Transformers "Artifacts": Paper

• Comics - Comics from Dreamwave, IDW, Titan and a few other sources. Does not have direct reciews of the Marvel series, but some of the Titan collections of Marvel books are included.
• Guidebooks - More Than Meets The Eye, Antarctic's Cybertronian Guides, and so forth.
• How To Draw - Various books on how to draw robots in general or even Transforemrs in specific.
• Fanclub Materials - The fanclub magazines, mainly.
• Other Books - Novels, cinemanga, sticker books, etc.
• Other Stuff - Calendars, posters, playing cards, anything that doesn't fit into the above categories.

Comics

• IDW Generation One: IDW's G1 book opens with the "Infiltration" miniseries. A totally new continuity, abandoning ties with the 1980s cartoon and comic. Includes the Spotlight and Origin books.
• IDW Beast Wars: IDW picked up the not-actually-published Dreamwave Beast Wars comic, "The Gathering", and put it on shelves as a miniseries. IDW doesn't DO ongoings, but more minis are coming.
• Dreamwave Generation One: A pair of miniseries and then an ongoing title. Also includes the Micromasters miniseries. More or less connected to the 1980s storyline.
• Armada: A "closed" series, it changed its name to Energon with #19.
• Energon: Starting at #19, this picks up from the Armada comic setting with the Energon characters. And then just sort of peters out with Dreamwave's demise.
• War Within: Set during the years before the Ark left for Earth, Simon Furman writes the old mythology of the Transformers. May come back under IDW, and has gotten a few toys in the Titanium series.
• Crossovers/Altiverses: Books like TF/GIJoe or GIJoe/TF, or the Evolutions series. These are books where Transformers exist outside of their "canonical" universes, either meeting some other property, or engaging in "Elseworlds/What If?" stories. I'll also stick stuff here that doesn't belong anywhere else, but hasn't run long enough to have its own section.
• Movie Adaptations: Adaptations of the 1986 movie and the 2007 movie, plus other stuff in the 2007 movie continuity.
• Collections: Trade Paperbacks and other collections of older comics, as put out by Titan Books. They seem to have stopped making them at this point, although there's some material left unreprinted.

"How To Draw" Books

Last updated: 4/3/08

OTFCC Magazine

• #1 - Winter 2004: Primeval Dawn part 1, MTMTE entries for many 2002-3 store exclusive toys. The only issue put out by 3H.
  • 2005
• Feb/Mar: First issue from MasterCollector. Hasbro did not transfer my 3H membership over in time for me to get this issue.
• April/May: First issue I got. Cybertron preview.
• June/July: Voyagers wave 1 reviews, Legends of Cybetron preview.
• August/September: Primus preview.
• October/November: Not reviewing this one. Landmine review, more G1 premiums, interview with Palisades, comparison of Supreme and Voyager Starscreams, MTMTE entries on Vector Prime and Ramjet, review of Metrotitan, some fan art, and the comic (which was okay).
• December/January: Ditto on not reviewing.
  • 2006
• February/March: More of an extended capsule, also my final issue as I decided not to renew.

Other Books

• Official Movie Guide - An overpriced coffee table book, 72 pages for $18-20.

• 2007 Movie Novels - Alan Dean Foster has written both a prequel to the 2007 Transformers movie and the novelization of the movie itself. Published by Del Rey.
  • Transformers: Ghosts of Yesterday - Set in 1969, complementary to the prequel comic series (more or less before the last scene of #2). Mildly recommended. Alan Dean Foster seems to have had to really wush this, and it shows.
  • Movie Junior Novelization - A stripped down and kinda flatly-written piece, but a quick read if you just want a decent plot rundown.
  • Kidbook Movie Roundup - A whole lot of Harper Collins books for kids from very small to only kinda small. Some with Guido Guidi art.
  • "Full" Movie Adaptation - By Alan Dean Foster, and worlds better than Ghosts of Yesterday. Strongly recommended.

• Transformers Genesis - The Art of Transformers: Image - Well, it's been delayed, switched publishers, delayed some more...but it's finally out. And it's very well done. Series, character and artists are listed on every one of the *numbered* pages. There's a great deal of art new for this volume, as well as reproduction of posters, gatefold covers, etc (but not the MegaLitho). The coloring is generally more subdued than the usual Dreamwave murk, even on the Dreamwave pieces, although the "metal reflections" computer coloring trick is a little overused. 115 full pages of art on high quality semi-glossy paper (page size 12" tall and 9.5" wide), well worth the price, and the wait. Strongly recommended. $29.95 (Oh, and the cover under the dustjacket has the full art as well.)

• Keepers Trilogy - A series of three books by Scott Ciencin. "Keepers Trilogy" is my name for it, I'll change it if an official one other than "Transformers" comes up, or if I come up with a better idea.
  • Book One: Hardwired: Riddled with errors that an editor should have spotted, and it tries to use graphic violence and gore to be "mature".
  • Book Two: Annihilation: Delayed by the need to find a new writer who wasn't such a horrible hack. New writer David Cian does a decent job of repairing the damage, although doesn't really add much himself.
  • Book Three: Fusion: Cian again. A bit plot-device-y, but generally good.

