IDW Artist Thomans Scioli tweets new scenes from IDW Go-Bots series

The story premise sounds fun, but I'm really tired of comic books nostalgically homaging art from an era that was basically remarkable for how bad its art was.

WTFIUWTA!?



WHAT THE FRAGGLE IS UP WITH THE ART?!

Are they insane?
Are they kidding?
Is this really what they are going with?
Is it an experiment?
Are 5 year olds all that is left for artists?
Is the world ending?
Did the Rapture take all the artists, because artist are the chosen people of the big in the sky?
Am i still here?
Is this a joke?

the art... is... is BAD!
just terrible.

the cover with Leader-1 was... ok...
but

WTFIUWTA!?

It's basically recreating the art style of the early days, and was used to great effect in the Transformers vs GI Joe miniseries. It's not to some people's tastes but each to their own.

Art quality aside.. I don't remember Turbo ever being able to have a driver when in car mode, as being cyborgs they were not that much bigger than average humans.. when did go-bots get mass shifting abilities?

I don't even understand why Gobots is getting a comic. Can they just officially assimilate Gobots into Transformers once and for all and call it a day at long last? Is anyone truly nostalgic about Gobots over Transformers? If they are, I might have to rethink what I want to do with https://www.gobotron.com and https://www.machinerobo.com

Seibertron wrote:I don't even understand why Gobots is getting a comic. Can they just officially assimilate Gobots into Transformers once and for all and call it a day at long last? Is anyone truly nostalgic about Gobots over Transformers? If they are, I might have to rethink what I want to do with https://www.gobotron.com and https://www.machinerobo.com

Did anyone really ask for micronaughts and visionaries to return? No but at the end of the day why not?

Bad Wolf wrote:Art quality aside.. I don't remember Turbo ever being able to have a driver when in car mode, as being cyborgs they were not that much bigger than average humans.. when did go-bots get mass shifting abilities?

Turbo literally shoved Nick and A.J. inside his chest cockpit (upside-down, even!) while in robot mode during the five-part pilot.

Randomhero wrote:

Seibertron wrote:I don't even understand why Gobots is getting a comic. Can they just officially assimilate Gobots into Transformers once and for all and call it a day at long last? Is anyone truly nostalgic about Gobots over Transformers? If they are, I might have to rethink what I want to do with https://www.gobotron.com and https://www.machinerobo.com

Did anyone really ask for micronaughts and visionaries to return? No but at the end of the day why not?

Because Micronauts and Visionaries are a very different concept from Transformers. Gobots, on the other hand, was the hands-down direct competitor to Transformers which the latter brand defeated soundly. Just don't get the nostalgic value for Gobots as a stand alone concept separate from being sucked into the Transformers universe.

Sabrblade wrote:

Bad Wolf wrote:Art quality aside.. I don't remember Turbo ever being able to have a driver when in car mode, as being cyborgs they were not that much bigger than average humans.. when did go-bots get mass shifting abilities?

Turbo literally shoved Nick and A.J. inside his chest cockpit (upside-down, even!) while in robot mode during the five-part pilot.

Its been so long since I've seen it..all i remember is that the go-bots didn't have mass shifting

and I found this handy little chart, so I'm still confused on how this scene works ..

Bad Wolf wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

Bad Wolf wrote:Art quality aside.. I don't remember Turbo ever being able to have a driver when in car mode, as being cyborgs they were not that much bigger than average humans.. when did go-bots get mass shifting abilities?

Turbo literally shoved Nick and A.J. inside his chest cockpit (upside-down, even!) while in robot mode during the five-part pilot.

Its been so long since I've seen it..all i remember is that the go-bots didn't have mass shifting

and I found this handy little chart, so I'm still confused on how this scene works ..

Dunno if that chart's official or not, but if it is, that scale is way off from how much bigger than that they were in the show.

Sabrblade wrote:

Bad Wolf wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

Bad Wolf wrote:Art quality aside.. I don't remember Turbo ever being able to have a driver when in car mode, as being cyborgs they were not that much bigger than average humans.. when did go-bots get mass shifting abilities?

Turbo literally shoved Nick and A.J. inside his chest cockpit (upside-down, even!) while in robot mode during the five-part pilot.

Its been so long since I've seen it..all i remember is that the go-bots didn't have mass shifting

and I found this handy little chart, so I'm still confused on how this scene works ..

Dunno if that chart's official or not, but if it is, that scale is way off from much bigger than that they were in the show.

Now we know there is something off about their scaling .. Nick and AJ are giants

Bad Wolf wrote:Now we know there is something off about their scaling .. Nick and AJ are giants

Heh heh, all kidding aside, those are children in slave labor uniforms (In that episode, the Renegades had taken over a town by taking all of its children hostage to use as leverage for coercing the town's adult populace into slavery, building the Renegade superweapon Ultra Zod).

Z3ROhour wrote:WTFIUWTA!?



WHAT THE FRAGGLE IS UP WITH THE ART?!

Are they insane?
Are they kidding?
Is this really what they are going with?
Is it an experiment?
Are 5 year olds all that is left for artists?
Is the world ending?
Did the Rapture take all the artists, because artist are the chosen people of the big in the sky?
Am i still here?
Is this a joke?

the art... is... is BAD!
just terrible.

the cover with Leader-1 was... ok...
but

WTFIUWTA!?

