The Energon Pub

Hi there - first-time poster, long-time lurker here.

Just got the 1st issue of the UK comic today, and I was extremely disappointed. In fact, it was so bad I felt I had to register here as a member and vent my spleen.

It consisted of:

10 pages new material
5 pages character fact files (not very illuminating)
7 pages IDW prequel reprint (at this rate it'll take them a whole year to re-print the entire 4-issue run!)
6 pages Beast Wars Gathering reprint (ditto)
2-page feature on the original movie (or a big advert for Metrodome if you're in a cynical mood)
Letters pages
An A3 poster of Optimus prime
Advertisements.

I've just sent Titan an email outining my complaints - if I get a reply I'll post it here.

Here's a copy of the email in full:


"Sirs,

Having heard news of a new Transformers comic, I finally bought the first issue today. Alas, I was more than a tad disappointed with it.

I realise that the comic is designed to cater for such a wide range of ages (younger new fans + older stalwarts), and that you can't please all of the people all of the time, but I still feel that, all things considered, the first issue was not particularly good.

The main selling point for older fans (and for the younger ones too, I'd guess) is the brand new strip. However, this took up only 10 pages of a 52-page magazine. Furthermore, it depicted Optimus Prime as being red and blue (when he should have been shown as a grey Protoform, quite dissimilar from his appearance in the movie).

I realise that it may have been confusing to younger readers showing a different Optimus Prime to that shown in the movie, but when my young son (who has the Protoform Optimus Prime action figure) is able to point out the discrepancy, it simply comes across as a glaring error (even more so when you consider that the characters are shown in Protoform mode in your second strip, the prequel series).

I also take issue with some of the comments on the letters page. Your comic was first published this week. The film doesn't open in the UK until the 27th July (although there will be some preview screenings this weekend), so just where did all these kids get to see the film? Kirsty from Newport claims to have seen it "the other week." Considering the film is not yet on general release, one certainly gets the impression that a number of the letters may in fact have been fabrications. I'm not saying that any or all of the letters were made up by yourselves, but that's certainly how it comes across.

As for the reprinted strips, well IDW's movie prequel is available as a complete graphic novel in all good bookshops, and the Beast Wars Gathering can be bought for the princely sum of £4.00 on amazon!

This might be fine for the fans who haven't got all this stuff already (although it also begs the question as to how many of the newer fans will really be interested in Beast Wars anyway), but for fans such as myself it's a bit of a let-down, considering the material is readily available elsewhere. How about reprints of rarer stuff like, for example, "Raiders of the Last Ark"?

Also, even for those who haven't seen the reprints already, they are over so quickly that one can't really get into the story before it's all over. How about just one back-up strip with twice the amount of pages?

Considering that the back-up strips were originally written and paced to be read 20-odd pages at a time, they just don't work in six page chunks - it's like watching an episode of the old cartoon series spread out at a rate of five minutes a month.

Although I don't expect you to print this, I hope you'll take my thoughts on board (a response would certainly be appreciated), and perhaps aim for an improvement in later issues."

Harsh or fair? Comments please!

Didn't realise the comic was out yet. I suppose your comments are fair enough though it is the first issue. Personally, it'll be nice to be able to walk into a newsagent and pick up an issue of Transformers after 12 or 13 years.

Shame about the reprint aspect especially since given that the editor says they have the licences for all the continuities that they didn't come up with new material for say G1 or Armada. A Robotmasters or Universe strip would have been nice.

In fairness, the Beast Wars comics are not widely available in the UK so they are new to most of the readers.
Still, no harm in giving the publishers something to think about. After all they can't be expected to please the fans without feedback.

Anyway, still looking forward to picking up the comic for myself.

Aye, it could be a lot better. I'm hoping it'll go the way of the original UK comic and find its feet when it's not so dependent on its source material - in this case the movie and IDW's stuff. I didn't get much out of it.

EXCEPT! 10 pages of new Geoff Senior art, which is the only reason I was so excited about the mag in the first place. Everything else is filler as far as I'm concerned. I'll keep buying it, though, because I'm a comics completist and I wanna see where Furman's going to take the movie continuity.

But for kids who have only just discovered Transformers I think it does a cracking job. Character profiles, a bit of history, a big poster, reprints of comics they won't have seen before... It's a good inroad for anyone drawn in by the film.

