Hachette's G1 Definitive Collection content chat thread

[inflatabledalek]

May 10, 2017 20:24:15 GMT The Doctor said:

This is amazing:

www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=524080657982971&id=100011431245251&comment_id=524185954639108¬if_t=feed_comment_reply¬if_id=1494434416834339

-Ralph

And considering it's not the best drawn issue in the series, the colouring on that Silverbolt panel is much more solid that we've seen so far. So it looks like it's only the US aping ones I'm going to find a clusterfuck, which is something of a relief.

(This is where a wiser art expert that me points out that is aping the US style and I'm an idiot)

And speaking of colours...

Out of curiosity, I decided to compare my own scan of Worlds Apart to the Hachette version (and from what I've seen people say as well as being just a reuse of the IDW reprint, it is in turn a reuse of the Titan reprint) to see exactly how washed out and faded it was, and the result was actually worse than I thought:

Headmasters was a good bonkers read. Though I think it might actually be a series that benefited from being so broken up by the UK printing and the shifts in tone are so frequent and often random it lends itself better to little bites.

It is yet another book where the ordering is somewhat out of sync, but understandably. It makes for a more cohesive book to have Headmasters-The two part follow up the Headmasters-Worlds Apart all together rather than Headmasters-Worlds Apart-the chunk of UK issues after Worlds Apart. It's just a shame, again, it's at odds with how the series was promoted.

Actually, a few Marvel books into the run now and it's increasingly clear than even in volumes containing material from both the UK and US, there is going to be a clear divide between the two. You're not going to get a book where it's, for example, UK story-US story-UK story even if that's how it was originally printed. It's going to be "Here's a chunk of the US and here's a chunk of the UK, with their own separate introductions and recaps and behind the scenes stuff". Hence things like King of the Hill being in the wrong place.

Ironically for a series where a fuss was made of it being the first time the UK and US stuff had been reprinted together, it's making the division seem more stark than ever.

Also a shame there are no direct quotes from Budiansky in the making of material as he was promoted as being involved in the series on the website (mind, we've not seen Andrew Wlidman yet). It would have been more interesting to hear directly from the horse's mouth rather than Furman parsing what he counterpart was going through. It might have been nice to include the Headmasters pitch document rather than just describing it as well (I must remember at some point to scan that from the Titan book as it's a fascinating read that should be kept in circulation).

[primenova]

Bob has only just been doing stuff for future issues, Simon did his stuff with being over here & working on the series already.

[inflatabledalek]

I bit down and read the Reg book yesterday, assuming I'd dance through it quickly and move on with a shrug of the shoulders at the fact getting the odd rum'un is the one downside of subscribing to a series like this (or it would be the one downside if Hachette didn't keep adding new and interesting downsides).

But I'd forgotten quite how awful it is. Issue 80.5 reads like a parody and the rest--despite a handful of good ideas that would make for a good comic if it didn't keep cutting away to the dead weight (something John Barber clearly agreed on actually, there's a lot of influences on later Ex-RID here. Especially Soundwave as the one true believer in Megatron's vision)--is overwhelming the worst thing Furman has ever written. By a mile.

Circuit Smasher is a handy poster child for the whole series. A continuity point that really didn't need addressing (was Circuit Breaker ever so popular this series couldn't happen without a copyright avoiding dodge?), looks idiotic and against the stated intent of not being retro and is just fucking stupid. Seriously, CS doesn't have a single line of dialogue that's not the equivalent of being bummed by Jar Jar Binks.

And Optimus Prime is awful as well. Marvel Prime would only ever be depressed when inactive, pretty much every time he felt down going out and punching the shit out of something would sort him out (Crisis of Command and Yesterday's Heroes being fine examples), he would never spend 21 years feeling sad about not being dead. Frankly Bay Prime is far truer to the Marvel take.

The good bits mainly consists of a Mad Megatron twatting Earth. Sort of what All Hail Megatron should have been. But it can never get going.

And Wildman's art... The man was ludicrously passionate about Reg at conventions, with some mildly barmy yet entertaining old hippy ideas about Transformers.

So why does the work look so much like that of a guy who didn't give a fuck?

