The Transformers Facebook page posted an update earlier this morning marking 10 years since IDW Publishing released its first Transformers comic: Infiltration #0. Written by long time Transformers comic book writer, Simon Furman, this issue marks the start of an impressive 10 year run by IDW Publishing, one that is still going strong today with multiple on-going comic book releases.
To celebrate this 10 year mark, share your favorite IDW memories in the thread linked below, from the early days of the “-ation” series to today’s ongoing More Than Meets The Eye.
A special thank you to IDW and all of its staff for giving us years worth of great Transformers comics! Here’s to many more!
SMOG
Yeah, my list of favourite TF artists is pretty short, and I like them all for different reasons… Johnson, Senior, Su, Milne… there are some others who have delivered some good stuff here and there, but haven't stuck in my mind. Griffith is pretty decent, but somehow I can never get excited about his work. Stone's work is really vibrant and pretty, but can get sloppy in a hurry. I've seen some really nice stuff from Pitre-Durocher, but it seems to depend on who's doing the finishing.
Agreed. Some people griped about how he was "making TFs look like Gundams"… as if that's somehow a bad thing. While he was obviously borrowing from Gundam-style mecha, seeing that level of clean-yet-functional technical detail on TFs was still really nice. It's a good marriage.
Exactly. There are very few decent TF artists who deliver effortless human characters. As I recally, Su was alright with the bodies, but his quasi-manga faces were a bit… squishy? I'm sure he's better now though.
Ha! Personally, I don't mind a degree of stoicism in TF faces… with a bit of artistic license every now and again to drive home an expression.
When I look back at the first year of MTMTE, I might even prefer Milne's older stuff just a bit. In any case, Milne is my current fave because he can juggle the detail and the expressive qualities. But in terms of personal aesthetics , Su's approach to Transformers is definitely the closest to my own preferences.
zmog
Galvatron II
I'll take it further than that- I think EJ Su might be my favorite Transformers artist period. At least on American/British comics; I really don't know enough about the various manga to say definitively.
But yeah, his level of technical detail (another example of early IDW being incredibly well thought out; this guy put more thought into a functional Transformer physiology and anatomy than anyone before or since) combined with a more stylized, classical mecha take on the character designs really worked for me. He also had a good sense of dynamism and knew how to draw a reader's eye.
His humans were preeeeeeetty bad sometimes, but not any worse than any other Transformers artist. While his Transformers faces were limited in expression, I think this might have been to avoid cheating as much as possible. As designed, they have two real expressions available; open mouth, closed mouth. But, given that Simon Furman was pretty much requiring only shades of angry/determined, that didn't matter much.
I recognize that Miline might be objectively better now- but that old -Ation style man. I don't know what it is, but it works.
SMOG
Yes, but tell me how you really feel.
I'm an artist myself… not a great one, and not currently practicing, but I've got 2 fine arts degrees, a widely acknowledged "good eye", several friends who do comics professionally, and a lifetime of reading comics under my belt. So I'm not a professional art director, but I'm informed enough that your slavering, insult-laden rant provides more unintentional comedy than personal outrage.
Here's a hint: being so unwaveringly, hyperbolically extreme in the ways that you express opinions, showing no moderation or indication of self-reflection, is the surest way to ensure that nobody takes you seriously.
Your stance is that Su's artwork is so profoundly terrible that you can barely look at it without it inducing physical illness, and anyone who disagrees with you is a blind, hopeless, ignorant peon. Okay.
My stance is that Su is a trained, competent, versatile comic/robot artist who delivered a decent (and generally well-received) run, and who has been working in comics, illustration, and design for over a decade.
I wonder who seems more reasonable here?
Yup. We're all TF fans of a certain vintage. We know these things. Don't forget Springer… another one of those old-timers who worked as a jobber for Marvel and DC, whenever they needed something drawn REALLY FAST… whether it looked good or not.