There is a quality problem with many comic artists/writers, but you now get labeled a 'hater of women' or 'alt-right basement troll' by the fanboys of those artists/writers if you dare to point that out, or even suggest it.

Maybe they'll work up to a more modern or better style as the series goes on?

ZeroWolf wrote:It's basically recreating the art style of the early days, and was used to great effect in the Transformers vs GI Joe miniseries. It's not to some people's tastes but each to their own.

I initially wasn't keen on it [the art style], it's hard to follow, when I first read Transformers vs. GI Joe. Although I quickly got into it through it's unique angle of visual storytelling. It looks more subdued here in this mini regardless, which will help.
Besides it is infinitely superior to the vomiting skittles across the page we had in the Primacy Trilogy.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:I initially wasn't keen on it [the art style], it's hard to follow, when I first read Transformers vs. GI Joe. Although I quickly got into it through it's unique angle of visual storytelling. It looks more subdued here in this mini regardless, which will help.
Besides it is infinitely superior to the vomiting skittles across the page we had in the Primacy Trilogy.

what?!
you dont dig chicken scratchings in heavy inks?

well, i say "good day" 2 u, sir.

Kyleor wrote:

Z3ROhour wrote:WTFIUWTA!?



WHAT THE FRAGGLE IS UP WITH THE ART?!

Are they insane?
Are they kidding?
Is this really what they are going with?
Is it an experiment?
Are 5 year olds all that is left for artists?
Is the world ending?
Did the Rapture take all the artists, because artist are the chosen people of the big in the sky?
Am i still here?
Is this a joke?

the art... is... is BAD!
just terrible.

the cover with Leader-1 was... ok...
but

WTFIUWTA!?

There is a quality problem with many comic artists/writers, but you now get labeled a 'hater of women' or 'alt-right basement troll' by the fanboys of those artists/writers if you dare to point that out, or even suggest it.

Maybe they'll work up to a more modern or better style as the series goes on?

Isn't it a matter of taste though? Each artist has their fans and detractors in equal measures.

Kyleor wrote:There is a quality problem with many comic artists/writers, but you now get labeled a 'hater of women' or 'alt-right basement troll' by the fanboys of those artists/writers if you dare to point that out, or even suggest it.

Well, if you only ***** about female artists and inclusive writing, you probably deserve what you get.

ZeroWolf wrote:Isn't it a matter of taste though? Each artist has their fans and detractors in equal measures.

I wouldn't say equal measures...

Seibertron wrote:I don't even understand why Gobots is getting a comic. Can they just officially assimilate Gobots into Transformers once and for all and call it a day at long last? Is anyone truly nostalgic about Gobots over Transformers? If they are, I might have to rethink what I want to do with https://www.gobotron.com and https://www.machinerobo.com

Oddly enough, I do technically get more nostalgic for Gobots than Transformers in general.

By which I mean, I don't get nostalgic for TF because it's the one thing I never gave up being a fan of, so it's never really been in the past for me. I get an occasional feeling of nostalgia for specific stretches of the franchise like the early '90s when I was collecting all the Marvel U.S. books I'd foolishly ignored, and the late '90s when Beast Wars was miraculously saving the whole TF franchise, because it gave me this feeling of hope against all odds when it seemed like I was the last fan who still cared, difficult to explain now to fans too young to remember when TF wasn't a permanent fixture of pop culture, and Hasbro could have just allowed it to drop dead at any moment. This feeling's at it's strongest when I make the mistake of talking to some geewunner my own age who apparently wishes the franchise had died during that era despite knowing nothing about it, because that makes me wish I still was the last Transformers fan.

Gobots, on the other hand, was strictly a mid-to-late '80s franchise that doesn't have much existence anymore. Sure, I recently bought that Bike-Robo with the extra CyKill-esque faces, but since those MP-quality toys are Machine-Robo, any of us who enjoy them as GoBots are technically just repurposing them, right? And that can only be nostalgia because of the legal roadblocks keeping it from its former glory.

To our fandom, Gobots has been first and foremost the butt of jokes about it being the lame wannabe competition to Transformers. And frankly, the stupid, stupid names of so many of its characters, and the entire franchise, were genuinely asking for it. But considering it nothing but lame non-Transformers is really just an archaic holdover from a time when they were on equal footing as direct competition for TF. And it wasn't just Gobots: perhaps even most fans old enough to remember the dawn of TF have forgotten, but those were just two of dozens of toy robot lines competing for space in every toy section, adding to what made the mid '80s the golden age of toys by virtue of the sheer number of franchises in the game, whether or not they had corresponding cartoons to tell their story. Most of these had no mythos beyond a little text on the back of their packaging, but nearly all had that air of mysterious origins across the Pacific that imbued them with alien-ness, something Transformers balanced perfectly with the relatability of its characters. Of course, we knew TF was easily the best, and deserved to win any competition, so most of us just dismissed them. Gobots alone posed too serious competition to just dismiss, so we s#at all over it instead. I was no exception, but sometime in the last few decades, I realized that in doing so, I'd failed to fully appreciated those toylines for what they were; I'd forgotten how much I loved that childhood forest for love of just my favorite tree.

THAT's what I get nostalgic for. And Gobots is my most reliable link to that era.