Or did he suddenly develop a fear of mouths?

Mind, I think Llama God on twitter may have hit the nail on the head when he compared it to a storyboard. I believe that's the area Wildman has mainly worked in recent years and that lack of the detail you'd expect in a comic but which would work fine for a rough guide to an animation seems to have carried over.

Of course, that shows an editorial failure for not asking for appropriate revisions. It looks like the normally reliable Barber was just like, "Yeah, give us anything, fuck it."

The making of material (and even the back cover!) is annoying as well for treating it as if it's The One And Only Ever Marvel Follow Up Ever (without doing perhaps the more useful thing for new readers experiencing the comics through this series of making it crystal clear that even though Hachette are treating UK and US as one and the same--even if in only lip service--Reg is only carrying on from the US), which just makes me want to punch everyone involved.

I mean, I could if I so wished have the 200AD continuation of Dan Dare, the Revolver continuation of Dan Dare and the Virgin continuation of Dan Dare all on my bookcase. All contradictory and no doubt some are more popular with fans than others, but with no attempt by the publishers that theirs is the only one that matters. Why not have G2 and Reg on the same bookcase as well?

With the Star Trek partwork Eaglemoss are doing occasional special "Super size" hardbacks for big crossover stories at a higher price point. Whilst on the one hand it's impressive Hachette aren't trying to milk extra cash by, say, doing All Hail Megatron and Dark Cybertron that way, if they were to do just one for G2 they could take my cash. And I suspect the cash of a lot of other people as well.

[primenova]

Got #11 today - G2 is stated in the guide extras.

[inflatabledalek]

May 17, 2017 8:29:31 GMT primenova said:

Got #11 today - G2 is stated in the guide extras.

Furman includes its name in a list of TF things he wrote after Marvel before saying Marvel itself had never been followed up on.

[Kingoji]

I think that the train of thought is that G2 is considered a seperate whole to the original Marvel series and Regeneration One is a direct continuation.
Generation 2 acknowledges the orifinal run as being in-canon, but the series itself didn't pick up and tie off any actual plot threads the original series left dangling, with the exception of some cursory house cleaning. It can and should be taken entirely as it's own thing. It's much like Beast wars in that respect: it doesn't shy from it's history being a seperate series, and you'll certainly get more from it if you're familiar with the prior work, but is it necessary to have experienced it to enjoy Beast Wars? Not even remotely.
Whereas the whole point of Regeneration One was to take those dangling threads from Marvel and weave something out of them rather than snipping them neatly off like G2 did. There's no point in reading Regen if you haven't read the Marvel run. In that way, Regen IS the definitive successor. It's just not the only sequel.

[blueshift]

I dunno Ed, both start with what is up with Megatron on Earth, Spike and the Ark and end with Jhiaxus and the Hub. I mean the start of G2 literally picks up from the end of G1 and arguably make less sense on its own

[Kingoji]

Well, that's what I meant by "cursory house-cleaning". There were some obvios things from the end of the original series that simply have to be adressed before you can move forward. G2 did so in a very abrupt, so-we-can-move-on way (and even did a lot of it in a different title before issue one even came out). And While Regeneration One also had to pick up on those same threads before they could move on, it was done so in more of a and-this-will-felt-for-the-rest-of-the-run way. Like I said before, G2 adressed threads by snipping them short, RG1 addressed them by weaving them into the whole.

Not sure what both having Jhiaxus and The Hub has to do with it though. No one said anything about them not having similarities, or that RG1 is how it was alwasy *supposed* to be. Just that RG1 is better as a finale to the series than G2 was, since G2 was in itself supposed to be ongoing and also cut short.

[blueshift]

I meant more on that they felt pretty similar in structure. I get what you mean in that RG1 picked up /more/ loose ends but there were still loose ends in G2, and not all the plots in RG1 were loose ends. (Ie the appearance of the key that turned you evil)

Thinking about it, it was
Arc 1 - Megatron faffing about Earth
Arc 2 - scorponok and his evil key
Arc 3 - uuuuuuuuuuh I actually can't recall
Arc 4 - Jhiaxus and those monster dudes under Cybertron, also energon rodimus

[Kingoji]

3 was Bludgeon's final assault.

