Transformers: The Definitive G1 Collection (original) (raw)

4/5 of a grand tale.

Transformers: The Definitive G1 Collection is a fortnightly 100-volume partwork from Hachette, edited by Simon Furman. Partworks are a Hachette specialty: a series will be collected out of order (the first Definitive was volume 6) for commercial purposes but can be collected on your shelf in order with a fancy picture on the collective spines. The collection aims to republish every single "Generation 1" comic ever made, including the original Marvel Comics run—UK and US—in order for the very first time. Each issue has a special cover and bonus content, and Fantastic FREE! Gifts are provided for subscribers. Marvel UK strips which were originally printed in black-and-white have been given brand new colours by John-Paul Bove using emulations of both 1980s American and latter-day Marvel UK techniques.[1]

The series was initially announced in September 2016 to contain 60 issues—ending with the Dark Cybertron crossover—but by the time of its launch in December, it had already been extended to 80 issues, with volume 80 providing some closure in the form of Till All Are One and Requiem of the Wreckers. In 2018, upon the conclusion of IDW's first continuity, fans observed that it would take around ten extra volumes to reprint the entire IDW catalogue—and on the 18th of July 2019, Simon Furman confirmed on Twitter that the collection had been extended by twenty issues for a total of 100.

Sounds great, right?

Well... not if you live outside the United Kingdom and Ireland. The partwork was given a trial-run in parts of the UK before a national release started in early 2017. In August 2017, the subscription also became available in Australia,[2] but became unavailable in July 2018 due to the closure of the Australian distributor. In January 2019, it became available in Poland,[3] with volumes being released in proper chronological order.

Even for those who were able to subscribe, the partwork ended up not being quite as definitive as advertised, suffering from strange ordering and editorial choices, and from some major printing errors. Hachette's notoriously bad customer service made it a nightmare to obtain corrected replacements.

Contents

• 1 Volumes
• 2 Curation
  • 2.1 Reading order
  • 2.2 Omissions
• 3 Coloring
• 4 Notes
  • 4.1 Errors
• 5 Covers
• 6 References
• 7 External links

Volumes

Each volume contains cover art from the original issues, plus a new introduction by Simon Furman. The bonus features below are in addition to these.

Curation

Although this collection was curated by Simon Furman, the man directly responsible for many of the stories it contains, many of the decisions it makes seem to be far from ideal.

Presumably as a result of these being the master copies in Hasbro's possession, Marvel US reprints are drawn from IDW's The Transformers Classics 'remasters', complete with newly introduced typos, haphazard attempts to 'fix' errors, washed-out linework, and less authentic coloring than John-Paul Bove's brand new efforts! In a similar vein, cover galleries include the covers for both the US and UK stories, but not the UK-exclusive covers for US stories. This focus on presenting the 'unmodified' versions of US comics means that many of the minor edits made to those stories for their original UK printings (to better jive with Furman's expanded continuity) are absent.[4]

Reading order

The actual ordering of the Marvel material is far from straightforward, for various reasons:

