Newsarama interview + Stormbringer 5-page preview!

Post by **Denyer** » Wed May 03, 2006 4:47 pm

Appears to be the five pages that will appear in the Free Comic Book Day TF comic on Saturday...

http://www.newsarama.com/forums/showthread.php?t=69310

Lots of things to like in this... Thunderwing apparently standing at ground zero rather than being on fire (unlike The Fallen, that fanwank contrivance...) Slick art/colouring, but with plenty of dialogue. Reassurance that Unicron won't be popping up for a long time, if ever. A reason for the TFs being spread out over the galaxy.

Yay!

Metal Vendetta · Post by **Metal Vendetta** » Wed May 03, 2006 4:57 pm

Oooh....*clicks*

[edit] Gah, their database is having issues. I'll be back, dammit!

Post by **Denyer** » Wed May 03, 2006 5:35 pm

Metal Vendetta · Post by **Metal Vendetta** » Wed May 03, 2006 6:00 pm

Mmm...seems like good news all round.

Simon Furman wrote:Unicron is something we may never get to (though don’t hold me to that). In my opinion, he’s been overused. But I certainly wouldn’t rule out a few ‘associated’ characters in due course.

Does this mean...Galvatron?!?

Hound · Post by **Hound** » Wed May 03, 2006 6:31 pm

Happy to see the Technobots in action. Easily my fave combiner group.

Predabot · Post by **Predabot** » Wed May 03, 2006 7:08 pm

Simon Furman wrote:Escalation, which kicks off in September (while Stormbringer’s still running), starts to up the ante in a big way, making Earth far more focal than it first appeared.

And key to it all... Shockwave. More on him soon. Real soon...

What the...! He really IS kidding right? And the jokes on me, yes?

Surely...

All in all it looks to be quite interesting, an ultimization of Transformers it is, all bets in this universe are off.

BB Shockwave · Post by **BB Shockwave** » Wed May 03, 2006 7:34 pm

Predabot wrote:
Simon Furman wrote:Escalation, which kicks off in September (while Stormbringer’s still running), starts to up the ante in a big way, making Earth far more focal than it first appeared.

And key to it all... Shockwave. More on him soon. Real soon...
What the...! He really IS kidding right? And the jokes on me, yes?

Surely...

All in all it looks to be quite interesting, an ultimization of Transformers it is, all bets in this universe are off.

See? Furman must have read my earlier post where I said I missed ol' one eye (in small print).

This is really looking good. Thunderwing, the Techobots - Furman even goes to show their personalities a bit - Nosecone is meticulous, Strafe is nervous... Anyone caught the Star Trek reference when Nosecone ran a level six diagnosis? Data always used to ran those on himself...

And beautifull art... looks like Jetfire is redesigned. Again... Not that it's a bad thing.

Btw, who do you think narrates the first page? My guess is it's OP. Interestingly, he says "called down the storm on ourselves' which leads me to believe that maybe Thunderwing started out as an Autobot... (crazy scientist - Flame, anyone?)

SF: Whole heaps of characters fans have been crying out for: Jetfire, the Technobots, Bludgeon, Springer, Razorclaw, Omega Supreme, Trypticon, Topspin, Darkwing (to mention but a few).

-Heh, just what I'd have said. Except he left out Dreadwind, but then those two are always together...

NRAMA: What about new characters? Villains?

SF: No new characters, no, but a fairly dramatic re-imagining of Thunderwing, who’s our big bad for the series. And in re-imagining Thunderwing, we also take one of the maybe sillier concepts (Pretenders) and try and turn it into something that has real weight and substance.

-Now that's what I'm curious about... From what he said it's pretty apparent Thunderwing turned himself into an ultimate weapon, and I wonder how the Pretender tech could have been made so powerful... And from this, I gather we'll see the tiny TW robot in some flashback...

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed May 03, 2006 8:06 pm

Seems to me as if this will be an allegorical tale of the consequences of knowledge without wisdom and the arrogance than befalls it.

Also a tale about war, ecological disaster and perhaps a couple of religious nuts banging their heads together.

Pretender shells == Kryptonian Battle Suits.
Thunderwing == Bullied-at-school taking revenge on world.

IMHO, of course.

Scraplet · Post by **Scraplet** » Wed May 03, 2006 10:15 pm

Yet again, Furman and the IDW team demonstrate that they are listening very carfully to the punters.

