heckyeahponyscans reblogged
i love suez canal memes
What are some problems you've found in both the G2s of MLP & TF that you might think would come down to Hasbro still having been fairly new at making media that wasn't toys at the times of their making?
Well, G2 MLP didn't have any media. Except the UK and French comic books. Overall I don't think the comic books had any influence on G2's success or failure; if a kid already liked MLP they would enjoy them, but they weren't going to pull new kids to the brand.
G2 Transformers are just G1 Transformers with bright 90s color schemes as far as I know. Hasbro was trying to zhuzh them up and make them feel ~NEW~ to draw in a new and more 'rad' crop of kids. I don't know how successful the line was, but I do like some of their crazy color schemes. I have a jet who looks like a cardigan sock.
As far as media goes, Hasbro took the G1 TF cartoon and added a bunch of CGI transitions which they called "the cybernetic space cube." I've never met anyone who liked the CGI, it's very distracting.
It also had a comic book in the mid-90s. I'm not sure about the sales numbers, but in a fandom sense it was influential because this was the only source of new canon material at the time and because it was "adult". Not really adult, but what teenagers think is adult, lol. Edgy and grimdark. Since a lot of the kids of the 80s were now teens of the 90s, I imagine this was very gratifying. Like "SEE?! Transformers aren't just for kids, MOM!"
A group of UK based TF fanfic writers drew from these comics for inspiration, and when the comic book series finally ended, the final issue actually plugged this group. Very unusual to see in a canon publication! IIRC, one of the members of this UK fanfiction group was . . . James Roberts! Who years later would go on to be the writer of IDW Comic's popular Transformers comic, "More Than Meets The Eye". I would guess that this history helped James Roberts land the IDW job. (Although being a TF fan was not a prerequisite for writing TF comics for IDW.) And if that's the case, the G2 TF comic had a HUGE influence on the franchise, albeit indirectly.
However, MTMTE is nothing like G2 Transformers in tone. (Aside from having some body horror, I guess.) I listened to a podcast where James Roberts talked about how much DC's comedic 80s comic, "Justice League International" influenced him.
I guess this got pretty far afield from the original question, but it was a bit hard to answer because at the time Hasbro didn't really make their own media and ultimately I think the success or failure those lines were first and foremost about the toys. Like, I don't think G2 My Little Pony would have been a smash hit in the US if it had had a TV show. Sometimes a toy company puts forth a product and kids are just like: "NO."
Transformers fans, please forgive me if I got any details wrong, I was going from memory, ha ha.
Wanted to highlight this exchange for the casual lore drop of Scorponok’s organic baby
To clarify my previous question, what TF gen (besides G1 for obvious reasons) would you say is the most influential one (even with how much or little was sacrificed in the process)?
Hmmm . . . As much as I loathe to say it, probably the Bayverse movies!
The Michael Bay movies introduced the notion of the Allspark, which was a central part of Transformers Animated and also played a significant part in Transformers Cyberverse. It also showed up in Transformers Prime and Robots In Disguise 2015, playing a minor role.
Transformers Prime's aesthetics and elaborately choreographed fight scenes were definitely inspired by the Bay movies (though they were better because you could tell what was happening, lol) and when you consider the Vehicons (the generic, nameless Decepticon troopers) as actual people, the series was just as brutal as the Bayverse. (The Autobots killed literally hundreds of Vehicons, it was wild.)
Also, did Bayverse Optimus and Megatron start out as friends? Because that has been a staple of Transformers since TF Prime.
I think the IDW1 comic book series (More Than Meets The Eye specifically) will be a huge influence on future series. The Cyberverse series already referenced it strongly with Tarn and Drift/Deadlock showing up, both of whom were comics-only characters previously.
#Transformers#MTMTE#Transformers Bayverse#TFP#TFA#the funny thing about the bayverse is it influenced the setting a lot#but I haven't seen a lot of characters from it appear in other things#(like characters that originated in it)#the most I've seen is Barricade showing up in fanfics sometimes#as Prowl's evil brother or whatever
So IDW continues to have the My Little Pony license for comic books . . . but is LOSING the Transformers license.
This is just wild to me since I would’ve thought anything positive / negative feelings that Hasbro had about IDW would be about, idk, fee structures and royalties. And therefore they would either assign all their IPs to IDW or none of them.
But I guess that’s not the case!
Only a few years ago IDW was producing wildly popular “More Than Meets The Eye”, which drew in tons of new TF fans. But since then they rebooted their continuity and changed writers. The new series is pretty boring IMO.
hi!! I've actually been meaning to get into transformers for some time now but it's a bit daunting with how much it seems to have. what would you consider a good entry point to get into it media-wise, like what show or movie to start with? ☺💕💕
Great question! Here are the two iterations that are the most newbie friendly IMO, just judging from how many people onboard into Transformers from them:
1. Transformers Prime - This is what got me back into Transformers after a long hiatus. Currently it’s on Netflix (and two seasons of it are on Tubi.)
