Advice re 2009-2011 Ongoing comics (should I buy?)

[Mako Crab]

Prowl (the member) is pretty much on target about Costa's run. Costa pitched a little too high for some of the fandom. But, that is less an issue with him than it is with the fandom.

Costa pitched higher than he was able to deliver. His concepts aren't that high-brow. His writing isn't that high caliber. He's spectacularly mediocre, and the execution of his ideas suffer as a result. Look no further than his ridiculous ending to Police Action. Swindle randomly appears OUT OF NOWHERE to wrap up all the loose ends and implicate Spike as a villain for unrelated crimes, when it turned out no one cared that he had killed Scrapper. Swindle was used as a lazy deus ex machina of the worst kind.

I'll admit, that he did have some interesting ideas, that had previously not been explored in TFs. It's the execution of those ideas, that I have problems with.

*edit*

*grumble* Dammit, Dom. I took the bait again. I always take exception to your comment, that "Costa pitched a little too high for some of the fandom." It comes across as, "He was just too clever for those simpletons," to me, even if that's not what you're meaning to convey. Or alternately, "If only they were smarter, they'd learn to appreciate Costa."

But as someone that loves a good book, as someone that has an innate interest in story structure, linguistics, the written word, pacing, dialogue, and all those things that we use to write stories, I cannot bring myself to like Costa's work. His stories aren't over my head. They're just not good.

[Dominic]

"He was just too clever for those simpletons," to me, even if that's not what you're meaning to convey. Or alternately, "If only they were smarter, they'd learn to appreciate Costa."

That uh....kind of is what I am saying.

There are many TF fans (actually, sci-fi fans and comic fans in general) who want/need things to stay the way they were in 1985 or 1963 or whenever. Putting aside your misreading of "Police Action", the fact is that many fans did not "get" what Costa was doing because he tried to do something other than "big wobuts fighting am awshum".

I agree with most of what Costa said in his interview with Kalimus Prime, especially the part about "Transformers" fans not being interested in comics, but just wanting comics with Transformers.


Dom
-of course, Transfans are going to look good compared to Marvel fans in the next few weeks.

[Mako Crab]

"He was just too clever for those simpletons," to me, even if that's not what you're meaning to convey. Or alternately, "If only they were smarter, they'd learn to appreciate Costa."

That uh....kind of is what I am saying.

Let me phrase it a different way. It comes across like, "If they were smart, they would like this," which completely disregards all the varied reasons why someone might not like it. A person can be smart and still not like Costa's writing.

[BWprowl]

Look no further than his ridiculous ending to Police Action. Swindle randomly appears OUT OF NOWHERE to wrap up all the loose ends and implicate Spike as a villain for unrelated crimes, when it turned out no one cared that he had killed Scrapper. Swindle was used as a lazy deus ex machina of the worst kind.

I'll let you hate everything else you want about Costa's series, I freely admit that it's not for everyone, but I do feel like debating this point: Characters did care that Spike had killed Scrapper, Prowl's whole investigation was predicated on the point that someone 'murdered' Scrapper, and the implications of someone maliciously murdering Cybertronians thereof. He implicated Spike, and tried to call him out on what he did, but didn't have any proof. The reveal of Swindle facilitated the delivery of that proof: Swindle confirmed that Spike had worked with him to get gear to murder Cybertronians, including Scrapper. Spike was always the 'bad guy' of the arc, they just couldn't prove it until the Swindle reveal. Furthermore, Swindle had been hinted at as an element since the beginning of the story (Prowl getting sniped at, among other things) and Costa had previously established him as an element of the antagonistic forces on Earth way back in the first arc of his run. It really didn't come out of nowhere, Costa had been leading to Swindle and Spike and his hatred of Cybertronians overruling his alliance with the Autobots pretty much from day 1.

[Dominic]

I mostly agree with Prowl here.

He implicated Spike, and tried to call him out on what he did, but didn't have any proof.

But, on this spoiler of a point...

Spoiler

Prowl did not try to call Spike out. He was examining evidence because he did not want to call Spike out for no reason, following from his experience as a street cop. And, Spike pointed out that Prowl could have just asked, rather than spend all of that time searching for evidence.

[JediTricks]

"Police Action" is not "Spike did what he had to do". It is more "Spike did something very bad and Prowl has to sort it out".

The problem is that I don't care about either character enough to invest, and I'm not already invested in the characters enough to care. If I had read what came before, maybe I'd have been invested enough to care, but I didn't and I don't feel like looking backwards that far.

That's $6 for 5 comics, and since there's no tax, that's less than $1.20 per comic.

I would rather get better copies, even if they cost more. (Fewer, but better instead of more but lesser quality.)

I can't see a purpose to filling my house with more paper while emptying my wallet of the same. The digital art is decent quality, the zoom-in feature makes good views of that (although IDW's digital clarity isn't as good as Marvel's). I didn't have to run around town hoping to find all the issues I wanted either.

Prowl (the member) is pretty much on target about Costa's run. Costa pitched a little too high for some of the fandom. But, that is less an issue with him than it is with the fandom.

Costa pitched higher than he was able to deliver. His concepts aren't that high-brow. His writing isn't that high caliber. He's spectacularly mediocre, and the execution of his ideas suffer as a result. Look no further than his ridiculous ending to Police Action. Swindle randomly appears OUT OF NOWHERE to wrap up all the loose ends and implicate Spike as a villain for unrelated crimes, when it turned out no one cared that he had killed Scrapper. Swindle was used as a lazy deus ex machina of the worst kind.

