Yeah, Alex does such a good job giving them life and personality. I don't think the next artist will be BAD, but...
I stayed up all night listening to this MTMTE podcast http://soundwavcast.com/ They go page by page and comment on everything, their dying of the light podcast is really good. Relive the 'fun' of reading that series for the first time again! There's audio issues in the beginning, one of the voice tracks is much louder than the other, so it's hard to find a happy medium where you can hear one speaker clearly, but the other isn't blasting in your ear. Luckily that clears up by at least issue 47 (I think it gradually gets better? Not sure.
I'm just wary with how Windblade and others have been drawn lately. But I always worry that any given comics I enjoy is going to have the people upstairs realize GIRLS are reading and we can't have that quick new artists that will draw what BOYS like which always seems to translate into BOOBS and traces from porn mags.
Is it like that in the comics industry? I know that cartoons get hit with 'must appeal to a specific gender to fulfill requirements for advertisers, if it appeals more to the other binary gender then everyone gets confused and we must cancel the show', but the Transformers comics don't have to appeal to a certain gender demographic or lose advertising money. The IDW comics are targeted to adults in the first place, and I think the goal of many of their ongoings are to draw people into transformers who wouldn't normally be interested in the series. Possibly they were trying to use sex appeal to sell issues for that revolution Windblade? But it might be that they just wanted to give a well known illustrator a comic to feature in? That issue of Windblade's was extremely cheesecake anime-y, that could be Naoto's normal way of tackling female characters? It really wouldn't surprise me if that's the case. One of the reasons I never got into comics was the cheesecakey way ladies are drawn. If it starts happening regularly in the IDW series I purchase. I'm probably not going to buy all these comics anymore.
Spoiler: Cybertronians and art I think the intellectual class includes artists thing might come from Dominus being an artist as part of his general renaissance man thing? But reacting to the original post - I think it's interesting that although we see the Lost Light crew consuming a lot of media, it's almost exclusively human media. There's some counter examples - Nautica has her literary quotes for all occasions but she's Camien, there are a few historical films mentioned (although I think most of them are explicitly noted to be either documentaries, propaganda or both), and of course there's the Empyrean Suite - but most of the time you've got Whirl watching off world cinema, or Tailgate requesting The Power of Love, or just Swerve in general. And I get why you'd do this, from a Doylist perspective. When you've got Rewind wanting to recite 'a poem about poppies' and you know it's In Flanders Fields, then you can evoke all the feelings associated with the poem easily without sacrificing space from your 25 page comic to write it out, let alone coming up with new in the first place. But on the other hand, it implies that over 4 million years of war, no cybertronian wrote anything similar, that they've got no tradition of war poetry or art and that's... really sad, actually. (Also I checked the shadowplay arc for any examples of art and the only non-advertising ones I could see were the statues on the Ark memorial and around the basilica, both of which are likely to predate the rest of the city. So, more evidence for Spock's theory) Spoiler: Revolution I have to admit the meta crossover stuff didn't really mesh for me? But I'm never going to complain about the scavengers being adorable and there was so much of that here, (although how do you mess up human faces that much, your face is already pretty much human) MP3 was also great and the social media bits, and Grimlock - I really don't get where people are getting -he's faking- from this, but it reminds me of the mitunacourse and that means I can safely ignore it and just enjoy his relationship with Misfire. One thing that did seem a bit odd was their reaction to the stadium, particularly compared to how they were acting on that battlefield where they were first introduced? I mean yeah, character development, but it does come across as a bit rushed.
I've also noted that when Cyclonus sings, Drift does not recognize it as singing. They say it's because of his accent and 'gusto' or something like that, but I'm just...his singing in Old Cybertronian sounds that foreign to an entire shipful of people? He's either really, really terrible at singing, or - I prefer to think - Old Cybertronian songs are nearly inaccessible to modern mechs because the most that survived the rise of the Functionist movement was instrumental music that was less likely to get censored; the Empyrean Suite is supposedly ancient, from around the time of the Thirteen Tribes, and if it ever had words to accompany it, they're lost to memory. Getting exposed to human culture and media might have been the one of the best things for kick starting Cybertron's latent culture and arts back into gear. It's kind of hard to tell whether the speech bubble links to Swerve or Cyclonus in this panel but: Exactly how fast did Cyclonus pick up Earth songs? Who introduced him to it? It appears to be pretty pervasive throughout an Autobot-heavy ship, so - how hungry were Cybertronians for an artistic/media outlet that wasn't war documentaries that they've absorbed Earth music whole? Are the Decepticons lagging behind due to the general disdain for organics but slowly picking it up due to unwitting osmosis? Do they bother to translate it into Neo-Cybex, or just keep it in the original language and sing along? Will someone like Jazz ever remix the line 'get jazzy on it' from Jason Derulo's 'Talk Dirty To Me' and beat someone up to the music??? The exact answers don't matter. The room for headcanons, however, delights me
Okay but how quickly did Decepticons pick up music from other colonies, if some of them were lagging behind with earth music bc organics?
