Transformation 230: The High Window.

6/10/2016

Hold onto your fedora this week as Furman channels Chandler.

No, not the one from Friends.

It's a cold dark night on the beech as Transformers meets Bogart in my look at:

The Big Shutdown Part 1.

Next week it'll be on a Thursday as I'm off to see Star Trek: The Motion Picture at the cinema.

11 Comments

Mark Stevenson

7/10/2016 06:33:11 pm

*Applauds*

Stuart

7/10/2016 06:51:17 pm

Thank you Sir, trying to get the balance right between the style and still conveying the all the information was quite tricky (and I can still see the bits where I fall out of "Character"), so the appreciation is appreciated!

Felicity

22/11/2019 07:00:13 am

I second that applause!

Tim Roll-Pickering link

8/10/2016 01:59:28 am

I'm not even going to try the style for a reply.

But candy cigarettes. I remember those - when did they disappear?

I think this is the first story since the beginning of the series in which every character is new and I'm hard pressed to think of another example, so the freshness really helps at a time when the complaints about reprints were flowing in. But it also raises a minor bugbear that two characters have the same gimmick without having any shared history. The US stories ignore the actual Headmaster gimmick for these three (as indeed does the UK book for Siren) which might have been the easier way to go.

The Action Force story is slightly unusual in that it seems to be a rare example from the TF years of Marvel UK picking a story to advertise a particular current toy - the regular G.I. Joe reprints have slipped behind the toy releases (which were about a year behind the US) but this one is a year ahead of the regular comic and I'm guessing Maverick and the Vector were current in toy shops at the time. The Special Missions stories were sometimes sufficiently standalone that they could be picked out in this way though all of Action Force weekly, Transformers and Incredible Hulk Presents wound up doing a bit of the new character/vehicle that's suddenly just there before an actual introduction is reprinted further down the line.

Simon Hall

9/10/2016 08:36:21 pm

You can still find Candy Cigarettes - sorry Candy Sticks, at any discount retailer - Home Bargains have them. Usually with a cheery superhero on the front.

When are they going to make candy versions of electronic cigarettes, thats what I want to know.

I'm not so hot on this story, its a good conceit, but just don't care for Nightbeat et al. I like the idea of Nightbeat being a Detective...but I just don't care for shoe-horning him into these Chandler-esque tropes. The upcoming Matrix Quest, which is full of this guff, similarly leaves me cold. They just don't work so well for me.

What probably doesn't help is that I prefer pastiches to really engage with the material they're dealing with to make them work - like Life On Mars (the UK version, not that nonsense that turned up in America). Furman's touch is perhaps a bit too light to sell the concept to me.

Ralph Burns

23/10/2016 08:49:43 pm

Apologies but my deep dislike of the type of source material that 'The Big Shutdown' apes means I hated this story as a child. Similarly, I wanted to smash the TV whenever Dixon Hill turned up in an episode of TNG.

Nightbeat would go on to a favourite character for me later though. Top notch art however in this week's strip.

SPECIAL TEAMS!

Felicity link

22/11/2019 06:59:45 am

That cover really demonstrates how the artists have to fudge the realism when depicting Transformers wearing clothes, as José Delbo did in “Cash and Carnage” and to a lesser extent with Spike’s raincoat in “The Desert Island of Space,” or as we will see in the upcoming wrestling story, the Decepticon Micromasters when they show up at the gym.

I bet that Herb Trimpe was the artist on “Airshow” because it’s he that really has the interest in old airplanes even more than Hama. I have the issue of “GI Joe Special Missions” that this is from and I remember liking the story, though I did first read it as an adult.

Tim Roll-Pickering link

22/11/2019 10:57:47 am

It was indeed Herb Trimpe: https://gijoe.fandom.com/wiki/Airshow

Felicity

22/11/2019 11:32:54 am

Thanks!

LiamKav

9/10/2020 01:32:52 am

The interesting thing is that when Wildman again draws Nightbeat in a trenchcoat for the US comics during Matrix Quest, he cheats and ignores the huge shoulders that NB has here.

This must be a relatively rare example of Furman actually latching on to a new toy's CHARACTER, rather than his gimmick. Spinister and Needlenose aren't especially close to their profiles. Neither is Thunderwing. But Nightbeat the private dick is right there in his profile.

(Arguable Doubledealer comes close, but his gimmick IS his character.)

Snowkatt

25/11/2019 05:32:24 pm

That was a damn fine piece of pastiche.

Transformation 230: The High Window.

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