Spotlight Doubledealer Review

Post by **Denyer** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 5:14 pm

Brendocon wrote:For those who haven't heard, IDW've confirmed that Spotlight Grimlock will indeed be recoloured for the TPB release.

Genuinely not sure what I think of that. Pissed off seems closest.

Eh, colouring's not an error like switched dialogue or balloons... in that sense I don't mind it. Pissed off that the issue got released like that in the first place, but there's no fresh indignation at having a more expensive yet more shoddy product foisted onto issue buyers...

Post by **Best First** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 7:36 am

Denyer wrote:
spiderfrommars wrote:Big question mark over Maximum Dinobots. Again, I'm thinking just trades for all, keep it simple. We'll see.
I'll see Furman out on this run in singles. Will probably pick up further Spotlights in that format too... especially looking forward to the Cosmos one.

Guido's welcome -- he's good enough to have a range rather than just his own way of doing things -- but the style and colour tones adopted for AHM doesn't really suit, IMO.

Max Dinos could be fun if Furman goes for something more than a chase/fight book. My enthusiasm's somewhat dampened by Spotlight: Grimlock forming the first chapter and the production job on that being terrible.

The Thirteen sounds like corporate-led faux epic wank. Hope it's not, but not encouraged by details so far.

Apparently the movie book's been good, so I may check that out in trade.

Good summary. Not read AHM 2 yet as on travels but what i have read does not encourage.

The movie book.... technically good but only worth getting if you really give a crap about these incarnations of the charcters. Which i don't.

Impactor returns 2.0 · Post by **Impactor returns 2.0** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 8:35 am

So, as im a bit late to the IDW party, and have enjoyed the majority of it so far, are the good times coming to an end, is Furmans involvement being scaled down?

Predabot · Post by **Predabot** » Wed Sep 03, 2008 1:15 pm

I think it is, Impy mate.

This here issue was a bit so-so, a bit jumbled together, aye, but not too bad.

I think a big part of the unclearness of the art can be attributed to the colourist, Liam Shalloo. He uses a rather red-tinted and muddy pallette, as well as his shading being a bit too sloppy, and his litteral non-use of light, ends up making the light-sources somewhat undefined.

Granted, Khanna wasn't exactly in top form either. I've seen his work on some of the convention-comics, and his Cybertron-comic was much better-looking than this.

I'm guessing it's quite possible that the whole team didn't have a whole lot of time to put the comic together, until deadline.

veritech · Post by **veritech** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 3:23 pm

You want to talk shoddy production values . . . . Devil's Due sells a hardcover omnibus of all their Voltron issues and even includes some extras. After it came out, fans became aware that several pages are in the wrong order. DDP was contacted and they are taking the position that they are not going to correct the error. I say nerts to them!

Post by **Best First** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 6:16 pm

On topic...

finally read this today. I think this is where the Spotelation (har) format kind of implodes.

Its not a bad comic, but Double Dealer is little more than a plot device to get Hot Rod to the Magnificence (which itself seems to be something the 'bots should have been using all along) and i don't think it was a good editorial decision to have his entire character journey (which was pretty shallow) encapsulated in the blurb at the start of the book.

That said kudos to SF for coontinuing to try and address as many plot points/threads as possible, but i hope we get an ending that's not too chaotic in the final ish.

The art/colour don't really do it for me - pretty anti-climactic death scene to be sure. Espacially notable after the quality of one and two.

The more i dwell on the truncation of this arc the more i am bugged by it, many of us have plugged a lot of cash for a couple of years now into a comic series that has had the rug pulled out from under it. Simon's comments on his blog suggest a certain frustration on his part and also that there was more fun to be had.

I guess i would be less concerned if i didn't think that what we had had up to now was so great or that AHM was such a load of ballsack.

sprunkner · Post by **sprunkner** » Fri Sep 12, 2008 4:57 am

I didn't think about it at first, but the Magnificence is just a big McGuffin.

Post by **snarl** » Fri Sep 12, 2008 8:12 am

It's just like a ******* magic 8 ball for TFs.

Bit of a cop out really, but still...

And on the subject of balls, the art was balls for this one wasn't it... I get he impression Khanna kind of fudges his art other from reference pieces. It's very sketchy and thrown together for me.

It doesn't come across as very technical, i.e. having used vanishing points for persprective, keeping characters in proportion etc.

Brendocon · Post by **Brendocon** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 3:04 pm

Denyer wrote:
Brendocon wrote:For those who haven't heard, IDW've confirmed that Spotlight Grimlock will indeed be recoloured for the TPB release.

Genuinely not sure what I think of that. Pissed off seems closest.
Eh, colouring's not an error like switched dialogue or balloons... in that sense I don't mind it. Pissed off that the issue got released like that in the first place, but there's no fresh indignation at having a more expensive yet more shoddy product foisted onto issue buyers...

It seems the revolution did not go off as expected:
http://forum.idwpublishing.com/viewtopic.php?t=4647