DON FIGUEROA'S ART WOULD FIT SO MUCH BETTER IN BAYVERSE. Oh my goodness, it actually kind of works with that aesthetic. But it was... upsetting having the bright cartoony comic art suddenly turn into that. His part of the series and the Heart Of Darkness part, those are the bits I struggle with worst. Phase one was occasionally a dark, dark place XD
See, I only got this out if context and it was just the first thing that sprang to mind. Same greymetal base and extreme segmentation, and a tendency towards very nonhuman mouthes.
don't forget "resident of the uncanny valley". and "nightmare fuel". especially when paired with that bright comicky coloration.
I actually went to look up some dates to see if maybe this was an effect of the bayverse movies coming out, because it makes a lot of sense. I'd have to go look up dates for individual issues and backtrack a little ways to when they were probably drawn versus published, and also try to pin down when the bayverse concept art started getting locked down versus the movie itself coming out... but it's possible. I know the books were sometime around 2005 or so, but he had art duties for a while and I'm not sure of dates. And the first movie came out in 2007, but it was so heavy on the effects that design must have been locked down way earlier. So it's definitely a plausible explanation, and makes way more sense than him just doing this nonsense all on his own! Especially because the art search on google to find that had some art that really does look much nicer. As far as I remember... I think this art was from the time period where it was after All Hail Megatron, where things were deteriorating between autobots and humans, and humans were starting to do mad science shit to mess with cybertronians. It was kind of depressing story-wise, and it has Hot Rod doing his ~Rodimus Prime~ thing, and Optimus surrendering to the humans and Bumblebee getting railroaded into the leader role. But the art definitely didn't help my reading comprehension, so I really ought to try again, or at least read the wiki pages :P
Honestly I alwaya kinda wanna take bayverse style and try to make it work, because I love the idea of less human looking transformers. But it doesnt work as a hard switch from bright comic style ETA: Good luck Spock!
The TFP movie-ish designs looked so nice, and I can definitely see how they could go a bit more detailed and alien without going the full bayverse. It would be so neat to see art with that kind of thing. Some of the designs have really awesome bones, like Soundwave and Ravage, it's just when they keep piling the unnecessary detail on that my heart nopes away from the aesthetics.
I’m pretty sure I remember reading on the wiki that his style was Bay movie inspired. He gave up doing steel-looking teeth and just did normal comics teeth after a few issues.
That definitely makes sense!! I went to poke at his wiki page, and he had credits for comics where I didn't remember any art complaints, plus art credits back with dreamwave, so he definitely wasn't new to the franchise. And that picture of Rodimus particularly reminded me of the ????WHY??? design for Wheeljack from the live action movies. I definitely can see the inspiration now!
....this is so accurate I never even thought about it in that way, but it's so true. Warm up his lighting a bit, and Wheeljack would look right at home in Dark Crystal
alright alright I'm gonna..... Attempt OP. once I'm done OP I can go read rom for sweet sweet GC shenanigans, it'll be fine Spoiler: Optimus Prime 1 liveblog "now and forever, war is over" says the guy.............. annexing a sovereign planet............... I?? think that's Aileron??? but Ramen Man is ruining my robot id oh look one line into the comic proper instead of recap and there's already grammar issues aaaaaaaaaaaaah fuck you zeta "[Post-Nova Primes] weren't legends. They were despots." buddy ol buddy ol pal I love the Thirteen as much as the next nerd but you are sorely mistaken if you think any of them was a paragon of kindness they're all over the lawful-chaotic axis but their second alignment is firmly Asshole Zeta's in on Shockwave's grooming program. Huh. zeeeeeeeeeetaaaaaaaa ....I thought the old-fashioned texturing was intentional to set the flashback apart but nah, the rest of the issue looks like that too hm :T "spread freedom" mmmmmhhhhhhhh Optimus continues to be a thinly-veiled auto(heh)personification of the US that is the worst-laid-out panel I've seen in a while I can't even blame it on introducing new characters because the intros are badly laid out too "Jazz: trying to be the laid-back one" honey OPTIMUS YOU DON'T NEED ANOTHER COLONY GO FUCK YOURSELF "Somebody told him he was a space messiah one too many times, so he started to believe it" tbh this probs ain't far off from the truth "how is this even fucking possible" "because it has to be" that's not a helpful answer you gigantic bag of dicks, either provide concrete solutions or fuck off thank you ratchet that sure is a drill Spoiler: OP 2 "Arcee: Not sure about this plan" me too babe JUNKIONS I'm love the junkions "Do you speak for Earth?" "It's complicated." "Not really." A+ unified front, good job uuuuuuurrrrrrrrrgh I forgot there was a gi joe crossover involved gross PROWL god it says a lot when Prowl's who I'm most excited to see in an issue Prowl stopped being a cop, I'm I have Emotions but I can't identify them awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww prowl <3 god baby prowl is so precious a gigantic asshole, but precious oh my god we got soundwave to yell we got soundwave mad oh god "we save the world" "okay sure but like. in a practical sense. what's the to-do list?" #me awwwwwww arcee and sideswipe "some old cat thing" TC ILU I LOVE THUNDERCRACKER marissa tc and buster are on a vacation to egypt im love TC Spoiler: OP 3 I am still so endeared by tc saying "hells yeah" my boy "I'm not scared, I just have a lot of enemies" honey RUMBLE AND FRENZY MY BOYS MY BOYS MY BOYS COSMOS!!!!!!!!! tc is a precious bean and I'm love him "Optimus Prime: Trying to be a diplomat" and failing horribly screamer's got his fuckign boots on the table oml honey "Marissa hatched out of you?" TC HONEY starscream decked out in bullet-casing spikes sure is A Look awwwwwwwwww honey someone talk to cosmos pls rumble and frenzy are jealous that daddy has new friends and it's adorable I refuse to believe that cosmos is gonna die here Spoiler: OP 4 Rumble's having so much fun punning at sharkticons "aside from elephants, you're my favorite" high praise I love aileron HORRIBULL AND NEEDLENOSE BLESS the art for this series remains hideous tbh ......soundwave thinks of cosmos before his cassettes and I have Feelings
Have you read Optimus Prime? I call it exRiD too, because what an unusable title for a comic book, but it's the continuation/sequel to that series the way LL is to MTMTE. Otherwise!! The Windblade minseries (drawn by Sarah Stone), the Windblade ongoing (a few issues long, with a more cartoony style), and Till All Are One! :DDDDDD (after that, my recommendation is for Last Stand of the Wreckers and Sins of the Wreckers)
Getting on that, thanks! Also, when that's done is there any comic in this verse where Bumblebee has like, a nice day??? If so, where is it so I can read it a million times.
I'd vote Windblade/TAAO, but if you want we can plow through OP together :P If it matters at all, iirc OP is still ongoing; Windblade and TAAO are complete.
I would love to get through OP together, I'm planning to go back and try liveblogging the whole of mtmte, bc wow I love it so much, and also I spent about up to Dark Cybertron with zero clue what was going on.
Unfortunately, Bumblebee's life throughout the IDW comics is generally pretty garbage. Being Bumblebee is suffering.
