Saturday, December 25, 2010

XMAS2010

Hi,

I used to do annual xmas cards, these can be found here but 2 years ago I had an idea to do a xmas story instead. If you know me I tend to toy around with ideas, make some art, then foprget about it for a while because of the plentiness of time and then at the end of the deadline make insane hours to complete the project. I had this story finished thursday the 23d, colors can come later.

It's about megatron in a 'typical' scrooge story, hope you like it.
DOWNLOAD



merry xmas,

Johan

Friday, December 24, 2010

Friday, December 10, 2010

"BRAINS!"


So IDW's first big crossover event will apparently involve putting Zombies into Transformers, GIJOE, Ghostbusters and Star Trek. You're probably thinking, "wow! Zombies and Transformers make as much sense as a Star Trek and Highlander crossover". And you'd be right. These crossover events at any comic company are designed solely to help boost sales by making you buy all the extra stories. Marvel's already done a bunch of zombie stories where their Universe was consumed by zombies (in an alternate universe setting, naturally). Apparently IDW's brain trust couldn't even muster up something vaguely original and just settled for ripping them off.

Crossovers happen all the time in fanfic but that doesn't mean they should happen in official sources. Name one instant where even a Transformers/GIJOE crossover was compelling and made any sense. Simply put, there aren't any. One side always gets more spotlighting and we end up rehashing plot points like Snake Eyes vs. Storm Shadow or something about Unicron and the Matrix.

I have no idea if IDW's zombies will involve characters from any of the concepts directly interacting or just have zombies as a commonality between them. Either way, zombies simply don't belong in three of the concepts (you could make a point for using them in Ghostbusters but not the others).

In the end, given IDW's track record, I can also pretty much guarantee these stories won't even entertain readers on any level. They'll be exercises in wasting time with some lame-ass action thrown in. Then they'll do the collected TPBs and maybe even a hardcover collection to catch the suckers that waste money on those.

Instead of zombies (what's next? Vampires?) why doesn't IDW hire some competent writers for their comics and let them craft some worthwhile stories. GIJOE already has Chuck Dixon and Larry Hama--why can't Transformers get some good writers on it too? And while they're at it, why don't they try to make some interesting stuff happen? I'd love to cover some new territory but they only seem to be interested in appealing to the nostalgia crowd. The people that go "hey! Transformers! I remember those from when I was a kid!" instead of trying to cultivate a serious following, which TFs do have and would appreciate some good stories for a change.

But, no. Bring on more half-baked crap like International Incident and All Hail Megatron instead. IDW currently reminds me of Image Comics in its heyday. They sold millions of comics, all based off their pretty artwork. The concepts were all derivative though--Spawn was Ghost Rider, Savage Dragon the Hulk, Youngblood ripped off X-Force, etc. Over time, much of their comics have all but disappeared off the map. IDW has curried whatever originality and popularity they initially had and mined it to snap up as many licensed properties as they can find (similar to how Marvel had all that crap in the 80s). The reason Marvel's Transformers and GIJOE worked, though, is that they had reasonably good writers that gave a damn about telling their stories. Does anyone remember Marvel's He-man comic? Or their Sectaurs? Or Crystar? Of course not. Because they all ultimately sucked.

Will anyone care if IDW eventually loses their license for Transformers? Not likely. IDW will have made it's quick buck and the fans will mostly be indifferent to their collection of stories. Sadly, IDW had a real chance to put their stamp on the concept but they've failed miserably. Instead of establishing an interesting story continuity, they throw stuff in willy-nilly and hope something will stick. Letting fans/so-called professionals with no idea how to write a story take a crack and/or letting anybody and everybody draw a story (would it kill them to keep one damn artist on a title for more then two issues?)

So, yeah. Bring on the zombies. Bring on the vampires, the werewolves, and whatever other crap you have lined up. It might sell a few more comics but in the end it won't make your terrible product any better then it was.

That takes something they don't seem to have: focus and talent.

Comic Review...

Transformers #14

Writer: Mike Costa
Artist: Don Figueroa

(covers by Don Figueroa and Nick Roche)


Summary: Two Autobots felled in the past two issues and the punishment is only beginning! A shocking revelation and an unexpected attack begins the 'REVENGE OF THE DECEPTICONS,' the storyline that leaves a lot more Autobots on the operating table, and their entire future on Earth in question-and also features the return of superstar artist DON FIGUEROA!


Comments: I skipped the last three issues due to a lack of interest. In that time, International Incident ended (finally) and, presumably, Hot Rod got killed last issue (I base this off the description above). Bumblebee has also been assassinated as well by some kind of human anti-robot movement that materialized... This issue seems to exist to shuffle the plot elements around--we learn a little bit about BB's assassin and his motivations; the returning Autobots aboard a plane are attacked by some unrevealed source; the Autobots at the human military base are attacked by Decepticons who rescue their prisoner comrades and several guns that appear like G1 Megatron begin appearing on the Earth (including the weapon that shot Bumblebee). A giant cup of "meh". I guess Figueroa is back to drawing the art again (at least for the moment anyway). The story itself is unfocused due to its need to set up future events... Once again I am reminded of how little has truly happened in the IDW universe in the last five years.

Verdict: Neutral.



(Cover "B" by Nick Roche)