And like Springer, those guys had a following, and the respect of many of their co-workers. They had real skills and real experience. I'm not going to put them down… but not only were they "not robot guys"… their styles were the product of a different time in comics. They often delivered a workman-like product in a quick-and-dirty fashion because that was the standard for the medium at that time.
There are so many different ways a comic artist can be great… dynamism, attention to detail, elegant simplicity, formal efficiency, stylistic innovation, expressivity and emotion… and a foundation in traditional skills, executed with a vibrant quick-and-dirty pace, definitely has its place. I can respect that, even enjoy that… but in the context of Transformers comics, I think we can agree that the results were generally middling at best. Trimpe and Perlin tended to fare better, in my opinion. Springer and Delbo always felt like they were banging it out as fast as possible, and caring not one whit.
I'll step back a bit (because I like to show a little moderation and self-reflection, natch), and agree that "hack" is not being generous to Delbo… but, hack-work is hack-work, no matter who drops it on the page. I doubt even Delbo would contest that, because by and large, it's pretty clear that he wasn't pouring his heart into those Transformers pages.
I also don't feel that we should overly romanticize the past… especially when comic book art has not historically been known for high standards and artistic refinement. I don't think that longevity necessarily absolves an artist of any criticism. Those old guys had their lapses in composition, proportion, perspective, etc… flipping through comics old and new, we can find no shortage of sloppy drawing. Sure, it's nice to give our elders their due, but the work is still the work.
By the same token, Mark Bagley has been doing comics since he cut his teeth on the Star Comics Visionaries book, and 30 years later he still can't draw a face in 3/4 profile (I'm convinced he's actually gotten worse even). But hey, Bagley has other skills… his work isn't entirely defined by those dodgy 3/4 profiles.
Indeed… comics are generally made by underpaid, overworked guys on a deadline… drawing hundreds of panels and poses and a dizzying array of absurd situations. That's why I think that comic book criticism is often pretty cheap… anyone who cites "perspective" or "panel layout" or "proportions" as the grounds for an artist being terrible is merely hedging their bets. You can open any comic from any artist, and find something wonky, awkward, or just plain wrong, and then use it to indict their whole style. That's the nature of the form… it is imperfect by inclination (and sometimes its imperfections are its strength, even).
That's why it's usually the most rampant, indifferent offenders who are the big poster boys for "bad art"… the Liefelds or the Greg Lands, or whoever. Oddly enough, these guys are typically big names, making big bucks. Maybe success has an inverse effect on busting your ass?
The gulf between them is a gulf of time and a gulf of style. You're the one pretending that there is only one universal metric of evaluation for non-vomitous art (specifically, yours). You can talk all you want about line-weight, perspective, and panel layouts, but if you're putting the bulk of the old Marvel stuff up on a pedestal in order to cast Su down, I think that you've built your castle on very shakey ground, and your ministrations are going to fall on mostly deaf ears.
Oh, and being an insulting, condescending, abrasive boor in the process certainly doesn't help. It would be comical, if it didn't come across as so dysfunctional and compulsive… seriously dude, you could rein that in a bit.
Yeah, I noticed that too. The amount of licensed titles they were dumping on the market with crude photo-traced artwork (not even 10 years ago… 5 even!) really was pretty shocking. However, Transformers has always been an odd duck that way. You can take classically-trained craftspeople and put them on a Transformers book, and it looks like shit because they don't have that "robot knack". Likewise, you can take people who can draw robots, and then discover that they can't draw human beings to save their lives… or that they're mostly limited to drawing robots standing around or squatting in dramatic postures, but can't string panels together into a story.
For me, EJ Su was a nice balance. He was clearly more comfortable with technical illustration than with people, which was great when it came to his robots (if not the human characters)… but also his clear stylistic influences from manga/manhua gave his work a dynamic clarity that was a breath of fresh air after the dark years of the "Dreamwave house style", and brought a new look to Transformers.
Was his work perfect? By no means.
Was it serviceable? Even enjoyable? Absolutely.