The threads are there though, even if they aren't the focus. What happened to Earth isn't promptly forgotten, and is actually important to the end-game of the final boss. The Primordials, the Nucleon, the awakening of Primus and subsequent 'early' attack of Unicron, loss of the Matrix, and ultimately the 'chosen one' thus never ascending are all continuing strands.

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Have to say I think G2 in some respects flowed more naturally from Marvel than RG1 did. For example, it gave Fortress Maximus a proper (if badly drawn) send-off, it acknowledged the previous interaction with G.I. Joe, and it didn't contradict the UK stuff in the way RG1 did with Ultra Magnus, the Wreckers, etc. (It featured the Survivors of the Time Wars, Springer, Broadside and Inferno, but left out Sandstorm and the Jumpstarters. If I recall correctly, it also left out Wildrider who was killed in the Earthforce stories, but featured the other Stunticons.) Admittedly, it didn't explain how Grimlock got his dinosaur mode back.

Also, it didn't take us out of the "this could be happening in our world" conceit, in the way that RG1 forced Transformers into a post-apocalyptic world very different from our Earth - something the original comic would not have done had it continued. What was the point in skipping 20 years to keep RG1 in the current year if it's no longer an Earth based on our Earth?

Another point in G2's favour - no reference to sparks.

But it's all irrelevant. The one true continuation of the original comic is the one Andy is drawing elsewhere in this forum.

Martin

[primenova]

Just looking at Andrew's original art lot on ebay www.ebay.co.uk/sch/davidjh24/m.html?item=262990669392&ul_noapp=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562

Mouths are drawn on the smaller artwork but Andrew just did pencil compared to UK art on that list or original art on ebay where Andrew inked it. Also IDW are not keen on paying - I expect Titan & Panini pay more & they pay in peanuts. Why are the tpb's cost £30 when they don't pay the creators (told on here James doesn't get paid anything for the extra stuff he is doing for UKC).

[Benn]

Stephen Baskerville did all the inking, maybe he wasn't too keen on the mouths?

[Benn]

Sorry, Baskerville did the inking on ReGen, not all of Wildmans original work.

[kinggrimlock]

Info for Issue 12 is now up on the Hachette website, and it's ANOTHER change from the original Previews solicitations (starting to look like they're not worth the paper they are printed on at this point). That's 3 out of 12 now!

Anyway, rather then the originally trailered Cosmic Carnival collection, it's our first foray into the second half of the collection. The featured cover star is Prowl, and it details it as Volume #50: Heart of Darkness. It's also the first one that has new contents to me, as I'd long given up on IDW by this point. Actually quite looking forward to reading this - didn't realise the always readable Abnett & Lanning were behind this one. Or maybe I did, but as it was following the Infestation multi title pile up I gave it a wide berth. Wonder if it will follow the IDW "recommended reading order" from their collected editions and include part of Transformers #19 to 31 from the IDW Collection Volume 8 as well. Can't see it including the whole lot!

[primenova]

That should have been v43? The v40-49 must be thin. v38 Devastation. That leaves v40-49 to be 16 issues AHM, spotlights *15, Max Dino 5, Bumblebee 4, Last stand 5, ongoing #1-18, Infestation 2 or 4? Than'll be 6 issues per v40-19 (I was hoping they would stick to 9 issues)

[tomwe]

May 19, 2017 6:36:52 GMT primenova said:

(I was hoping they would stick to 9 issues)

Yes, me too. Feels like the six issue trade pattern is becoming the norm, so we are basically just getting a nice HC edition of the IDW TPBs, which for a tenner isn't too bad, but when compared to the average 200 pages of the JDMC is a bit of a comedown. At least the 80 issues will take up less space on my shelf!

[browny87]

ive enjoyed reading them so far, what surprised me is how much of the storys id forgotten, admittedly some of them I haven't read in over 10 years!

[primenova]

I read the text extra when I get the issues then I'm reading the issue later, but missing out the text boxes - reading it has watching a tv show that doesn't have text boxes up when the scene shifts, but you need to rememeber where you are on scene shifts.

[Pinwig]

The index in the first post needs an update. I went looking for Legacy of Unicron today and almost bought TF/GIJoe.

