Preview for IDW Transformers Beast Wars #3

i love how easy it is to imagine David Kaye reading those megatron lines.

I like how they're showing Dinobot becoming more and more dissatisfied with the cruelty of his comrades, building up to his inevitable defection to the Maximals.

Tarantulas looks awful, probably the worst one yet. I suppose giving Dinobot a completely different, if really generic, reason for leaving the Predacons does at least diverge this book from the original show. I was trying to think why it looked familiar... That's how it was done with Silverbolt!

I've been on the fence about the art, but I'm rrreeeeaally not liking this, to the point where it may permanently swing me to the "dislike" side. Such a shame.

Wow, the art just keeps getting worse and worse.

Could Livio Ramondelli take over art duties?

Dead Metal wrote:Wow, the art just keeps getting worse and worse.

Could Livio Ramondelli take over art duties?

I thought we wanted the art to look better

Whoever did the Retail Incentive cover above, would be a vast improvement (after slimming down Primal a bit).

Dead Metal wrote:Wow, the art just keeps getting worse and worse.

Could Livio Ramondelli take over art duties?

Livio's a fantastic colorist, enough to hide the fact that his lineart leaves a LOT to be desired.

The Primacy trilogy easily shares the honour, alongside Heart of Darkness, as the worst art produced by IDW. Akin to Skittles spewed over the page...

Ramondelli isn't great, but he would be an improvement over this.

I would prefer the artist of the Retail incentive cover, but lets be realistic, idw doesn't put good artists on TF books anymore, it's just people who are willing to draw fast and cheap. And Ramondelli at least puts heart into his work.

I would prefer Liefeld over the art in this book, at least he knows curves exist.

Dead Metal wrote:I would prefer Liefeld over the art in this book, at least he knows curves exist.

Seriously, what is Nick Roche doing these days? He'd be brilliant on this.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:

Dead Metal wrote:I would prefer Liefeld over the art in this book, at least he knows curves exist.

Seriously, what is Nick Roche doing these days? He'd be brilliant on this.

Marvel.
He won't be back with idw.

That's a shame. Still, I'll look forward to whatever he is doing at Marvel then.

It's not confirmed he won't be back with idw. But I would say it's a good guess. He did complain that his books never got any promotion, MTMTE being the exception. Hell Sins of the Wrekers was buirried so hard I only learned off of it because someone I have on FB stumbled upon the last issue and asked if anyone knew this existed.
And seeing how he's now ben noticed by the mainstream and has success with other indy books, I don't think he'll go back. Especially since it looks like he's getting regular and steady work at Marvel, unlike with idw where he got a cover now and then, and a comic every couple of years.

Sounds reasonable to believe he won't return then.
Ironic, considering I think Last Stand of the Wreckers is the best Transformers story IDW has produced. Also from reading the entire IDWverse run, via the part work, I'd say he was responsible for more of that success, outside of the artwork, than Roberts.

Occasion dodgy practices aside, at least Marvel historically appreciate good artists.

Looking forward to the next issue. I am a big fan of Burcham's art, and I continue to like what he is doing with it. I really like it. Kudos to him for finally getting his own book, sticking to his style, and making it look great.

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:and making it look great.

You did notice Tarantulas in the preview, right?

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:Looking forward to the next issue. I am a big fan of Burcham's art, and I continue to like what he is doing with it. I really like it. Kudos to him for finally getting his own book, sticking to his style, and making it look great.

I agree, I like the art and the story. I was beginning to feel like I was the only one here who did like the art

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:and making it look great.

You did notice Tarantulas in the preview, right?

I did, he looks good.

You've spewed your art and story hatred over this entire thread, hard to miss I might add, and I have shared my thoughts on the art and story and find it enjoyable. I for one hope Burcham keeps doing what he's doing because i love it.

Outside of the cliffjumper arc of Galaxies, this is the best art the comics have seen since IDW2005 ended.

No hatred at all. I don't feel that strongly about any media. But coming from an artistic background, ill suited art is hard to miss. It is an objective viewpoint. Not a subjective one.

I'm also far from the minority in vocal detractors of the art either.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:No hatred at all. I don't feel that strongly about any media. But coming from an artistic background, ill suited art is hard to miss. It is an objective viewpoint. Not a subjective one.

I'm also far from the minority in vocal detractors of the art either.

