Date: Thursday, December 31st 2015 4:03am CST
Categories: Cartoon News,
Book News
Posted by: Va'al |
Credit(s): Barnes and Nobles
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Views: 110,876
Have a smaller robot fan in your life, or are interested in all Trasformers fiction tying in to the Robots in Disguise animated series?
Barnes and Nobles shows a listing for a Little, Brown Young Reader book taking place during Optimus Prime's training in the Realm of the Primes, written by John Sazaklis and due out next week - find out more below, and head
here to check it out, along with the rest of the series!
Overview
On Earth, Bumblebee and his team of Autobots—Sideswipe, Strongarm, Grimlock, and Fixit—battle some of Cybertron's most dangerous Decepticons. In the Realm of the Primes, Optimus is training for an important mission. Little do the two friends know, they are both being tested by Liege Maximo, who will stop at nothing to make sure Optimus and Bumblebee destroy each other. Will they be able to defeat their sinister opponent, or will this be the end of the Autobots?
The fourth chapter book in an exciting original series! Each book is an original story based on the hit series. Also, includes 2 amazing trading cards!
© 2016 Hasbro. All Rights Reserved.
Date: Wednesday, July 15th 2015 11:46am CDT
Categories: Toy News,
Collectables,
Store News,
Book News
Posted by: Va'al |
Credit(s): Amazon Prime
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Views: 68,585
There isn't that much on Amazon Prime Day in terms of Transformers deals - however, two Lightning Deals started at Noon Eastern time for
TF Prime Voyager Predaking and the
Covenant of Primus, as notified by podcaster
xRotorstormx.
The two items will be at the reduced price of $29.99 for the book and $16.99 for the toy - only for a couple more hours, and with limited quantities in stock! As fellow Seibertron.com member
ScottyP said: "Could be thousands of 'em, could be 10".
Date: Thursday, April 2nd 2015 3:38pm CDT
Categories: Cartoon News,
Book News
Posted by: Va'al |
Credit(s): Amazon.com
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Views: 62,928
Thanks to an
Amazon listing for a new chapter book based on the Transformers: Robots in Disguise animated series, we have the reveal of a new member of the escaped Decepticons: Scuzzard! You can check out the listing for the book, authored by John Sazaklis and out in May,
here, and check out the cover showing off Bumblebee and the new Con below!
The first in an exciting, original chapter book series based on the new Cartoon Network show, Transformers: Robots in Disguise!
Copyright © 2015 Hasbro.
Date: Friday, March 27th 2015 7:56am CDT
Categories: Toy News,
People News,
Interviews,
Book News
Posted by: Va'al Discuss This Topic · Permanent Link
Views: 89,357
A very different take, perhaps, on the Transformers franchise, was brought to the stage and under the spotlight by Jim Sorenson and Bill Forster, in the
IDW Publishing Transformers: Legacy book. Showcasing the art that adorned the packaging of the toys from the early Generation 1, 2 and their Japanese counterparts and continuations, the book has been extremely well received in the Transformers fandom (and outside of it), and you can hear the Twincast Podcast talk to one of its authors
here, and read an interview
here.
Here at Seibertron.com, we were able to contact one of those wonderful artists involved in the creation of the original pieces, and an unsung part of the face of Transformers in toy, iconic and pop culture: freelance artist and illustrator Mark Watts!
![Transformers News: Interview with vintage Transformers box artwork artist Mark Watts]( "Transformers News: Interview with vintage Transformers box artwork artist Mark Watts")
The artist in the studio, with Transformers: Legacy - Mark, thank you for the opportunity to discover more about this side of the franchise. So how did it begin, were you approached by Hasbro? Or did you pitch work to them?
Mark - Back in 1985, many, many illustrations ago, I was called into my Agents office. In New York I was shown the Transformers toys fresh from China, some being Prototypes. I was working on a lot of kid toy boxes for Mattel, Kenner, Tyco and more also working on Movie posters I did the Movie Poster for Pink Cadillac staring Clint Eastwood. Some of the Transformers shown were being sold in China and had done very well. At that point I was given a Transformers Bible, top secret, to be kept under lock & key. It contained technical drawings of each Transformer including the placement of colors, logos, ect.
Va'al - Did you choose what to work with yourself, or were you assigned characters?
Mark - Originally I was given six to start with, they were to be used on blister packs for Autobots. Of the six toys, some I believe were Prototypes. I completed the drawings with forced perspective to make the toys more exciting and menacing.
![Transformers News: Interview with vintage Transformers box artwork artist Mark Watts]( "Transformers News: Interview with vintage Transformers box artwork artist Mark Watts")
![Transformers News: Interview with vintage Transformers box artwork artist Mark Watts]( "Transformers News: Interview with vintage Transformers box artwork artist Mark Watts")
Early Autobots! - And how did you go about creating them, what methods and tools do you use?