So no, Gobots should absolutely NOT be completely assimilated into TF, and Gobotron should not be just another version of Cybertron somewhere in the multiverse. This new comic, however, doesn't look or sound that interesting. Sure, it'll get people talking about Gobots in the present tense again, but I foresee yet another restart becoming necessary not too long afterward.

And when that happens, can't we have one damn TF universe where the Gobots, Zybots, Convertors, Robotrons, Bug Bots, Parasites etc. also exist, but on different planets with no direct evidence of being created by Primus or the Quintessons? Both Sunbow and Marvel's post-Movie eras showed that Transformers were just one of many disparate races of sentient robots, all alien to each other, so it's hardly unprecedented, but not really explored at all. The mission of that universe's Lost Light could be to investigate whether there is some forgotten connection to TF: Flip-Trons, Four Star, and other lines that had literal KOs of Diaclone molds would surely turn out to have some actual heritage, like botched Quint experiments using computers other than Vector Sigma, while others would turn out to have no connection at all. Since most of those franchises are dead and forgotten, would anyone sue or demand that much in royalties?

Or maybe that just makes sense to me because I didn't understand which cartoons shared continuity when I was 5. I always thought Dr. Archeville was just Dr. Braxis disguising himself so he could sneak into the superior giant robot cartoon, just like Cobra Commander donned that trenchcoat and fedora to sneak into Season 3 as Old Snake. Add in what I assumed were the Rock Lords showing up on He-Man and She-Ra, and all the action cartoons I grew up on are forever tangled up in my mind. That's the book I want to see. I'm so far behind on IDW that I won't get to Revolution for a while, but no matter how bad it sucked (seriously, was any of it as bad as the Jem movie?), I don't ever want Hasbro to give up on making that idea work. And Gobots should always be a part of that whole, distinct from Transformers.

Bumblevivisector wrote:

Seibertron wrote:I don't even understand why Gobots is getting a comic. Can they just officially assimilate Gobots into Transformers once and for all and call it a day at long last? Is anyone truly nostalgic about Gobots over Transformers? If they are, I might have to rethink what I want to do with https://www.gobotron.com and https://www.machinerobo.com

Oddly enough, I do technically get more nostalgic for Gobots than Transformers in general.

By which I mean, I don't get nostalgic for TF because it's the one thing I never gave up being a fan of, so it's never really been in the past for me. I get an occasional feeling of nostalgia for specific stretches of the franchise like the early '90s when I was collecting all the Marvel U.S. books I'd foolishly ignored, and the late '90s when Beast Wars was miraculously saving the whole TF franchise, because it gave me this feeling of hope against all odds when it seemed like I was the last fan who still cared, difficult to explain now to fans too young to remember when TF wasn't a permanent fixture of pop culture, and Hasbro could have just allowed it to drop dead at any moment. This feeling's at it's strongest when I make the mistake of talking to some geewunner my own age who apparently wishes the franchise had died during that era despite knowing nothing about it, because that makes me wish I still was the last Transformers fan.

Gobots, on the other hand, was strictly a mid-to-late '80s franchise that doesn't have much existence anymore. Sure, I recently bought that Bike-Robo with the extra CyKill-esque faces, but since those MP-quality toys are Machine-Robo, any of us who enjoy them as GoBots are technically just repurposing them, right? And that can only be nostalgia because of the legal roadblocks keeping it from its former glory.

To our fandom, Gobots has been first and foremost the butt of jokes about it being the lame wannabe competition to Transformers. And frankly, the stupid, stupid names of so many of its characters, and the entire franchise, were genuinely asking for it. But considering it nothing but lame non-Transformers is really just an archaic holdover from a time when they were on equal footing as direct competition for TF. And it wasn't just Gobots: perhaps even most fans old enough to remember the dawn of TF have forgotten, but those were just two of dozens of toy robot lines competing for space in every toy section, adding to what made the mid '80s the golden age of toys by virtue of the sheer number of franchises in the game, whether or not they had corresponding cartoons to tell their story. Most of these had no mythos beyond a little text on the back of their packaging, but nearly all had that air of mysterious origins across the Pacific that imbued them with alien-ness, something Transformers balanced perfectly with the relatability of its characters. Of course, we knew TF was easily the best, and deserved to win any competition, so most of us just dismissed them. Gobots alone posed too serious competition to just dismiss, so we s#at all over it instead. I was no exception, but sometime in the last few decades, I realized that in doing so, I'd failed to fully appreciated those toylines for what they were; I'd forgotten how much I loved that childhood forest for love of just my favorite tree.

THAT's what I get nostalgic for. And Gobots is my most reliable link to that era.

So no, Gobots should absolutely NOT be completely assimilated into TF, and Gobotron should not be just another version of Cybertron somewhere in the multiverse. This new comic, however, doesn't look or sound that interesting. Sure, it'll get people talking about Gobots in the present tense again, but I foresee yet another restart becoming necessary not too long afterward.

