Transformers Classics Volume 1 TP

Rack 'n Ruin · Post by **Rack 'n Ruin** » Wed Nov 09, 2011 8:55 pm

Hi all,

Can anyone help me work out what exactly are the contents of the Transformers Classics Volume 1 TP currently available on Amazon (black cover with Optimus Prime on it) please? It seems to contain the first 13 issues of the US G1 comic, but I don't actually know what these issues are.

I'm very interested in getting the UK version already, and I'm not sure if there will be so much "overlap" it will be a waste to buy the US version.

Thanks very much for any help. If I've chosen the wrong forum to post this please feel free to mock and move.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Wed Nov 09, 2011 9:04 pm

As I understand it that book does indeed have the first 13 American issues, and there's no crossover between it and the UK volume (which pretty much has all the strips that weren't collected by Titan in it as well as a nice added bonus).

The US strips have been recoloured though, and slightly bizarrely they seem to have gone for a George Lucas style halfway house of fixing some "errors" (so Soundwave is blue, though surely that's a stylistic choice rather than a mistake?) but leaving lots of others. I'd have thought either being respectful to the original pallets, mistakes and all, or going all out on it would have been the two sensible choices.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Wed Nov 09, 2011 9:26 pm

Well, no - this way IDW can get people to buy it by claiming it's changed, but not actually have to pay to have the job done properly. You know, like everything else the money-grabbing bunch of twats have done. I'd advise buying it second hand or just stealing it from somewhere, otherwise you're part of the problem.

Rack 'n Ruin · Post by **Rack 'n Ruin** » Thu Nov 10, 2011 7:28 am

Thanks guys!

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Thu Nov 10, 2011 7:54 am

Though I should be completely clear in saying I've not seen the book myself, this is all based on the feedback I've read. There's no guarantee each page isn't full of badger porn.

The UK book I do have though, and is lovely. Though I seem to be alone in being fine with the reproduction of the actual strips, a lot of people think they've been shrunk down too much and the scanning has made everything too dark (though the colouring itself has been left alone). YMMV.

Post by **Blackjack** » Thu Nov 10, 2011 8:45 am

They're reprinting the US series again? You know, after that short-lived random-issues-with-pretty-covers-so-you'll-buy-them Generations series, the six-issue Classic Transformers reprint of the whole US shebang (the one with the white covers), 'Best of UK', the big UK book, they're reprinting the US series again? Blooooody heck.

Ulcrain · Post by **Ulcrain** » Thu Nov 10, 2011 8:51 am

Hey, its all in preperation for 81.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Thu Nov 10, 2011 3:11 pm

It's all in preparation for paying the massive licence fees a company has to find when they don't have any ideas of their own, you mean. This way they can get that Glee comic licence that'll really put them in the big leagues.

Post by **Blackjack** » Thu Nov 10, 2011 3:24 pm

Cliffjumper wrote:It's all in preparation for paying the massive licence fees a company has to find when they don't have any ideas of their own, you mean.

Meh. It's the reason we got shoved crap like the movie tie-in comics and Mike Costa's indecisive 'oh now we're like the cartoon' 'oh now we're mature shit' 'oh now we're regurgitating old plot points' ongoing.

Bloody IDW, they've reprinted practically every Transformers comic series out there, didn't they? Marvel comics, US and UK? Check. Dreamwave G1? War Within? Check, except for the legally confusing third ongoing. Dreamwave Armada and Energon? Check. MTMTE? Check.

Which leaves us with only Marvel G2 and Micromasters as the only things that IDW hadn't tried to milk out.

...

So if they wanted to cash in why didn't they reprint G2 instead of just repeating the Marvel US repaint which had been done not a year or two ago? Idiots.

This way they can get that Glee comic licence that'll really put them in the big leagues.

I do sincerely hope you're joking, Cliffy... because it's a brilliant idea to adapt a music-based TV series into a comic. Of course, they're the idiots that hired monkeys to edit comics, so...

relak · Post by **relak** » Wed Mar 28, 2012 12:24 pm

I'm with Blackjack on this.

I'd pay good money to see a deluxe hardcover collecting all 12 G2 comics plus the "Alignment" text story.

GOOD MONEY

I'm real glad i had the complete Titan books collection of Marvel G1, although it cost a bomb in comparison.