• The two Furman-penned comics from the 1985 annual don't have a particular place in the continuity: "And There Shall Come...a Leader!" is a standalone flashback that isn't referenced until UK #44, while "Plague of the Insecticons!" is a non-canonical present-day story written to promote toys that weren't appearing in the comic at the time. Presumably for reasons of space, they're included as backmatter in volumes 2 and 13; the latter consists mostly of stories released three years later!
• Volume 3 presents UK #41–50 before US #11–12, when they should be the other way around. Apparently this was a deliberate decision to place focus on the UK story the volume was centred around
• The minor Marvel productions "The Night the Transformers Saved Christmas" and "The Special Teams Have Arrived" are absent—but of course, the latter was completely retold in UK #63–65, included here in volume 4. The former story's absence stands out, since, in his panel at TFNation 2016 Simon Furman specifically mentioned that it would be included in the collection, the first time it would have seen a reprint anywhere, but this ultimately didn't occur, for unknown reasons.
• The two comic stories from the 1986 annual aren't directly connected to specific issues; "To a Power Unknown!" doesn't really fit into continuity, but certainly takes place after UK #65—which is where the partwork puts it—while "Victory!" (which explains what happened to the Dinobots between UK #50 and #65) is placed before UK #74–77, another Dinobot-centric story.
• "The Gift", UK #93's seasonal story by James Hill, is omitted; it should be placed in volume 6 between US #22 and US #23.
• Volume 8 reshuffles things slightly relative to publication order; US #27 was originally published before UK #113–120, but is moved afterwards. As the stories aren't connected, this doesn't really affect anything.
• The stories from the 1987 annual are scattered. "Vicious Circle!" is placed in volume 8 alongside UK #113–120, collectively forming the first "post-movie" storyline. "What's In a Name?" is placed in volume 11 directly before UK #135–136, which developed its premise further. "Ark Duty" is also thrown into volume 11, after UK #146–151... despite chronologically taking place some time before that story.
• In a move that actually improves readability, the Action Force crossover "Ancient Relics!" (which originally interrupted the unrelated two-part story told across US #29–30) is moved before #29.
• UK #130–131 was written as an introduction to the Headmaster concept to UK audiences; it's recontextualised here as a flashback, letting the Headmasters mini-series lead directly into US #38. Keeping UK-original strips in publication order however then causes trouble with UK #137–138, which set up the Combaticons' appearance in... US #32, and UK #152–153, which takes place before the launch of Club Con in US #39.
• UK #145, a fairly standalone Christmas story, is thrown in at the end of volume 12.
• When Furman took over the US comic, the UK strips (having switched to black-and-white) generally stopped tying directly into the US material. Exceptions included UK #215–218 setting up US #56, Thunderwing's rise to power across UK #230–231 and #241–242 paying off in US #60, UK #240 following on from US #59, UK #243–244 further explaining Megatron's appearance in US #56–59, UK #249 being nodded to in US #62, and the events of UK #235–236 being directly referenced in US #65. This collection includes these comics in clumps during breaks in the action, ignoring most of this connective tissue.
• Starting with UK #255 (as noted on the Earthforce page), the UK material effectively diverged into an entire alternate timeline; most of these stories are placed together at the end of volume 20.

The ordering of IDW's comics, meanwhile, can only be described as impenetrable to a new reader. As Infiltration was the starting point for that continuity, it is presented as the first volume, but in a stab towards chronological ordering the next volumes are devoted to prequels such as Megatron Origin and Autocracy, which were released well after the fact and don't really mesh well here. Even Furman's own work isn't safe: Maximum Dinobots is placed before Revelation, and the other Spotlight issues are thrown in haphazardly wherever space allows. How much of the material following his run Furman has actually read, only he can say.

Omissions

It's apparent that when the partwork was planned out, Hatchette intended to be the first company to reprint the latter-day Dreamwave material such as the Sunstorm arc, Micromasters, and the Summer Special[6] in volumes 27 and 28—but those volumes wound up containing issues from Dreamwave's Armada comic, which merely guest-starred G1 characters and seem very out of place in a "Definitive G1 Collection" (unsurprisingly, the rest of the Armada and Energon material is omitted). Presumably, this late change occurred for the same reason those stories have never been reprinted in the first place—nobody's sure whether the creative teams were actually paid for their work. A summary of The Age of Wrath was included, but none of the finished issues of that series or of Transformers/G.I. Joe: Divided Front were reprinted.

