I find it rather ironic that you'd chastise one poster for making such statements, and then turn around and say the same thing about people who work on IDW TFs. Uninformed generalizations are a hoot, eh?
The evidence speaks for itself. Given your sig, however, I'm not sure how seriously to take your opinion.
Sorry, but what? Kickback was making an opinionated judgment based on the output of IDW that he has seen/read. RKillian was more or less insulting people who work on this site, because we criticised something.
Yep, and both Kickback and RKillian are incorrect. In the same way. I've put countless amounts of free time into Transformers Mosaic for over two years now, and also worked for IDW on a couple projects very dear to me. There was also that cover art contest that fully engulfed my life for its duration. But apparently I don't care about Transformers just because someone doesn't like the material IDW produces? And those are just personal examples. Kickback called RKillian out for his unfair generalizations*, and I called Kickback out on his. You folks may not care for what IDW produces, and that's fine, but that doesn't mean the work is devoid of anyone who gives a damn about what they're doing. *Which I totally agree are wildly unfounded. I've been seeing firsthand the dedication SQ7 and crew have been putting into this community, and quite frankly its staggering. My hat is off.
It's not so much the material itself, but the way it's being presented and managed. We have things like misplaced speech bubbles, miscolourations, artist fill-ins, truncated endings, poor distribution and botched reboots. It seems reasonable to assume that whoever is in charge at IDW is not putting any heart into the Transformers franchise.
I think Kickback was more referring to directly what IDW is releasing in terms of their "big release comics". I personally love the Mosaics and thought they were the best stuff IDW was releasing. Mosaics are the perfect example of people loving the source material and having the talent to do something with it. I don't think anyone can say the Mosaics are bad. They're typically done by two fans who love the TFs and htey're usually not professionals. I think the issue more comes in from the "big name" creators putting out sub par work and not even following their own established continuity.
Kick, I think if Furman had been allowed to finish what he started, the payoff would have been worth it. The problem was he had too many pots slow boiling, but I think he was cooking one hell of a stew. Look, I understand where your coming from, but no one is saying that your untalented or that any of the creators of IDW are untalented. I may have read this wrong but I inferred from RKillian's argument that we have no right to be upset with IDW because we can't make a better product ourselves. I don't think anyone has done anything but challenged his viewpoint. And maybe I am reading this wrong but no one has said that IDW's contributors are untalented, just that the management hasn't handled the property well. Furman was allowed to create the slow boil story. For all I know he may have been encouraged to do so. Then everything was truncated in a conclusion that was anything other than a conclusion. I was critical of McCarthy's All Hail Megatron until I realized that it's major fault was that it doesn't fit in with the stories that came before it. Taken by itself it is good. It was announced as a stand alone story. I'm sure it was originally written as such. Hell, it's a story about the Decepticons taking over the Earth. It started at a time in Furman's book when the Autobots had left Earth. Yet there is this intricate backstory of how the Decepticons tricked the Autobots and defeated them on Earth. If the story was originally conceived to be in continuity then why the need to have the Autobots on Earth, deceived and defeated when the Decepticons were given the Earth uncontested? This is a management mistake -it's an editorial directive that is just wrong. IDW has some of the most talented color artists I have ever seen. But if you have one person do 3 pages and another do 4 then go back to the first guy for the next 5 then it doesn't matter how good any individual page looks -the book as a whole will suffer. So, my take (and the others, I think) is a problem with the managers and editors. I invested years in this stuff. I'm actually more upset in the time investment than the money. Do you have a link to your Mosaic work -I'd like to see it.
Don't have time to address every point at the moment, but I should clarify that by no means am I claiming there have been no mistakes or missteps. KB just came across as if none of us who worked on the books actually cared about what we were doing. There are issues, sure, but it just seemed to me that KB was making an unfair and untrue statement, that's all. It's nothing to do with the content itself and whatnot, or whatever other silly things other posters where saying. I'm only defending my friends and associates, the ones I know put their heart and soul into what they do. However, for me to make a blanket statement that nothing ever goes wrong would be just as untrue as stating no one actually cares about it.
Well, I can't speak for Kickback but I didn't read that as what he was saying at all. Certainly not that "no one" at IDW cared. I think RKillian was the first one who stated something like "you guys are saying there is no talent at IDW" which I immediately challenged. For me, it's been the management and editorial. Look at this thread: Order of comics. Here is someone who wants to read IDWs books but doesn't know where to start. Lots of people have that problem. I was keeping up with everything and I would see a variant cover and get confused as to whether or not I had that issue. Things like this management decision kept comic shops from getting behind and pushing the titles. Maximum Dinobots put together two artist that I love. Both of them have a great style -but only when take alone. Reading two pages in one style and two pages in another made it feel like separate books. That was a management decision. Things like this have to stop. It doesn't matter how hot the Transformers name is right now. They have the talent -stop wasting it.
Isn't Mosaic a fan thing anyway that IDW just sticks in their books? Not looking to start shit, I haven't bought a IDW book since they gave Furman the bootm that was just the impression I was under, and if that's the case then the contributors on that are very much not part of the discussion.
Thank you very much, sir. Myself and many others have noticed all of the things you and many, many others have put into projects such as the Transformers: Mosaic. Radicons wants to honor that and any other such creative efforts by our community as best as we can. We've being working tirelessly on many occasions with Customs AND Fan Art just so we can have the BEST of places for people to constructively interact and share their work. When REDLINE and I were discussing this thread last night, we just can't figure out how a few people don't see that. By in large though, most have; we're just glad to serve We will continue to rock the joint all night long for as long as we possibly can
That's not really fair since it was Hasbro who stopped them from including the Mosaics. I'm with you guys entirely here but Hasbro shut it down because it was apparently encroaching on how lenient they are with their intellectual properties.
I didn't know about that. Still, they could use the six pages of full-color cross-sells to either expand on the story or cut them out to reduce printing costs and maybe lower the cover price. Leave in the paid ads, that's fine. But I'm never buying your other books dudes, hang it up.
Well, the Angel books by Brian Lynch have been the best books by any company lately. And John Bryne's Angel WW2 black and white book was stellar. We can't really fault the company for prompting their lesser known stuff in their bigger titles. IDW is one of the smallest "big" companies out there and until AHM they were producing some really fantastic Transformers Sci-Fi. I hope we get back to that quality and story telling again.
Yeah, but they could do it just as well in half-page ads over three pages as six fulls. Or how about a sample page rather than one blown-up panel or headshot? Anyone know for sure when the TF license is actually up? Not being snarky, actually curious. I'd love to see good creators not weighed down by shitty editorial direction.