Nausea-inducing? Well… some people will always have extreme views. But rarely are such extreme views really worth taking seriously. I've been sort of hinting as much, but you're not taking the hint… an objective, balanced, introspective critique and discussion is worth listening to. A flaming sermon from the mount? Not so much.
Anyway, cheers bud. Don't blow any more gaskets. Maybe we'll meet later over something we can actually agree upon.
zmog
*As an addendum, I'm gonna go back and spend some time skimming over some of those old EJ Su issues. If I throw up, I'll issue you a public apology. I expect I'll see some great pages, and some bad pages… some good work, and some not-so-good work. In short, I'm pretty sure it'll be reasonable, and not a flaming bag of poo that only some random privileged guy on the internet can recognize because he's a self-declared expert.
SouthtownKid
And what your posts tell me is that you have zero powers of discernment, no insight on craft, and no understanding of sequential storytelling.
Delbo was a good artist for decades prior to Transformers for numerous publishers internationally across a variety of genres. But robots were definitely not his thing. That was a major problem with Marvel at that time. They considered their toy tie-in comics to be kids stuff of lesser importance than their marquee super-heroes, so they put old-timer artists whose styles were too old fashioned to be popular on them. Delbo, Perlin, Trimpe, etc. were all great artists in their day, but their styles too passe compared to the hot current artists. The toy tie-in books became a clearing house/retirement home for these artists.
But that doesn't change the fact that those artists at least knew their craft. When I look at Infiltration, the artist's complete ignorance of even the most basic building blocks of draftsmanship gives me an excedrin headache in less than 30 seconds.
Artists like Delbo, Perlin, Trimpe, Springer, etc., who you write off as hacks had careers spanning the better part of a century, most winning multiple awards within their field. Where has Su been since leaving the TF books? When has he ever been recognized within the field for any kind of award? Hell, Delbo taught at the Kubert school in his later years. That alone tells you which artist understood his craft. The fact you can't recognize the huge gulf between them, and worse, think the lesser is the greater, renders your opinion on anything relating to art less than meaningless.
And yeah, I guess I do take it kind of personally, because 10 years ago, IDW was snatching up properties all over the place and just throwing any just-out-of-high-school, no-experience hack on art duties across the board. And they all looked like shit. That's the reason why for as much as I didn't think a lot of what Devil's Due was doing with GI Joe, I freaking prayed the license was not going to go to IDW. Anyone but them is what I hoped for at the time. Luckily, by that time, things were already starting to get better, and Joe had a much less rough time of it than TF did.
SMOG
Oh, I see the problem… you were confusing him with Don Figueroa. Understandable.
Nope. I dunno, man. This tirade is completely so completely immoderate and hyperbolic, I can't take it seriously. All you're convincing me of is that I shouldn't take your advice about these things.
You've got some strange ideas about comic book art and artists. If EJ Su is at your low end of tolerance, I'd be amazed that you've ever made it through any Transformers comic ever (because historically, 90% of the time they're pretty terrible).
The inking was admittedly awkward near the beginning. Too many thick lines. It got better though.
I'm sorry. There's no point in carrying on with this. Comparing Su to "trained" hacks like Delbo is just a waste of time for both of us. Su was trained. He was more than competent. AND he had the skillset for doing giant robot action (rather than being "unsuited"). Your indictment of his work seems to border on personal outrage.
Still better than Dreamwave.
zmog
Brave Magnus
Recently got a copy of Issue 0. Wow! Cant believe its been 10 years since the release of these comics. Had a blast reading them and I still do.
SouthtownKid
No offense, but you are high as a kite. Su was pure amateur hour. His people were awful, yes, with proportions wildly different from panel to panel. But also, his basic composition and panel layout were shit. As was his (non) grasp of perspective. And his inking was terrible. His art was bad by EVERY objective measure. Then add some of the worst computer coloring of all time (not his fault), and you have something that churns my stomach to look at.
