I'm sorry, I flat out refuse to buy for one second that a British fan of comics and sf who grew up in the '70s and '80s somehow never experienced Hitchhikers. That's about as believable as him saying he never heard of Doctor Who. I reject that completely.

I'll buy the idea that he read or listened to Hitchhikers as a kid, and in the subsequent years forgot about the improbability drive. But that's as much benefit of the doubt as I am prepared to give.

 

I'm sorry, what? Are we really going all weird conspiracy theorist about innocuous statements Roberts has made?

It's perfectly reasonable that despite a series being popular, a person might not watch/read it. For example, I know that Doctor Who, Game of Thrones, all those Sherlock Holmes-y shows are things that a lot of people enjoy, but I've never really dived into them myself. Just because Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was a popular thing in the UK way back when doesn't mean that every single person over there consumed its media, even if they did like sci-fi.

As far as the Magnus thing goes, it's really the same principle. I'm a child of the 80s and I never had access to his toy. And hell, maybe Roberts wasn't so much a toy fan as he was a fan of the comics. That happens, you know. Not every Transformers fan is an avid Transformers toy collector. Why would you go looking for information on toys if you're not interested in them?

Man, I just... You guys are getting laughably jumpy and quick to make up conspiracies on why you think people have lied to you, even if the theories don't hold any water.   Have people here really been so trained to look for deception that they'll accuse someone of lying for no reason?

 

Depends how you define great and which Primes you compare him to. I'd probably say only G1 and TFA Prime are better, and G1 Prime gets it due to the huge body of work he has as compared to everyone else - but the G1 comic version - not really that great either.

 

Oh I agree. I think Roberts did not get there first is why he is disappointed

 

Well... I've never read Hitchhikers. I'm not British, but I assure you that it was not solely a UK phenomenon. It was already well-anchored in the canon of youth, science fiction, and general nerdishness. In fact, that sense of "EVERYONE ELSE HAS DONE IT" probably worked against it to a degree. I am almost certainly the only person in my circle of friends from my early adolescence who hadn't read it. I just never got around to it.

I believe you and I are both just a bit older than Roberts is, so the timing is comparable. Sure it's weird, but it's certainly possible.

Nothing conspiratorial or weird about it. It's just entirely feasible that Roberts is messing with us. Playful deceit is hardly uncommon in creatives. *shrug*

I haven't met the man yet, but from watching some of his Q&A sessions, you can see that twinkle from time to time. Writers are rarely malevolent, but they certainly aren't trustworthy.  

But more to the point, I just think his comments about Magnus are more likely taken out of context. I doubt that he made it all the way to IDW in this internet age without knowing anything about the configuration of the Ultra Magnus toy... but maybe HIS Magnus... the Magnus he was reading about in the 80s UK comics... he never knew THAT guy to have a small internal robot.

It would be nice if someone could link us to the actual clip/quotation, so we could properly address this (potentially spurious) assertion. I do think that it is 99.9% unlikely that Roberts conceived the Minimus Ambus twist without any knowledge of "White Prime Magnus". That would be pretty absurd.

zmog

 

I remember hearing him talk about it on a podcast interview, I don't know if it was ever transcribed.

Like Smog says, Hitchhikers isn't just a book, it was an institution. Didn't read the books until well into my twenties, but that doesn't mean that before that I didn't know anything about Ford, Arthur, Trillian, Zaphod, Vogon's, terminal velocity whales, parnoid androids, universe terminating eateries, or infinite inprobability drives. In fact when I did finally read certainly Hitchhikers and Restaurant, it largely felt like refreshing my memory of what I already knew.

So actually I may have been overly harsh on him there, he may in fact not have read it, but for a Doctor Who and Red Dwarf loving child of the 80's, he probably doesn't have to have had to know all about it. He certainly squeed mightily when the fella on Twitter did a Hitchikers cover with the Scavangers, complete with towel and whale and Don't Panic.