Many of the collection's other omissions can easily be considered editorial choices:

• The prose stories from Marvel UK's annuals are omitted, although it bears mentioning that most of them were written by authors other than Furman and are tricky to reconcile with the continuity proper anyway. Furman's stories are more conspicuous by their absence: "The Magnificent Six!" from the 1991 annual was part of the Earthforce storyline, and the 1992 annual's "Another Time & Place" was effectively the original coda to his Marvel run. UK #302's "Dreadwind's Xmas!" is absent too, notable for focusing on Dreadwind's time answering letters for Marvel UK.
• At most, only small extracts are given of the various profile books released over the years: Marvel's The Transformers Universe, Dreamwave's More than Meets the Eye, and IDW's Beast Wars Sourcebook and Hasbro Heroes Sourcebook.
• None of the material released by 3H Productions or Fun Publications was printed in this collection.
• Various obscure one-off comics like Milton Bradley's The Transformers mini-comic, Grandreams' "The Dinobots!" (from The Official Transformers: Generation 2 Annual), Metrodome's "The Beast Within", Madman Entertainment's "The Transformers" and IDW's "Rodimus vs. Cyclonus" are understandably left out. Furman would have liked to include the one-page comic advert for the Beast Wars video game, but he didn't know about it at the time.[7]
• IDW's non-G.I. Joe crossover mini-series are all omitted: New Avengers/Transformers, Aw Yeah Revolution!, Rom vs. Transformers: Shining Armor, Transformers vs. Visionaries, Angry Birds Transformers, Star Trek vs. Transformers, and Transformers/Ghostbusters. So too are most of the tie-ins to their once-annual multi-property events: Infestation 2, Mars Attacks, The X-Files: Conspiracy, and Deviations.
• The end of the series at volume 100 meant that much of the 2019 IDW continuity material went unpublished. Though the series technically wraps up story arcs with Transformers #17 and Galaxies #4, the omissions of the stories told in Transformers #18 and Galaxies #5–6 meant that subscribers couldn't just hop straight across to IDW's own hardcover collections!

Less forgivable is the omission of the ancillary material from Transformers vs. G.I. Joe ("FCBD Funnies", the four-page "Black Cybertron" prose story from issue #10, and "The Movie Adaptation"). The various prose stories, profiles and comics first printed with the collected editions of Last Stand of the Wreckers are also absent.

Coloring

Colorist John-Paul Bove, known for his work on Regeneration One, was hired by Hatchette to give color to black-and-white UK-original stories. The first of these was "Raiders of the Last Ark", included in volume 1. Like many of the earliest UK strips, only some of its instalments were printed in color, but this was the only story not to be later colourised in a reprint at the time. For this collection, Bove colored the entire comic in a style as close to the original marker-pens as possible, with the only edits being to correct an error and to put Guardian's colors in line with the character's later appearances.[8]

For the black-and-white strips printed following the UK comic's format change in 1989, Bove colored the stories depending on whether their plots tied into the UK or the US continuity. He cites "Race with the Devil" (the first black-and-white story of this kind) and "Fallen Star!" as examples of US-relevant stories. Meanwhile, stories like "Survivors" emulated the richer colour combinations employed by the UK teams.[9] "Aspects of Evil!" and the Earthforce stories were colored to look like they could've been rendered with inks and airbrushes.[10]

In some cases, Bove made choices with regards to color schemes based on in-universe reasoning, most notably with Xaaron and Soundwave in volume 19.[11]

The handful of the stories from the black-and-white era to have been colourised at the time ("The Big Shutdown!" in issues #330–1, and the Mayhem Attack Squad storyline told across "The Hunting Party", "Way of the Warrior", "Survival Run", "A Savage Place!", "Cry Wolf!", "Wolf in the Fold!", and "Where Wolf?" in Transformers Annual 1992) were not re-colourised from scratch, but instead presented as they were at the time.