And when that happens, can't we have one damn TF universe where the Gobots, Zybots, Convertors, Robotrons, Bug Bots, Parasites etc. also exist, but on different planets with no direct evidence of being created by Primus or the Quintessons? Both Sunbow and Marvel's post-Movie eras showed that Transformers were just one of many disparate races of sentient robots, all alien to each other, so it's hardly unprecedented, but not really explored at all. The mission of that universe's Lost Light could be to investigate whether there is some forgotten connection to TF: Flip-Trons, Four Star, and other lines that had literal KOs of Diaclone molds would surely turn out to have some actual heritage, like botched Quint experiments using computers other than Vector Sigma, while others would turn out to have no connection at all. Since most of those franchises are dead and forgotten, would anyone sue or demand that much in royalties?

Or maybe that just makes sense to me because I didn't understand which cartoons shared continuity when I was 5. I always thought Dr. Archeville was just Dr. Braxis disguising himself so he could sneak into the superior giant robot cartoon, just like Cobra Commander donned that trenchcoat and fedora to sneak into Season 3 as Old Snake. Add in what I assumed were the Rock Lords showing up on He-Man and She-Ra, and all the action cartoons I grew up on are forever tangled up in my mind. That's the book I want to see. I'm so far behind on IDW that I won't get to Revolution for a while, but no matter how bad it sucked (seriously, was any of it as bad as the Jem movie?), I don't ever want Hasbro to give up on making that idea work. And Gobots should always be a part of that whole, distinct from Transformers.

too each, their own.
(yuck!)

Bumblevivisector wrote:

Seibertron wrote:I don't even understand why Gobots is getting a comic. Can they just officially assimilate Gobots into Transformers once and for all and call it a day at long last? Is anyone truly nostalgic about Gobots over Transformers? If they are, I might have to rethink what I want to do with https://www.gobotron.com and https://www.machinerobo.com

Oddly enough, I do technically get more nostalgic for Gobots than Transformers in general.

By which I mean, I don't get nostalgic for TF because it's the one thing I never gave up being a fan of, so it's never really been in the past for me. I get an occasional feeling of nostalgia for specific stretches of the franchise like the early '90s when I was collecting all the Marvel U.S. books I'd foolishly ignored, and the late '90s when Beast Wars was miraculously saving the whole TF franchise, because it gave me this feeling of hope against all odds when it seemed like I was the last fan who still cared, difficult to explain now to fans too young to remember when TF wasn't a permanent fixture of pop culture, and Hasbro could have just allowed it to drop dead at any moment. This feeling's at it's strongest when I make the mistake of talking to some geewunner my own age who apparently wishes the franchise had died during that era despite knowing nothing about it, because that makes me wish I still was the last Transformers fan.

Gobots, on the other hand, was strictly a mid-to-late '80s franchise that doesn't have much existence anymore. Sure, I recently bought that Bike-Robo with the extra CyKill-esque faces, but since those MP-quality toys are Machine-Robo, any of us who enjoy them as GoBots are technically just repurposing them, right? And that can only be nostalgia because of the legal roadblocks keeping it from its former glory.

To our fandom, Gobots has been first and foremost the butt of jokes about it being the lame wannabe competition to Transformers. And frankly, the stupid, stupid names of so many of its characters, and the entire franchise, were genuinely asking for it. But considering it nothing but lame non-Transformers is really just an archaic holdover from a time when they were on equal footing as direct competition for TF. And it wasn't just Gobots: perhaps even most fans old enough to remember the dawn of TF have forgotten, but those were just two of dozens of toy robot lines competing for space in every toy section, adding to what made the mid '80s the golden age of toys by virtue of the sheer number of franchises in the game, whether or not they had corresponding cartoons to tell their story. Most of these had no mythos beyond a little text on the back of their packaging, but nearly all had that air of mysterious origins across the Pacific that imbued them with alien-ness, something Transformers balanced perfectly with the relatability of its characters. Of course, we knew TF was easily the best, and deserved to win any competition, so most of us just dismissed them. Gobots alone posed too serious competition to just dismiss, so we s#at all over it instead. I was no exception, but sometime in the last few decades, I realized that in doing so, I'd failed to fully appreciated those toylines for what they were; I'd forgotten how much I loved that childhood forest for love of just my favorite tree.

THAT's what I get nostalgic for. And Gobots is my most reliable link to that era.

So no, Gobots should absolutely NOT be completely assimilated into TF, and Gobotron should not be just another version of Cybertron somewhere in the multiverse. This new comic, however, doesn't look or sound that interesting. Sure, it'll get people talking about Gobots in the present tense again, but I foresee yet another restart becoming necessary not too long afterward.

And when that happens, can't we have one damn TF universe where the Gobots, Zybots, Convertors, Robotrons, Bug Bots, Parasites etc. also exist, but on different planets with no direct evidence of being created by Primus or the Quintessons? Both Sunbow and Marvel's post-Movie eras showed that Transformers were just one of many disparate races of sentient robots, all alien to each other, so it's hardly unprecedented, but not really explored at all. The mission of that universe's Lost Light could be to investigate whether there is some forgotten connection to TF: Flip-Trons, Four Star, and other lines that had literal KOs of Diaclone molds would surely turn out to have some actual heritage, like botched Quint experiments using computers other than Vector Sigma, while others would turn out to have no connection at all. Since most of those franchises are dead and forgotten, would anyone sue or demand that much in royalties?

