Andy Schmidt responds to comments concerning Transformers Ongoing #1 *Spoilers*

ponycorn wrote:Guys, I can't tell who is the one supposed to be narrating these first 3 pages.

Is it HotRod thinking all that? Or in the end it looks like Optimus? I don't understand.

I'm one of those eat-everything-up type fans but I'm also one of *those* type of fangirls and damnit I want their handsome faces back! With the way things are looking IDW Ongoing Megatron is going to end up looking like his face went through the same blender his Bay-Movie counterpart's went through. I guess my days of swooning over Guido Guidi's work in AHM will have to remain confined to those back issues.

I think it's Prime though I'm not entirely sure either, I expect it would become obvious on the 4th page.

Don't worry too much pony, there's The Last Stand of the Wreckers by Nick Roche to look forward to, and I also recall a Bumblebee miniseries but I don't remember who is doing the art for that.

PlasmaPrime wrote:There's no need to further the debate, but I will say this: to compare Nick Roche's style to Don Figuroa's, and Don's to Guido's doesn't make sense when you consider their skill and talent and visual flare SHOULD speak for themselves; all artists have different sensibilities and style that extend from them, E.J. Su included.

It makes sense just fine, in the sense of being able to point at certain styles as examples of what you think is good art and what constitutes effective storytelling and/or updating of designs.

PlasmaPrime wrote:BUT... to be harsh and disrespectful about an art style simply because you're not comfortable with it is immature.

There's nothing immature about disliking an art style and criticizing it. If anything, I think it's immature to blindly like and worship everything in a certain franchise regardless of quality.

PlasmaPrime wrote:I hardly think anyone here can do ''better'' than Don, if that's the way you want to look at it.

Grah, people really need to stop throwing this tripe out as an argument; it gets more irritating every time I see it.

I don't think anyone here is thinking they can do better than Don; the folks being critical just know this style is badly done compared to what he's done in the past and what other TF artists are currently doing.

i like it ill go for change g1 faces look to human to me these faces look like movie versions & more robotic to me i like the colors & there desgins i would really like to see toys made from soem of these characters if possible from hasbro

i think in the last panel it is prime in his cybertronian mode befroe he gets an earth mode with smokestacks only leadrs say till all are one correct me if im wrong about the leader part im just comparing the animated movie with the las panel preime death, ultramagnus last stand before feel apart, rodimus at the end of the movie

I'll wait for the trade paper back.

Not a fan of the movie aestetic, so ... that's just another reason not to buy the comic, I guess. There's lots of other TF stuff out there for me.

OK, why does Bumblebee have fangs?

I am so ready for IDW to lose the licence to TF comics...

The art is great. The characters actually look a lot more intimidating and fresh. When are they going to make figures based on the idw characters? Human too? Little 1/32 humans this would be great. Of course some of the classics have come from generation designs.

The art is well,..I don't like it.

The story concepts sound good though.

Storywise, I'm not liking or disliking issue 1. Not terrible but not great. I am, however, perplexed by the "easy" death of Ironhide. I get the intent of killing off an important character for impact but the thought behind how to kill the character was lazy. Sure, people could say he was shot from behind, was hit in a weak spot, so on and so forth, but the visuals should be able to decently explain what happened. We simply get an image of Ironhide getting his torso excavated by a blast from behind.

If we get consistency from here on out with respect to the durability of the Transformers, then they seem to be relatively fragile for robot aliens from what should be a more technologically advanced civilization. If we don't get consistency then it's just something that will bug me and, I imagine, many other readers of the comic.

The art, overall, I'm liking. As I've said before, the faces are the weak point of Don's current style. However, the close shot of Hot Rod's face in page 3 looks great to me. The extra details shown make the design of the faces make sense to me. It's in the less detailed shots where I just don't like the facial design of the Transformers.

I love the detailing in the hybrid movie/animated style that Don is employing. It's familiar enough to make the G1 side of me happy but also has the mechanical elements that the concept design side of me appreciates. As a fan of anime involving mecha, the big/pointy chin is a good thing to me. I've read other people comment that they don't like Transformers looking too "Gundam-ish". From a visual standpoint, I don't get it. I think the mecha designs in Gundam are normally great.