Notes

• The free gifts shipped to subscribers with the first five deliveries (each consisting of two isses - except the first, which included a third issue free) were:
  • Autobot/Decepticon insignia keyrings!
  • A wallet!
  • A tin-plate version of the cover to "Dark Star", featuring a cosmically empowered Starscream!
  • A mug!
  • A pair of metal Autobot/Decepticon insignia bookends
• Before the partwork launched, the second free gift was advertised as an Autobrand belt buckle.[13]
• The first issue collected "Target: 2006", and was coincidentally out at newsagents thirty years after the story originally ran.[14]
• The printings of Marvel material aren't really identical to those released by IDW—for instance, issue 1 (volume 6 - confused yet?) includes various Marvel trademarks (such as the superheroes around the edge of the cover to "Heavy Traffic" and the kid wearing a Spider-Man t-shirt in "Decepticon Graffiti") which were painted out of IDW's reprints due to rights issues.[15]

Errors

• When the website launched, it accidentally credited Andrew _Wlid_man.
• The poster included with issue 1 includes a bio for Jazz... which uses an image of Prowl.[16]
• The trial versions of issues 1 and 2 had the inside cover art swapped: the "Target: 2006" book had artwork for Stormbringer, and vice versa.[17]
• A feature in issue 1 states that the Marvel UK comic sold 200,000 copies per week, when really it only sold 100,000 per week at its peak. This error presumably stems from the fact that Marvel (and other publishers at the time) multiplied their circulation figures by 2.5 to calculate their readership, as they estimated that many issues would be shared between friends and siblings.[4] This error was not present in IDW's original reprints.[18]
• The bio for John Paul Bove included in issue 3 (volume 16) was apparently written by himself in the first person, then edited into the third person—one of the sentences written in first person remains
• Some copies of volume 22 had a number erroneously printed on one of the pages.[20]
• Copies of the first issue provided to general retail and initial subscribers had an error on the spine, with the black volume number box at the top being the wrong size.[21] Subscribers received free corrected copies, while those who bought theirs at newsagents had to wait for replacements which were included with issue 7.[22] Hachette were seen giving away error-stricken copies for free at a signing event at a London comic shop.[23] This error shouldn't be confused with the change in spine art for the first four issues made between the limited trial run and the mass release,[24] which means that anyone who subscribed to the series from its trial will end up with three different copies of issue 1.
• Some other printing errors that led Hachette to reissue volumes were:
  • Volume 28 erroneously used the same speech bubbles for two pages in a row.[25]
  • Volume 35 swapped the last two pages of Monstrosity #11 with two from "War and Peace" #3.[26]
  • Volume 64 printed the first page of Windblade #4 at the wrong size, cutting off some of the speech bubbles. Additionally, some of the issues of Robots in Disguise were printed out of order.[27]
  • Volume 75 printed a page with Bruticus twice.[28]
  • Volume 81 printed the intro at the back of the book, rather than at the start.[29]
• Many volumes include pages which are stuck together, though this is easy enough for the reader to fix.
• Though some readers may try to convince you otherwise, Mister Johnson is not an error.

Covers

Each issue of the series used the same format for its cover: a piece of art of a character (usually one who appeared in the book in question, if not necessarily the most significant character in the volume), with a lower panel extracted from one of the included comics, washed over in a block colour. Most of the character art pieces presumably come from some large stock library at Hasbro, with the vast majority being reused from Dreamwave's More than Meets the Eye profile series. The covers not sourced from Dreamwave are as follows:

• Early toy-inspired promotional art drawn by Guido Guidi for IDW Publishing:

  • Banners for San Diego Comic-Con 2005: Vol. 19 (Megatron), Vol. 64 (Starscream), and Vol. 50 (Prowl)[30]
  • Postcard-sized pieces featuring the cast of Infiltration: Vol. 1 (Ironhide), 26 (Blitzwing), Vol. 35 (Optimus), and Vol. 59 (Ratchet)[31]

• Many pieces of stock art done by Don Figueroa and Josh Burcham circa 2007 for Hasbro, in the style they used for the The Animated Movie adaptation.[32][33][34][35] The pieces were most notably used for Shout! Studios's DVD releases of the '80s cartoon, with artist Andrew Griffith later taking over from Don in the same style.[36] The pieces used for Definitive are: Vol. 6 (Megatron), Vol. 8 (Soundwave), Vol. 10 (Devastator), Vol. 16 (Optimus Prime), Vol. 18 (Grimlock), Vol. 21 (Optimus Prime with axe), Vol. 29 (Jazz), Vol. 31 (Megatron with mace), Vol. 36 (Hot Rod), Vol. 37 (Starscream), and Vol. 39 (Bumblebee)