• Legends Anthology: Edited by David Cian, it's an anthology of short stories where the authors were told they didn't need to follow any rules. So there's some weird stuff in there, and a couple where characters just don't act like themselves (Parts is Parts stands out in that respect). Finally decided not to write a full review. Mildly recommended.

• Armada KidNovels: Put out by Reader's Digest Children's Books, these are 64 page Young Adult books running their own version of the storyline.
  • The Battle Begins, Race For the Mini-Con Robots: the first two books. $3 each at Wal-Mart.
  • Secret of the Star Saber: Tietelbaum "adapts" the entire "hunt for the Star Saber Mini-Cons" arc into about 60 pages. And it's worse than you'd think. Bare surface treatments, nonexistant transitions from scene to scene, bleah. It was better when the KidNovels were off in their own continuity.

• DK Sticker Books: DK Publishing has put out some sticker books for Transformers. 60+ stickers, with a few big scenery spreads to place the stickers on, as well as outlines for those who'd rather just paste the stickers into the "right" places. Offered through Diamond Comics Distribution and also carried at Barnes & Noble.
  • Armada: I picked this one up the week of release. The stickers are nice, ranging from box art and colored instructions art to what seem to be excerpts from the comics. Maybe not worth $7, but well done.
  • "Classic": As with Armada, this is a mix of box art, instructions art and Dreamwave pieces, but since Dreamwave didn't do the box art in these cases, the differences are more significant. The backgrounds for placing the stickers are back of box murals from the first four years of Transformers toys (1984-7), although the last one is only partial. There are 57 character stickers and 4 faction symbols. Note, Hot Rod is labeled as Rodimus Major.

• DK Readers: Aimed at 8 year olds (roughly), these tell the story of some episodes of the cartoon, plus marginal notes about topics related to the stories and a glossary. Educational and entertaining.

• Armada Cine-Manga: Using stills from the cartoon, these two books each tell the first two parts of three-part arcs. D'oh. Updated with the third book, which ends on a downer.

• Transformers Energon Cinemanga: The Ultimate Betrayal: TokyoPop - I think this got accidentally ordered for me, but what the heck. It adapts two episodes: "Scorpinok" (their misspelling) and "Megatron's Sword". They do a little more with the "cel comic" format than during Armada, violating panel borders and using borderless stuff more often. However, it's still not all that good, and leaves out bits here and there. Very mildly recommended. $7.99.

• Bendon Books: Bendon has made a bunch of cheap activity books and things for small children, and I've found some of them at dollar stores and Kay Bee. The coloring books are a quartet of books made on cheap paper with puzzles, coloring pages, etc. The four have different covers but share a lot of (but not most of) the same pages. Actually good references for basic line art of a lot of the Armada characters, especially since there's side views and rear views of many characters (the rear views are as close as these come to "stuff to laugh at"). Unlike the G1 activity books, these use Dreamwave art and generally don't misrepresent characters or do "dumb stuff". The sticker books are small, almost pamphlets, and come with the same sort of stickers found in the DK Armada sticker book. Bendon also makes those gray write on/pull up to erase slates and a series of handwriting books that also teach you to draw basic vehicles and robots, but I haven't found those yet. They're all pretty cheap, so worth snagging if you can find 'em.

Other Stuff

• Armada Trading Cards: A review based on 12 packs of the set (60 cards). The box I ordered never did ship, although several years later I scavenged up a few boxes cheap at Wal-Mart.

• www.reprolabels.com sample pack: Delta has gone into business making reproductions of both specific toy label sets and insignia packs. I got one of the periodically-offered free sample sets and tried them out.

• Dreamwave G1 Transformers Posters set 1: Posters of Optimus Prime and Megatron in the style of movie posters, plus blown up covers from TF G1 #1.

• Transformers G1 2003 Calendar: Dreamwave - The cover is a bit bland, a somewhat washed out computer-colored depiction of Omega Supreme, which I think might hurt sales a bit. Assuming ANYTHING can hurt the feeding frenzy Dreamwave's benefiting from. Some very good original pieces in this calendar, especially from Don Figueroa and M.D. "Doc" Bright (who contributes a new painted piece of Shockwave blowing Prime's head off for November). The weakest pieces in the calendar come from Keron Grant, although his pieces are at least better than what stuff I've seen of his in comics. I hope Keron's not getting any work drawing actual TF comics, though. Recommended. $14.99

• Transformers Armada 2003 Calendar: Dreamwave - This one's cover follows the same bland graphic design concept, but has a little more going for it, with both Demolishor and Megatron. Less artists work on this one, probably in part because outside artists wouldn't necessarily have the model sheets to do an Armada piece. Figueroa has some very nice pieces in this one, including a Hot Shot who doesn't necessarily like jam (injoke, sorry). Recommended. $14.99

• G1 Playing cards: Regular poker-style cards with TF art. Armada cards also exist, but I never reviewed 'em.