Why it's great:
- AMAZING animation, like holy hell. Not only are the character models great, but their body language is so expressive
- Great character design. These robots look rad.
- Small cast with depth. I don't know what it is about the writing, but the cast is so believable. Like, you believe they had active lives before you ever saw them, instead of being written into existence.
- The humans are pretty fun imo. Most Transformers series have a couple human sidekicks and they can be hit or miss. I liked the humans in TFP, and I am notoriously picky about human characters, lol.
--
2. IDW comics "More Than Meets the Eye" and "Lost Light"
This comic was amazing. MTMTE and Lost Light feature the same stories / characters so I'm not sure why they renamed the series--probably marketing or something.
Why it's great:
- Amazing art and character designs.
- The plotline is NOT "Autobots and Decepticons battle on Earth." In fact it takes place after the war is done.
- Optimus and Bumblebee are not main characters. If you're new to TF you might be going "So what?" but believe me, this is rare.
- It's a comedy
- But also there is tragedy
- We get an exploration of pre-war Cybertronian society and wow was it fucked up
- An amazing amount of LGBTQ representation.
You know how TF started as a "boys toyline"? This resulted in nearly every TF character being male. A previous comic writer doubled down by claiming female TFs didn't even exist. Then the writer of THIS comic was like, "Welp, guess they’re all gay then." To top it off, he wrote in a planet of female Transformers, who are all gay too. (In Lost Light there's a transgender lesbian couple too.)
- Just amazing, intricate plotlines, just so good.
- Like TFP, still has a large active fanbase
----
Some other quite good Transformers shows:
- Transformers Animated
- Bumblebee: The Movie - They finally made a good live action TF movie. It’s set in the 80s, but also feels like it was made in the 80s, like you could picture this being in the same theater as E.T.
- Beast Wars; the CGI is from the 90s but the writing is sooo good, and most people get used to the CGI after two or three episodes.
- G1 Transformers, if you don't mind cheesy puns. Basically if you liked G1 My Little Pony 'n Friends you'll probably like G1 Transformers, they were literally written by the same people. On Youtube.
- Cyberverse - I wouldn't say it's strictly good, the pacing is very wonky in places. The episodes are only 15 minutes long and the writers were definitely struggling with that constraint. It did have a lot of creative ideas, though, and I thought it was fun. On Youtube.
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Series I would not recommend:
- Netflix series War For Cybertron (consisting of Siege, Earthrise, and Kingdom) - It assumes the viewer already knows everything about Transformers, which is weird. Like characters will have a major onscreen presence for several episodes without an introduction, they don't explain what the Matrix of Leadership is, etc. It's also boring.
- The Unicron trilogy (consisting of Armada, Cybertron, and Energon) - Armada isn't great, and the other two are just plain bad.
heckyeahponyscans reblogged
Force of habit. 🤔
Did I just purchase a shirt referencing My Chemical Romance while at the same time celebrating the adorableness that is Chromedome x Rewind? YOU’D BEST BELIEVE I DID.
BTW if you use the code “ript2017″ at checkout you get 15% off.
Source: shirtoid.com
Comics Alliance has declared the IDW Transformers comic “More Than Meets The Eye” the best Sci-Fi comic of 2016. :D
It’s the story of Rodimus (”an Autobot who somesaults onto the bridge and pretends to be dead if asked a difficult question”) and his crew of misfits, having (mis)adventures as they travel across the universe.
With cameos from the Decepticon Justice Division, the most ruthless and fanatical Decepticons the universe has ever seen . . .
And the Scavengers, a group of motley Decepticons who are just trying to get by (and not get killed by the DJD).
I love this comic and can’t recommend it enough!
- It’s witty and humorous.
- But also has adventure and drama.
- Topnotch characterization.
- Great art.
- Queer relationships.
- Great and creative world-building on what a culture created by nigh-immortal robots would be like.
- No dumb human sidekicks.
- In fact no humans at all.
- Hallelujah!
You can get MTMTE through Comixology in digital form or on Amazon in graphic novel form.
MTMTE has just been renamed “Lost Light”, so going forward that is the comic to look for.
You and you random robot postings are starting to tempt me to give your other fandom a peek. Any suggestions on where to begin?
That’s a good question! ”Transformers fandom” covers a broad range, and so you have fans who are only interested in one or two continuities and fans who like the whole shebang. Both totally legit options.
Here are some of the more recent / popular Transformers continuities.
- RID (Robots in Disguise) - an ongoing G1 comic about post-war Decepticons, Autobots, and Neutrals struggling to rebuild their society on Cybertron. Lots of robot politics.