On here? yes, that's obvious, it's partly why i don't visit the comics threads that often anymore.

On Facebook? also not surprising, facebook typically holds the older G1 crowds who praise the Prime Wars trilogy and hate on anything post-1988.

On Twitter, far from it. It's incredible the praise Burcham has been handed for his work, and he has provided some fun insights into his work. It's been a blast.

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:No hatred at all. I don't feel that strongly about any media. But coming from an artistic background, ill suited art is hard to miss. It is an objective viewpoint. Not a subjective one.

I'm also far from the minority in vocal detractors of the art either.

On here? yes, that's obvious, it's partly why i don't visit the comics threads that often anymore.

On Facebook? also not surprising, facebook typically holds the older G1 crowds who praise the Prime Wars trilogy and hate on anything post-1988.

On Twitter, far from it. It's incredible the praise Burcham has been handed for his work, and he has provided some fun insights into his work. It's been a blast.

For a moment there I thought you meant people praising the prime Wars cartoon though i suppose statistically, someone has to Like them

That sounds more like confirmation bias, than honest feedback.

ZeroWolf wrote:For a moment there I thought you meant people praising the prime Wars cartoon though i suppose statistically, someone has to Like them

I was, Facebook was where the positive feedback for those cartoons came from.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:That sounds more like confirmation bias, than honest feedback.

So you are saying Facebook comments and forum comments here are honest feedback, but twitter feedback is not? cool cool.

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:That sounds more like confirmation bias, than honest feedback.

So you are saying Facebook comments and forum comments here are honest feedback, but twitter feedback is not? cool cool.

No, that's a strange conclusion to reach What I did say, by confirmation bias, is that by sticking with the source of perceived overly positive feedback would lead to an askew viewpoint. Honest feedback is the middle ground between positive and negative.

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:

ZeroWolf wrote:For a moment there I thought you meant people praising the prime Wars cartoon though i suppose statistically, someone has to Like them

I was, Facebook was where the positive feedback for those cartoons came from.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:That sounds more like confirmation bias, than honest feedback.

So you are saying Facebook comments and forum comments here are honest feedback, but twitter feedback is not? cool cool.

I think I'll have what those people are having if they enjoyed Prime Wars.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:That sounds more like confirmation bias, than honest feedback.

So you are saying Facebook comments and forum comments here are honest feedback, but twitter feedback is not? cool cool.

No, that's a strange conclusion to reach What I did say, by confirmation bias, is that by sticking with the source of perceived overly positive feedback would lead to an askew viewpoint. Honest feedback is the middle ground between positive and negative.

Except I do not, I have read the Facebook and forum comments.

The forums here have approximately 5 active commenters in this thread, so it's pretty easy to get the point here.

On Facebook, once you take away the TRUKK NOT MUNKY-ers, it's a smaller but still balanced bag of positive feedback overweighing the negative feedback.

when you listen to the comic review podcasts, it's nigh universal praise.

When you read the Twitter threads, including reviews shared there, it is similar to the filtered Facebook feed: positive with some negatives, but overall trending a good positive outlook.

What I'm saying is you are far from alone in your thoughts, but you are also not the majority opinion you really think you are here.

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:What I'm saying is you are far from alone in your thoughts, but you are also not the majority opinion you really think you are here.

I never said that either. Nor do I care, one way of the other. Ultimately, all I said was that I'm not the only one who doesn't like the art. Which is true, regardless of percentages.

Specifically regarding that Tarantulas in the preview, everything about it looks like a child drew it. It is even at odds with the other character designs on the same page. Right down to the Tim Burton-style Spider legs. Which also applied to Scorponok's Beast Mode legs in the previous issue. So what is good about that?

AllNewSuperRobot wrote: So what is good about that?

1) Tim Burton-esque legs are new and I like that art style where it appeared previously, so I see no issue with them here. It continues to trend with the way Burcham approaches arachnid legs.

2) Tarantulas has loud ass colors. They can distract from the overall style of whatever design they put on it.

3) The expressiveness of the face, Burcham has always been good with his expressions, and despite the way Tarantulas' mouth exists and having a visor, he still portrays his emotions clearly and in his first panel's case, entertainingly.