Or maybe that just makes sense to me because I didn't understand which cartoons shared continuity when I was 5. I always thought Dr. Archeville was just Dr. Braxis disguising himself so he could sneak into the superior giant robot cartoon, just like Cobra Commander donned that trenchcoat and fedora to sneak into Season 3 as Old Snake. Add in what I assumed were the Rock Lords showing up on He-Man and She-Ra, and all the action cartoons I grew up on are forever tangled up in my mind. That's the book I want to see. I'm so far behind on IDW that I won't get to Revolution for a while, but no matter how bad it sucked (seriously, was any of it as bad as the Jem movie?), I don't ever want Hasbro to give up on making that idea work. And Gobots should always be a part of that whole, distinct from Transformers.

This is a really good post, so thank you for sharing

I just want to add that I think you're right about this continuity being a one off asi do believe there will be a cross over at some point in the future with the new tf continuity.

On a related note, did anyone here (besides me) ever read the story "Echoes and Fragments"? It was written by Jim Sorenson during the Transformers Collectors Club's final year, and told an alternate version of the events of Transformers: The Movie, in which the Transformer Sideways and the Renegade GoBot Gong messed around with space-time to mix and match Transformers and GoBots in various roles during the events of movie, with Vector Prime setting out to stop their shenanigans and set things right with reality to get everyone back to their proper places for the movie's events to end correctly.

This was its title art:

Not a fan of the art or GoBots.. sorry

Seibertron wrote:I don't even understand why Gobots is getting a comic.

Because Tom Scioli said to IDW "Hey, I want to make a GoBots comic." Believe it or not, sometimes comics (even licensed ones) are made because artists want to make them.

I quite like the art style. The retro aesthetic works for a franchise entirely based in the 80s, not to mention that it sets the brand apart from TF in a clear way. In my opinion, GoBots shouldn't try to be the "cool" shape-shifting robots, TF already has that covered. The direction IDW is going in allows for the more wacky, creative elements shine to through, which makes the comic far more interesting. Heck, I'm not even a GoBots fan and I'm just as interested in this project as I am in the Unicron finale!

Someone wrote:
Well, if you only ***** about female artists and inclusive writing, you probably deserve what you get.

Well, if you intentionally focus only on any criticism at all of one group as a power-shield against any criticism of any comics at all, you probably deserve what lower art quality, poorly written, and quickly canceled comics you get...

ZeroWolf wrote:It's basically recreating the art style of the early days, and was used to great effect in the Transformers vs GI Joe miniseries. It's not to some people's tastes but each to their own.

i dont know what early days your talking about i saw comics in news papers are style didnt look like this, i saw archie comics, and batman, they didnt look this xmen issue 12 first apperacne of juggernaught comc art doesnt look like this for humans and machines.

im no xmen fan but comic art of professor x looks better this comic page art was from years ago

.

for those who like this art style let them buy it but for me comic art is what make me buy books not story if wanted good story i buy william shakespear, edger allen poe, jules vern, if i want comic book i look art first then everything else

dragons wrote:

ZeroWolf wrote:It's basically recreating the art style of the early days, and was used to great effect in the Transformers vs GI Joe miniseries. It's not to some people's tastes but each to their own.

i dont know what early days your talking about i saw comics in news papers are style didnt look like this, i saw archie comics, and batman, they didnt look this xmen issue 12 first apperacne of juggernaught comc art doesnt look like this for humans and machines.

im no xmen fan but comic art of professor x looks better this comic page art was from years ago

.

for those who like this art style let them buy it but for me comic art is what make me buy books not story if wanted good story i buy william shakespear, edger allen poe, jules vern, if i want comic book i look art first then everything else

More correctly, it's based on the style of Jack Kirby's more surreal art.

Can't see this doing well. It's gonna wind up like that micronaut comic that ended.

Bad Wolf wrote:Art quality aside.. I don't remember Turbo ever being able to have a driver when in car mode, as being cyborgs they were not that much bigger than average humans.. when did go-bots get mass shifting abilities?

If you go to time index 8:20 you'll see Turbo shove both Nick and A.J. into the car seat area in his chest https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5tyiy1

ThunderThruster wrote:

Bad Wolf wrote:Art quality aside.. I don't remember Turbo ever being able to have a driver when in car mode, as being cyborgs they were not that much bigger than average humans.. when did go-bots get mass shifting abilities?

If you go to time index 8:20 you'll see Turbo shove both Nick and A.J. into the car seat area in his chest https://www.dailymotion.com/015adf09-f5 ... a1fd647d64

Dead link.

Gobots size Comparsion between 1984 to the episode Time Wars 1985
http://fav.me/db26uyo

as you can see even hannah barbara changed their minds from episode to episode.

This is a new continuity so it doesn't matter what size(s) they used to be.

I'm a big Gobots fan and want to read this even though i hate the art style. I have all the original Eagle Comics with the original Machine Robo/Gobots comic strips.

Sabrblade wrote:

ThunderThruster wrote:

Bad Wolf wrote:Art quality aside.. I don't remember Turbo ever being able to have a driver when in car mode, as being cyborgs they were not that much bigger than average humans.. when did go-bots get mass shifting abilities?

If you go to time index 8:20 you'll see Turbo shove both Nick and A.J. into the car seat area in his chest https://www.dailymotion.com/015adf09-f59a-4499-94fe-a7a1fd647d64

Dead link.

Apparently so. Fixed.