 

Yeah, gotta agree on this. Someone earlier said that every TF fan knew about UM and his Mini-me. I didn't. I'd grown up with the cartoon(which I barely remember) and got hooked on BW and BM. I don't really collect the toys and only had a cheetor growing up cos he was my fave at the time. I didn't even know who Ultra Magnus was until I started watching TFP. Every fans experience is different.

Same for hitchhikers. Just because someone is british doesn't mean they are experts at british pop culture. I'm more likely to get stared at for asking someome if they remembered their towel. And next week I'm being deported because I don't like Doctor Who. I'm happy to believe he'd heard of them on a basic level and that was it.

 

That's not a fair comparison.

 

I find this amazing. Somebody went back in time and altere the G1 cartoon, movie and comics?   What a fiend!

G1 Ultra Magnus, whichever version you prefer, is fine. Granted, Magnus doesn't vary too much between comic and cartoon, as opposed to some other characters, but I find it kind of funny the IDW take would somehow retroactively alter your childhood.

Unless you childhood really was during Furman's IDW run, of course.


(No problems with your other statements, logically. If the books are not for you they are not for you   )

 

I would love to see that cover.

 

On the whole, I like the IDW series. Sure, there have been some poor stories along the way, but every long-running series (comic, TV, whatever medium) does. It's inevitable.

I'm not a massive fan of MTMTE; I am quite happy to collect it in trade rather than getting the single issues. However, I love the comic-formerly-known-as-RID and get it on a monthly basis.

 

Do you have a link? I must see this image.

 

NO, no... I meant when others were talking about Whirl. I should have been more precise in my post.
Edit: I went back and fixed it. I now understand where the confusion came from.  

Apparently now, to some, he isn't... Which is a shame because, In my silly nerd brain, Magnus has never been this good.

I don't have a problem with people disliking the revelation, but they write in such absolutes that it comes across almost confrontational. Well, in my head anyway.

 

Why, yes, yes I do. Courtesy of the incredibly talented Golby II

https://twitter.com/golby_mkii/status/449933779759411200

 

I will read that book. Tell Golby he is awesome. Thankyou

 

James..ISN'T a sci-fi fan. Like...at all. He's far more a classic literature guy. He's into Transformers yes but his sci-fi experience is surprisingly under-developed. He's just not that guy. I mean he's seen Red Dwarf I know for a fact he's never gotten into Hitchhikers. To be honest, I never even heard of it until the early 2000s. And him not knowing about white magnus makes sense. James was into the cartoon and the comics as a kid, then pretty much existed in the Transfan group until his IDW days. He's not up to date with the other continuities and he doesn't really collect the toys. He's never experience the toy aspect of Magnus.

I think it's a benefit and why we get more anthropomorphised Transformers in his work. He's not bogged down by the sci-fi explanations (in fact, if you look into his stories, there's very little sci-fi in it. He's far more on the theological scale) he just writes good stories with good characters.

 

I don't see why not? My point was that every fans experience and entry into the fandom is different. I was just using myself as an example. We are not a shared hive mind of information and knowledge, it is completely possible for a writer of TF fiction to not have an encyclopedic knowledge of the fiction they're writing for. So I can easily believe that he didn't know about Mini-Magnus.

 

Hi Smog! thanks for commenting, you are one of the members on TFW that I really respect and I usually like your take on things. I think my main problem is that I'm not an "American" style comics fan, I don't like superhero comics (but the movies are fun!) and I never have even as a kid. The story telling has a style that I don't enjoy.

The only non-toy/movie based comic I enjoyed as a teen was TMNT. I was not a comic reading kid, but I branched off from turtles ( which was B&W ) to Sci-Fi manga titles in the early 90's like Battle Angel, Appleseed, Outlanders, ect. during the Manga/Anime explosion at that time.

I'm picky about this, but I hate it when comics change artists and writers all the time. I know why it is and that it has always been that way with US comics but it bothers me. Some of the art in the IDW stuff is great, then the next issue looks totally different and takes me out of it.