...ok I'm too lazy to go back and check, but might that self hating decepticon guy have been one of cybertron's first stand up comics? And that seems like the kind of idea that they'd get from Earth - or at least in the form that we see it in.
psst Spoiler: from the stream ok but sentinel BA and Optimus threeway angry traumatized <3< have you considered this also, BA domming the fuck out of sentinel and getting optimus into it and optimus getting whyboners he is pretty sure he shouldn't be into this and _yet_ f
I've still got a cold so it's time to take another crack at TFP Spoiler: s2e2 awwwwww back to Prime as narrator, boooo. I like Ratchet's voice better. the fact that screamer is actually given pause by "I mean no harm" is making me sad :< poor bb expects to get murdered by everyone, someone help this jet screamer. I don't know what you're planning but this doesn't sound like it's heading for a redemption arc but where did the cubes go lookit my son go :DDD it's nice to see starscream actually competent again instead of being thrown around by megs or the villain of the week OH GOD I JINXED IT I'M SORRY SCREAMER I mean at least they're testing with nonsapients. Thanks Ratchet Thanks Ratchet Staaaaaaarscreeeeeeam baaaaaaaaaaby is this the "bad guy turns ally" episode I've been dreaming of? (of course not, it never is, but I can dream) "it's a ship, it moves!" he's kinda got a point there Ratch DAMMIT RATCHET "reliable source" #0kay oh god the bad human animation A genericon with a voice!! :D this is supposed to be dramatic but I still don't give a shit about jack does he at least get to meet alpha trion or smth? "He'll recognize our voices--" [look to Bee] "?????? what the fuck guys come on" NAT 20 BLUFF I'm like 80% sure that's the seat of the Senate guys aaaAAAAAA HELLO LITTLE MAGNETBUG AREN'T YOU JUST THE CUTEST LITTLE THING Spoiler: s2e3 Oooh, Luna 1 never vanished in this continuity! sparkles should yell about brutalism some more because they did a great job on Kaon It's this beautiful syncretism of imperial roman layout (which is a nice nod to Megs' gladiatorial origins) and stalinist aesthetic and I am In Love well that was pretty hell to listen to, but pretty if cute magnet bug is a for-real insecticon I will be Happy I feel like those... chelicerae? Mandibles? What are those? pointy mouthbits are supposed to be intimidating but I kinda wanna pet 'em HE IS AN INSECTICON YAY ...I mean. To be fair, we don't know there aren't more insecticons down the tunnel. Or more security systems. Sure, Jack should find cover, but going too far ahead is... not the best idea well shit, thanks vecsig, just lock the bodyguard out Some of the insecticon's plating is iridescent and I think that's a lovely touch OOOOOO HELLO LOVELY YOUR ALT-MODE IS GORGEOUS ...is the insecticon going to get eaten by scraplets or are those swarmbabies oh my god jack you are a fraction of any given cybertronian's size, what are you going to do with a single old pipe? hoo damn vector sigma is gorgeous ...please don't get vector sigma eaten by scraplets Nice ...is that the matrix oh nooooooooo scraplets are still too cute children I love you but even three-on-one I'd put my money on Megs oh my god just fuckin. throw him over the edge. goodbye ratchet. goodbye team rocket that doesn't even sound like a motorcycle engine, jack ...on the other hand, muffled hearing because helmet. hrmph. fine. I wonder what the hivemind is like that redirecting a single scraplet can force them all to target oh my god suddenly body horror?? I mean great thinking jack you're not a complete idiot but they just showed someone being dismembered and eaten alive, nameless antagonist or no the animation on vector sigma is still beautiful ...it would be beautifully ironic if decepticon!whirl came and stopped the genericons from beating OP. Not gonna happen, but. oh hot damn that size difference ratchet just has awful luck on that bridge oh my god that is a beautiful roar, A+ voice acting Well. Not as much beautiful pitch tension as I wanted out of that arc, but oh well, it was pretty fun anyway. next episode is apparently Bee-centric tho yaaaaasssss Also, do we have a release date for LL#1 yet or is it still just "sometime in December"?
hi. how do i buy the exrid and mtmte comics in some kind of anthology? i need all of them yesterday because i am have feels.