• Profile art from the Beast Wars Sourcebook: Vol. 93 (Optimal Optimus) and Vol. 94 (Beast Wars Megatron)

• Cropped from artwork of one of the collected issues: Vol. 41 (Drift), Vol. 48 ("stealth bomber" Megatron) and Vol. 95 (Wheeljack)

• Marvel (US & UK)

• 
  Vol. 1: Power Play

• 
  Vol. 2: New Order

• 
  Vol. 3: Dinobot Hunt

• 
  Vol. 4: Second Generation

• 
  Vol. 5: The Smelting Pool

• 
  Vol. 6: Target: 2006

• 
  Vol. 7: The Harder They Die

• 
  Vol. 8: Wanted: Galvatron - Dead or Alive

• 
  Vol. 9: Toy Soldiers

• 
  Vol. 10: Trial by Fire

• 
  Vol. 11: The Legacy of Unicron

• 
  Vol. 12: Cosmic Carnival

• 
  Vol. 13: City of Fear

• 
  Vol. 14: Space Pirates

• 
  Vol. 15: Time Wars

• 
  Vol. 16: The Primal Scream

• 
  Vol. 17: Matrix Quest

• 
  Vol. 18: Edge of Extinction

• 
  Vol. 19: Perchance to Dream

• 
  Vol. 20: End of the Road

• Marvel's Generation 2

• 
  Vol. 89: Realignments

• 
  Vol. 90: Generation 2 Part 1

• 
  Vol. 91: Generation 2 Part 2

• IDW's Regeneration One

• 
  Vol. 21: Regeneration One

• 
  Vol. 22: Natural Selection

• 
  Vol. 23: Destiny

• 
  Vol. 24: The War to End All Wars

• Dreamwave Productions

• 
  Vol. 25: Prime Directive

• 
  Vol. 26: War and Peace

• 
  Vol. 27: Worlds Collide Part 1

• 
  Vol. 28: Worlds Collide Part 2

• 
  Vol. 29: The War Within

• 
  Vol. 30: War Within: The Dark Ages

• 
  Vol. 31: The Iron Fist

• 2005 IDW continuity

• 
  Vol. 32: Infiltration

• 
  Vol. 33: Megatron Origin

• 
  Vol. 34: Autocracy

• 
  Vol. 35: Primacy

• 
  Vol. 36: Stormbringer

• 
  Vol. 37: Escalation

• 
  Vol. 38: Devastation

• 
  Vol. 39: Hearts of Steel

• 
  Vol. 40: Maximum Dinobots

• 
  Vol. 41: Drift

• 
  Vol. 42: Revelation

• 
  Vol. 43: All Hail Megatron, Part 1

• 
  Vol. 44: All Hail Megatron, Part 2

• 
  Vol. 45: Last Stand of the Wreckers

• 
  Vol. 46: Things Fall Apart

• 
  Vol. 47: International Incident

• 
  Vol. 48: Revenge of the Decepticons

• 
  Vol. 49: The Iron Age

• 
  Vol. 50: Heart of Darkness

• 
  Vol. 51: Chaos Theory

• 
  Vol. 52: The Death of Optimus Prime

• 
  Vol. 53: Liars, A to D

• 
  Vol. 54: A Better Tomorrow

• 
  Vol. 55: Shadowplay

• 
  Vol. 56: City On Fire

• 
  Vol. 57: Remain In Light

• 
  Vol. 58: Shockpoint

• 
  Vol. 59: Dark Cybertron, Part 1

• 
  Vol. 60: Dark Cybertron, Part 2

• 
  Vol. 61: World Shut Your Mouth

• 
  Vol. 62: Earthfall

• 
  Vol. 63: Elegant Chaos

• 
  Vol. 64: Windblade

• 
  Vol. 65: Combiner Wars

• 
  Vol. 66: Speak, Memory

• 
  Vol. 67: Conquerors

• 
  Vol. 68: Empire of Stone

• 
  Vol. 69: Sins of the Wreckers

• 
  Vol. 70: Punishment

• 
  Vol. 71: All Hail Optimus

• 
  Vol. 72: The Dying of the Light

• 
  Vol. 75: Titans Return, Part 1

• 
  Vol. 76: Titans Return, Part 2

• 
  Vol. 77: Dissolution

• 
  Vol. 78: New Cybertron

• 
  Vol. 79: Primeless

• 
  Vol. 80: Requiem of the Wreckers

• 
  Vol. 81: Revolution

• 
  Vol. 82: Revolutionaries

• 
  Vol. 83: First Strike

• 
  Vol. 84: The Falling Part 1

• 
  Vol. 85: The Falling Part 2

• 
  Vol. 86: The Everlasting Voices

• 
  Vol. 87: Crucible

• 
  Vol. 88: Unicron

• Miscellaneous

• 
  Vol. 73: Transformers vs. G.I. Joe, Part 1

• 
  Vol. 74: Transformers vs. G.I. Joe, Part 2

• 
  Vol. 92: Transformers: The Movie

• 
  Vol. 93: Beast Wars: The Gathering

• 
  Vol. 94: Beast Wars: The Ascending

• 
  Vol. 95: G.I. Joe vs. Transformers, Part 1

• 
  Vol. 96: G.I. Joe vs. Transformers, Part 2

• 
  Vol. 97: G.I. Joe vs. Transformers, Part 3

• 2019 IDW continuity

• 
  Vol. 98: The World In Your Eyes

• 
  Vol. 99: The Cracks Beneath Your Feet

