I recently found this link to the comments from Brian Ruckley on the IDW2 retrospective panel from TFNation 2022, and from what I've seen I don't think it was posted on this site. I found his comments very interesting. I think the comics have great worldbuilding and develop several characters, of course the beginning is very slow and the characters take a while to become complex, but since the author has started to get better at writing comics, he has only gotten better. Temple Phoenix
Did he say anything there and do you or anyone else know where he said anything else about the series?
"He considered one of his biggest weaknesses to be that he didn’t make individual issues read as well on their own rather than 'in the trade’; he hoped that he had gotten better at it as the series went on" I don't want to be mean, but...
"Once they were told about the license being lost, Brian made a conscious decision not to kill a bunch of characters off before the end; he thinks that it would be too cynical, and that deaths have to serve a contextual and narrative purpose to be meaningful. He also recognizes that every character is someone’s favorite, and now they can imagine the adventures they might have in the future" Damn with DWJ had this kind of attitude with his book.
should be one of the things he learned how to do starting to write comics. I felt like his issues didn’t have a three act “start, middle and end” that stories should have. His stories came across as “stuff happening”, there was no actual story taking place or narrative to be had, just a bunch of events that happen. I also felt like he jumped around from one group to another too often. I’d rather have an issue focusing on one group then the next issue focusing on a second group with the two groups meeting at the end of that second issue. Ruckley showed what both groups were doing in a single issue, jumping back and forth between them. I also didn’t feel like readers were brought up to date. Characters and plots would just disappear then reappear several issues / months later and you’re supposed to know what happened before.
While I applaud him for originality, the idea that they would never, ever do the "robots disguised as Earth vehicles on modern day earth" might have been a little too bold of a choice. Like, my hope was that the series would last years like IDW1 did and then we'd finally get to the point where they wind up on Earth, and maybe hand things off to a new creative team.
Did starscream ever put the Decepticon symbol on in Brian run ? Did he ever officially become a Decepticon?
Yes, he provides Megatron with intelligence during the earliest days of the war (namely about the Titansparks) before becoming a proper Decepticon in War’s End issue 2. He’s first seen (chronologically) with their insignia in the Halloween special:
I don't think that's strictly what they mean by such. Rather, it seems like he wanted first contact to occur in space, and Earth potentially coming into the mix later rather than the Transformers reaching Earth first and the reveal they exist happening there. I think there is potentially something interesting in that, though it's a very abstract proposal that could all sorts of variables to it. Is 'space' in this instance deep space, or more like further exploration of the solar system? In the former scenario, is humanity an established - if maybe very young - spacefaring species and it's technically a future setting ala Star Trek: Enterprise, or do we stumble into things testing our first wormhole machine? In the latter, are we stepping onto Mars for the first time or do we have mining operations at Jupiter? Each implies a very different scale of what humanity can potentially contribute both narratively and in the potential war, as well how distinct things could become versus a stock Transformers universe. Weirdly, in the 'we're technically an interstellar species' scenario, I could see a certain novelty by taking a page out of Halo's book - where it's realised it's vitally important to keep the location of Earth out of Decepticon hands as long as possible, and the day they do know how to find it is when shit really hits the fan ...honestly kinda has me hankering for a TF series that was fully space opera with the human side of the setting, ala season 3. Animated got a fair bit of leeway out of being set in the 22nd century, and that was still a very low scale version of Earth in all
The art on this book was awful, big downgrade from IDW 1 and the story was a snoozefest, not some clever slow world building, just straight boring. Taking forever to get to the end war point and then it's not even done well. Also, I can't famoth why Hasbro is telling their creatives NOT to add new characters to their brand. i guess that's why there's zero new characters or designs in Skybound. New characters means new toys which means more sales, the possibillity the character will become popular and then further milk them ect, can't understand the suit logic of don't add new characters besides them just too cheap to bother making new things but the rewards are potentially high and u hav to do as all long term brands do.
I actually really like the book. Probably my favorite pre-war take (maybe next to One, but this is going for serious political drama whereas that's an adventure film). It makes good use of the TFs' transformation metaphor to justify why it's telling its story with giant transforming robots as well. It's a thoughtful series. Unfortunately I think it had major weaknesses as a monthly book (the pacing is indeed too slow, and cliffhangers too infrequent), and is also potentially not exciting enough to draw the eyes of anyone but already initiated fans. I can see it in terms of wanting to make sure there's minimum synergy between fiction and available toys, but yeah. New characters are free ideas for figures down the line. But we don't know where their threshold was. IDW2 featured a number of new characters nonetheless.
I will admit, the art isn’t as good as IDW1, but it’s still good (imo) Genvo says hi (so do Ratchet and Arcee’s new alt-modes)
I was rather fond of it too. It may have been partly the timing of things for me, but there was something rather resonant in seeing a society grow divided in part because some just could not move on from 'the good old days' of empire, and chafing against the thought of not being at the absolute top of the universe. One of those cases where I rather more comprehended the Decepticons than necessarily sympathised with them, which is where I kinda prefer them But it's one of those where there's so much groundwork laid for so much stuff it's actually difficult to get to it all in a reasonable timeline - especially in a monthly series, yeah
I thought Hasbro was more amendable to different designs and other characters for Skybounds stuff, but DWJ prefers staying mostly within the bounds of the G1 toon, both in aesthetics and character choice. Like Hasbro wanted the designs to not be as G1 but DWJ disagreed and they respected his choice. I swear I read that in an interview somewhere. That said, there are a LOT of Transformers character, so I'm betting 9 times out of 10 if you need a character for a role, you can find an existing one. Not always though.
