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Post by grahamthomson on Jun 2, 2009 9:21:28 GMT
Oh. It's just that I clearly remember a story during the Generation 2 run that featured Starscream in possession of the Matrix. And surely IDW's new creative direction wouldn't involve re-treading old stories would it?
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primenova
Fusilateral Quintro Combiner
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Post by primenova on Jun 2, 2009 12:08:58 GMT
That's the cover for #14 isnt it - with the Starscream story in it - leaving the Perceptor ones for #16. The Prime Ironhide one being #13 - Megs on #14 other cover.
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Post by The Doctor on Jun 7, 2009 9:42:34 GMT
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Jun 7, 2009 9:50:06 GMT
It's not too bad, would suit a small screen and like the 60's Marvel toons shows what a good voice actor can do to make limited animation still work.
Andy
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 7, 2009 9:56:08 GMT
The animation isn't too bad but they could have picked a better comic than AHM surely?
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Post by The Doctor on Jun 7, 2009 9:59:46 GMT
It's IDW's current 'main' big TF title so makes sense to do a test on it.
-Ralph
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KoshNaranek
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Post by KoshNaranek on Jun 7, 2009 23:54:41 GMT
Seems like a good idea, but the demo only reaffirms for me how much the comic is written with the cartoon fanboys in mind. In other news there's an audio interview with Shane McCarthy over on TFormers. Be warned, it's almost an hour and a half long, but I found it quite interesting. tformers.com/article.php?sid=11723- Tony |
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Post by dinogrrl on Jun 8, 2009 3:29:33 GMT
There's also a thread on the IDW boards discussing this interview, and shock/horror, Shane McCarthy himself actually showed up and is answering questions! It's been very civil, with the exception of one rude post. Still most of his answers either don't say much, or don't say anything we haven't already thought about the book and him already. He does note that he likes to envisage the story cinematically, which probably goes a long way to explaining why it reads like an extended movie trailer. forum.idwpublishing.com/viewtopic.php?t=6022I popped in and asked a rather retarded question about why he lobotomised Perceptor, and got largely a non-answer type answer from him, which when I boil it down, amounts to little more than 'Because I can/wanted to'. The most interesting thing to come out of that thread to me is the news that the Kup and Perceptor stories are apparently the two separate stories within issue #15 of AHM, thus accounting for the whole issue. But is Nick doing both of them? Still a little confused on that one. |
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KoshNaranek
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Post by KoshNaranek on Jun 8, 2009 8:40:43 GMT
I met Nick on Saturday at the 2D Festival in Derry and he told me he's doing the Kup story but didn't mention anything about the other one. He also showed me the cover art which looks mighty fine indeed. On a side note Simon Furman was also there promoting his robot's book, although he only had one copy that he couldn't sell. It looked quite fun and interesting.
As for checking out the IDW boards, I'm a little hesitant as I pretty much abandned them last year during all the ugliness. I'll probably still have a peek just to satisfy my curiosity.
- Tony
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KoshNaranek
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Post by KoshNaranek on Jun 8, 2009 8:53:48 GMT
Oh, BTW, welcome to the Hub dinogrrl!
- Tony
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Post by charlesrocketboy on Jun 8, 2009 15:54:40 GMT
Kup was going to be the Autobot traitor originally? That would've made more sense, what with him being a more constant character than fragging Sunstreaker...
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Post by charlesrocketboy on Jun 8, 2009 16:32:55 GMT
Halfway through the podcast - Shane sounds like a nice bloke who has put in a lot of thought behind AHM. I wish that had turned up on the page!  |
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Post by The Doctor on Jun 8, 2009 18:39:36 GMT
Yeah, like Eric Holmes he has some decent ideas.
I was amused to note that AHM was originally supposed to follow straight on from Devastation. Imagine how annoying that would have been!
-Ralph
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Post by dinogrrl on Jun 9, 2009 4:28:20 GMT
Well, I've been busy as a bee over there the last couple days and almost got in trouble for expressing my opinion to boot. I tend to post in 'extra nice' mode at IDW in order to play by their rules. At the Allspark, I tend to let it rip a little more. Well, some lovely tosser at the IDW boards cross-posted my interpretation of Shane's Perceptor answer to the IDW boards and I got yellow carded by the man himself!
Turns out he was supposedly taking the piss, but unless you've either used emoticons or made it really obvious, I'll read your post straight. Thought I was being threatened with a banning at IDW for what I'd said over at the Allspark! But drama over - apparently not.
In any case, it allowed me to bang on at length about his characterisation of Perceptor, which I've taken issue with since his first appearance in AHM, and especially since his apparent lobotomy via gunshot in Spotlight: Drift.
Turns out Shane didn't intend us all to interpret that as Percy having lost his smarts. Here it's easier to just cobble together his responses:
"The way I see it is, the intellect and 'old Perceptor' is still in there, buried for the moment. He didn't refuse (to fix Prime - in Issue 9) and the assumption can be made that Ratchet would be able to handle it fine. But for now Perceptor has 'gone walkabout'. Does that mean he's a 'dick'? Maybe. It's not unheard of for people to be 'dicks'. However I don't think we can be judgmental until we're all shot in the face and chest, take a walk in his shoes."