• 
  Vol. 100: Constructicons Rising

References

1. ↑ "A Different Approach to Colour", Vol.16
2. ↑ Ozformers Transformers Club of Australia: UK Definitive Comic collection from Hachette now in Australia
3. ↑ Polish version of official site
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Ryan F on the TFW2005 forums: "In order to smooth over the continuity cracks between the UK and US stories, the US books were usually edited (US#16-24 were especially affected) for their UK printing. But rather than the UK edits of the American stories, we get the familiar US versions. [...] Oh, and on page 214, there's a factual error as well, when it states that Transformers UK sold 200,000 copies per week. That's actually completely false. It actually sold 100,000 copies per week at its peak. That said, each individual comic sold would tend to be read by a number of people, as kids lent or gave their comics to siblings or school friends. It was calculated that, on average, each comic sold would be read by two-point-five people. Marvel (and other comic publishers such as Fleetway or IPC) would therefore take the actual circulation figures and apply this 2.5 multiplier to give a total readership that did exceed two hundred thousand on occasion. So whilst the readership was arguably 250K-plus, the actual number of copies sold was nowhere near that figure.
5. ↑ Facebook post quoted by Andy Turnbull on the Transmasters UK forums: "While we make every effort to maintain the original flow and continuity of the Marvel UK/US TRANSFORMERS stories, the self-contained identity and integrity of each individual volume is of paramount importance, especially as the collections aren’t released in chronological order. So, in a heavily UK-centric volume titled Dinobot Hunt, we took the decision to lead with the main/bulk of 'Dinobot Hunt' (and preceding issues) itself. Both UK and US strips are prefaced with a dedicated Story So Far to ease readers into the respective narratives, so they can be enjoyed together or in and of themselves. Naturally, we regret any inherent ‘spoilers’, but our policy is to create coherent and self-supportive volumes that anyone, casual reader or long-time fan, can pick up and enjoy."
6. ↑ Simon Furman on WordPress: "all the Dreamwave G1 material that saw print in single-issue form will be collected, including the rare Summer Special story, Welcome to the Jungle, and their ongoing G1 series"
7. ↑ "WOW! I did not know about this. Otherwise I'd have looked at getting it into one of the Beast Wars Definitive G1 collections. Thanks for sharing, Josh!"—Simon Furman, Twitter, 2021/11/17
8. ↑ John-Paul Bove on the Transmasters UK forums: "Raiders has been coloured to match as closely as possible the original. As far as I can tell the original was coloured in marker pen! This involved some exceptionally detailed hi res scans and taking the texture and colour choices from the original (including a Megs with a lot of gold!). There were two changes made to the originals, one was a colouring error pointed out by Mike Collins himself that affected the linework (see if you can spot it) that I corrected and the other was that the Guardian colours were changed to match all subsequent appearances. When he is taken down he is left a solid colour in that Yomtovy way of doing things."
