problem with the comics

[BWprowl]

This is the second time I hear about this David Willis character who is he?

Well he's responsible for Shattered Glass Ravage for one. He was also spent a lot of space on his TFwiki convincing people that Drift sucked and that they should hate Drift, and then when they *did* all hate Drift, he turned around and talked about how much he liked Drift because so much of the fandom hated him.

Those are the reasons I hate David Willis, anyway.

[Gomess]

Guys with his.. er.. "creative capabilities" make me glad I'm not part of the Wider Transformers Fan Community.

[Onslaught Six]

Also, he writes and draws Shortpacked, which is sometimes funny and sometimes not. (What can I say? I like Batman jokes.)

[Dominic]

I hope you're looking forward to endless stories about the Animated Stunticons in the near future!

My consideration for "Animated" has depreciated even faster and more severely than "Beast Wars". At least Bob 'n Larry never directly spawned any fandom drama, in contrast to Sorenson's whimsy.

Recordicons just keeps getting worse, eh? I'm increasingly glad I didn't plunk down forty bucks for the right to read this stuff. I'll just middleman a Ramjet.

All things considered, the $40 might note be a bad investment in terms of being able to buy Ramjet directly, and maybe be that middleman for someone else. (It also gives you access to the hilarious forum dramas and legitimately good freebie figures.)

But, yeah, "Recordicons" is a powerful dis-incentive.

This is the second time I hear about this David Willis character who is he

He is an asshole.

Those are the reasons I hate David Willis, anyway.

And those are very good reasons. But, they are hardly comprehensive.

How about the fact that the TF Wiki is essentially his personal soapbox. (The Drift entry is not the only one where his biases are blatant and intrusive. Skywarp's page has an obscure faux-meme from years ago. And, it ain't that funny.) How about the fact that his paid-subscription-only web-comic gets derailed and delayed over every little chicken fart, and then he uses his free webcomic to wrap up plots from the paid comic?

Oh, how about he added his completely self-indulgent "Ultra-car" character to "Shortpacked" (right around when the strip became less funny) as a birthday present to himself?

You know what, we could do this all day. But, I am just going to say he is an asshole and be done with it.


Dom
-and, Willis is again the center of attention.

[Shockwave]

What happened with Animated? I know BW was ruined for you by Synjo (which I still kind of don't get) but who ruined Animated?

Willis is just another Transfan the same as any of the rest of us. Which essentially means he's nobody. The only two significant differences are that he writes that stupid Recordicons strip for the fan club which means that he writes official content. The second difference is that he has some sort of mind control over the brainless parts of the fandom giving him an artificially over inflated ego. This was most evident when he took full credit for Dinobot winning the fan choice for the entry into the Hall of Fame last year. He has no business claiming that since he didn't voice, write, or create the character and instead used his influence to artificially skew the election. In short the second difference is what Dom said, he's an asshole, the rest of us aren't (at least around here ). Having said that, fuck him, I'm done giving any more time to him.

And back on topic of problems with the comics, since this seems to also be looking back to past issues, I wanna comment on the character models in the -ation build up books. It seemed at first like they were going for an Alternators style aesthetic, but they were neither using those models nor the Classics ones which were just seeing release at the time. The fact that they were using new different models when they clearly had two separate toy lines they could have drawn from really annoyed me. I think that's why I liked AHM so much it's when they started using MP/Classics models.

[Dominic]

A recent TFA sourcebook, written by Sorenson, had a verbal Easter Egg that set off all kinds of drama. (It had to do with movie Sideways being the same as UT Sideways.) Sorenson later said, "oh, but not really", meaning he put something into the sourcebook just for the hell of it, despite there being no need for it to have been in there. (Because, apparently official sourcebooks are the place for writers to just stick their whimsy.)

I actually had to agree with Willis about how he handled it. The fact I had to agree with Willis only makes the incident even worse.

As for Dinobot, Willis did swing the vote. He swung it in a self-indulgent and wanky way. But, if not for him, there is no way Dinobot could have won. (Of course, if we got our shit together, we could have picked one G1 character and likely tipped the vote away from Dinobot. But, yeah, Willis organized his groups of fans.)