I know some of the ones I have are from the main run, I heard they were edited slightly. Several members has said many are from the current line and style and are a good representation. In reading some comments on the thread I know some of the ones I have are from the "good stuff" people rave about.

I'm going to cheat and copy paste from 97s' below to answer, as there are some similar complaints for me.

I don't want to throw the "it's a toy comic" label on there and offend people (there are some nice things here and there) but to a degree I think that is an issue. There does not seem to be a single direction of story that links things together. Just issue after issue of stuff happening to push new characters.

I am also one of those people that likes things to have an ending at some point, I get that people can't wait for issue #567 of their favorite comic but I would get board with that. I hate to keep bringing manga up here but they
often end, or at least get to a stop point where you could get off and feel good about a resolution to something.

Lastly Transformers has to walk a line due to it being a kids toy line, the comics can only go so far. As an adult I just can't get into it. I hope I gave some insight into how I see it, we can't all like everything of course so I am just one of the TF fans who doesn't like modern TF comics!

 

I don't really keep up with IDW any more, I stopped mid-way through Dark Cybertron and the only TF comic I've read since then is Robots in Disguise #34, but that was only for the Rhinox cameo and the Thirteen Primes stuff. IDW tends to do a lot of stuff to characters I don't agree with; Minimus Ambus doesn't annoy me that much, but Prowl forming the head of Devastator is silly, and I'm one of the four people in the known universe who's annoyed that Bumblebee and Metalhawk are dead. I don't like the "humour" in MTMTE and I hate how the overwhelming majority of the Lost Light crew are varying degrees of goofy comic relief.

Generally I prefer pre-Dark Cybertron Robots in Disguise more than MTMTE, mainly for the political satire and the inclusion of Rattrap, Waspinator and Sky-Byte, but I have no desire to return to IDW at the moment. The Injector and Air Hammer cameos in Windblade #4 peaked my interest a little bit, but it would suck if they remain just fan-service cameos and the characters don't appear again.

 

I still don't really get the "highbrow humour" complaint regarding people who make fun of Whirl, but either way, you're not enjoying it. So be it.

No, I think that's my issue as well. Some twists or reformulations of characters don't sit well with me. However, most of the rationales for being unhappy with the Magnus reveal just aren't... rational. They are sentimental arguments, with a qualitative pretense. I don't mind having a sentimental attachment to "the way things were", but people shouldn't manufacture a logical argument when there isn't one.

Thanks, but apparently respect is a very tenuous commodity around here, bestowed only by the grace of those pure of heart, so don't give me too much. Eventually I'll disappoint you.  

I get that. I grew up as a comics kid (and I've read plenty of euro-comics, manga, manhua, etc as well). I can say that NOW, as an adult, I don't really enjoy a lot of mainstream american comics. I'm not sure if the comics have changed or if I have (likely both), but I understand the ambivalence toward the medium.

To lay down examples, however... I would say that MTMTE is NOT structured or written like a conventional american comic. RID, on the other hand, very much is, and in the most banal ways. For me the Dark Cybertron arc running through both titles is Transformers trying to replicate the worst sins of mainstream superhero comics. So yeah, don't think all TF comics are created equal.

Haha! An old B&W TMNT reader! Cheers! I still have my old ones. I've read all those mentioned, and in fact I just revisited the first two volumes of Appleseed this week.

Compared to when I was 14, some of the lofty subjects and philosophical reflection in Appleseed that flew over my head then, now flies rather below, but overall still great stuff. It's a curious series, where neither the plot nor the characters are the primary drive... instead the setting itself seems to be the star.

Anyway... all of which is to say, I find it really weird that the currents of humour running through MTMTE would bug you, since that tendency toward banter and the absurdist aside is very much a part of those series you mention (TMNT, most manga).

It is an unfortunate facet of American comics. Sometimes you get that special alchemy when a creative team comes together and everything is magic... Roberts, Milne and Burcham were that for me. Now, with that trinity broken, it does take me out of it a bit. But even that is preferable to the scattershot art direction IDW was having a few years earlier.