9. ↑ John-Paul Bove on the Transmasters UK forums: "As stated in the colour commentary in vol. 3, the style of colouring for the strips depends entirely on the continuity it follows regardless of which country it originated in. So Race with the Devil and Fallen Star follow US continuity despite being a UK originated strip. So the colour ref will follow what was in the Underbase Saga and the stories containing the classic Pretenders (so background Soundwave is Magenta as Ed said). At a certain point along the way the UK was instructed to follow the US way of colouring, so the techniques becomes the same though the guys and gals in the UK were geniuses in making combinations to generate richer pallets. That's why Survivors etc has been done in a richer, denser style."
10. ↑ John-Paul Bove on the Transmasters UK forums: "For Aspects of Evil (coming soon!) the colouring style is not bound by continuity. I felt doing something like Regen would be too far removed from the time, but instead I have coloured it in a way that could have been rendered with inks and airbrush but that still feels modern without any computer trickery. It's a style based a little on contrast and is hopefully both bold and subtle."
11. ↑ John-Paul Bove on the Transmasters UK forums: "With Xaaron I was pretty sure that his appearance here was chronologically the first we'd seen him so I decided to make him his UK colours and leave his all yellow look something he got shortly after. This was partly because his all yellow look was awful and there was enough wiggle room to do it. Soundwave on the other hand had appeared magenta before the events of Starscream's Pretender process and after so to change him to blue for this moment between other moments requires a bigger ask. There is a whole complicated reasoning that had to apply to Thunderwing precisely because he appears in different colours in between coloured appearances. I reasoned that he was burned then jumped into the sea which lead to one colour change, got repaired and recoloured when he got back to the ship and then got given a final upgrade when he got made leader. I spent forever working out a logic that would make sense of all the colour schemes he had that I had to jump between. There was definitely method to the madness and many, many hours were spent making it as consistent, justified and sympathetic as possible."
12. ↑ Archived copy of official site
13. ↑ Archived copy of official site
14. ↑ Solar Pool: "The Target: 2006 book is already out... if it doesn’t [finish], Target: 2006 was back on at least some newsagents shelves towards the end of its 30th anniversary week. How cool is that?"
15. ↑ Ryan F on the TFW2005 forums: "The weird thing is, though, these aren't the IDW versions. The cover to Heavy Traffic has all the Marvel characters around the edge, and the little kid in Decepticon Graffiti is wearing his Spider-Man t-shirt. This stuff was painted out of the IDW trades due to rights issues with Marvel."
16. ↑ fishpop on the TFW2005 forums: "Also: the poster that comes with Volume 1 (Target: 2006) shows some small character bios but goofs up the "Jazz" bio by using a picture of Prowl."
17. ↑ drmick on the TFW2005 forums: "On anybody else's copies, is the inside cover art wrong? I've got Stormbringer art inside the Target:2006 book, and Target:2006 art inside the Stormbringer book."
18. ↑ Magnus' Mate on the TFW2005 forums: "Except the IDW "Transformers Classics" volume 2 with issue #23 in doesn't have this same problem - Skids is still Skids, not Skips! I know there are other problems with them, but this one is on Hachette."
19. ↑ drmick on the TFW2005 forums: "There is also a half page bio on JP, which was obviously written by himself in the first person, and then edited to be the third person- but they missed one of the first person senetnces and it is still in there!"
