Date: Monday, January 29th 2007 5:29pm CST
Category: Comic Book News
Posted by: Hotrod |
Credit(s): Denyer of Tfarchive.com
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Views: 14,743
We all know that the
Transformers Movie Prequel comic by IDW is not suppose to be out until February. However, Denyer of
Tfarchive.com has received an early copy of the comic and is kind enough to post a review of Transformers: The Movie Prequel #1 for the rest of the fandom. So if you do not mind spoilers and want to see a review of Transformers: The Movie Prequel #1 click
here.
Date: Monday, January 29th 2007 11:52am CST
Category: Comic Book News
Posted by: Seibertron |
Credit(s): Diamond Comics Distributors
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Views: 16,093
The products on the list(s) below from
Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc. are expected to ship to comic book specialty stores on the indicated date(s) below. Note that this list is tentative and subject to change. Please check with your retailer for availability.
Products available this week on January 31st, 2007:
NOV063659 TRANSFORMERS ANIMATED MOVIE ADAPTATION #4 (OF 4) $3.99
NOV064435 TRANSFORMERS BUMBLEBEE BOTCON MINI STATUE PI
Products available next week on February 7th, 2007:
DEC063515 GI JOE AMERICAS ELITE #20 $3.50
Product Codes
(O/A) offered again
(PI) please inquire at your store
(MR) mature readers
(RES) resolicited
(Note Price) new price increase
Date: Sunday, January 28th 2007 1:44pm CST
Categories: Site News,
Comic Book News,
Site Articles
Posted by: Hotrod |
Credit(s): Darth Bombshell
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Views: 50,198
This week Darth Bombshell has decided share another of his articles with us. Last week Darth Bombshell shared his thoughts on Dreamwave's Generation One More Than Meets The Eye Profile Series. In this weeks article Darth Bombshell shares his thoughts on Dreamwave's Armada More Than Meets The Eye Profile Series. If you missed last week's article check out
Seibertron.com's Article Section. Without further delay here it is the latest article by Darth Bombshell:
Armada MTMTE Overview
Throughout 2003, Dreamwave released the eight issue “More Than Meets The Eye” series. Despite the numerous problems that the series had, it was well received. It was perhaps this response that encouraged the staff at Dreamwave to create a sequel of sorts by writing a series based on the other Transformer franchise that the company was writing at the time: Transformers Armada.
Because of the vastly different scope of the series, changes had to be made in the way it was presented. Instead of eight issues, Armada MTMTE would instead be done in three, no doubt due to the fact that Armada has less than a third of the characters that the Generation One series had to cover. Instead of drawing on previous writings, the biographies and tech spec quotes for most of the characters had to be invented by the writers, since only a select few had officially written bios. And since this series was drawing on both a completed comic and cartoon series, the creators had to attempt to cover elements of both series, while maintaining the fact that they have to try to arrange it all in the comic universe.
All of these changes were perhaps made to make the series more understandable, since the information presented would be fresh in the fans’ minds. Unfortunately, this probably lead to it being as convoluted and confusing as its predecessor.
The first and most obvious problem that the series has was the previously stated attempt by the writers to somehow manage to take elements from both the comic and cartoon and find a way to make them both work. Three bios in this series show how disastrous that attempts was: Galvatron, Nemesis Prime and Sideways. Galvatron, with the exception of the toy comics, was never a part of the regular comic to begin with, was somehow given a life as part of the regular comics, although the conditions and time that this occurred are purposely left vague, no doubt meant to cover up the fact that they have no actual way to describe it. The biography for Galvatron, narrated by Leader-1, gives a very interesting insight to the character. It is just a shame that it is not really part of the comic universe.
Like Galvatron, Nemesis Prime also falls into the category as a toy character needing to have an comics origin. Unlike Galvatron, who was given a believable, yet implausible, comics life, the writers of the comic saw fit to merely rehash the plot of the Armada episode “Puppet”, trying to incorporate the events that occurred in the episode to the comic timeline. This doesn’t work for two reasons: there was no way that this event could have occurred in the comic, and they made the mistake of incorporating Run-Over, the Mini-Con partner who came with the Nemesis Prime toy that never appeared in the episode in question, into the character’s history. By all rights, Nemesis Prime should not be in the comic at all. Much like Galvatron, the only reason for his inclusion in this series was because he was a toy character who needed to be explained.
