Transformation 120: In Senior We Trust.

29/8/2014

This week, the book's best artist gives an 11 page lesson in why he is pure undilluted awesome, but elsewhere things are not so good as Rodimus Prime learns the important lesson of "If at first you don't succeed don't bother to try again and just go home and have a cry instead, it's probably for the best".

All in my look at Fire on High! Part 2.

9 Comments

Blackjack

29/8/2014 07:26:52 am

"Geoff Senior makes everything better. This is scientific fact."

I salute you good sir for this astounding fact.

This is fact, people!

Alex link

29/8/2014 07:39:08 am

+1 for the Buffy reference :)

Simon Hall

29/8/2014 08:11:33 am

I love this issue, if only for Senior's storytelling chops. The clenched teeth, the fury in anger in Galvatron's eyes (and he doesn't have pupils to convey this!), those awesome dynamic fight scenes and his peerless rendition of Death's Head (only Bryan Hitch and Nick Roche come close to matching Senior's work on the character) and just the spectacle of it all. I never had this story complete until the Titan trade and it is a bit of a slog of a story to get through after such a strong opening.

I am looking forward to learning about Centurion - I have never read Ancient Relics, so will be interested in this.

I do think its criminal that Geoff Senior never hit the bid time in the world of comics. He did some cracking stuff later on for Marvel UK on Hell's Angel and Battletide. Mind you, Liam Sharp never really hit the big time either and that really surprises me as he clearly fitted that Image style that was all the rage in the '90s. He should have been massive! (Btw, Liam Sharp is a lovely chap if you ever get chance to speak to him).

Stuart

29/8/2014 08:24:41 am

I think if he'd wanted it he could have made it, but from his comments at conventions at the like I think he just got bored of comics and actually enjoys working in advertising (!). At the very least he's happy and has no regrets, but blimey, his work really should have been much better loved outside TF fandom than it is.

I mean, if nothing else, his style perfectly suits what was in vogue at the time by having similar strong lines to Gibbons (tellingly Hitch and- to a lesser extent- Lee Sullivan were clearly brought onto the book by Furman because they were Seniorish and both went on to enjoy a varied career in comics with Transformers not being what either is best known for).

Simon Hall

29/8/2014 02:33:42 pm

Ah well, that's fair do's. I'm sure it can't have been that creatively engaging to be working on lower-tier Marvel stuff like What If... ! :P

Lee Sullivan's DW stuff is amazing, I especially like the painted work he did for various books and things. So different to his Transformers stuff.

Oddly, I haven't really warmed to Hitch's current 'widescreen' style. I can see that it looks good and there's a good use of angles and perspective, but I dunno I just can't get into it. Sometimes I find the inks on his work are far too heavy. I tend to like more visceral and expressive comic artists though, I have to say.

Tim Roll-Pickering link

29/8/2014 05:14:09 pm

"Indeed, with a time machine Rodimus could take the time to regroup, get some extra troops in and still return to the same moment he left."

It's possible that the time machines are wedged to a fixed point with some technobabble that basically means the two time zones proceed at the same speed. This is what happens in the Iron Man 20whatever back-up and a good number of other time travel fiction to up the tension though it may not fit Target 2006.

Gotta agree about the mess of concluding this in the annual. It's possible the letters received suggested rather more readers read these as soon as they came out than you're assuming, but I wonder if this is another practice creeping in from Marvel US. There an "Annual" is closer to what we call a "Special" - a bumper sized comic that contains either a standalone story with no real impact on the regular comic or a major development in the ongoing storyline. (Or reprints but Marvel US largely stopped that in the mid 1970s.) Critically it has a distribution and take-up similar to the regular series, though it's not included in subscription packages, and sometimes storylines flow directly in and out of it. But over here annuals are a different beast and weren't always available from the same places as the regular comic so some kids may never have had the chance to buy them. (And then there are the overseas readers - what chance did they have of picking it up?)

One possible cause of the weak and repetitive storyline might be if the chapter in the annual had to be prepared before the regular strip. Could it be the case that the dots proved harder to join up than predicted?

Stuart

30/8/2014 08:58:49 am

Yeah, a one line explanation like that could have covered everthing neatly and its absence is annoying. It's actually Fallen Angel that's the only story that breaks the otherwise fairly firm "Events between the two time zones move in synch" rule as Galvatron goes from 2006 to 1987 (though oddly everyone acts as if he's gone back exactly the where he last visited).

In terms of early Annuals, I wouldn't be surprised if there were a fair few, especially this year as there must have been a lot of pestering from kids to find out what happened next (which must have been more annoying for parents as these things are supposed to be Christmas presents), but the vast majority would have had to wait till Christmas day. The letters in the comic may give a disproportionate view as they'd have been keen to advertise the Annual as much as possible.

I don't know how widely spread this was but for me as a kid Annuals weren't really presents you asked for, they'd be what you'd get from relatives who felt obliged to get you something but didn't know you well enough to want to spend a lot/have a clue what to buy either way. Most of mine came from Granddparents and Aunts, not parents or siblings and I don't ever recall getting to make suggestions, it'd be just whatever they thought might be liked by kids (which of course is how those terrible World Distributor/Pretty Much Any Annual Not Based On A Pre-existing Comic efforts managed to run for years and years, no one buying had the slightest clue if they were faithful or even wanted).

I think one relative must have been a big fan of the Beezer when they were a small one as I think I had that Annual every year right up till they stopped doing them.

Stuart

30/8/2014 09:01:46 am

...Except a quick Google shows they stopped doing them a decade after the comic itself finished, so it must have been till everyone thought I was too old for Annuals. :(

Felicity link

1/11/2019 09:54:55 pm

Geoff Senior was one of the best of the comic artists when it came to drawing Transformers, and his backgrounds and technology are great, but his humans were not quite as strong. That may be why he never broke through as much as Dave Gibbons did. He still deserves tons of success though! Heck, there are artists who can’t draw anything properly who have gone on to be millionaires. A talented draughtsman like Senior should be a thousand times as successful as them.

Your idea about Furman leaving the fight scene up to Senior reminds me of those scripts to Shakespeare plays where he just writes: “(They fight.)” and it’s up to the actors to provide that part. :-)

Transformation 120: In Senior We Trust.

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