Mark - This first set of six were painted in Dr. Martian Dyes and Luma Dyes, completely done in Airbrush with cut frisket to protect the area not to be spread. Cut tracing paper was used to move around when spraying to create a softer edge in the reflections. Later paintings were done with Airbrushed Acrylic paints. I like them all I paint in mostly with Acrylics, and occasionally Oils. In the beginning of my Illustration Career I used Airbrush almost exclusivity with - Dyes, Watercolor and Gouache then I switched to Acrylic. I also like Digital now it is faster and easy to change and correct colo,r of course when I started out in the late 70s everything was done by hand, no computers. The Software I use is Photoshop, Painter, Illustrator, Lightwave, Vue. Also I use a combination of 3D rendered and wacom tablet.
My objective on these illustrations in particular was to make them as reflective as possible, like car paint--exciting with a lot of reflections.
![Transformers News: Interview with vintage Transformers box artwork artist Mark Watts]( "Transformers News: Interview with vintage Transformers box artwork artist Mark Watts")
![Transformers News: Interview with vintage Transformers box artwork artist Mark Watts]( "Transformers News: Interview with vintage Transformers box artwork artist Mark Watts")
Newer projects by Mark, returning to car illustration
I completed the set of six and all were very happy with the results. The rest is History, and I continued to work on Transformer art for many years.
Va'al - That sounds fantastic, you almost defined a whole style and even the franchise itself, in a way! How many pieces did you create for Hasbro?
Mark - I did the Original Artwork on about 45 Boxes and Blister Packs for the Transformers Toys when they 1st came out in America in around 1985 and on. In the New Transformers book: Legacy The Art Of Transformer Packaging - Pages that my Art is on: 7,14,15, 30, 34, 35,82, 83, -( 283 Eagle Eye ) - ( 242 Ram Jet ) - ( 264 Reflector ) 295.
![Transformers News: Interview with vintage Transformers box artwork artist Mark Watts]( "Transformers News: Interview with vintage Transformers box artwork artist Mark Watts")
The Big Purple himself
You never know when a toy will take off like Transformers did and become such a sensation. It was my pleasure working on all of the illustrations for the Transformers packaging, the toys were enjoyable and I am sure they were a part of many fond childhood memories. The Art itself feels like Pop Culture Art to me now. It was a real pleasure to be involved.
Va'al - I can tell! So what happened to the originals? Any plans for them, or anything based on them?
Mark - I have decided to put on sale Signed prints of my Transformer Art on
www.markwattsstudios.com. I am offering them on Canvas, Aluminum and Paper, and all Prints are made direct from the the Original Art of these Great Iconic Transformer Toys from 1985, 1987 and beyond…
All 29 prints [featuring Costructicons, Stunticons and Menasor, Jetfire, and much more - V] can be found on the Store section of my
Web Site.
![Transformers News: Interview with vintage Transformers box artwork artist Mark Watts]( "Transformers News: Interview with vintage Transformers box artwork artist Mark Watts")
Blast from the Combiner past! - That is some great stuff, and quite topical with the new IDW/Hasbro event and lines of Combiner Wars! What else do you see yourself doing now and in the future?
Mark - I am planning on mass market my Illustrations on prints and products, I have some more Ideas for products I want to Patten. I also have many more Illustration Ideas floating around in my head and on sketch pads that I will be doing right now I kind of have my Business hat on for a little while longer. As for life, I just had my 1st Grandchild, Crew Winsor Watts. I am enjoying him and my 3 Children, Justin, Britney, Amber, they are all dong great and are very artistic as well. My Wife is a Nurse, she enjoys being a Nurse and is going to start working on a Children's Book that I think she is going to let me Illustrate them.
Va'al - Well then, best of luck to all of you, and in your sales too! Thank you for the chat, Mark.
Mark - Thank you as well for the Interview, Alex.
Mark Watts can be found at his website
www.markwattsstudios.com, and is available for prints, commissions and car illustration art. Head over
here for more about him and his work!
![Transformers News: Interview with vintage Transformers box artwork artist Mark Watts]( "Transformers News: Interview with vintage Transformers box artwork artist Mark Watts")
Date: Wednesday, March 4th 2015 3:22pm CST
Categories: Comic Book News,
Company News,
Book News
Posted by: william-james88 |
Credit(s): IDW and Humble Bundle
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Views: 99,776
New Transformers Comics Bundle from Humble Bundle. If anyone was wondering what that revealed
Leader Ultra Magnus with Minimus Ambus was all about, here is an easy way to get caught up.
