Transformation 298: My Kind of Town.

25/1/2018

New York, New York. So good they wrecked it twice. This week, we visit a dark future where Galvatron rules the Earth and ask: Is Simon Furman a 9/11 predicting prophet? Or just a guy that knows a good visual image?

Plus: The Pretender Monsters!

All in my look at ISSUE 298.

4 Comments

Simon Hall

28/1/2018 12:27:42 pm

Galvatron calling the Pretenders "Less Than Nothing" is a fair point. They are crappy toys. I don't think they turned up in the UK either, difd they?

This is a nice opening part of this issue. It's all the stuff with the remaining resistance coming next that I don't like. Delbo's art is nice - I forget who inks him this issue, but it looks a lot rougher and rawer which really helps.

I've just noticed I own all the trades and GNs listed in the sidebar! At the time, there was a clear distinction between what was a Graphic Novel and what was a trade.

A Trade Paperback collected a series of issues from the regular run of a particular comic. A Graphic Novel was a self-contained story specifically in the 'book' format. That most of these tended to feature painted artwork is what leant them the 'Graphic' moniker. That and being presented in some kind of oversized format.

You also had later 'Bookshelf' formats, which were basically 64 page card covered specials the size of a normal US comic that were a self-contained story but produced using regular comic book colouring techniques and / or colour washes and less fancy paper stock.

IIRC, The misuse of the Graphic Novel/ Trade Paperback forms came from mainstream media and retailers such as Waterstones and Borders (who they), as they began to market and sell comics to the regular book-buying public. This of course, all coming off the back of Watchmen and The Dark Knight returns, where a lot of people used the term Graphic Novel to make comics seem somehow more valid and important or grown up as a medium. And so they didn't feel silly reading stories ostensibly about people in tights with silly names punching each other.

Tim Roll-Pickering link

30/1/2018 11:58:08 am

I also can't remember the Pretender Monsters. It's telling that this story doesn't even bother to show their particular second gimmick (combining) - indeed for that matter the mega Pretenders don't show theirs either. I guess even Hasbro US didn't care much.

I disagree that the trade paperback/graphic novel distinction is entirely down to retailers. Marvel UK often seemed to use the terms a bit too interchangeably, most notably with some of the Doctor Who comic strip collected editions of the day. You're right that retailers have added to the mess, perhaps because a "trade paperback" is also the term for a softcover version of the hardcover release, mainly to create a lighter version for sending to reviewers and selling at airports. (And just to add to it all is the "album" format in France & Belgium that can be either a collection of existing pages or a straight-to-bookshop release.)

Anonymous X

12/2/2018 12:49:29 am

The Pretender Monsters were indeed available in UK toy shops. Roughly around the era of this issue too.

Felicity

23/12/2019 11:39:23 am

I like the moody lighting on the cover. Kudos to the colourist.

“Homotobot”?!

Transformation 298: My Kind of Town.

Leave a Reply.

Author

Archives

Categories