4) I love the approach to the claw hands, it's a neat touch to have that "heartbeat on a monitor" styled claw opening

Tarantulas colour palette isn't too far removed from Megatron. But in contrast (ignoring the beast mode) the line work of Megs is a lot more competently done.
The thing with a stylised art style is consistency. If you can't apply the same look to everything on your page, then it isn't stylised. It is just bad and/or lazy.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Tarantulas colour palette isn't too far removed from Megatron. But in contrast (ignoring the beast mode) the line work of Megs is a lot more competently done.
The thing with a stylised art style is consistency. If you can't apply the same look to everything on your page, then it isn't stylised. It is just bad and/or lazy.

Except, looking at the preview pages, and even looking back at the prior issues, I fail to see how it's stylistically different? I am looking at Dinobot and Tarantulas side by side in the same/neighboring panels, and except for the spider legs (to a small degree, it's hardly a Tramontano facial expression on a Milne drawn bot), i don't see how the 2 could be considered different.

The rough, jagged edges make Tarantulas look unfinished in comparison to everyone else. Like the line work still needs to be cleaned up before the page can be finalised. Bottom line, it looks rushed and not consciously stylised at all.

Just gonna have to agree to disagree on this one. I cannot remotely see any art complaint you have talked about in this entire thread. Story maybe, but for the most part, our opinions are opposite.

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:Just gonna have to agree to disagree on this one. I cannot remotely see any art complaint you have talked about in this entire thread. Story maybe, but for the most part, our opinions are opposite.

You're not alone

Dead Metal wrote:Wow, the art just keeps getting worse and worse.

Could Livio Ramondelli take over art duties?

I completely agree. The quality of art for most of these current issue's covers and the actual comic's are quite different.

This is definitely the main reason I've not bothered with these BW comics, as the "art" looks bloody awful.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:The rough, jagged edges make Tarantulas look unfinished in comparison to everyone else. Like the line work still needs to be cleaned up before the page can be finalised. Bottom line, it looks rushed and not consciously stylised at all.

Have to disagree a bit here. Tarantulas is pretty cosistent with the rest of the style. Save for the Burton esqu legs, but then again we didn't really see much of his buglegs yet so it's likely just his style.
I think what you're misinterpreting as unfinished lines are actually just Tarantulas's facial expressions.

While I don't like the art style at all, I do think it's consistent and expresses emotions quite well.

primalxconvoy wrote:

Dead Metal wrote:Wow, the art just keeps getting worse and worse.

Could Livio Ramondelli take over art duties?

I completely agree. The quality of art for most of these current issue's covers and the actual comic's are quite different.

This is definitely the main reason I've not bothered with these BW comics, as the "art" looks bloody awful.

I would suggest reading them anyway. They're really not that bad, the writing is good and the writer behind this is freaking amazing. He's responsible for the best goddamn crossover comics ever. Ghostbusters Get Real and Ghostbusters X TMNT. He can not only write compelling stories, but he keeps his characters straight and doesn't pick favourites.
Which is why I'm convinced that the differences in personalities we see here are deliberate on his part.

Seriously, Get Real managed to do something no other comic ever did, the Real Ghostbusters were so well written, I actually heard the cartoon voices.
I just wish his collaborator Dan Schoening would be doing art duties, his style is also stylized in a similar way to this, but better.

Ultimately if they wanted this to be a stylised Transformers book, that's what Tom Scioli is for. Plus his writing in Go-Bots alone was stellar.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Ultimately if they wanted this to be a stylised Transformers book, that's what Tom Scioli is for. Plus his writing in Go-Bots alone was stellar.

Maybe they wanted it to be a different style there's lots out there after all. Plus the writing of the Ghostbusters stuff has been utterly fantastic. Looking forward to where this goes.

Except the very 90's Beast Wars is more comparable in tone to Scioli's Go-Bots than an 80's action comedy.

I'm hopeful however that the more this book veers away from retreading old ground, the writing might pick up. At the moment this is a very middle of the road book. Not boring ala IDW 2.0, but nothing yet that is impressive or noteworthy, objectively.

Wishful thinking on my part is that the Golden Disk doesn't lead Megatron to the Ark, but to something else entirely, completely unrelated to the Ark, Nemesis, or anything from 1984 G1.

If it has to be something from G1 that he's after, then let it at least be something obscure or unexpected, like the Zodiac that was hidden on Earth in Zone, or really surprise us by revealing that this weird Earth-like planet isn't Earth after all but some other planet from the mythos.