Hard to say without knowing which ones you're talking about (and of course, subjective opinions abound), but the edits are likely not substantial enough to make a difference.

I could argue that a big part of MTMTE's appeal is the gradual layering of story, of mystery, of subplot, of character... so that what hooks you are the threads of implication that run all through the series. In contrast to how I felt about cartoons as a kid, I now love a story that cannot be self-contained, but needs to be followed in serialization. Anticipation is a big draw.

BUT... at the same time, I would think that even a windowed view into MTMTE would inspire some intrigue, some interest in the characters and the larger story and world being built. I think the tone of the series still communicates a lot. So if they didn't grab you then, maybe they won't ever grab you...

(that said, I'm still curious which stories you have)

Yeah, I think I may have already addressed some of those comments earlier, but I guess I can just say I don't understand those at all. They seem like "grrr I don't like this" but without actually articulating a coherent case for why.

Why is Rung "really bad"? Why is Magnus ruined? Why do we hate Swerve so much?

Also, the issue in question (that 97 is quoting) is great, but great because it stands out. It's basically a comic-relief episode, in that time-honoured anime tradition of giving you a complete goofy episode just before a big, serious finale. It's like a breather. It's not really representative of the entire series. In it's way, that issue is sort of a sit-com. It's not the only issue like this, but it's also not a good picture of the rolling plotting that makes the series great.

Since Hasbro has gotten re-involved with the process and marketing of IDW, I think this has become a problem again... fortunately most of this is restricted to the RID side of things, but it does pop up occasionally in MTMTE. Overall, however, I'd characterize it as an "ensemble" cast, not simply a succession of new characters to promote the brand. The series began with a truly motley crew of largely obscure nobodies that Hasbro had abandoned 20 years ago, and managed to make many of them unforgettable. I wouldn't say that's a function of a novelty-based toy-selling comic.

I don't think this is a great example. Manga do often have an end-point, but they often take their time getting there (and of course, then there are the ongoing series that go on forever). MTMTE has been going on for 2 and a half years, and there are many subplots that have come to fruition, just as there are many larger plots yet to play out completely. I think that's pretty acceptable. Not many mangas wrap up in that time frame.

Also, when you can see the end coming, for me that makes things a bit boring, no? It's like Game of Thrones. The big finish and ultimate fate of most of the characters is the most predictable and boring part of the series... (blah blah dragons destiny hero's journey something something). It's all the minute deviations, twists and sub-stories that make it worthwhile (imho).

I don't see that at all. Maybe this comes from your very limited exposure to the series, but I can barely imagine a more WRONG-ish thing to say. I think that IDW (and MTMTE in particular) have actually demonstrated that they are VERY independent of the child market (for good or ill). Again, Hasbro seems to be imposing itself a lot more now than it was in the earlier days, but that influence is pretty mild on MTMTE.

As a matter of fact, MTMTE is actually one of the most complex, nuanced, literate, progressive mainstream comics running right now (which I confess, may be damning with faint praise). From the viewpoint of conceptual science-fiction, political allegory, moral ambiguity, gender alterity and queer representation, historical revisionism and literary underpinnings, there's a lot going on under the hood. I won't say that all of those things are explored beyond an undergraduate hand-wave, but they are far beyond the kiddie-toy tether at this point. Add to that an unhealthy smattering of excessive and imaginative gore, and it adds up to a pretty adult diversion.

Overall, it's fine that you don't enjoy these comics. But as I read over your personal objections, I keep seeing this disparity... like what you are complaining about and what these comics are, are actually very different things. For that reason, I think you may want to give MTMTE a second, closer look.

Also, for all the things I like about this series, and what I think is great in it... I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to people who are not already Transformers fans. I think it's a fantastic series for someone who has a lingering affinity for these characters, but wants something more challenging, witty and interesting than what is typically offered by the franchise. For someone with no core attachment to alien transforming robots... I think it might be a hard sell.

But seeing as you seem reasonably intelligent and you are participating in a Transformers forum, I'm thinking that maybe MTMTE might deserve another chance.  

zmog