[blueshift]

May 20, 2017 9:04:28 GMT Pinwig said:

The index in the first post needs an update. I went looking for Legacy of Unicron today and almost bought TF/GIJoe.

A terrifying mistake narrowly averted!!!

[Pinwig]

Well quite!

[wordmongerer]

Dear All,

Just spied a few questions so thought I'd give a few answers:

1. As stated in the colour commentary in vol 3, the style of colouring for the strips depends entirely on the continuity it follows regardless of which country it originated in. So Race with the Devil and Fallen Star follow US continuity despite being a UK originated strip. So the colour ref will follow what was in the Underbase Saga and the stories containing the classic Pretenders (so background Soundwave is Magenta as Ed said). At a certain point along the way the UK was instructed to follow the US way of colouring, so the techniques becomes the same though the guys and gals in the UK were geniuses in making combinations to generate richer pallets. That's why Survivors etc has been done in a richer, denser style.

2. For Aspects of Evil (coming soon!) the colouring style is not bound by continuity. I felt doing something like Regen would be too far removed from the time, but instead I have coloured it in a way that could have been rendered with inks and airbrush but that still feels modern without any computer trickery. It's a style based a little on contrast and is hopefully both bold and subtle. You guys will ultimately be the judge - the Superion panel that Simon shared is in that style. It is likely that Earth Force will follow this colour line too with minor tweaks.

3. Raiders has been coloured to match as closely as possible the original. As far as I can tell the original was coloured in marker pen! This involved some exceptionally detailed hi res scans and taking the texture and colour choices from the original (including a Megs with a lot of gold!). There were two changes made to the originals, one was a colouring error pointed out by Mike Collins himself that affected the linework (see if you can spot it) that I corrected and the other was that the Guardian colours were changed to match all subsequent appearances. When he is taken down he is left a solid colour in that Yomtovy way of doing things.

When I showed the old and new pages side by side to friends not familiar with which pages were coloured originally, they could not tell which had been done by me and which were original. Obviously you will know better, but my intention has been to be sympathetic to the time period, continuity and intent and not to make changes except where it really seemed worth doing. Also, crucially, only where Simon felt that there was a reason to change things at the colour stage.

4. The original pages featured are generally what Hasbro holds, which I *think* for the most part are what IDW have produced/printed. Some of the pages where Hasbro do not hold them or there is some other problem with the pages, I have scanned originals in at super high resolutions, cleaned them up, removed any yellowing from the page, and remastered it so that reference colours of CMYK are matched to be as close to the day they were printed as possible. The cost and time of doing this is not really practicable for every page, but is something that has been done on a case by case basis. However if there is something in particular which you guys know could do with some TLC in any upcoming reprint I can always try and flag it to the powers that be, bearing in mind that I can promise nothing!

[primenova]

Hi John - there is the issue with that 2 page Dan Reed spread that Titan mis printed in the TPB LOU. Was really printed badly compared to the original UK comic. But I expect that is the page you told me about back in London Jan17.

[wordmongerer]

May 26, 2017 6:15:00 GMT primenova said:

Hi John - there is the issue with that 2 page Dan Reed spread that Titan mis printed in the TPB LOU. Was really printed badly compared to the original UK comic. But I expect that is the page you told me about back in London Jan17.

Doesn't ring a bell - let me know which pages in which story and I'll see what I can do!

JP

[primenova]

#148 when we had a few double page spreads - but the Titan printing was really bad with the 2nd fight page printed wrong so was on page 3,4 instead of 2,3. I'll take photo later on. You'll know it when you see it.

[Pinwig]

Blimey! How amazing is that?! The actual Wordmongerer on the forum!

[Jaymz]

May 26, 2017 11:35:39 GMT primenova said:

#148 when we had a few double page spreads - but the Titan printing was really bad with the 2nd fight page printed wrong so was on page 3,4 instead of 2,3. I'll take photo later on. You'll know it when you see it.

This one?

[primenova]

I sent JP the photo of the Titan printing. How that got passed the checking. If Simon Furman had seen it they would have had a feature page inserted.

[primenova]

#12 v50 - profile Hardhead