Sideways, however, falls into a different path. Unlike Galvatron and Nemesis Prime, Sideways actually was in the comic. Yes, it was in two very brief appearances, but he was there. I expected that his biography would state that he was a mercenary playing both sides of the Transformer war. And I was right. That is how he was presented However, they made the big mistake of including elements of the cartoon into his bio, and said that he was a servant of Unicron. This makes no sense as far as the comic goes, since his first appearance was a good four issues before Unicron’s presence was ever confirmed, and his second was during Unicron’s ill-fated attack on Cybertron cowering with a bunch of Decepticons. This especially makes no sense, because if he was truly Unicron’s herald, would he not be rampaging around causing chaos?
The writing, as previously stated, had to draw heavily on the imaginations of the writers of the series since, with a few exceptions, there were few “official” biographies made for the Armada characters during its run. This lead to a great many of the characters having fairly unsuited character biographies and tech spec quotes that sound incredibly horrendous. I do believe that a great many of these will be making an appearance on the Trannies “Worst Tech Spec Quotes” ballot next year.
The artwork in the series, like in the Generation One MTMTE, is another round of “one good for every five bad” deal. Ironically, much of the good art in this series has made appearances on the toy boxes or promotional art made during the run of the toyline, also drawn by the various artists in this series. A good deal of this art takes up much of the space in the books, making me wonder why the artists were lazy enough to include this art. Couldn’t they do new artwork for this series? Isn’t it what it was meant to do?
Another problem this series has in its artwork is the fact that the Mini-Con teams that were repainted during the toyline each had two pages of artwork devoted to them, one for the color in which they were first released and their “powerlinx” recolors. I found this to be an incredible waste of page space, with the only acceptable color changes coming from the Road Assault (Race) Team and the Star (Dark) Saber sword, since the bios for these weapons state that the characters would change color depending on how long they were held by an enemy.
Finally, much like the Generation One MTMTE, the Armada MTMTE had a prologue and epilogue story designed to explain they reason why this information is being presented. Unlike the story in G1 MTMTE, the Armada one is meant to be part of the actual timeline. The prologue explains that a machine by someone that Alexis has possession of and is using to be prepared for the return of the Transformers. The epilogue explains that the device was left by Over-Run, who wants to prepare Alexis for the return of the Transformers. This would appear to make Alexis the focus of the Energon story, a fact we know to be false, as it is Kicker whose fate is ultimately linked to the Energon story…at least in the cartoon, anyway.
The Armada MTMTE was written shortly after the end of the series, with Energon firmly in the minds of the people behind the Transformers. This fact, combined with the haphazard way that the series was written and the apparent poor production values, have lead many to look down upon this series. It could have been better, though, had it been written later. But as it is, it exists merely as a way for Dreamwave to earn an dollar by any means.
After all, it’s what they’re known for.
Date: Saturday, January 27th 2007 2:58pm CST
Categories: Comic Book News,
Event News
Posted by: Hotrod |
Credit(s): Freecomicbookday.com
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Views: 24,215
Recently we reported
here that IDW will be offering a
Transformers Movie Prequel comic for Free Comic Book Day. More information about the free issue has now been post on the Free Comic Book Day
website. Here is the description that was posted:
"TRANSFORMERs: THE movie prequel—FCBD EDITION
by Simon Furman & Chris Ryall, & Don Figueroa
Before the live-action Transformers movie spectacularly explodes onto theater screens in July, read the official beginning of the story right here! In this prequel to the film, “Prime Directive,” travel from Cybertron to Earth to witness the events that lead to the Transformers bringing their war to our world! This special Free Comic Book Day edition features issue #1 of this prelude, as well as additional art from series artist Figueroa.
32pgs, FC FREE"
Date: Thursday, January 25th 2007 10:08pm CST
Category: Comic Book News
Posted by: Hotrod |
Credit(s): The Eagle Awards
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Views: 11,321
The Eagle Awards is taking nominations for the 2007 Eagle Awards. The winners will be announced at the Bristol International Comic Expo on Saturday, May 12, 2007 at the Ramada Plaza Hotel in Bristol. Nominees should be choosen based on the work they did in 2006. Several Transformers comic writers and artist are up for nominations. So go vote by clicking
here. Here is some information about the Eagle Awards:
"The Eagle Awards are the name given to a series of awards for comic book titles and creators. They are awarded by UK fans who vote for who they feel are the best in each category of the awards.
