IDW Botcon News

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 7:30 am

Not a huge amount we didn't know but:

http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-new ... el-167766/

The main new stuff:

Tales of the Fallen will offer mini spotlights on various characters,
There's going to be a complete guide to Animated, vague possibility of more comics,
Metroplex will be the last Spotlight for the immediate future,
They don't come right out and say there'll be a ongoing but do promise monthy comics,
Full confirmation that The 13 isn't happening,
The Ark Omnibus will have new material [booo!],
Megatron will be taking a back seat and a "New creative direction" is promised. Read into that what you will...

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 7:44 am

inflatable dalek wrote: Full confirmation that The 13 isn't happening

Yay!

Megatron will be taking a back seat and a "New creative direction" is promised. Read into that what you will...

Seems a bit weird - I thought AHM sold, like, 7 million copies or whatever?

Maybe the new direction will be to finally put out something good?

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 10:37 am

Cliffjumper wrote:Yay!

I thought you'd be more upset, doesn't it kind of kill the joke if WWT turns out to be just a accurate news source?

Seems a bit weird - I thought AHM sold, like, 7 million copies or whatever?

Maybe the new direction will be to finally put out something good?

I'm interested in seeing how much more of a back seat Megatron can possibly take after only having had two lines in all of AHM.

EDIT: Semi related, something I only found out when reading the wiki doing in depth research for the Spotlight Drift review, another IDW related thing that's vanished:

http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Drift_(G1)#Notes

IDW Publishing claimed that Drift had been solicited by Hasbro to receive a toy in the Universe line. After months of no word whatsoever on the subject from Hasbro or a single hint that such a thing would happen from the usual sources (read: leaks and stolen toys), Hasbro's Australian branch eventually answered the claim with a rather unequivocal "No, there is no character named Autobot Drift or any toy designed after the comic character coming out in our 25th Anniversary or any other Transformers line." in an online Q&A session.[3] However, IDW editor Chris Ryall maintained at New York Comic-Con 2009 that Drift was still on track to receive a toy, but no release date had been set. In a March 2009 online Q&A session, Hasbro confirmed that no Drift toy was currently planned at all, although they "would love to make a toy after IDW's Drift and will do our best to fit him into the line at the right time."

Which reads to me as saying despite all the prior claims Hasbro never had the slightest thought of giving the character a toy.

Hennessy · Post by **Hennessy** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 11:27 am

Here are the images

http://tformers.com/transformers-botcon ... /news.html

Neuronutter · Post by **Neuronutter** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 2:47 pm

So, basically, almost no news at all. Weren't they supposed to be announcing the monthly that's a reboot at Botcon?

And wasn't Coda renamed to simply AHM 13-16?

Well, that gives us nothing to look forward too for the next few months. Marvellous.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 3:16 pm

Neuronutter wrote:Well, that gives us nothing to look forward too for the next few months. Marvellous.

Surely a big step up from All Fail McCarthy?

RID Scourge · Post by **RID Scourge** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 3:37 pm

So have they actually put out anything worth reading? I've only read their '07 Movie Stuff, and it didn't exactly make me want to pick up anything else, and it seems like most people don't particularly like what they're putting out at the moment.

The artwork on both the prequel and adaptation was confusing in that the robot deisgns blended with each other and the background (so as to hinder the ability to discern what was part of this robot, part of that robot or a structure in the back. This was especially a problem in the prequel, but the robots were hard to pick out in the adaptation as well it seemed), and the movie adaptation pretty much lifted 98% of the movie word-for-word.

I suppose that's to be expected, but it would have been cool if they'd done something else with it. Maybe from the perspective of one of the autobots or a decepticon who was hiding (Barricade doing recon work would have made for a good backstory on how he tracked Sam down).

Halfshell · Post by **Halfshell** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 3:56 pm

inflatable dalek wrote:EDIT: Semi related, something I only found out when reading the wiki doing in depth research for the Spotlight Drift review, another IDW related thing that's vanished:

http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Drift_(G1)#Notes

Which reads to me as saying despite all the prior claims Hasbro never had the slightest thought of giving the character a toy.

So, not only was all the "ZOMG this character is so cool he's the first comic character to get his own toy" hype erroneous, but it was also completely fabricated?

I'm more surprised by the fact I'm in no way surprised...

RID Scourge · Post by **RID Scourge** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 4:06 pm

Probably doesn't even make sense from a toy standpoint since Hasbro technically wouldn't own the name/character design unless there's a stipulation in their contract with IDW that any transformer IDW creates belongs to Hasbro.

I'd be surprized if it were ever seen in plastic unless someone like Fansproject produced a figure based on him as part of the line they're releasing that includes the triple-changer homages. They'd probably have to call him something like "Float" to get away with it though. So there probably wouldn't be a Drift figure made.

Clogs · Post by **Clogs** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 5:11 pm

Um, should I mention that I've received a forward solicitation (and at my age, that counts for something) from one of my eBay contacts for a Drift?

Slaggit, but I've deleted the e-mail and link...

Post by **Denyer** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 5:13 pm

RID Scourge wrote:So have they actually put out anything worth reading?

I still love the concept of Infiltration and emphasis on Transformers being something special and out-of-the-ordinary. Reckon you'd be best off getting that, Stormbringer, Escalation and then dabbling with Spotlights mainly, though. Devastation's pace is screwy and Revelation is unfortunately squeezed to an inch of its life (plus you need most of the previous Spotlights to enjoy Revelation.) Having said that, it's worth reading all of the aforementioned to be in a position to read Maximum Dinobots as a capstone.