But of course, Hasbro above will probably want consistency and insist that this stay true to the original.

Sabrblade wrote:Wishful thinking on my part is that the Golden Disk doesn't lead Megatron to the Ark, but to something else entirely, completely unrelated to the Ark, Nemesis, or anything from 1984 G1.

If it has to be something from G1 that he's after, then let it at least be something obscure or unexpected, like the Zodiac that was hidden on Earth in Zone, or really surprise us by revealing that this weird Earth-like planet isn't Earth after all but some other planet from the mythos.

But of course, Hasbro above will probably want consistency and insist that this stay true to the original.

Unfortunately the Golden Disk has been treated with the subtlety of a brick in just three issues, so far. Ironic considering it wasn't even a plot point in Season One
Whereas The Vok Disk was and it was so much more interesting. But Hasbro really love to play it safe a bit too much.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:But Hasbro really love to play it safe a bit too much.

Evergreen brand consistency.

Sabrblade wrote:

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:But Hasbro really love to play it safe a bit too much.

Evergreen brand consistency.

Sigh... Yeah. Literally to the detriment of the entire IP.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Ultimately if they wanted this to be a stylised Transformers book, that's what Tom Scioli is for. Plus his writing in Go-Bots alone was stellar.

No thank you.
This looks far better than Scioli.

Dead Metal wrote:

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Ultimately if they wanted this to be a stylised Transformers book, that's what Tom Scioli is for. Plus his writing in Go-Bots alone was stellar.

No thank you.
This looks far better than Scioli.

In terms of colouring, perhaps. But that's about it.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:

Dead Metal wrote:

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Ultimately if they wanted this to be a stylised Transformers book, that's what Tom Scioli is for. Plus his writing in Go-Bots alone was stellar.

No thank you.
This looks far better than Scioli.

In terms of colouring, perhaps. But that's about it.

Scioli is a marmite thing, you either get his art or you didn't (just like this book) remember, there was plenty of people complaining about the look of the GI Joe vs Transformers series he did (go bots didn't get it as bad because by that point, everyone had moved on to complain about different things)

I get the marmite bit with Scioli. The thing is, aside from IDW 2.0 and Beast Wars. All the other TF comic book series I've read have been retroactively. Even IDWverse, I read through the Hardcover collections.

So I've been outside of the 'in the moment' feedback to everything. The part work filled in all the blanks, minus any fan reactions. Which is actually quite nice, really.

From G1, G2 all the way to IDW 2.0. Now when I read GI Joe vs. Transformers, it was a highlight of the franchise. I'd equate Scioli's work to a 'George Pérez of Transformers'. Sure there have been other artists that have done an ensemble piece/poster on that scale. But he does that panel to panel. I dunno if being Arty Farty (as friends call me) I see these things differently, but Scioli's work was one of three TF artists I appreciated the most.

I think being insulated from fan opinion is probably the best way to go with most things. It's very easy to be turned off something by fans.

For what its worth i enjoyed Sciolis work as I was willing to look past the art (indeed I saw it as a loving way to how the comics were done in their golden and silver ages. Took his work back in time and it would have fitted in perfectly.

'Hate' has always been offputting to me. There isn't anything in media I've ever gotten myself that worked up over. Even things like X-Men, that I've followed for 30 plus years.

I think all it would take to "update" his work is modern colouring. The difference would probably surprise people. I actually find it really impressive that he is a one-man-band with the art and writing on his books, for the most part.

Greetings Seibertronians! Thanks to our friends over at IDW, we have the five page preview of the forthcoming 3rd issue of IDW Transformers Beast Wars! Check out below for the issue description and then read on for the preview!

IDW wrote:Unbeknownst to the Maximals, the Predacons have taken their first prisoner! As Megatron and Tarantulas run their interrogation, dissent stirs in the Predacon ranks. Who’ll give first—the dissatisfied Dinobot or the captured Maximal? The Beast Wars rage on!

AVAILABLE: April 2021
CREATORS:
Erik Burnham (Author) Josh Burcham (Artist, Cover Artist)
IMPRINT: IDW
PAGE COUNT: 32
COLOR: FC

What do you think of this preview? Will you be reading on?

Shout out in the Energon Pub and stay tuned to Seibertron for all the latest news and reviews!

I have one more issue pre-ordered with Forbidden Planet. To me, this one is the 'make or break'.