The IDW ones have always had some form of imperfection to prevent me from getting them

1) Generations was complete crap. I dont want single issues unless they are the original run single issues. And would anyone really pay for random stories with no sense of continuity?

2) The "white border" Classic Transformers books were INCOMPLETE. I'm am not going to buy books that have comic stories swapped out for text stories. Couldnt they wait to get the rights from Marvel BEFORE republishing the comics?
Which makes me wonder how Titan got the rights to Circuit Breaker and Spiderman but IDW didnt.

3) The new "Transformers Classic" books look rather.....weird. As in the artwork. The colors look a little "smudgy" and dark, distrupting the line work on the art. Was this the result fo the re-coloring or just crappy printing?
Now if they had included behind the scenes notes like they did on TF:UK Classics, i might have been tempted to double dip

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Wed Mar 28, 2012 6:22 pm

It's a shame the quick and pointless cash grabbing white books (sure, I can appreciate the business thinking of "Our licence covers these old comics as well so not doing something with them means we're not getting our monies worth" but doing a series of reprints where they can't reprint key issues is just stupid) have likely buggered up the chances of the first proper collecting of the entire series. With this being the third set of books in a decade how many people are there left with more than the odd gap to fill?

Post by **Denyer** » Wed Mar 28, 2012 6:48 pm

inflatable dalek wrote: the scanning has made everything too dark

Mmm. Trouble is, you can selectively change contrast/brightness, but ultimately the source material is bloody old and adjustments will lose some colour information, particularly on photos, gradients, and colours similar to the paper.

edit:

relak wrote: Couldnt they wait to get the rights from Marvel BEFORE republishing the comics?

It's largely down to who has control at Marvel at the time, and was doubtless skewed by the earlier material having Spidey in. I doubt anyone really gives a shit about Circuit Breaker. Titan had a good existing relationship with Marvel they could rely on.

Hopefully whatever reprints turn up next, they'll sync in reasonably well -- i.e. people can ignore the first three volumes with summaries.

G2... it'd be nice if a reprint included Ghosts. Not really fussed about Alignment, which isn't actually very good.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Wed Mar 28, 2012 7:03 pm

Titan nearly didn't get to reprint the Spider-Man issue IIRC, Furman mentioned that took some fairly down to the wire negotiation above and beyond Circuit Breaker/Death's Head (unsurprisingly).

Surprised to read in the write up on the UK Classics Book that Furman nearly stopped Titan reprinting the Second Generation storyline as he was deeply embarrassed by it. He'd relent on that but not on the actually important to what they did reprint Wrath two parter?

Skyquake87 · Post by **Skyquake87** » Wed Mar 28, 2012 7:11 pm

That's odd. Despite being written under duress, the Special Teams storyline is pretty good. All that stuff with Buster and the Matrix visions, not to mention the Shockwave vs Megatron "How Dare You?!" moment, I think its got more legs than the similarly contrived Headmasters/ Targetmasters strip the UK comic had to slot in. Not least because there's some build up and an ongoing narrative to it (although I do like the preceeding 'Devastation Derby' pointedly shows that merge groups are nothing to get excited about...)

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Wed Mar 28, 2012 7:18 pm

That crap your pants panel of Ratchet getting decapitated is what always did it for me, especially as thanks to its use in one of the Annual recaps I thought it was from Last Stand....

relak · Post by **relak** » Thu Mar 29, 2012 12:13 am

Any news if subsequent Transformers Classics (US) will carry the same (or more) extras as those featured in the titan tpbs???

There were story outlines, character info, even excerpts of scripts in those.

To be honest i was hoping for a COMPLETE Transformers UK collection.

Meaning that instead of reprinting the old transformers as 2 seperate line of books (TF: CLassics and TF UK: Classics) they should have just printed 1 line of books that collects all the US and UK issues in chronological order like how they were originally released in UK.

Cos my main beef right now with TF:UK Classics is that the story jumps around a lot and makes references to the US stories without so much as a recap on what happened.

Skyquake87 · Post by **Skyquake87** » Thu Mar 29, 2012 8:42 am

I don't think the two runs will ever be collected like that - i.e. with a UK bias. The lion's share of the TF market exists in the states and you'd no doubt upset folk.