This is fair enough, and it's showing nice depth behind his characterisation. Only one problem though - we don't read any of that in the actual comic. Every man and his dog interpreted what Shane had written to mean that Perceptor lost his intellect and was rebuilt as a sniper only. Nothing in the comics suggests anything different. The only reason I know different is because Shane had to explain it to me in gory detail in this Q&A thread.
That's not a good sign, when your intentions and the actual reading get you such a widely differing result. It's a chronic problem with the series as a whole. Shane might like to envisage his story in a big cinematic way, but what that does is leave out all the juicy stuff like Perceptor's characterisation, such that we the reader feel it's all kind of empty behind the grand images.
So as charlesrocketboy noted - Shane does seem to be a nice fellow and does have a lot of in depth ideas behind it all, but it doesn't show up in the bloody comic! So it's a bit much for him to get shirty about our interps and opinions being all wrong when he isn't giving us enough to go on to start with.
In other news, he let slip this in a response to me:
"I think one of the biggest points people are forgetting is that AHM isn't a stand alone story. I wrote it with the knowledge that it would continue on. Whilst there might not be an 'ongoing' title there are definitely a series of ongoing mini series. The opportunity is there for people to come in afterwards and continue Perceptor's journey once I'm gone. "
Soooo, no actual ongoing ongoing? Not too surpised there. The answers given to ongoing questions at Botcon were apparently rather coy. IDW are expected to make an announcement at the Comicon at the end of July though.
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Post by blueshift on Jun 9, 2009 6:48:15 GMT
How interesting. But yeah, there seems to be a gap between what is in Shane's head and what is on the page. You'd hope at least someone would have caught up to that fact before the whole thing went to print.
Again, I'm reminded of DC's Countdown fiasco, where Dan Didio castigated fans, telling them they should all research stuff on the internet in order to understand it. Heck, the stuff with the death of the Flash didn't even make sense unless you'd read one of Didio's interviews (apparently it was an artistic error that Piper and Trickster were part of it, all the comics published afterwards had them both upset at what happened and wanting to punish the guys who killed the Flash. Which uh, included them.)
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Post by charlesrocketboy on Jun 9, 2009 11:09:18 GMT
I do find it a bit annoying that his defence for moments that could be out of character is "people are contradictory, bad things are going to mess them up etc" - which is true in real life and can be done in fiction, but it needs more care and set-up than we got.
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Post by blueshift on Jun 9, 2009 12:31:37 GMT
Personally I like the idea that IDW dont want to keep characters fixed, and they can develop. However in my view the main failing of AHM is we never see any development. We see them last at point A, and now they are at point B with no explanation, or at least a very inferred hand-wavy one. When did Ironhide turn from gruff but friendly into a murderous sociopath, Sunstreaker from friendly and dedicated into a murderous sociopath etc. When talking about a million year old space war, a bit of handwaving about 'oh the war changed them' doesn't really cut it. Show don't tell is one of the oldest rules of writing.
Actually I think that is one of the underlying problems with the whole exercise. Events hop from A to B to C without any inbetween development. I don't care about the characters or the events because I'm not following them, I'm just seeing small snapshots
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Post by Kingoji on Jun 9, 2009 15:22:13 GMT
I only read a little bit on the IDW boards of that Q&A before the hypocricy got to me. For the last eleven months the series has been becried for it's massive failings, and people have not been polite about it. When the writer himself turns up to answer questions (IMHO, he shouldn't so much have shown up to answer questions as to flat out explain himself) all the members became sugary-sweet about it.
"Thanks for doing this."
"Don't mean to be rude, but..."
"Don't take this the wrong way..."
"Oh, I get it now, thanks!"
Any writer worth his salt should not be having his works picked apart in bafflement by the reader, let alone have to address them personally and tell them "No, no, you got it all wrong!"
From the answers I did read, he just seemed to dance around new ways of simply saying "Cuz I wanted to. I'm the one writing this, deal with it."
If he envisioned his story theatrically, then the actual story should not be so convoluted. You do not, after all, envision Megatron's twisting schemes and plots visually. We didn't get this irreverant personality ensemble of Earth's most notable tyrants and conquerors By thinking "He'll polish his fusion cannon with a US flag. That'll explain everything" and we don't get the construction, manipulation and destruction of the Decepticon empire explained to us with the images of Megatron once again chiding Starscream or going up against Devastator.
McCarthy cannot characterise, it's that simple. His idea of characterisation is to take a character and make them something they never were. Perceptor is a prime example of this.
I have nothing against IDW's alterations of many of the characters, and in most cases I applaud them. But not a single one of McCarthy's re-imaginings make any kind of logical transitional sense. That said, with IDW's track record of altering established characters, I can't help but wonder if what they did with Perceptor would have been such an issue if they hadn't followed it up with the line "When did Perceptor become scary?". That tells us that he used to be the guy we know, but isn't anymore. Why? Who cares.