Character models:
I like have toys that look like the comics as much as anyone. But, it is hardly essential.

I would still like "All Hail Megatron" if it had not used TFU Sunstreaker. And, similarly, TFU Sunstreaker would still be my favorite figure of all time if it had not been in AHM.

And, even if the character models are not based on the toys, that would be less a question of compentently producing a comic than it would be a question of style and consistent branding. The problem with IDW is that the artists are making sloppy mistakes like drawing characters in the wrong places, or simply forgetting to draw them at all. That would not be good regardless of the character models used.


Dom
-wants current IDW Jazz.

Dom
-wants to skin a furry.

[Sydew]

Willis definitely sounds like someone I don't want to meet (actually he also sounds like someone I'd want to punch in the face). I've seen that Recordicons strip in the Club magazine, but never even bothered to read it, found it unappealing. And he's what, the creator of TFwiki? That's a letdown. One thing I would like to know, how did he manage to get into the club magazine? How does he has control over the opinions of the brainless parts of the fandom? Through TFwiki alone?

-and, Willis is again the center of attention.

Sorry, Dom. Guess it's Kinda my fault.

On the character models I really don't mind different models from the figures on the comics. Though I find it exciting when I see a model I have as a toy. What I think, could pose a problem is when you change the model arbitrarily from one issue to the next, although I think that might be a matter of opinion.

[Shockwave]

It's ok Sydew, you sound just like I did a year ago. I didn't know who he was either until the Dinobot fiasco. I don't know how he wrangled getting Recordicons into the club mag, but his comic sucks anyway, so I kind of don't care. My theory on his brain taking involves submliminal messages implanted into the banner ads on the website causing people to artificially think he's cool.

[138 Scourge]

A recent TFA sourcebook, written by Sorenson, had a verbal Easter Egg that set off all kinds of drama. (It had to do with movie Sideways being the same as UT Sideways.) Sorenson later said, "oh, but not really", meaning he put something into the sourcebook just for the hell of it, despite there being no need for it to have been in there. (Because, apparently official sourcebooks are the place for writers to just stick their whimsy.)

I actually had to agree with Willis about how he handled it. The fact I had to agree with Willis only makes the incident even worse.

I think people just overreact to this kind of thing. Yeah, there was the one line about Sideways heading off for another dimension, but I don't know if it's worth filing that away as a total serious fact. So then when "drama" erupts over something so minor, it just kind of makes me shake my head. Sheesh.

It's right up there with the thing in the Drift series, wherein Milne drew in a couple cameos of dead Transformers that sure could look like UT Hot Shot and SG Ravage. Which, y'know, two guys that aren't likely to show up in the regular G1 stories anyway, right? Now, Willis is all nuts for Hot Shot, and "created" SG Ravage, so it's read (whether correctly or not) as a slam on him. So people flip their shit over that (not Willis, though, surprisingly), and call out Milne for killing these dudes (who, again, not likely to show up, anyway). And when the editor says "Milne doesn't control what characters live or die" Willis does get all butthurt. Jesus, it's like...it's an Easter egg thing, not worth taking seriously. Do people get butthurt when Cy-Kill shows up dead in a background?

As for Dinobot, Willis did swing the vote. He swung it in a self-indulgent and wanky way. But, if not for him, there is no way Dinobot could have won. (Of course, if we got our shit together, we could have picked one G1 character and likely tipped the vote away from Dinobot. But, yeah, Willis organized his groups of fans.)

Yeah, he may have had a lot of influence on that one, but then there's this: There were four different G1 guys in that list, one BW dude. So the G1 guys, they all vote for their favorite character. And the BW guys, they all vote for Dinobot. And BW Dinobot, thanks to Bob, Larry, and Scott McNeil, was a pretty rad character. So I mean, there were other factors going for Dinobot other than Willis there. As for the "I take full credit", that was douchey and obnoxious, but I'm pretty sure dude was drunk when he typed that out. Lord knows I can't throw stones at someone for saying something dumb when they're drunk.