Sabrblade wrote:On a related note, did anyone here (besides me) ever read the story "Echoes and Fragments"? It was written by Jim Sorenson during the Transformers Collectors Club's final year, and told an alternate version of the events of Transformers: The Movie, in which the Transformer Sideways and the Renegade GoBot Gong messed around with space-time to mix and match Transformers and GoBots in various roles during the events of movie, with Vector Prime setting out to stop their shenanigans and set things right with reality to get everyone back to their proper places for the movie's events to end correctly.

This was its title art:

While that does sound interesting, after the insulting FanFic trash that was Deviations, I wouldn't go near any "alternate" take on The Movie ever again.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:While that does sound interesting, after the insulting FanFic trash that was Deviations, I wouldn't go near any "alternate" take on The Movie ever again.

Don't worry, all of the events were left intact (or given GoBots-based equivalents that were both appropriate matches and clever tributes to both series) and everyone left in-character. It was done in faithful respect to both properties, as opposed to Deviations's disgraceful disrespect.

About the only notable change to the story I can recall was the very minor change of Cy-Kill sparing Ironhide's life rather than murdering him outright like Megatron did, opting to instead have him locked up in the ship's hold, thinking that he may yet have some use for Ironhide that would warrant the Autobot kept alive rather than killed off.

...Buuuuuuuut, he never got the chance to do whatever he had planned for Ironhide because A) he eventually switched places back with Megatron, and B) the events of the movie as they played out would have halted said plans anyway since we know just how well things ended up turning out for Megatron in the Battle of Autobot City

Synopsis

Go-Bots have changed our way of life. Leader-1 is a self-aware fighter jet on a hostage rescue mission with his partner, Commander Nick Burns. Scooter is the personal transport and best friend to undergrad A.J. Foster. Turbo is Matt Hunter's transforming race car in the hottest sport in America, Go-Bot Racing. Cy-Kill is the champion of the illegal, underground Go-Bot Fighting League. A sophisticated sci-fi epic from the visionary creator that brought you Transformers vs. G.I. JOE. They say they're here to help us, but are they here to replace us?

I will be up front and honest with all of you right now: I know practically nothing of Go-Bots. This is an entirely new experience for me with characters I know absolutely nothing about. If this comic series is not true to the Go-Bots lore, I don't know it. This is my introduction to the world of Go-Bots, so lets see how the premiere issue turned out.

I didn't know what to expect from the series. Tom Scioli did some fantastic stuff with Transformers vs. G.I. Joe, albeit some very strange and unique stuff. So coming into a series about Go-Bots, and basically reinventing the franchise, there were a lot of different ways this could play out, good and bad.

And having read issue 1, I can say with a fair amount of confidence that Scioli really seems to have hit something good.



The issue itself was not lacking in character introductions that flowed well and action outlining this world of Go-Bots that will last for 5 issues. We start right off with action missions starring Leader-1, Go-Bot world building with Scooter that also provides us some necessary background, a pretty cool introduction to Turbo (who became a favorite of mine in the course of this issue), and a totally metal introduction to Cy-Kill, who certainly lives up to his name and reputation.



The Go-Bots world is built up so fast in just 1 issue, and not in a rushed way. It flows, it feels natural, it gives someone like me who knows nothing of the franchise some background into this strange world. We get to see the line between partners and superiors/inferiors, and how it sets up the big conflict the story is set to tell. Cy-Kill is awesome too, I loved his intro and his characterization so far.



As was the case with TF vs G.I. Joe, Scioli does his own art and lettering, and he keeps up the same art styles that he did with the previous series. And it works really well with the Go-Bots universe. The art has an old-fashioned look to it that really lends itself to packing in action in each page with some pretty spectacular coloring. The scenes that are from Leader-1's view are really cool to see, and the human characters are drawn pretty well too. I appreciate how plain yet still so full the art on the pages can be. And the opening introduction to Cy-Kill was masterfully done as well. Everything about that section of the book was amazing.



So for an introduction to the Go-Bots, this series was pretty spectacular. The writing was pretty tight and packed with information that doesn't feel rushed in any particular way and gives a lot of necessary information to understand this Go-Bot land. The writing of the characters was convincing and the Go-Bots themselves were pretty fun in their varying personalities. The art was a pretty neat retro style that made me feel like I was reading an 80's era comic and enjoying it for the fun that it is meant to be.

So good job to Tom Scioli, you gave us a great introduction, and I'm really looking forward to what you have to give us next.

Great review dmax! I completely forgot this was out this week!

I can't get past the art. I've come to loathe the notion of 'retro-style'. Art has improved over time because we have better tools and higher standards. While I understand the historical value of a 1908 Ford Model T, I wouldn't say that a modern car with a modern price tag and 20hp, 15mpg, and a 45mph top speed is 'retro'. I'd say it's overpriced crap. If this were a free web comic like xkcd, I'd understand art looking lackluster and lackadaisical, but it's not free.

And I nearly as much hate the response of, "but the writer did the art himself!" Evidently, he shouldn't have. The country is not lacking for talented, skilled workers desperately trying to make a break into their professions. We don't need comicbook writers doing their own art any more than we need surgeons administering anesthesia, basketball players playing baseball, animators voice-acting, or plumbers rewiring homes. People should have the opportunity to do what they've been trained to do. And people should not be praised for shabby work because of their excellence in a different skill.

