The 40 Years of Comics Project - Days 1432 - 1438: Transformers Generation 1, 2002

'Bout time I got back to this, yeah?

Here's what I've been reading for the last week:

 

 

There was a pretty amazing uproar when this series came out from people who decried the idea that children's toys, and their concomitant narratives, shouldn't be made all gritty and dark. Which, to be fair, is what happens here. The first couple of issues are pretty bloody, which is a bit off-putting given the source material. But the interesting thing is that the narrative is literally about that very thing. A shadowy group takes control of the Transformers and uses them to carry out clandestine attacks. The heroic warriors of yesterday become assassins. Was this a clever anticipation of the push back to the series, or just wild coincidence. Yes to both, probably.

This is a good series. The art is unbelievable, capturing the cartoon-era characters' likenesses with startling accuracy. The story is...okay. It could be I'd been out of touch with the characters for too long when it came out, and certainly now, but it didn't really touch me. It was fun, and lots of things blew up, and there were cool battles (though, now that I think about it, not a lot of transforming - mostly robot battles), but that's about it. It read like the first few Michael Bay films watched. Entertaining, but not life-changing. Which is not a criticism. I love a good bit of entertainment.

As I was reading through, I noted on my Instagram (@giantcomicbox) that the story is slow to get going. We see only shadowed robots, and I got the feeling that it was the beginning of a much longer series. Perhaps the second act of the series picks up speed.

I'm curious to see what happens with the characters in the sequel series, so maybe when that big lottery win happens, I'll go pick up the trades.

Onward.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1105: Top Cow Convention Preview: European Edition, 2000

One of the cool things about my collection is that it's liberally seeded with what are commonly known as "premium" comics. These will be low print run special editions of other series offered for sale to the public through specialty services. Dynamic Forces, the purveyor of today's short comic, is one of the most successful that I know of. Each special edition is accompanied by a lovely certificate stating the print run and this particular issue's individual number.

I've only ordered from DF once or twice, and it was generally to get special comics that actually contained new story material from series I was following. I always thought it was a bit of a scam to withhold story from those who couldn't afford the premium, but I got sucked in anyway. But I think most of their business comes from selling variant covers of pre-existing comics. For instance, today's Top Cow sampler comes in two different covers - one where the characters are in vertical strips and one where they're more horizontally aligned. The interiors are literally the same. It's just the covers that are different. Variants like this are part of the hobby of collecting that I never really did get. I like having a choice of regularly-priced covers (Marvel are killing it with this practice these days), but I never really understood paying a premium for a cardstock or holofoil cover. As I've noted before, I gave up comics basically through the speculator boom of the late 80s and early 90s. I often wonder if I'd have been sucked into it had I still been a collector.

As for today's comic, it's some rough previews of three series. I'll admit, with my new respect for Top Cow's properties and their aesthetic, I was somewhat intrigued by all three. I kind of wonder why this particular preview was a premium comic. Perhaps it's simply that it's a European preview, different somehow from the North American one? But I have two copies of it, one with each cover, so I'm sure I'll pontificate about its premium-ness at least one more time during this project.

To be continued.