@pixels, two options! The paperback trades will contain coherent storylines for their titles (excepting crossovers in exrid and mtmte for dark cybertron and in exrid and windblade for combiner wars, which have their own compiled trades), but you will miss the occasional one-shot or miniseries. The other options is the hardcover trades, which switch off between mtmte and exrid, but have the one-shots and such included at the appropriate spots. I can get you amazon links when I'm home. I personally really prefer the paperbacks, they're a smoother read and you can lose yourself in the story, though some of the one-shots REALLY ought to have been included in those compilations (searching transformers idw phase two will get you to roughly the right spot on amazon for the hardcovers, searching for the paperbacks is a little harder because of generic series names, but if you can find one, they link to each other)
Here we go! I don't know how much you might have read, so I'll just type assuming you're starting from scratch. And first, I know you're talking phase two (which is most of the best stuff, tbh), but if the market for comics, I highly, highly recommend Last Stand of the Wreckers, my favorite part of phase one, not only for the incredible comic itself, but for the thirty-something pages of supplemental material that come with the hardcover. This stuff informs a lot of the early events of MTMTE, especially Prowl and Fort Max and all that, but oh my god. THE MINOR CHARACTER HEAVEN. Basically, you should come love Rotorstorm with me. He's my baby. I love him so much. Then phase two! If you are looking for every last scrap of comic, that's the hardcovers, though I think it's pretty jarring jumping between the two ongoing series and the spotlights and various miniseries can be kinda hit or miss. There are four hardcovers out right now, and they're each fairly pricey and only take you through issue 18 of exrid and issue 16 of mtmte, with various other comics sprinkled throughout. Volume 1 is here, though I guess it's temporarily out of stock through amazon proper right now :? Compared to that, in the paperback trades, you get a storyline that's much smoother to read, but you do lose those other comics. Now, I will say that most of the miniseries are up on viewcomic, and spotlight: trailcutter, spotlight: hoist, and spotlight: megatron have been shittily pirated by yours truly and have homes somewhere in this thread's past. When there are crossovers, these books lose the story temporarily, and IDW puts out separate trade compilations for the crossover event (dark cybertron, combiner wars, and I think preorders are open for titans return). I want to say there are also usually trade versions of the miniseries, though the only two I can personally confirm exist are Empire of Stone (so many dratchet feelings) and Windblade (SO!!! GORGEOUS!!!!! best transformers dollars i have spent, except maybe lsotw). Edit: Forgot Sins Of The Wreckers, which is a sequel to lsotw, but won't make sense until you get to th he exrid 40s. But! Reading through mtmte and exrid is still pretty gr8 even if you're missing a little supplementary story, and that's how I shotgunned the thing my first time through. More Than Meets The Eye, volume 1 Robots In Disguise, volume 1 I think they're both at about volume 10, which takes it up to issue 55 of MTMTE (unspeakably intense) and exRiD (less intense, but still pretty fascinating). And of course, complicating things, Robots In Disguise got renamed to The Transformers in its 30s, More Than Meets The Eye is going to resume as Lost Light any day now (renumbered from 1), and there is a brand new series called Till All Are One that's only about five issues in so far (exrid started on cybertron, then shifted focus to earth, taao stays planted on cybertron and watches what's happening there). There is also a current crossover event with GI Joe and Rom that I'm not totally up to speed on (the mtmte issue for this was meta and sad and hilarious and i loved it), but it's way better than I'd expect from Hasbro crossing over three of its sell-these-toys-pls franchises. But I don't know what's up with that, SO HEY. Plenty of comics material to roll around in before you even have to worry about getting to that point. If you have any other questions, just let me know!! I don't know if you noticed, but it is REALLY EASY to get me started talking about giant robots and everything to do with them.
Lost Light #1: I'm not sure what I think about this issue, but I REALLY miss Alex's art... It's going to take me awhile to adjust.
