once to even get a clue what is happening. And it makes reading comics quite pointless, especially when you live in a country (I guess it's the same in some smaller cities in the US?) where all the crossed-over titles aren't even shipped to, because there's only demand for the most popular titles. And I sometimes also feel that comic stories nowadays rely too much on the past history, so reader's have to know lots of stuff or they don't understand everything that's going on. I guess "too heavy continuity", or something.

So, my point is that I can't be the only one who's given up on reading comics because of too massive stories, and that's why the sales are dropping all the time.

And I'm not saying that continuity is bad, far from it...some internal consistency is good, but it can be a problem when it gets too complicated.

I don't know if it was the cross-overs so much as the comic boom of the ninties almost killed comics. When everyone thought that a new issue #1 with a shiney cover was going to bring them big bucks down the line, no one took into consideration as how many were being printed. The laws of supply and demand took over and the industry took a nosedive.
This brought a lot of changes to the industry, such as hiring of top talent from other mediums such as Joss Whedon, and Marvel's print-to-order policy.

Loki120 wrote:I don't know if it was the cross-overs so much as the comic boom of the ninties almost killed comics. When everyone thought that a new issue #1 with a shiney cover was going to bring them big bucks down the line, no one took into consideration as how many were being printed. The laws of supply and demand took over and the industry took a nosedive.
This brought a lot of changes to the industry, such as hiring of top talent from other mediums such as Joss Whedon, and Marvel's print-to-order policy.

There were two main factors in the nineties that led to this. One was many of the top creators abandoning Marvel to form Image and the boom, as mentioned, in short run comics constantly launching with #1 issues and gimmicks as well as prioritising art over story content. The other was the introduction of the direct market and the supremacy that this took from the newsstand editions that had come before. Essentially catering to fanboys the introduction of the direct editions led to there being little other than superhero titles on the market and a flood of similar titles. With everybody wanting a piece of the action the market became totally over saturated and this in turn led to more titles with lower print runs.

Marvel's print to order policy is a more recent occurence and something else that overall isn't good for the market. Since a retailer knows that they aren't going to be able to get hold of this X book or that Ultimate title after initial orders they are far more likely to end up over ordering Marvel books and not taking a risk on less mainstream books that they can always order from Diamond later. Independent publishers base their print runs on initial orders and this leads to many great books dropping off and dying before their time. These days supporting any title that's not from the big two means preordering it with your comic shop so that they know the interest is there and will order the book. If a retailer knows that they have a few confirmed sales they are then more likely to order extra copies to go out on the stands. A copy of Previews each month has become an essential tool for the comic buyer as well as the comic retailer.

waaaaghlord wrote:

Loki120 wrote:I don't know if it was the cross-overs so much as the comic boom of the ninties almost killed comics. When everyone thought that a new issue #1 with a shiney cover was going to bring them big bucks down the line, no one took into consideration as how many were being printed. The laws of supply and demand took over and the industry took a nosedive.
This brought a lot of changes to the industry, such as hiring of top talent from other mediums such as Joss Whedon, and Marvel's print-to-order policy.

There were two main factors in the nineties that led to this. One was many of the top creators abandoning Marvel to form Image and the boom, as mentioned, in short run comics constantly launching with #1 issues and gimmicks as well as prioritising art over story content. The other was the introduction of the direct market and the supremacy that this took from the newsstand editions that had come before. Essentially catering to fanboys the introduction of the direct editions led to there being little other than superhero titles on the market and a flood of similar titles. With everybody wanting a piece of the action the market became totally over saturated and this in turn led to more titles with lower print runs.

Marvel's print to order policy is a more recent occurence and something else that overall isn't good for the market. Since a retailer knows that they aren't going to be able to get hold of this X book or that Ultimate title after initial orders they are far more likely to end up over ordering Marvel books and not taking a risk on less mainstream books that they can always order from Diamond later. Independent publishers base their print runs on initial orders and this leads to many great books dropping off and dying before their time. These days supporting any title that's not from the big two means preordering it with your comic shop so that they know the interest is there and will order the book. If a retailer knows that they have a few confirmed sales they are then more likely to order extra copies to go out on the stands. A copy of Previews each month has become an essential tool for the comic buyer as well as the comic retailer.

I don't know about the direct market thing. All that did was for a very short time, people believing that Direct Market editions were more valuable than newstand. This proved to be false as neither copy proved to be more valuable than the other. But it could have, I suppose.

Print-to-order is good and bad, and has been around a bit longer than just recently. Essentially, no retailer really wants to take a chance on a wildcard new series that could go either way, so they error on the side of caution and underorder so they're not saddled with a lot of overstock if the series is a flop. And yes, this resulted in a great deal of series that never really had a chance. However, on the other side of the tokin, this policy basically helped Marvel from out of the hole they dug themselves into. By not overprinting any series, they save themselves printing costs and are not stuck with thousands of overstock that nobody wants. You have to take the good with the bad on this one. It's also one of only two things that I EVER agreed with Joe Quesada (current Editor in Chief of Marvel) or Bill Jemas on. The other was the removal of the comics code authority label, essentially losing an outdated system that nobody paid much attention to anymore, and then replacing it with thier own rating system.