That is how the wiki made it seem when I was perusing for backstory on MTMTE and RID comics.

*grumble* Dammit, Dom. I took the bait again. I always take exception to your comment, that "Costa pitched a little too high for some of the fandom." It comes across as, "He was just too clever for those simpletons," to me, even if that's not what you're meaning to convey. Or alternately, "If only they were smarter, they'd learn to appreciate Costa."

But as someone that loves a good book, as someone that has an innate interest in story structure, linguistics, the written word, pacing, dialogue, and all those things that we use to write stories, I cannot bring myself to like Costa's work. His stories aren't over my head. They're just not good.

Welcome to Domland.

Your point about appreciating story structure, linguistics, pacing, dialogue, that really hits home for me, that's how I feel about comics and novels. I can't apply it to Costa as I passed on most of those comics, but that accusation resonates.

That uh....kind of is what I am saying.

Yeah, I knew that was what you're saying. You can be such a CBG sometimes.

I agree with most of what Costa said in his interview with Kalimus Prime, especially the part about "Transformers" fans not being interested in comics, but just wanting comics with Transformers.

That sounds like shit of a horse. RID and MTMTE sell briskly in Los Angeles, they are compelling Transformers comics. If anything, it sounds like Police Action is trying to be a DC tale with Transformers in it.

Let me phrase it a different way. It comes across like, "If they were smart, they would like this," which completely disregards all the varied reasons why someone might not like it. A person can be smart and still not like Costa's writing.

Presactly! That's what he's saying, Dom is a comics snob, an elitist.

[BWprowl]

That sounds like shit of a horse. RID and MTMTE sell briskly in Los Angeles, they are compelling Transformers comics. If anything, it sounds like Police Action is trying to be a DC tale with Transformers in it.

Costa's stuff (and Police Action in particular) comes across more as 'Military/Law Enforcement mystery thriller with Transformers', to the point that ALL of the chapters/issues are titled after novels from that genre. It's just the sort of story Costa writes, he cut his teeth on GI Joe, remember. Like I said, it's not for everyone (It's all written with a *very* human perspective in mind), but I enjoyed it for its more unique spin on things.

[Dominic]

The problem is that I don't care about either character enough to invest, and I'm not already invested in the characters enough to care. If I had read what came before, maybe I'd have been invested enough to care, but I didn't and I don't feel like looking backwards that far.

Why do you need to care about the characters? Why do you need to like or identify with a character to read something? (Seriously, we are adults and it is 2013.)

That is how the wiki made it seem when I was perusing for backstory on MTMTE and RID comics.

The wiki are more or less the types that Costa was (rightly) calling out. "We want twansfohmahs!" The stuff with Swindle makes sense if you (can) read the comcis.

RID and MTMTE sell briskly in Los Angeles, they are compelling Transformers comics. If anything, it sounds like Police Action is trying to be a DC tale with Transformers in it.

Great, and indy crap sells briskly in Cambridge. Does that make indy crap good?

"Police Action" was good comics with Transformers in it.

And, lessee, Costa has actually gone on to write for DC (and by extension Warner Brothers). He got his own damned book published with "Smoke and Mirrors". Barber and Roberts....well, Roberts has written some fanfic and bulked up his resume' with more TF stuff..... Uh..... Barber has some "GI Joe", which is not much but it puts him ahead of Roberts. Costa= comics writer who has written Transformers. Barber and Roberts= Transformers writers who have written comics.

Your point about appreciating story structure, linguistics, pacing, dialogue, that really hits home for me, that's how I feel about comics and novels. I can't apply it to Costa as I passed on most of those comics, but that accusation resonates.

And, Costa can do that. He can write a sentence. He has ideas. He can plot out a story. But, he does not write "Transformers" like mid-90s fanfic or like it was in the 80s, so......


Dom
-seriously, having "Transformers" does not automatically make a comic worth reading.

[Shockwave]

The problem is that I don't care about either character enough to invest, and I'm not already invested in the characters enough to care. If I had read what came before, maybe I'd have been invested enough to care, but I didn't and I don't feel like looking backwards that far.

Why do you need to care about the characters? Why do you need to like or identify with a character to read something? (Seriously, we are adults and it is 2013.)

Ok, you know darn well that this isn't about some fanwank "trekkie-esque" attachment to characters by someone who can't tell the difference between fiction and reality. You know that. Let's not go there again. It isn't about "caring" about characters in the sense of someone caring the same way they do about real life friends, it's in the way that like... um.. Ok, so I don't care about Pokemon. Just in general. I do care about Transformers and as such will have an interest in TF related things. I think what JT is saying is that he doesn't care enough about that part of TF to read it. It has nothing to do with liking or identifying with characters.

[Sparky Prime]

The problem is that I don't care about either character enough to invest, and I'm not already invested in the characters enough to care. If I had read what came before, maybe I'd have been invested enough to care, but I didn't and I don't feel like looking backwards that far.

Why do you need to care about the characters? Why do you need to like or identify with a character to read something? (Seriously, we are adults and it is 2013.)

Ok, you know darn well that this isn't about some fanwank "trekkie-esque" attachment to characters by someone who can't tell the difference between fiction and reality. You know that.

Seriously Dom. Liking the characters is simply a part of enjoying a story for most people.