- MTMTE (More Than Meets the Eye) - an ongoing G1 comic about Rodimus leading a ship across the galaxy in an attempt to find the Knights of Cybertron, accompanied by stern, by-the-rules Ultra Magnus, ex-Decepticon-turned-hippie Drift, and other eclectic characters. It’s very, very funny and I highly recommend it. Sort of the comic version of a sitcom, but with adventure and danger too. You can purchase both ongoing comics (including backissues) digitally on Comixology if you want to try them out.
- G1 - The classic G1 cartoon still has plenty of fans. There are episodes on Youtube. It’s goofy fun, like “MLP ‘n Friends.” Oh no, Soundwave and Starscream have built an EVIL NIGHT CLUB THAT BRAINWASHES PEOPLE! OH NOOOO!
- Rescue Bots - The ongoing “ages 3 to 6” demographic show that lots of people love because it’s adorable and surprisingly well-written. No fighting Decepticons. The Autobots save people from natural disasters. One of the Autobots sounds like Spike from Cowboy Bebop, because he’s voiced by the same guy. Not on Youtube, but if you google “Rescue Bots online” you can probably find episodes.
- Transformers Prime - The recently ended “older kid” show, aka “the CGI one where the bots don’t have noses.” The show had its flaws (poor writing at times), but a really great cast of characters, IMO, including my favorite, Knock Out.
- Awesome character, I may post a little info on him sometime because I just love this guy. I really, really hope IDW starts using him in the comics. No complete episodes on Youtube, but there are clips. You may be able to find complete episodes elsewhere.
- The live-action movies - I really don’t know much about these, but they definitely have fans.
Personally, I use Tumblr as my Transformers hub. I follow blogs that reblog TF stuff that I like. And I’ve met some awesome friends that way! (Pro-tip, if you search for MTMTE you’ll find More Than Meets the Eye stuff and if you search for TFP you’ll find Transformers Prime stuff.)
There is Rule 34 of Transformers, as with anything, so don’t search at work; search at home and, if you don’t want Rule 34, find some blogs that don’t blog that kind of material and follow them. Or filter out posts tags “NSFW”. There’s a way to do that, right? I think there is, anyway.
If you like roleplaying, there are lots of Transformers ask-blogs, where someone pretends to be a character and answers questions as them. (You can ask them questions anonymously or as a human "character", usually.)
There are also TF message boards, but they are mostly male-dominated and … I don’t know. It’s not that I don’t feel welcomed on them, but I don’t feel like I fit in on them either. Like, I’m a-okay with slash and shipping and I feel like there’s a big “EWWWW” factor on the forums, even if you’re talking about shipping in the safe-for-work “giving your crush a flower and a cute peck on the cheek” sense.
So I prefer Tumblr. It’s where all the lady fans are at.
They also severely under-ordered MTMTE (More Than Meets the Eye, the Transformers comic) EVERY MONTH. Like, it would be noon on the day that MTMTE arrived in the shop, and they'd already be sold out. And I could see that happening a couple times, but every month?? ORDER MORE OF IT YOU FOOLS. ARE YOU AFRAID THE STACK OF TRANSFORMERS COMICS WILL TOUCH THE HEAVENS AND OFFEND THE COMIC BOOK GODS IF YOU BUY MORE OR WHAT.
So that was one of the reasons I wanted a pull list to begin with, I kept missing issues.
I went to a comic book shop a few months ago and wanted to get a subscription going for the MLP ongoing and the two ongoing Transformers comics and they acted like they'd be doing a huge favor to me, and they had some arbitrary number of comics I had to be subscribed to before they'd start a pull list for me, and the moral of this story is don't do that if you're a comic book store because I will leave you forever and buy my comics from Comixology, bitches.
heckyeahponyscans reblogged
this is the actual worst.
monobey
100% canon
Hey friends! It's COMICS TRIVIA TIME!
Question: What is the story behind the "Wanna make something of it?" cover of G4 My Little Pony comic #10?
Answer: It is a homage to the very well-known comic book cover of the 80s series "Justice League International"! (Well, actually the book was just called "Justice League" at that point, but let's not nitpick.)
In an era when comic books were increasingly grimdark, Justice League International was light-hearted, not afraid to explore relationships and emotions of superheroes rather than just "punch bam zowie", and was just plain funny. In other words it has a lot in common with G4 MLP!
Most of the characters were second-stringers (i.e. not well-known like the Flash or Superman), aside from Batman. So the further homage/joke with the MLP cover is that the ponies on it are all background ponies. Wanna make somethin' of it?
I've also included a recent Transformers comic cover, just because I like it and to show that this cover has been homaged a hundred thousand times, seriously.