I was quite happy with the way Titan split them as two different types of collection. The larger format used for the UK material suited it much better. I do wish Titan had kept the black and white stuff as large format collections. The scaling down has made some of the work look a bit murky in places. Their excellent Modesty Blaise collections prioved that Titan can do nicely produced b&w reprints, so I'm puzzled the 'manga' format was chosen.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Thu Mar 29, 2012 1:05 pm

Yeh, there still seem to be a surprising amount of people who treat the Marvel UK stuff as some sort of strange spin-off (and it won't be helped by the Waki's italics stuff either, which has the unfortunate side-effect of reading like "this stuff isn't real, though"). I guess the problem would be where to draw the line - do you rope in the various spelling and/or plot edits to the text? Print the Boltax cover randomly midway through the story? Print the "Next" boxes? Cut the colour from the first eight? Run Time Wars midway through the Underbase Saga because Simon - sorry - independent editor Chris Francis isn't going to have a story by that American prick running in the 200th issue of his comic?

Now that I've got cover-to-cover scans of the UK stuff I do keep meaning to sort a big "ultimate" set of CBRs that use the best possible versions of each story (full colour for the US stuff and any B&Ws that have been recoloured well), sorts out some of the as-published running order problems (mainly from the double bill days), gets rid of some of the printing errors and the like. But I'm pretty ****ing lazy, TBH.

It annoys me when Furman gets funny about his old material. "Second Generation" is pretty crap because it's obvious he's got a strop on and you feel like pointing out that Bob dealt with this sort of thing every other issue with considerable grace, but at the same time it's better than most of the stuff he's done since DW exhumed him.

Alignment is largely awful, BTW, and should certainly never be printed near anything official. It's fanfic by a sad old man who thinks he understands what readers want from him but actually has no idea.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Thu Mar 29, 2012 7:19 pm

I do think that doing a "Complete" series reprints incorporating everything in rough order (perhaps in the style of the very nicely done chunky hardback IDW Complete Collection books?) would have both been lovely and a sensible way of representing already collected multiple times material in a new way that would likely have excited people (the new UK books may have people jazzed over the extra content, but the US ones are pretty much only getting noticed for the inept re-"coloring").

But, yeah, with all the various format changes and shifts over the eight years there's certainly no way, especially when you get to the three story issues, to do that easily. Certainly not to keep everyone happy. It'd be an insane venture, but possibly an interesting one.

Skyquake87 wrote: I was quite happy with the way Titan split them as two different types of collection. The larger format used for the UK material suited it much better. I do wish Titan had kept the black and white stuff as large format collections. The scaling down has made some of the work look a bit murky in places. Their excellent Modesty Blaise collections prioved that Titan can do nicely produced b&w reprints, so I'm puzzled the 'manga' format was chosen.

As do their James Bond books as well. The tiny B&W books are a shame, IIRC it was part of a strategy that they'd test the water with those and if they sold they'd do full size recoloured versions. We can all see how that worked out.

Cliffjumper wrote:Run Time Wars midway through the Underbase Saga because Simon - sorry - independent editor Chris Francis isn't going to have a story by that American prick running in the 200th issue of his comic?

In fairness, I can understand them wanting something bigger they could promote for the 200th issue than half a US one (what would have been in it if they'd kept going with Underbase? Would they have even gotten as far as the at least EPIC Dark Star?). Shame it's buggered up a bit here, whatever people think of Time Wars it's fair to say it's not an especially special instalment of it. 150 was the middle of a story as well but at least had the Secret Origin thing in it.

It annoys me when Furman gets funny about his old material. "Second Generation" is pretty crap because it's obvious he's got a strop on and you feel like pointing out that Bob dealt with this sort of thing every other issue with considerable grace, but at the same time it's better than most of the stuff he's done since DW exhumed him.

At least he's fairly honest about that being the reason it is terrible rather than trying to shift the blame onto anyone else. With the never intended to be a complete series of reprints Titan books I don't completely oppose him putting the kibosh on reprints of his own stuff (even if I think that attitude was silly), it was extending that to stories written by other people. Who is he to decide Man of Iron or Crisis of Command aren't worthy? Both could have fitted easily in one of the later "Mopping Up What We've Got Left" trades.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Thu Mar 29, 2012 8:22 pm

Or gone in instead of Space Pirates, because it's shite.