Transformers Comic Review...

Transformers Beast Wars #1
The Gathering

Writer: Simon Furman
Artist: Don Figueroa

Cover art by Don Figueroa

Synopsis: The story begins when Magmatron leads a force of Predacons back to prehistoric Earth and the era of the Beast Wars. Cybertron is controlled mainly by the Maximals while his Predacon brethren are suffering under their control. The Predacons lack the power to wage a new war--they need strength of numbers, something they don't have. Magmatron decides to send his team back in time so that he can take those unused stasis pods and convert them all to brand new Predacon warriors (the team is set out of temporal phase so they don't interrupt the original Beast Wars). Little does he realize that he has a spy in his midst--Razorbeast, a Maximal that had been sent by Lioconvoy to keep tabs on his activities. Razorbeast sends out the activation signal to the protoforms, but he's made sure they'll awaken as Maximals instead of Magmatron's desired Predacons. The Predacons quickly realize they've been tricked, Razorbeast escapes them for the time being and goes to gather his new comrades.

Comments: This series is the same as the Dreamwave BW mini-series from last year--the company died before the series could see print. It was already done and IDW wanted something to add to their new TF franchise, so... The art is fantastic, Figueroa delivers the goods yet again. The story is basically just a set up for the larger story but what we see in the first issue seems like a good start. One thing I wonder is if all the protoforms are indeed *all* Maximals then how is this going to be fair fight? Aren't the Preds hopelessly outnumbered? Or is it like G1, where there's less of them but they're conveniently more powerful in some unspecified way? I guess we'll find out... (I bought the blue wrap-around group shot cover, btw--I thought it was the coolest).

Recommended.

Transformers Comic Review...

Transformers Infiltration #2

Writer: Simon Furman
Artist: E.J. Su

Cover art: James Raiz, E.J. Su, Andrew Wildman, Guido Guidi

Synopsis: The story continues as Ratchet and the humans face-off against Runamuck and Runabout. Ratchet manages to fend the two Decepticons off long enough to escape with his new Human allies. They stop and regroup for a few minutes until they're found again and the chase continues. Finally, out in the desert, Ratchet is defended as three of his comrades arrive in the nick of time and fend off Thundercracker. His happiness is short lived however, as Prowl informs him he is under arrest for disobeying orders.

Comments: Another good issue. This continues the main story as well as further expanding upon some sub plots that have been brewing--Starscream is clearly up to something. But what? (How like him too). Elsewhere, the man with the computer that Verity stold is found dead in the desert and the police report back to some mysterious organization--who are they and just what is going on? I love it! This is how you write a Transformers comic--not like that confusing drivel that Dreamwave did.
Favorite line award this issue goes to:

Hunter: "And the guys chasing us are Decepticons, right? So... what does that make you?"

Ratchet: "Nervous."

I love it!
One minor complaint about the comic is on the production side--four covers? Still with the multi-cover garbage! And what gets me is that three of the covers really aren't that good. Most are very spartan in appearance--two characters in-frame and that's it. I went with James Raiz's nice looking cover this time--it's got more going on and of all the choices available, says "I'm the clear winner here". I really hope IDW drops the alternate covers soon--enough already!
Ignoring that, an excellent comic otherwise and I look forward to reading more.

Strongly Recommended.

TM Magazine: Issue 1

I don't know what happended, which seems to be a running gag for me lately...but I really did post this a couple of days ago. I have the response email from Blogger, but for some reason it did not appear at all on the blog. So, for the second time:


The first, of many hope, TransMasters Magazine is now online:
http://transmasters.250free.com/magazine/index.html

You may need to refresh some pages a couple of times to get everything to load correctly. The MTMTE page will be slow,I know I should have created 4 seperate pages for this.

Enjoy.

CDROM ARCHIVE news

Alright, it is still not as coded as I'd like (You may have to do some browsing of the files to find everything on it.), but it will have to do. Here are images of the CDROM covers, and the label:

I think I've decided to bring the price down to $8.00 US, to include S/H and $10.00 for other countries. If you use Paypal use: phelpscomp@internet49.com as my user ID and call the item: TM ARCHIVE. If you'd rather send funds snail-mail either check or MO in US funds to: (Made out to Peter Phelps) TM ARCHIVE, c/oPeter Phelps, PO BOX 386, SOMERSET CA 95684-0386. Remember, you as members have the right to duplicate these for shows, distribution, etc. (In other words...I'm hoping I don't suddenly have 2,000 orders or something like that.)

The files I created will be in the extras folder for the above covers/CD labels. I used Corel Draw 8 on the covers, but also exported out .JPG files of the same. The CD label is in Avery Design Pro format. Plus you'll find many of the image files I've been using for various medias, etc. I'm not going to go into great detail, but you'll find the extras folder a great store of resources outside our old medias.

tekcities problem: CDROM news

Any of you who may have tried to visit the TransMasters Comic recently might have had the problem of not seeing any of the images. I uploaded the files for the Magazine (due today) on Monday and then checked yesterday just to find out that none of the images were appearing. I am unsure of why this is happening. I will attempt to upload the files someplace else as soon as I can and redirect you to those links until I can figure out if it was something I did wrong. Sadly, this will mean a delay in the Magazine.

I'm also very appologetic to those of you waiting to see the Archive CDROM. It is nearly finished, but will also have a bit of a delay. I hope to get both of these done on Saturday.

This is all due to me getting a new security job. This time it's down in the Sacramento region, so about 1hr drive both ways from where I'm at. It's with McKesson--a Health Care computer services company. I've gone from "take away the detec scanner and you do the same job as 50 years ago" to High Tech monitoring/access badges/and in-house PBX (we're the operators). I worked 8 days in a row (9 if you count orientation) had friday off, spent my Sat at a 10 hr Red Cross First Aid/CPR course and am back now on 5 days straight. Fun. Hopefully soon I'll get into a regular schedule. At least I'll get Fri and Sat off in future.

Thank you all for your patience.