Caelus wrote:I can't get past the art. I've come to loathe the notion of 'retro-style'. Art has improved over time because we have better tools and higher standards. While I understand the historical value of a 1908 Ford Model T, I wouldn't say that a modern car with a modern price tag and 20hp, 15mpg, and a 45mph top speed is 'retro'. I'd say it's overpriced crap. If this were a free web comic like xkcd, I'd understand art looking lackluster and lackadaisical, but it's not free.

And I nearly as much hate the response of, "but the writer did the art himself!" Evidently, he shouldn't have. The country is not lacking for talented, skilled workers desperately trying to make a break into their professions. We don't need comicbook writers doing their own art any more than we need surgeons administering anesthesia, basketball players playing baseball, animators voice-acting, or plumbers rewiring homes. People should have the opportunity to do what they've been trained to do. And people should not be praised for shabby work because of their excellence in a different skill.

The art style is deliberately meant to be a loving tribute to that of the late great Jack "The King" Kirby.

Sabrblade wrote:

Caelus wrote:I can't get past the art. I've come to loathe the notion of 'retro-style'. Art has improved over time because we have better tools and higher standards. While I understand the historical value of a 1908 Ford Model T, I wouldn't say that a modern car with a modern price tag and 20hp, 15mpg, and a 45mph top speed is 'retro'. I'd say it's overpriced crap. If this were a free web comic like xkcd, I'd understand art looking lackluster and lackadaisical, but it's not free.

And I nearly as much hate the response of, "but the writer did the art himself!" Evidently, he shouldn't have. The country is not lacking for talented, skilled workers desperately trying to make a break into their professions. We don't need comicbook writers doing their own art any more than we need surgeons administering anesthesia, basketball players playing baseball, animators voice-acting, or plumbers rewiring homes. People should have the opportunity to do what they've been trained to do. And people should not be praised for shabby work because of their excellence in a different skill.

The art style is deliberately meant to be a loving tribute to that of the late great Jack "The King" Kirby.

First, a crappy product rendered deliberately crappy, is still crappy.

Second, I can google search "Jack Kirby Art" and find no shortage of work that is superior to this. This seems to copy his worst work and - with its faded colors and yellowed pages - it 'lovingly' reproduces his work's worst translation to physical print. This art, and the art on Transformers vs. GIJoe, is UGLY by any standard.

Even the Big Looker storybooks I had when I was a kid had better art than this.



But no one's asking for a slavish reproduction of that. Work that was 'good for its time' is not good now.

I wouldn't pay full price for a comic series drawn in the style of the Lascaux paintings, either, and their creators arguably represent a much more significant contribution to to art history than Jack Kirby. While Kirby should maybe be praised for his contributions, people copying his now very dated style and justifying it with Gen-X-baiting buzzwords like 'homage,' 'tribute,' or 'nostalgic' shouldn't be. If Spielberg had made Jurassic Park with stop-motion animation and low quality film, no one would have praised it for being a "loving tribute" to Ray Harryhausen - they would have said it was antiquated and embarrassing.

Caelus wrote:I can't get past the art. I've come to loathe the notion of 'retro-style'. Art has improved over time because we have better tools and higher standards. While I understand the historical value of a 1908 Ford Model T, I wouldn't say that a modern car with a modern price tag and 20hp, 15mpg, and a 45mph top speed is 'retro'. I'd say it's overpriced crap. If this were a free web comic like xkcd, I'd understand art looking lackluster and lackadaisical, but it's not free.

And I nearly as much hate the response of, "but the writer did the art himself!" Evidently, he shouldn't have. The country is not lacking for talented, skilled workers desperately trying to make a break into their professions. We don't need comicbook writers doing their own art any more than we need surgeons administering anesthesia, basketball players playing baseball, animators voice-acting, or plumbers rewiring homes. People should have the opportunity to do what they've been trained to do. And people should not be praised for shabby work because of their excellence in a different skill.

To echo Sabrblade's point, which is likely in vain but seriously I'm not trying to change your mind which is clearly made up: it looks like this on purpose. Scioli is drawing and coloring these on bristol board while the letters are hand written and scanned in. This griping about the art is akin to comparing a plastic flower pot at Lowe's to one made by hand at a pottery workshop. It's ok if it's not for you but railing against the entire point of following this method while also insulting it? You can do better

Aaanyway.

This comic really caught me off guard when I picked it up on Saturday (a local comic shop day exclusive cover was available) and it's a super fun direction. Scioli mentions in the back pages something like (paraphrasing) "I wanted to make Go-Bots actually good" and so far I think this succeeds. The human pov characters are diverse and not just for the sake of it. The individual Go-Bots have their own personalities, and the explanation for the term "Renegades" is well done. Cy-Kill even gets introduced in a way that can't be an accidental homage to Megatron: Origins and it's such a fun touch.

ScottyP wrote:To echo Sabrblade's point, which is likely in vain but seriously I'm not trying to change your mind which is clearly made up: it looks like this on purpose.

Yeah, I get that it is deliberately bad. But deliberately bad is still bad.

Scioli is drawing and coloring these on bristol board while the letters are hand written and scanned in.