All Hail Megatron's been bollocks from what I've seen (1-10 read at least once through; will wander along to a comics shop after #12 comes out.)

I've ordered the "coda" issues despite misgivings, simply because it's other writers.

Alex Milne's art has been amongst the worst on books so far -- other artists have proved it's possible to get a flavour of the complicated movie designs without actually putting all that detail into a panel. It's not representative of the main line books.

Halfshell wrote:it was also completely fabricated?

To be fair, situations can change. I do think it was someone on IDW staff blowing enthusiasm by a Hasbro staffer out of proportion, though.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 5:43 pm

Denyer wrote:Devastation's pace is screwy and Revelation is unfortunately squeezed to an inch of its life (plus you need most of the previous Spotlights to enjoy Revelation.)

To me, that's been the problem with IDW - it's so frustrating, because it could have gone somewhere. I mean, Dreamwave were always shit, so it was nice when something good did get out (like... er... anyway, on we go). With IDW there was genuine promise, and neither Furman or McCarthy could build on it. Muppets the lot of them.

MeGrimlock · Post by **MeGrimlock** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 6:06 pm

Denyer wrote:I've ordered the "coda" issues despite misgivings, simply because it's other writers.

Mostly. I hope that the nameless guy will write only the stuff about the headless one.

Post by **Denyer** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 6:06 pm

@ Tom:

Apart from Devastation Furman hasn't done too badly. Escalation has some bits it'd be optimum to cut, but the "spend a few pages on each subplot per issue" didn't really drag things down until then.

IDW not holding out with Hasbro or their own people (or whoever) for more issues for Revelation is pretty much unforgiveable, though. Short-changed over two years of backstory readers had been forking out for. MD is a nice palliative, but doesn't "fix" Revelation, nor will Coda stories following up on, for instance, Galvatron.

Altogether there's been too much of "**** up then paper over the cracks" on big picture stuff, and we're seeing it again with AHM needing to dribble over into parts of four more issues to fill in stuff that should've been in the main book proper.

Post by **Clay** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 7:23 pm

Halfshell wrote:So, not only was all the "ZOMG this character is so cool he's the first comic character to get his own toy" hype erroneous, but it was also completely fabricated?

I'm more surprised by the fact I'm in no way surprised...

It's only fabrication if you don't believe it yourself.
...

Oh, and mail my toys!

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 7:30 pm

For me Escala- was the only one of the -tion series that really worked. I actually liked the slow start burn for Infiltration but thought it lost its way a bit towards the end with stupid false jeopardy moments like sending the humans down into the Decepticon base (which just from a scale point of view is stupid), but I thought the second series held it together a lot better, had a larger sense of scale and better pacing, though retrospectively some of the plotlines have become pointless. Devastation basically lost it and gave the overall impression Furman didn't have a clue, wasting six issues on the search for Ironhide only not to bother to wrap it up properly being the poster child for that. As for Revelation, well I've gone on in depth about how it would have been possible to wrap it up better in the space allowed with some more sensible choices.

RID Scourge · Post by **RID Scourge** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 9:01 pm

Ah. Good to know. Thanks for the recommendations, Denyer, and the addendum everyone else.

Dreadwing · Post by **Dreadwing** » Fri Jun 12, 2009 2:21 am

They promise us "monthly comics" but wont admit an ongoing, just monthy comics that supposedly are related to AHM but are going in a bold new direction. Then we get Tales of the Fallen, a series of spotlights for the movieverse, after they cancel the spotlights series! The Thirteen is cancelled because they dont like Furman creating new material (just an assumption based on how they made him lay the entire foundation for their G1-verse just to ignore it all afterward).

And then no new Beast Wars, Evolution, or any other independant material because they dont want to "flood the market." I think they flooded the market when they published 2 G1 comics, 2 movie prequel comics, a spotlight series, a reprint series, TPB reprint collections, and other unrelated TF material all in a six month period.

So all we have realy been told is that everything thats not related to the movie is cancelled (not just comics but EVERYTHING), fun. Whats that old saying about counting chickens before they hatch?

On a side note, how much do you think AHM was changed from its original planned story arc? Im sure it had to change to accomodate MD running concurrently, then Hasbro stepping in and taking out anything they dont like (a la blood removed between FOD preview and the issue 1 propper). I just wonder how much was truly McCarthy and how much was forced on him.

Neuronutter · Post by **Neuronutter** » Fri Jun 12, 2009 9:39 am

I was under the impression that the Spotlights weren't 'cancelled' just put on hiatus for now. As they've got a planned launch of the monthly sometime towards the end of the year its not surprising. All their efforts are probably going towards that.

As for Tales of the Fallen I think its a good idea to keep the movie comics going as they are popular. It doesn't really matter that they are spotlights, just that we have movie comics immediately after the movie, unlike the last which took a while to appear.

The one thing I am fed up with is the wait for an announcement regarding the monthly series that we know is coming. I thought they'd announce it at Botcon, after saying they would, then nothing. Hopefully it'll be announced at Comicon but that's still a while away and I'm fed up with waiting.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Fri Jun 12, 2009 12:32 pm

I wouldn't be surprised if they're waiting to finalise the creative team before announcing it formally.