I guess I snoozed and now will lose...Transformers Legacy: The Art of Transformers (Jim Sorenson) looks to be sold out on online book retailers. I read some reviews and it looked quite good, although there were also some strange decisions made in terms of format (and size of photos). It was already a bit pricey but now on the secondary market it looks like it's going to be even further out of reach. Anybody think this will get a reprinting anytime soon? I'm glad I picked up the updated version of Mark Bellomo's book to tide me over (the toy collectors guide), but the box art of G1 stuff was really always so awesome. And it makes a bit of a substitute for keeping the boxes Anybody have any thoughts?
Yeah, it's one of the best books on Transformers ever published, has most (although not quite all) of the G1 box art, along with Japanese variants, some UK-only stuff, unused paintings, and some G2. It is oversized with beautiful presentation, all in a very nice looking hardcover. It was pretty cheap, too. But yeah, books like these never stay in print forever. You have to jump on them when they appear. If you have any interest in or appreciation of the G1 painted box art, do not listen to the poster above me. Listen to the reviews on amazon. I do agree The Vault is also worth having. It covers a wider variety of subjects, although much much MUCH less comprehensively obviously.
It looks like you can still get some used copies in "very good" to "like new" condition on amazon.com for decent prices.
Agreed....I've purchased several 'like new' books on Amazon.com and they've all been perfect, just like they came off the store shelves... would be worth a look.
It's a beautiful book, well worth picking up. I'm a bit biased because I love my artbooks, but this is certainly a keeper.
It's fantastic. My only gripe about it is that there's no Volume 2 planned. It's absolutely one of the best Transformers books ever put out. Keep looking. One will come around at a price you can live with.
Great book, but isn't missing a few? I seem to remember Jetfire and few others, perhaps it's being updated or reprinted?
Yes, it's missing a few pieces of boxart, including Optimus Prime's US art (the Japanese version is used in its place). However, Jim Sorenson admits in the introduction that it is NOT a complete archive, as there were a few pieces of art he was unable to obtain in acceptable quality, especially from '89-'90 releases (mainly Action Masters). He tried using actual package scans, but the image quality was so low there was no point in using them. So he had to use other sources, like original paintings or high-quality photographs of the paintings that were distributed to packaging manufacturers. Considering those limitations, the amount of art Jim was able to include is remarkable, and the book is a must-have. To be fair, I do have a couple of nitpicks: in some places the darker parts of the art bleed into a black background, making it harder to see the edge of the art. And the digital "cutting out" of the artwork could have been done better (there's a few instances where they only cut out the outline and ignored interior areas that also should have been cut out, leaving a white blotch instead of the page's background).
There was a graphic design business near to where I lived and they created the art for the G2 Europe stuff. My old manager knew the guys and I popped into that office. I was in my twenties, but by then I was more interested in women than Transformers. Now I like both!
It's shame it's not complete, I know the scans wouldn't be as good if original art doesn't appear. However the knock off guys manage it.