20. ↑ rodster6 on the TFW2005 forums: "Got volume 7 today (which I think is issue 22) and there is a weird number printed randomly on one page that shouldn't be there."
21. ↑ ultra badness on the TFW2005 forums: "I just got an email from Hachette to say they had misprinted the spine art on issue 1. And hey will send a replacement. Hurrah! Im going to have 3 issues!"
22. ↑ Magnus' Mate on TFW2005: "Incidentally, the 'corrected' #1 will be available to non-subscribers as well, included free with issue #7!"
23. ↑ Millarworld forums (dead link)
24. ↑ Transformers: The Definitive G1 Collection on Facebook
25. ↑ Danlevan on the Transmasters UK forums: "Volume 28 - The speech bubbles from another page were repeated, but the art was still correct. It's a page with Prime and the human kids at the top, and the Minicons transforming at the bottom from issue 18. The speech bubbles are from the next page. One sits over Rad's face so is pretty easy to spot."
26. ↑ fishpop on the TFW2005 forums: "The last two pages of Monstrosity #11 have been swapped with the ones from W&P #3"
27. ↑ Danlevan on the Transmasters UK forums: "Volume 64 - The first page of Windblade #4 is zoomed in and has cut off speech bubbles, the issues of ex-RiD are out of order. An incorrect printing starts with a page with Sideswipe, Cosmos and Prowl instead of Blackrock."
28. ↑ Danlevan on the Transmasters UK forums: "Volume 75 - A page from earlier in the issue with Bruticus is reprinted. Really easy to spot if you flick through the black bordered pages, these stick out as they're white and again aren't Livio art."
29. ↑ Danlevan on the Transmasters UK forums: "Revolution (Volume 81) had the intro printed at the back of the book"
30. ↑ "IDW banner for SDCC 2005 booth - and later re-used on 2006 as TF Infiltration variant cover!"—Guido Guidi on DeviantArt, 2006-12-08
31. ↑ "This is from a set of postcard-sized pieces I did for IDW publishing back in 2006, featuring the cast from the "Infiltration" mini-series by Simon Furman and ~EJ-Su. Designs were heavily inspired by the '80 toys."—Guido Guidi on DeviantArt, 2010-10-28
32. ↑ "That great image of lounging Optimus making the rounds took me back! I didnt help make it but its done in the same style as this art Don and I started for Hasbro. its still fun to still see these show up on T-shirts. Pretty sure I did Optimus, too? Cant find colors for that tho https://t.co/UORU91CRbL"—Josh Burcham, Twitter, 2022/02/01
33. ↑ "I have line art for Optimus, Soundwave, and Starscream but no color files on this hard drive so maybe they're still around. I think ultimately communication kinda broke down between me and who I was working with [there was some confusion on the color style] but it was still fun!"—Josh Burcham, Twitter, 2022/02/01
34. ↑ "I remember the edict being a style like what Don and I were doing on the TF:TM adaptation via IDW. Turned out they meant the cover art, which I did in a more airbrushy/painty style, and not the cel shaded interiors and then I cant remember what happened after that :o"—Josh Burcham, Twitter, 2022/02/01
35. ↑ "Clearly they found someone else, as my mom has a shirt with all this art on it with characters like Grimlock and Jazz and all kinds of other characters. Its amusing that Hasbro still uses this stuff, my files are dated early 2007"—Josh Burcham, Twitter, 2022/02/01
36. ↑ "It’s funny I was actually thinking that! It reminded me of when I’d have to try to match his look for the DVD covers. It’s definitely based on his style of G1 Optimus."—Andrew Griffith, Twitter, 2022/02/01

External links

• Official website