I haven't picked it up yet and I'm assuming that you managed to find it at a comic shop rather than a newsagent. If not I'll certainly be having a close look and an ask when I pick up my 2000AD tomorrow. Quick point about the reprints that I'd like to make would be regarding page size. Presumably being a UK title this is in the larger magazine format as opposed to the familiar US comic format that basicly only gets used over here for the Panini reprint titles. If so this will be the first time that the art on both the Prequel and the Gathering have been offered at the larger page size. Compare this to the first issue of IDW's new Magazine: Issue 1 of Armada that was previously published in the larger format in a UK annual, Marvel US 42 previously blown up for the Marvel UK editions which featured the same story and Stormbringer 1 rhe only reprint in the book that hasn't seen a previous version on the larger page size. Now while I'm not really complaining about reprints par se I'd like to see more usage of strips that haven't been done at a larger size before, especially Don's artwork which looks glorious in IDW Magazine 1 despite the rather irritating sidebars on the pages and that sight unseen I'm sure will look great at an increased size in the Titan reprints. Plus I'm sure that there are more than a couple of Beast Wars nuts around who'd pick up the Titan book just to get a large format version of The Gathering bound as a nice oversized hardback. I'd think about doing this myself with Stormbringer if not for those darned sidebars. Comic collecting's a weird hobby at times and different people take different things from it. Growing up on British comics I've got a hankering for oversized pages and I'm sure I'll enjoy the Beast Wars stuff just as much this time around just because of the art being larger, but I realise this won't be the case for everyone.

Sorry to hear that it isn't quite up to scratch.

Only getting 6 pages of a comic at a time is very bad, especially seeing as those 2 comics you did receive reprints of are really only good in 20+ page instalments.

But how was the 10 pages of original content, its the only section I have any interest in.

The new stuff's pretty cool.

Art-wise - it's Geoff, and all his qualities are there - great storytelling, machinery, smoke and debris. Very exciting if you're a Senior fan. The colouring's a bit tacky though, I'm not keen on that.

The story's slim, but it ties directly into IDW's prequel. It's well worth reading but there's just not enough of it - it would have made more sense to have a full 20-odd page story and a reprint of a full prequel or movie adaptation issue. I was left wanting more though, so it does its job.

Sounds intresting inuff.

The way you describe it makes it sound an awful lot like the old UK run:

- several pages of new material
- back up story which would be:
a previously printed tale
a story from another UK title
a story which kinda relates to robots
- ads, profiles, surly Dreadwind replying to letters

Considering the old version had upwards of 400+ issues compared to the U.S. version's 80, I'd say it's a pretty good format, but only if it's not monthly, but say bi-monthly.

Given the cost of comics anywhere nowadays, I can see why you're upset. Ten pages of new material out of 52 would get annoying afterwhile, and definitely wouldn't be worth the money if you had all the reprints already.

Khaotika wrote:Considering the old version had upwards of 400+ issues compared to the U.S. version's 80

332 not counting annuals and collected titles. Still a bloody lot though, and yeah it does sound like they're using that format as a baseline. If anything though it may well be an idea for this title to be MORE frequent. The reprints are only going to be in pretty small snippets that unlike a Judge Dredd story for example they really weren't intended to be published in. Too long a gap between issues and folks who haven't already read the material may not keep up the interest to follow it from month to month. Add to that the fact that the title may not keep up sales very well beyond the movie's shelf life, UK comics being especially fickle, and we may not even see all of the Gathering reprinted at the larger page size before the title disappears.

On a side note I managed to find one copy in a newsagent in town this morning but left it because the cover was torn and it looked like it had been through a mangler. I'll pick one up in York at the weekend.

waaaaghlord wrote:

Khaotika wrote:Considering the old version had upwards of 400+ issues compared to the U.S. version's 80

332 not counting annuals and collected titles. Still a bloody lot though, and yeah it does sound like they're using that format as a baseline.

I knew my counting was off by a bit. ^^;

I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm used to picking up TPB (trade paperbacks) instead of monthlies now. It's way too much to buy singles for the amount of story v.s. cost.

I picked up my copy this afternoon, and had a quick flick through when i got home. It was kinda nice to pick up a new TF UK comic again - especially after that Armada turd. However, I was pretty disgruntled, especially at the letters page. Nearly every one stated that they'd seen the film - HOW???

The red and blue colours in the preview strip were quite anoying, as was the fact that he looked as though his alt mode was his earth mode, judging from the smoke stacks and truck chest!!! But then he transforms into that protoform thing - so are we meant to expect that's prime's cybertronian form???? And why do the other Autobots look like space commandos?

Guess i'm being fussy.

The only other thing to strike me was who the target audience was meant to be. Your average kid who picks up this title isn't going to be able to answer the competition questions - eg, who is the leader of the dinobots?

The last time Grimlock appeared (i'm probably wrong) as Dinobot leader was G2? That was like 13 years ago. If they're relying on the 85 movie, not many kids these days will have seen it.