It's pay what you want from Humble Bundle:
Transformers comics are so nice,
we bundled them twice.
That, and we've got a sweet spot for Bumblebee (let's bee friends)!
From IDW:
TRANSFORMERS RETURNS TO
HUMBLE BUNDLE WITH IDW PUBLISHING
Leading Publisher Re-Teams With The Pay-What-You-Want Site To Offer TRANSFORMERS Comics
San Diego, CA (March 4, 2015) - Humble Bundle and award-winning publisher IDW Publishing, in conjunction with Hasbro, are reteaming to offer the perfect opportunity to build a digital TRANSFORMERS comic collection. Not only does the bundle feature multiple collected volumes of the hit TRANSFORMERS series, it also boasts some of the most recent issues to date, making it easy to catch up to speed on the latest stories.
Humble Book Bundles typically last for a full two-week time span, however, the contents of this particular bundle are so premium that it will run as a limited time one-week offer. Also unique to this bundle is the "pay $5 or more over the average price" tier, which is being utilized in place of the standard fixed price tier.
https://www.humblebundle.com/books
Customers can name their price for the first 37 issues of TRANSFORMERS: More Than Meets the Eye and the one-shot Death of Optimus Prime.
Those who pay more than the average price will also receive volumes 1-6 of TRANSFORMERS: Robots in Disguise as well as TRANSFORMERS: Dark Cybertron Vol. 1.
Customers who pay $5 above the average price or more will receive all of the above plus TRANSFORMERS: Robots in Disguise #33-#37 and TRANSFORMERS: Dark Cybertron Vol. 2.
“This new bundle of Hasbro’s TRANSFORMERS comics features the newest directions for Optimus Prime, Megatron, and all your other favorite Autobots and Decepticons,” said Jeff Webber, IDW’s VP of Digital Publishing. “This collection includes brand new issues all the way up to the past month, documenting the very latest stories in IDW’s TRANSFORMERS Universe!”
As with all Humble Bundles, customers can choose how their purchase dollars are allocated, between the publishers and charity. The Humble TRANSFORMERS Bundle 2 Presented by IDW supports the Hasbro Children's Fund, which is dedicated to empowering childhood by bringing the sparkle of Hope, the joy of Play and the power of Service into the lives of the children who need it most.
The Humble TRANSFORMERS Bundle 2 Presented by IDW runs from now until Wednesday, March 11, 2015 at 11 a.m. Pacific time.
About Humble Bundle
Humble Bundle organizes pay-what-you-want plus charity promotions for awesome digital content and puts the power directly in the hands of the consumers, offering them fully-featured titles at prices they set themselves. Consumers pay what they want and decide how to allocate their money between content creators, charity and a humble tip. Humble Bundle also offers the Humble Store, a digital storefront that features great games at great prices with a portion of sales going to select charities. Since the company's launch in 2010, Humble Bundle has helped empower its community to allocate more than $54 million toward charity to date. For more information, please visit
https://www.humblebundle.com
About Hasbro Children’s Fund
The Hasbro Children’s Fund, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit whose mission is to empower childhood by bringing “the sparkle of Hope, the joy of Play and the power of Service” into the lives of the children across the globe. Working with strategic charitable partners, the grants made through the Hasbro Children’s Fund support programs that deliver; stability for children in crisis; pediatric physical and mental health services; hunger security; educational programs; quality out of school time programming and programs that empower youth through service. To learn more about these programs and how they are making a difference for children worldwide, please visit
http://www.hasbro.org.
About Hasbro
Hasbro (NASDAQ: HAS) is a global company committed to Creating the World’s Best Play Experiences, by leveraging its beloved brands, including LITTLEST PET SHOP, MAGIC: THE GATHERING, MONOPOLY, MY LITTLE PONY, NERF, PLAY-DOH, TRANSFORMERS, and premier partner brands. From toys and games to television programming, motion pictures, digital gaming and a comprehensive lifestyle licensing program, Hasbro fulfills the fundamental need for play and connection for children and families around the world. The Company’s Hasbro Studios creates entertainment brand-driven storytelling across mediums, including television, film and more. Through the company's commitment to corporate social responsibility, including philanthropy, Hasbro is helping to build a safe and sustainable world and to positively impact the lives of millions of children and families every year. Learn more at
http://www.hasbro.com and follow us on Twitter (@Hasbro & @HasbroNews).
