Transformation 215: Not Everything in Black & White Makes Sense.

26/6/2016

No, your eyes do not deceive you, the comic has suddenly gone very monochrome. Luckily the drastic revamp is carefully introduced by... Transformation telling us to watch Visionaries on the telly.

Luckily we do get a free lunch, and people who love exploding energon cubes will find it their favourite issue ever.

All in my look at issue 215!

10 Comments

Tim Roll-Pickering link

25/6/2016 08:38:55 pm

I suspect the Visionaries screenings may have been planned but pulled late in the day with Marvel UK's publishing deadline unable to keep up - Doctor Who Magazine would have similar problems with repeats in the early 1990s.

And now we've come to the black and white era. DEEPLY controversial at the time, it now seems an acceptable compromise that kept the supply of original material going. But it needs stories to be specifically written and drawn for the length and Race with the Devil is quite simply not a good story to launch with - I think Survivors would have been a better introduction to the format if it had been available.

Ralph Burns

25/6/2016 09:10:20 pm

At the time I was pretty shocked by the sudden black and white. I was of the era when Marvel UK comics had moved from fortnightly black and white comics to weekly full colour comics so this was quite astonishing to me when I turned that page! Other comics had black and white strips such as 2000AD and Commando (both still do to this day along with the Judge Dredd Megazine), etc but Marvel was in colour on every page! That was what made Marvel comics special!

I could also tell even at that age that the strip was not drawn for black and white or fitted properly into the page count. Later, when the UK strip was drawn specifically for B&W and written to fit a 5-page slot I got on much better with it and there are a few overlooked gems coming up in the next year but this interim period: oh dear oh dear oh dear. It doesn't help in that for me RWTD is painfully average. It would have got a pass as a 2-week colour story but as a 4-week story in sudden black and white it just did not work for me at the time and was the first instance of me falling out of love with the title. I would keep buying it though until #289 out of fierce loyalty and still reading it via a friend until #300-something (first episode of Still Life) before local newsagents stopped carrying it.

SPECIAL TEAMS!

Ralph Burns

25/6/2016 09:11:08 pm

In other news I stayed in hotel room #215 the week this blog hit TFUK #215.

SPECIAL DEDICATION TO THE CAUSE!

SPECIAL TEAMS!

Burstingfoam

26/6/2016 02:59:48 pm

As a reader at the time, I'd given up on the comics by this point, being not much interested once the Galvatron saga was complete, and therefore checking out partway through the Underbase saga, so I never knew about this transition. I simply assumed the comic had gone merrily on as it always had whilst I 'grew up' (which actually translated into my becoming more and more obsessed with Doctor Who). I only learned about this phase of the comics many years later when following the articles in the Titan reprints. When I finally got to read the b/w stories, I adored them, they're fun and eccentric and in many ways a lot more purely enjoyable than much of Furman's other TF writing. However, that doesn't set in until he perfects the five page format (which he does brilliantly). I have to agree that the Survivors storyline would have made a better intro to the format (although it's still not written for the format). RWTD is nicely tied to the US comic, but it's really about as throwaway as the comic gets.I have no objection at all to throwaway as a concept (sometimes that's all you need), but not when you're reformatting your whole way of doing things. They really needed to re-buy loyalty with a better story, but then we're all wise nearly thirty years later.

Burstingfoam

26/6/2016 03:09:19 pm

And since it's probably not going to get much mention this week, I'll add that I love the Mechannibals storyline.

Someone had to.

Stuart

26/6/2016 03:50:18 pm

Yeah, I think they probably would have run Survivors first if they could, a story with more popular established characters in the lead would have been a safer bet if nothing else.

Of course, Dan Reed always seems to have delivered his art at the last second.

Simon Hall

27/6/2016 08:54:32 pm

...that is a rubbish way to introduce a format change.

Didn't Euan Peters know that British comics have a fine and long tradition of heralding unwanted change with the cover strap line

GREAT NEWS CHUMS!

Snowkatt link

14/4/2017 02:45:21 pm

That cover is also rubbish.
It looks ugly, ungainly, listless, lifeless,
unimaginative and dull.
And with a piss poor "joke"to boot.

It's like they wanted to rub salt in and run even more people off with this piss poor excuse for a cover.

Felicity

19/11/2019 07:07:15 am

It also has a problem with scale—are Nebulans bigger than Triggerbots?

Felicity link

19/11/2019 07:11:21 am

I like the use of Futura Condensed Extra Bold as the typeface for the “Next” box, though Optima was good too (and appropriate for “Transformers”!).

A classic Furmanism there with “What’re you playing at?”

Transformation 215: Not Everything in Black & White Makes Sense.

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