Yes, that's part of the problem with it. If someone illustrated a comic series by chewing up some flowers, spitting them on a page, and spreading them around with their fingers, would you say it looked good? Doubtful.

This griping about the art is akin to comparing a plastic flower pot at Lowe's to one made by hand at a pottery workshop.

No, this is comparing something made by hand by one 'artist' using antiquated methods to copy an older artist's work with now dated techniques to produce something that is ultimately of inferior aesthetic quality to the work that would be produced by a group of talented, well trained people using modern technology. Do you think Jack Kirby would like it? It's emphasizing all of the limitations he probably found frustrating.

Just because a Luddite's work is 'artisanal' doesn't make it good. Maybe for a variant cover or something, but an entire comic book series? There's a reason we haven't brought back silent movies and phrenology - the old ways of doing things are seldom better than the new ways of doing them.

It's ok if it's not for you...

Obviously, you're entitled to like an inferior product if you want to, but to me, having to see that and thinking about what we could have gotten if people weren't caught up in hero-worshiping the 'greatest generation' and praising people for under-performing, is like getting one's genitals stomped on with a stiletto heel - there are some people who really like that, but I'm still going to call it sadomasochism.

... but railing against the entire point of following this method while also insulting it? You can do better

Hey, those were danged good insults.

ScottyP wrote:

Caelus wrote:I can't get past the art. I've come to loathe the notion of 'retro-style'. Art has improved over time because we have better tools and higher standards. While I understand the historical value of a 1908 Ford Model T, I wouldn't say that a modern car with a modern price tag and 20hp, 15mpg, and a 45mph top speed is 'retro'. I'd say it's overpriced crap. If this were a free web comic like xkcd, I'd understand art looking lackluster and lackadaisical, but it's not free.

And I nearly as much hate the response of, "but the writer did the art himself!" Evidently, he shouldn't have. The country is not lacking for talented, skilled workers desperately trying to make a break into their professions. We don't need comicbook writers doing their own art any more than we need surgeons administering anesthesia, basketball players playing baseball, animators voice-acting, or plumbers rewiring homes. People should have the opportunity to do what they've been trained to do. And people should not be praised for shabby work because of their excellence in a different skill.

To echo Sabrblade's point, which is likely in vain but seriously I'm not trying to change your mind which is clearly made up: it looks like this on purpose. Scioli is drawing and coloring these on bristol board while the letters are hand written and scanned in. This griping about the art is akin to comparing a plastic flower pot at Lowe's to one made by hand at a pottery workshop. It's ok if it's not for you but railing against the entire point of following this method while also insulting it? You can do better

Aaanyway.

This comic really caught me off guard when I picked it up on Saturday (a local comic shop day exclusive cover was available) and it's a super fun direction. Scioli mentions in the back pages something like (paraphrasing) "I wanted to make Go-Bots actually good" and so far I think this succeeds. The human pov characters are diverse and not just for the sake of it. The individual Go-Bots have their own personalities, and the explanation for the term "Renegades" is well done. Cy-Kill even gets introduced in a way that can't be an accidental homage to Megatron: Origins and it's such a fun touch.

You mean like how Megatron killed Cy-kill in said book?

Chalk me up as someone who can't get past the art either. In the span of three pages, Leader-1 went from a F-15 to a 14 to a 18 and back. When characters depend on being recognized in both modes, but the writer artst can't be bothered to find a reference beyond "jet fighter", and generates mostly white space in oversized, empty word balloons? Hard pass. "Quirky" is fine. This is lazy.

Only Tom Scioli would get me excited about Go-Bots!

And I love this Jack Kirby homage.

It’s like a comedy about bad actors. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s entirely deliberate. For whatever reason, people are willing to pay for something than is painstakingly crafted to be objectively terrible.

I’m not trying to insult anyone’s taste here. I actually find the art amusing and it reminds me of a child’s imagination. I just thought this might help anyone confused as to why this man is hired to do what he’s doing.

After seeing one of the Bayformers, I once joked about how funny it would be if someone took Go-Bots and made it something better than Transformers.

Fast Forward to 2018 and someone DID

This is the most impressed I've been with a premier issue for years. To go a step further, I haven't been so taken by an IDW book since Last Stand of The Wreckers. Not to say it is on par with that (yet). But I certainly think higher of one issue of Go-Bots than I have with most of what I've read of IDWverse post-LSoTW.
The visual narrative and aesthetic really appeals to my tastes. I appreciate the stylistic choices too from an art educated background.
Although to be fair, to those unfamiliar with Go-Bots, the main difference between this and the original cartoon appears to be a conscious decision by Scioli to remove the Transformers-esk concepts IE Space faring alien sentients, Gobotron and the cyborg origins.
The designs of the characters seem more faithful to Machine Robo than the cartoon also, which I like.

a 9/10 from me.

Issue #2 is another solid 9/10 from me. As it expands on the first issue in all the right ways. Round Two for Leader One and Cy-Kill is significantly more brutal and opens up a very interesting question, potentially tying itself back to the Original Series. Turbo also has a nice classic Comic Book homage moment this time. Which did raise a smile. Through this mini, Scioli is certainly ending this year on a high standard.

If this persists til the end of the mini series and it performs well enough for a regular run however, personally I don't really want this to be integrated into a "shared universe".