Contact:
Humble Bundle
Lizzie Cuevas, 510-842-7087
Director of PR
lizzie@humblebundle.com
share on Twitter Send TRANSFORMERS RETURNS TO HUMBLE BUNDLE WITH IDW PUBLISHING to friends on Facebook Digg Reddit
About IDW Publishing
IDW is an award-winning publisher of comic books, graphic novels and trade paperbacks, based in San Diego, California. Renowned for its diverse catalog of licensed and independent titles, IDW publishes some of the most successful and popular titles in the industry, including: Hasbro’s The TRANSFORMERS, G.I. JOE and MY LITTLE PONY; Paramount/CBS’s Star Trek; Nickelodeon’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; 2000AD’s Judge Dredd; The Rocketeer; Toho’s Godzilla; Zombie vs Robots by Chris Ryall and Ashley Woods; Ragnarök from Eisner Award-winner Walter Simonson; and Little Nemo from the award-winning duo of Eric Shanower and Gabriel Rodriguez. IDW is also home to acclaimed imprints such as the Library of American Comics, which publishes classic comic reprints, Yoe! Books, a partnership with Yoe! Studio, IDW Artist’s Editions, and Top Shelf Productions.
IDW’s critically- and fan-acclaimed series are continually moving into new mediums. Currently, Jerry Bruckheimer Films and Disney are creating a feature film based on World War Robot; Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Warner Brothers are producing a film based on Ashley Wood's Lore; Michael Bay‘s Platinum Dunes and Sony are bringing Zombies vs. Robots to film, Alex Kurtzman is producing a movie based on Locke & Key at Universal.
![Transformers News: TRANSFORMERS RETURNS TO HUMBLE BUNDLE WITH IDW PUBLISHING]( "Transformers News: TRANSFORMERS RETURNS TO HUMBLE BUNDLE WITH IDW PUBLISHING")
Date: Monday, March 2nd 2015 4:44pm CST
Categories: Cartoon News,
Comic Book News,
People News,
Book News
Posted by: Va'al |
Credit(s): Jim Sorenson
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Views: 77,242
Jim Sorenson, co-author with Bill Forster of the Allspark Almanac and regular Seibertron.com presence, has updated the
Disciples of Boltax blog with an eight-page preview of this week's Transormers: Animated release by IDW Publishing: The Complete Allspark Almanac! Check them out mirrored below, and head to the blog
here to find out more about the small contest held for fans of both this and the original release of the same pages.
Then it hit me... there are numerous pages that aren't completely new but are a BIT new. New art, new context, new photos, integrated in with the existing material So, why not showcase them?
Then I thought, why not make it a game? The first person who replies in the comments who can correctly identify every difference will get a doodle of the character of their choice. 8 pages, (at least) 8 differences. Go for it!
Date: Sunday, February 8th 2015 1:53pm CST
Categories: Cartoon News,
People News,
Book News
Posted by: Va'al |
Credit(s): Disciples of Boltax
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Views: 71,266
It looks like Jim Sorenson took the weekend to update his Disciples of Boltax blog with another section of behind the scenes tips on the Allspark Almanac, adding to the post we reported on the other day! Check out the blog
here - it includes parts of the Addenda, from the Transformers Club magazine and the Stunticon Job story.
Summer of 2011... Animated had come and gone, and then Fun Publications went and did an awesome BotCon set featuring the Stunticons and a few other new Animated goodies. I even got asked to write a few of the tech specs for the lithograph. Pete Sinclair and I got to talking and one thing led to another and soon Bill and I had been tasked to write a 16 page AllSpark Almanac Addendum, featuring the events and characters and places of The Stunti-Con Job and Moving Violations. The big constraint was that they wanted about half of the pages devoted to covering BotCon itself, which we did in the style of the Part II, out-of-universe material.
They were pleased with our work, and agreed to give us a few pages in the club magazine itself to continue the theme. We did six more pages the next year, though it never was quite the right time to revisit the format... until now, that is!
Date: Saturday, February 7th 2015 3:57am CST
Categories: Cartoon News,
People News,
Book News
Posted by: Va'al |
Credit(s): Disciples of Boltax
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Views: 65,698
With the arrival of the Complete Allspark Almanac hitting soon, co-writer Jim Sorenson has updated his blog
Disciples of Boltax with an overview of the second volume in its first iteration, covering some of the behind the scenes of the book, page by page. They include references to TV shows, comics series, videogames, self-referential lines and more Transformers goodness - and you can read them all
here!
A while back, Bill Forster and I did a series of posts called Secrets of the Almanac. We went behind-the-scenes on all of book 1 and about a quarter of book 2 and shared our thoughts. I figured, with The Complete AllSpark Almanac just a few weeks away, I'd pick up where we left off. I'll just ramble on about what I remember, and especially anything that Chris McFeely missed in is excellent (and flattering) Annotated Almanac II. By-the-by, here is Part One of Secret of the Almanac II, and here are parts one, two, three, and four of book 1.
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