They are named after the fondly remembered 1950s comic title Eagle and originated in 1976 thanks to two British fans, Mike Conroy (now part of the staff of Comics International) and Richard Burton. British comic fandom at this time was still relatively small but the awards proved to be successful, especially with American publishers such as Marvel Comics who would announce their victories with pride. X-Men was one title which regularly gathered handfuls of awards, mainly for its writing and art during the Chris Claremont and John Byrne era.
It wasn't until Britain had a regular annual comic convention (the United Kingdom Comic Art Convention, commonly shortened to UKCAC) in 1986 that the awards became a regular event. During this time creators such as Alan Moore and Alan Davis would win awards while characters such as Batman were always firm fan-favourites.
The awards did disappear for a time, replaced briefly with the National Comics Award, in 2000 they returned as an event at that years Comic Festival (which had replaced UKCAC) presented by Simon Pegg.
They are now part of the current UK comic event, the Comic Expo."
Date: Thursday, January 25th 2007 1:44pm CST
Category: Comic Book News
Posted by: Calenatarion |
Credit(s): IDW Publishing
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Views: 14,533
Another update has been made on the IDW Publishing
website. Following the Art de Jour update we reported
before, you can now see the sollicitations for the month of April!
The update concerns the following comics:
The Movie Prequel #2, written by Simon Furman and Chris Ryall. This issue will feature a special photo variant.
Spotlight: Soundwave, by Simon Furman and Marcelo Matere. Including colored cover preview.
Escalation Issue 5. Issue 5 of this 6 issue series will feature the battle everyone is waiting for.
Beast Wars Manga TPB. The TPB of the successful IDW series in a special manga digest.
Beast Wars Issue1 Variant Cover Slipcase, a slipcover that will feature all of the rarest covers from the Beast Wars series.
Generations Issue 12, even more old comics reprinted, this time with: Buster Witwicky and the Car Wash of Doom!
The War Within Volume 1 TPB after re-releasing Dreamwave's Generation One TPB's, now is the turn to The War Within TPB.
Date: Thursday, January 25th 2007 1:27pm CST
Category: Comic Book News
Posted by: Calenatarion |
Credit(s): IDW Publishing
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Views: 12,344
Our own Darth Bombshell has given us the heads up for another IDW update. The IDW Publishing
website has been updated with a new preview in the
Art de Jour section.
The update is a new preview page of the Soundwave Spotlight comic that will be released in March. Click
here for the preview page.
Date: Tuesday, January 23rd 2007 11:25am CST
Categories: Comic Book News,
Collector's Club News
Posted by: Bed Bugs |
Credit(s): TransformersClub.com
Permanent Link
Views: 13,944
A new update has been posted on the main page of
TransformersClub.com in regards to the new Club Magazine:
: |
We are very excited as we enter our third year of the Collector's Club, featuring the all-new bi-monthly 16 page four-COLOR Club Magazine! The bi-monthly magazine contains information on everything Transformers, from G1 to Classics to the upcoming Movie toys. It includes awesome Character Profiles, Product Reviews, Information on new releases, Interviews with Hasbro Transformers designers and much more. Each issue also includes an ongoing six page Transformers comic. A new comic story arc begins with the first issue of each year and concludes with the final issue of that year, making one complete thirty six page comic story! |
Click here to see the new cover format of the new magazine!
Date: Monday, January 22nd 2007 11:32am CST
Category: Comic Book News
Posted by: Seibertron |
Credit(s): Diamond Comics Distributors
Permanent Link
Views: 10,290
The products on the list(s) below from
Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc. are expected to ship to comic book specialty stores on the indicated date(s) below. Note that this list is tentative and subject to change. Please check with your retailer for availability.
Products available this week on January 24th, 2007:
NOV063654 TRANSFORMERS ESCALATION #3 $3.99
There are no Transformers or GI Joe products available next week on January 31st, 2007
Product Codes
(O/A) offered again
(PI) please inquire at your store
(MR) mature readers
(RES) resolicited
(Note Price) new price increase