Just so it doesn't seem like I'm totally in dude's camp, the whole "creating" SG Ravage. So, take a character that was already designed and given personality, apply reverse-logic to it, pattern his speech off an internet meme, then use a differently-colored version of that character to represent this "new" character? Yeah, that's a feat of brilliance right up there with Stan n' Jack, is what that is. And the look of SG Ravage isn't even original, is it? It's based on a previous repaint of the Ravage mold? So what creative force went into that? Shit, SG Tentakil is represented by that weird yellow version of the Tentakil toy. He seems aloof and grumpy, but really, he wants friends and hugs. Lots of hugs! Look, guys, I'm a character creator! Okay, done with that.

And back on topic of problems with the comics, since this seems to also be looking back to past issues, I wanna comment on the character models in the -ation build up books. It seemed at first like they were going for an Alternators style aesthetic, but they were neither using those models nor the Classics ones which were just seeing release at the time. The fact that they were using new different models when they clearly had two separate toy lines they could have drawn from really annoyed me. I think that's why I liked AHM so much it's when they started using MP/Classics models.

Yeah, but at the time, Alternators didn't have that many characters to go with, and like you said, Classics was just getting started. May not have even started at all at that point, actually. So while they'd have been set if they wanted to use Jazz, Prowl, and Grimlock, guys like Ratchet and Bumblebee would have been shit outta luck. And Megatron. And we'd have been stuck with that kind of crappy Prime design. I think kind of winging it and going with what they did made sense at the time, especially since Classics wasn't supposed to be a recurring thing then. I do like how they've, like you said, made more use of the toy designs. And I love things like Universe Prowl being designed to look like IDW Prowl. Then you've got things like Kup and Scourge showing up on the toy shelves at the same time they're featured in the comics (I know Kup's been in a lot of comics before this, but dang), and I dig that, too. I like what Costa's doing and where his head's at, but I feel like if the comic was more tied to the toyline, it could only help both parts of the franchise.

On the character models I really don't mind different models from the figures on the comics. Though I find it exciting when I see a model I have as a toy.

Yes. It makes it seem like a more legit version of the character in the comics when it actually looks like the toy, doesn't it? I mean, I'm used to the characters looking different from the show back in the G1 days, but now that they can make toys that can look so much like the old animation models or new comics, it seems like it'd be a whole lot cooler to bring the two together more. Get TFs back to being a toy book! There's no shame in that at all!

[BWprowl]

I think people just overreact to this kind of thing. Yeah, there was the one line about Sideways heading off for another dimension, but I don't know if it's worth filing that away as a total serious fact. So then when "drama" erupts over something so minor, it just kind of makes me shake my head. Sheesh.

This is pretty much how I felt about it. The Allspark Almanac (in my opinion, a really really awesome book) has so many out-of-nowhere and obscure references and easter eggs that it would take years just to find and decipher them all. Sticking an Animated version of Sideways in there, and implying that he jumps between dimensions sometimes really was just a harmless, fun reference by Sorenson that wasn't supposed to link the UT, Animated and Movie universes at all. I don't think anyone would have thought anything of it, but Willis

has been pushing (through the TFwiki, of course) for a long time this *really neat* idea he has that every character named Sideways is actually the same dude. So this one, minuscule joke of an entry by Sorenson gives him the apparent justification he needs to tie it all together. And then, when surprise surprise, no one agrees with his stupid theory that uses a postage stamp's worth of information as "proof" he goes and throws a shit-fit over it.

Maybe Sorenson was being more whimsical than he should have been. But it still wasn't enough to start a big thing about continuity and characters over. Willis needs to learn that drawing a gag strip for the club comic and being best buds with Msipher does not make him a Transformers writer/creator. I dread the possible day he's allowed to write a miniseries for IDW...

Speaking of IDW, and their character models, I generally disliked the first batch we saw in "Infiltration". They didn't seem Alternators-ish at all to me, more just like Gundams with TF heads and car panels bolted to them. The legs/feet were especially evident of this. Things got better as time went on though, especially as Roche became more involved and his style developed. Spotlight: Kup still has some of my favorite art in a TF comic, ever. And as much as I rip on the writing disaster of "Revelation", I loved the hell outta EJ Su's art in the last issue. That painted style needs to make a comeback, it was awesome.