Most of the old Marvel artists were wildly unsuited for the subject matter (Perlin, Delbo, etc. Pretty much everyone except Senior), but they WERE at least trained artists. Which puts all of them in a league separate to — and above — what we got when IDW TF kicked off.
I'm sure that 10 years later, Su has developed and hopefully grown as an artist. If he came back to the comics now, I would welcome him and be more than happy to give him a new chance. But the stuff from Infiltration (and the art from a lot of IDW's licensed comics 10 years ago, to be fair) was just unbearably poor.
SMOG
I should be impressed, but instead this really just makes me feel old.
Wow, that's rough… especially since EJ Su was probably formally the best (or second-best) comics artist IDW has had on Transformers.
Like most TF artists, his human characters were a little bit awkward, but the work was not BAD by any objective measure… if you can read 1980s Marvel, you should certainly be able to handle early IDW.
Meh. The colours were only problematic in Megatron Origin… but considering Su's manga-informed style, I think his work would probably look pretty good in black and white. His use of screentones would stand out a bit more too.
It has its moments, but I agree that it has been sliding far too much in that direction lately. The first 20-odd issues were pretty exciting, because there was a lot of work put into developing Cybertronian history and culture, and felt like the ideas held a lot of promise. In the last year or so, I feel that it's really lost that fresh spark…
zmog
SouthtownKid
Way way way way way way way way way way WAY too many 1:1 human analogies. I would have liked a society that was a little more imaginatively alien.
Galvatron II
Furman's run was almost 100% world building- the characters are thin, so there's not much to hook a non-fan (unlike MtMtE), but for a fan of the brand? Oh my god, so much to love. They really were Furman's playground to sit back and actually think out the world and the setting he'd done so much work in, and rework everything into an unprecedented coherency and grounded-ness.
I mean, we had missteps; Spotlight Arcee, of course, in fact the Spotlights in general being used to elaborate on tidbits about the setting instead of focusing on the characters therein, Transformers having cellular structures (according to Nightbeat; which hardly fits with the way more industrial/mechanical approach the miniseries took with cybernetic life otherwise) and ultimately the Dead Universe falls back onto 3H/Fun Pub Universe-style cosmic nonsense.
But at the same time, all those toy gimmicks suddenly had an in-universe explanation and practical function.
Meanwhile, MtMtE had a stroke of genius in it's pre-war society (like Krypton, Cybertron shouldn't be perfect; it failed. A setting that produced the Decepticons shouldn't be considered ideal), but that's about it. Lots of world building parallel to concepts in the brand's history, but nothing compared to Infiltration Protocols and Regenesis Initiatives. Plus some 1:1 human analogies sprinkled with some Latin and voila– MtMtE.
Rakzo
Roberts is certainly a great worldbuilder and the things that he has done for this continuity in particular are nothing short of admirable.
However, while I consider Roberts the more "creative" worldbuilder, I always thought that Furman was the more "logical" one.
Roberts' ability to develope the universe and the mythos involving them is pretty inventive but at the same time it can be kinda out of place like the abundant similarities to human culture and ideas that came out of nowhere like the Necrobot, DJD, etc. (Ideas that I like mind you but they don't exactly have a precedent).
Furman on the other hand, dedicated his time to develope concepts that already existed in the mythos and expand them. The Transformers infiltrating Earth, Pretenders, Headmasters, the multiple Spotlight issues that not only progressed the main story but also established personalities and relationship between characters, Transformers being naturally more powerful than others, etc. It feels more like an actual EVOLUTION of existing ideas and is something that in many instances surpasses their original incarnations.
Also, while I do love Roberts' work, I don't think I would like to have his particular style in multiple books since I think the brand benefits from the multiple choices it currently has. Furman's vision can be a bit more flexible in that case due that it doesn't focus so much on an over-the-top voice as much as it focuses on plot.
Autovolt 127
I know that feel too. I was beginning to get into collecting Transformers toys around this time 10 years ago.
So many awesome concept arts.