And, by the sound of it, striking a very good balance between foaming-fanboy demands and the integrety of the story they always intended to tell.

Manchester Devil · Post by **Manchester Devil** » Wed May 03, 2006 10:30 pm

Stormbringer sounds like an absolute winner, if only the only comic shop in my area can get the rest of Infiltration and Beast Wars.

Stormwolf · Post by **Stormwolf** » Thu May 04, 2006 1:21 pm

I like it when combiners are depicted as actual characters instead of just gestalt limbs (like Mad Brick did).

Looks good so far, but I can't really rate a entire issue on just 5 pages.

Post by **Best First** » Thu May 04, 2006 2:24 pm

And key to it all... Shockwave

well... du'h.

Professor Smooth · Post by **Professor Smooth** » Thu May 04, 2006 4:30 pm

Can I build an altar to Don somewhere? One made from the brilliance manifest in physical form by his artwork?

Yaya · Post by **Yaya** » Fri May 05, 2006 2:20 am

IDW's response to the fans is perhaps the greatest sign of all for the future of TF comics.

All things considered, IDW is evolving into something very DW-like, but is cutting away the fat and becoming the lean, mean Transformery machine that I have dreamed of. Not to take anything away from DW, they did great work aside from some major kinks, but overall, IDW is showing more promise and, without a doubt, more concern about the fans.

When I see Stormbringer, I think IDW="DW in good hands." Don's there. Simon's there. Josh is there. And thank God, Chris, and not Pat, is there.

The fact that they brought Stormbringer out sooner is fantastic. Basically, there are fans of DW who did not take to IDW's Infiltration (I'm a fan of both), and this is the line thrown out to hook them before they swim too far out to sea.

Post by **Best First** » Fri May 05, 2006 10:05 am

IDW couldn't be further from DW, the factthat they have some of the ame freelancers is hadly an idiaction of business management, corporte ethics or editorial stance

DW's core TF work was a jumbled mess capsized by embaressing editorial and knee jerk reactions.

plu si don't see any inflatables...

Impactor returns 2.0 · Post by **Impactor returns 2.0** » Fri May 05, 2006 11:29 am

Im really impressed, im liking the artwork alot - wonderfull painted bits of colour and wicked lines - the page pannels actually flow properly too!

Im a bit behind on the story, why are they not allowed on Cybertrons surface?

Ill be picking this baby up asap.

Post by **Best First** » Fri May 05, 2006 12:09 pm

Impactor returns 2.0 wrote:
Im a bit behind on the story, why are they not allowed on Cybertrons surface?

thats to be revealed

Impactor returns 2.0 · Post by **Impactor returns 2.0** » Fri May 05, 2006 3:57 pm

Ah good stuff - loving the artwork im trying to be that good myself at the moment... failling miserably tho!

Post by **Denyer** » Fri May 05, 2006 10:35 pm

Yaya wrote:All things considered, IDW is evolving into something very DW-like

How?

Yaya wrote:IDW's response to the fans is perhaps the greatest sign of all for the future of TF comics.

Mmm. For a long time, Stormbringer's been posited as a summer event, with the possibility of sixteen issues inside a year. Instead, we're likely to get... Stormbringer as a summer event, with fourteen issues in the year. Not too different.

http://www.transfans.net/interviews_furman3.php

It's possible that IDW were weighing up whether to start Escalation and run Stormbringer parallel up to Christmas, but if it was a switch in tactics, it's been in the works a good while.

Josh · Post by **Josh** » Sun May 07, 2006 3:09 am

IDW was actually hoping to crank out all 4 issues of Stormbringer in one month [from what i heard]

one new one a week

thank God that idea was scrapped though :P
id've never been able to color that much in that short of time x__o

Post by **Denyer** » Sun May 07, 2006 5:22 am

Oh, would've been ****ing awesome if schedules had permitted, though.

Brits in their twenties and up are used to the idea of weekly comics...

BB Shockwave · Post by **BB Shockwave** » Sun May 07, 2006 6:38 am

Denyer wrote:Oh, would've been ****ing awesome if schedules had permitted, though.

Brits in their twenties and up are used to the idea of weekly comics...

Not only brits....

We had to wait 2 months for every TF Marvel comic waay back then - they published 2 issues together. In some cases the suspense was killing me... especially during the end run...