I was pretty surprised to see Beast Wars in there - not my favourite, and an odd inclusion - but definitely better than armada or energon!!!!

Lastly - being a monthly, at £2.60 - I can't see this lasting past 12 issues. Needs to be bi-weekly, or even weekly for old times sake, at like half that price. Screw the dogtags, just give us better stories!

Laughed at the 'Rip-Off' Planet advery - £12 for a deluxe, not including postage? ha

Oh - I also picked up a TF Movie sticker book - not got any stickers yet though....


There's my two-pence!!!

The following views are that of the writer and in no way represent those of Titan or anyone else:

Bigchin wrote:But for kids who have only just discovered Transformers I think it does a cracking job. Character profiles, a bit of history, a big poster, reprints of comics they won't have seen before... It's a good inroad for anyone drawn in by the film.

I think Big Chin has hit the nail on the head here. Most 8-12 year olds who have stumbled, bleary eyed, out of the local multiplex aren't going to know where their local comics specialist is. They'll probably just go to Game and buy the movie tie in for their Xbox.

But imagine if they go their newsagents and pick up TFUK, get into it, buy it again, decide they want to find out more about this 'comic book thing'. Even if one kid in ten converts from 'occasional newsagent comic buyer' to 'hardened comic fan' then that's a success story.

If it hadn't been for Action Force comics, 2000 AD and Terminator and Aliens reprints having a newsagents presence I'd have never have gotten into comics as early as I did.

I can understand that TFUK might feel like a let down for a lot of established fans (from what has been said here at least) but anything that breathes life back into the franchise and brings Robots in Disguise to a new generation of fans can only a be a good thing. Right?

Just picked this up.

To be honest, I wasn't overly impressed with the original story in this issue, the art and coloring was pretty poor compared to the stuff IDW/DW have kicked out. Its cool and all for the old marvel comic fans, but for everyone else it just looks terrible compared to most other comics that are available over here.

Reprints were a very nice touch though and could keep the newer fans interested.

The preview art thats been shown online for the next issue looks loads better though, so I'll have to take a look at that.

(Edit, it was alot better than Armada UK still mind you )

Den Patrick wrote:If it hadn't been for Action Force comics, 2000 AD and Terminator and Aliens reprints having a newsagents presence I'd have never have gotten into comics as early as I did.

Same here - aside from TFUK, for me it was the large format Batman and Punisher reprints that got me hooked. It's good to see those reprint comics with the card covers in newsies - Batman, Superman, X-Men and what have you - where kids can get their hands on them.

Hi guys.

I saw this thread after I already a had a story up based on the Uk comic because we were e-mailed from Ricky Claydon.

However, it seems there are a lot of good opinions already present in this thread and some possibly need to know info, so I put a link to this thread on the news, and gave 'starfish' review credit.

Thanks for understanding.

Can anyone describe/show the poster?

It's basically the cover of the mag without all the text (bar the TF logo).

I saw the comic yesterday and did not buy it. Too many ads (like all Titan comics) and only 5-6 pages of IDW stories is poor. They should have only one backup strip and better covers. I decide to wait and see if Titan bring out a graphic novel of the orginal material (probably will since Titan love graphic novels). Also some Combat Colin would be nice.

Yeah Combat Colin was great, and before that Robo-Capers. Although there are some strips on the Lew Stringer site, I'd love to see a nice graphic novel of Combat Colin reprints some time!

Yeah i picked this up today... Myself and my four year old son have been waiting for this to come out and I have to say I was very dissapointed... It costs €4.56 here and your not getting very much for your money... the optimus prime comic strip was very very MEH! in my opinion... while the story was okay and i liked how it was drawn the colouring was abysmal... it looked like it had been coloured in a freeware paint app using only the gradient tool... really lazy and underwhelming.

There is a nice movie Optimus profile with big a big clear photo of optimus in robot and truck modes and a scale to human comparison pic which i liked. the stats are a bit suspect though... i cant imagine even a cybertronian Peterbilt semi having a top speed of 250mph... lol.

Theres another comic stip which baffled me to be honest... half of it was in black and white... i'm guessing its stylistic but it looked like someone forgot to colour it in... maybe they should have given some crayons free lol.

There is a beastwars comic strip as well with some excellent artwork and colouring.

I dont think i'll be picking up any more issues of this unless i hear that it has improved a lot...

I forgot to add... i entered some of the email competitions from the magazine and they have slightly different email address for each one... like transformers1@titanblah blah transformers2@titan etc. two of my mails came back saying that the email address doesnt exist even though it came straight out of the magazine... not the most professional publication in the world.

The competition addresses have been checked and should be fine now.