Blitz Wing
10 years ago, I had a very bad taste in my mouth after the fall of Dreamwave. I was uninterested in the Energon and Cybertron cartoons and Classics 1.0 toys were still a year away. It was possibly the lowest point of my Transformers fandom.
Then I found out that the Transformers comics license was going to be renewed by a small company called IDW and they were going to get Simon Furman (my favorite Transformers author at the time) to build their universe. I was all in from that point on.
There have been ups and downs in the last 10 years, sometimes when the comics were the only Transformers related thing I was following, and sometimes when Costa was in charge of the brand. But I have been there for every step of the way, and am looking forward to what the next 10 years will bring.
Cheers!
Shepard Prime
If I had to choose an editor on the basis of world-building, I think at this point I'd go with ROberts over Furman. That's not a knock on Furman, I just think Roberts is a better world-builder than Furman is, much as I love his writing.
At any rate, congrats IDW TFs. *raises glass of energon* Here's to a decade more (at least)!
I still remember being excited reading Infiltration and really taking to heart the covert ops nature of Transformers. I also remember how maddening it was to keep up with it all because of how they were released (minis, solo/spotlights). I'm grateful to IDW for eventually taking a chance and making an ongoing, and from there two giving us two entirely different Transformers books. I never, as a kid back in the 80s would've thought I'd see the day where I get two flavors of TFs and rotating supplemental minis and one-shots with them.
It's a great time to be a Transformers comic fan.
Rakzo
Late to the party but congrats to the greatest Transformers continuity ever. So many great stories and character evolution.
This also makes me wish that Simon Furman would return to IDW as an editor. The franchise would benefit a lot from his direction and worldbuilding while others execute it.
Magnus’ Mate
Not sure if you're joking, but – you do know the 99 cents price was just a special promotion for this one, single issue #0 right? That wasn't the price of regular comics at the time at all!!
griffin-of-oz
It seems like a short 10 years, and there have certainly been memorable stories and mini-series… and some that I probably won't read again.
The Facebook posting is accurate if they are only referring to it being on comic store shelves 10 years ago, but two of the eight versions of Issue 0 was released a month before the five "comic store" versions were released on October 19th.
One was at a Retailer Summit in Baltimore on September 18th, and one was at BotCon on Friday September 23rd 2005. (the Retailer Summit version might have been a freebie though, so the BotCon one could be the first one that was publicly available for sale, as the walk-in crowd on Saturday could have bought them).
Optimus cover Retailer Summit release – Baltimore, MD September 18-20.
Sketch cover Botcon release – Frisco, TX September 23-25.
Four Regular release covers & Retailer incentive – (everywhere) October 19th.
Megatron cover Retailer Summit release – Ft. Wayne, IN October 22-23.
The BotCon version was probably the most fascinating for being more interesting than the contents.
That was just the introductory price for issue 0, which is comic companies sometimes do to get people to try it out while it is cheap, and maybe keep buying to find out what happens next.
The regular price of issue 1 onwards was $2.99.
ultramagnus1
Happy Birthday IDW.
Have never read Infiltration and maybe I should pick up the trades of that and the other -ation series which I havent read bar Revelation.
SouthtownKid
I still have yet to read Infiltration. I keep trying, but the art keeps making me give up after a few pages. In ten years, I don't think I've managed to get to the end of the second issue. I keep hearing about all the great ideas the -Ations introduced which makes me want to read them, but I just can't look at the pages. I am physically repulsed by the drawing and colors.
I keep thinking that if they reprinted the -Ation books in black and white, maybe that would be enough to allow me to force my way through them, but I'm not sure.
IDW has definitely come a long way with their licensed books since then.
marksmith85
10 Years of IDW been buying these since issues 0 and enjoyed every singal issues.
Highlights for me is any scene at Swerve's (If I ever open a bar that's what its being called) and the DJD's Personal development meetings was pretty good as well. Who would have thought the Decepticons had a full HR process….
Last stand of the Wreckers always brings a tear to my eye and all Hail Megatron that was a great series as well.
Congrats on 10 years IDW here's to another 10