There has not been a single moment in AHM which I would consider a plus (Story-wise at least. EJ's flashback art was a highlight of IDW's totality thus far, if you ask me), and I would even go as far as to say that I hope this guy never works on the TransFormers again after this arc is through, and that's not something I would say about any one else. Even Howard Makie's Spider-Man run was better than this.
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Post by blueshift on Jun 9, 2009 15:37:56 GMT
and I would even go as far as to say that I hope this guy never works on the TransFormers again after this arc is through, and that's not something I would say about any one else. Even Howard Makie's Spider-Man run was better than this. He's quoted on the IDW board as saying his next project will be a comparison of the Decepticons to Communism / Naziism No, really. |
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Post by grahamthomson on Jun 9, 2009 15:42:26 GMT
Well put, Mr K!
I noticed the change in tone of posters on there when anyone creative shows up, too. As long as people articulate their comments and criticisms in a well-structured and intelligent manner, I don't see what the problem would be.
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Post by Kingoji on Jun 9, 2009 15:55:04 GMT
and I would even go as far as to say that I hope this guy never works on the TransFormers again after this arc is through, and that's not something I would say about any one else. Even Howard Makie's Spider-Man run was better than this. He's quoted on the IDW board as saying his next project will be a comparison of the Decepticons to Communism / Naziism No, really. Oh, dear God... They're ALIENS! Is it not possible that they have methods, goals and beliefs that differ from humanity's dark history?! ^ Exactly. But I don't see the point in putting anything towards him, myself. He doesn't give you an answer which actually answers you unless it's about something which he really didn't put much thought to. The whole Perceptor thing, for example. I mean, how much of a slap in the face is it to the fans of that character for him to make this drastic change and then basically say "I felt like it. I don't much care about explaining things properly, someone else will probably do it anyway." |
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Post by The Doctor on Jun 9, 2009 16:46:02 GMT
Having listened to the recent interview, McCarthy comes across as a chap who has put a lot of thought into the series and has some interesting ideas. Whether they come across, I'm not sure (just read online previews).
-Ralph
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Post by charlesrocketboy on Jun 9, 2009 16:53:18 GMT
He's quoted on the IDW board as saying his next project will be a comparison of the Decepticons to Communism / Naziism No, really. Wasn't THIS miniseries meant to be the one that spotlighted the baddies? There's been twelve issues, why would another one be needed? EDIT: And his response to Thundercracker not having an arc, just being grumpy and having a tantrum in a flashback with no payoff, is "The series isn't over yet". You've got one issue left, how are you to do a payoff to that which doesn't look halfarsed? |
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Post by grahamthomson on Jun 9, 2009 17:45:29 GMT
It's not always easy get a point or specific image across, especially for a new and/or inexperienced writer.
In that regard, constructive feedback is priceless. That, or a good editor.
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Post by blueshift on Jun 9, 2009 18:42:17 GMT
He's not a new or inexperienced writer though, he's been writing for ages for guys like DC. He's not done MUCH, but its more than most.
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Post by dinogrrl on Jun 9, 2009 23:37:08 GMT
This is true, he's not a total noob. Noob to writing an extended series, yes, but he's done work for DC before now.
People have raised the pacing issues with him and he's blown that off as personal style. Well, yeah, it might be in part, but it still makes it read poorly in places.
As to the butt kissing in the thread - well, yeah. As I discovered, you have to dance around everything to get to the answers you want.
I've got to wonder now who is doing the Perceptor story in AHM 15. It hasn't been announced so I wonder if it's Shane and maybe IDW is not wanting to announce that he's doing more than one CODA story in order not to deter people.
It'll likely explore Shane's ideas for Perceptor's change, but like you've said, I shouldn't have to wait for a late add-on issue in the future to have such a critical character change explained or contextualized. I shouldn't have to eternally wait to see what's written next in order to have an opinion or draw conclusions.
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Post by grahamthomson on Jun 10, 2009 6:59:54 GMT
He's not a new or inexperienced writer though, he's been writing for ages for guys like DC. Whoops! I don't know what made me draw that conclusion. How embarrassing! Well, not for me, you understand. |
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Post by grahamthomson on Jun 11, 2009 6:46:33 GMT
Erk! Tea and crumpets to that thread. STAT!
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Post by charlesrocketboy on Jun 11, 2009 10:48:15 GMT
I presume you're referring to when Shane said:
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Which, yeah, would be irritating if you're a pro writer, but OTOH how's it possible to criticise or analyse written fiction without saying "it should've been written this way" at some point?
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Jun 11, 2009 11:07:51 GMT
Yet another reason why those boards should be shitcanned. If you can't handle criticism in a professional manner don't post there. If I have paid money then I have a right to an opinion and if you've done something in a cack-handed manner and I point this out and ask or suggest a different approach - deal with it with some degree of composure.
Andy
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