Full Metal Hero have a look at Issue 1 of Transformers: Prime - Rage of the Dinobots!   which you can see by following the link

Summary

Leading into the third season of Transformers: Prime and tying into Fall of Cybertron, it sees Grimlock and his cohorts charging into Prime like no-one's business. Head out to your local comic shop on Wednesday, or downloaded it to your preferred digital device.

Simon Furman has updated his Wordpress Blog with a new article titled "Script (W)rap – Transformers RG1 #85" which, as you should be able to guess from the title, covers his preview of Regeneration One issue 85 which sees the conclusion of the "Loose Ends" story arc.  Simon makes mention, within his blog, the posting a spoiler free preview was going to be very difficult, but he has promised a true smackdown of Optimus Prime Vs Megatron, a real first for the "Generation One" story.  Simon explains his thoughts on this "Pretty much everyone now knows it features what I hope is the most titanic and revealing Prime/Megatron clash ever. I’d always felt vaguely unsatisfied that the two towering titans of Transformers-dom had never really had an appropriately epic smackdown in the (original) comic series. Circumstances and story direction just seemed to have them in different corners of the storyline, or the clashes would end in stalemate. When I came on the (US) book, with issue #56, the first thing on my mind was to get Megatron back in the fray. But through twists and turns (of my own devising) somehow I could never get them face-to-face, toe-to-toe (if you discount the Mega-Ratchet combo fight with Prime, where it’s fair to say Megatron wasn’t exactly feeling himself).".

The classics cover month his provided by Geoff Senior (that'll be the copy we pick up then ;))

The comic goes on sale this week from all good, and some not good, stockists

Seibertron.com have posted a video which they recorded at NYCC that shows the preview for Transformers Prime Season 3 Beast Hunters. You can view the trailer using the plugin below

Full Metal Hero have some preview images of the upcoming Transformers Robots in Disguise Annual which continues on from the previously released MTMTE Annual, this issue picks up the story of the Metrotitan and events on Cybertron.

The official Transformers facebook page has been updated with a 5 page preview of IDW's Transformers Regeneration One issue #83 wich includes the Transformers Hall of Fame writer, Simon Furman, giving a running commentary into the pages.  Check it out be clicking the link above.

The TFCC have updated their official website with a two page preview of their exclusive comic book which features appearances from the Subscription Service figures.  The pages, which have been mirrored below, form an epilogue to the current story line taking place within the fan comic as well as setting the stage for next year's story.

Jim Sorenson has posted two new articles on his blgo The Disciples of Boltax.  The first covers the Transformation sequence of Metal Hawk, where as the second covers his GI-Joe Field Manual book which is out today


The G.I. Joe Field Manual hits stores TOMORROW! Get on down to your local comic book shop and pick up a copy.  I'll post an official reaction thread, and I'd surely love to hear your thoughts.

For those of you who missed it, this is my compilation of G.I. Joe animation models from the 1983-1985 period.  That includes both mini-series as well as season one.  From Ace to Zap, from the A.S.P. to Zartan, it's a more than comprehensive guide to the G.I. Joe cartoon covering the Joe team, Cobra, and plenty of guests.  M.A.S.S. Device? Check!  Weather Dominator? Don't you know it! Honda Lou West?  But of course! Oktober Guard? I'd be remiss otherwise.
en abandoned by the tail end of 1986.

Amazon US, we have some new IDW Trade Collections listings go up in the last few days

Regeneration One - Volume 1
The Transformers comic that began it all is back - with a vengeance! 21 years have passed since Cybertron was restored to its former glory, and finally there is peace. But, after millions of years of bitter civil war, can all ever truly be one?
132 pages. 5th February 2013

Robots in Disguise - Volume 2
104 pages. 18th December 2012

GI Joe/Transformers - Volume 2
248 pages. 18th December 2012

The Allspark ran a Q&A session with Simon Furman regarding the new

Snippet (click the link for the full Q&A)

 MrBlud: "Did you add Leadfoot to the Wreckers because of his appearance (and membership) in DOTM? "

Simon Furman: My intention with RG1 was to kind of absorb the whole 27 or so year history of the franchise and bring diverse elements (that have a resonance outside the narrow world of the original G1 US comic) into the mix. So yeah, Leadfoot being a Wrecker is a part of that (but not limited to DOTM). There’s also the G2 link, elements and characters of which are being folded into RG1 on a regular/ongoing basis, and the fact that Leadfoot featured in the IDW-verse too, in my Spotlight: Galvatron, so I really wanted him to be a part of RG1 because of all those influences, not any single one.

Full Metal Hero have been sent a few pages of Transformers Regeneration 81 in preperation of tomorrows big release.  This will be one of only a few IDW Comics that we'll actually be looking to buy, as we ran out of space for comics years ago, but we're certainly looking forward to getting back into the Transformers comic lore.

NOTE: The pages include spoilers

Just six days now until Transformers: Regeneration One #81 hits comic book stores and download outlets (Wednesday, July 11^th, to be exact), and Simon Furman's pre-release teaser-fest continues with Regeneration One #80.5 — DECONSTRUCTED, pt 3.

Page 8, panels 1-2: Nova Point. A distinct doff of the hat to the first ‘continuation/expansion’ of the Marvel G1 saga that appeared in a 1992 UK Annual as ‘Another Time and Place’, an illustrated text story. In that story, Nova Point is described as being ‘hewn from a mountain of metal’, and I kind of took that description and turned it into ‘a towering, almost monastic retreat perched on a mountain of melted and reformed metal slag overlooking the city.’ As if it’s been made of old bits of war-torn Cybertron, the future and the past again, twisted into one. Pretty much just a throwaway line, but Kup’s flippant mention of a ‘tactical upgrade’ opens a door to some character refinements, should we wish to implement any. And here he is — Ultra Magnus, making his US continuity debut. He was a regular feature of the UK stories, and I’m now not sure why I never crossed him over into the US comic. I kind of took that UK incarnation (‘Cybertron’s greatest warrior’ – a description that actually gets a dialog nod in #81) and the more recent IDW ‘galactic lawgiver’ model and mushed them into one. I thought would be interesting to see what a character like Ultra Magnus becomes in peacetime. Frustrated, mostly, but we’ll get to that in a few issues time.

Page 8, panels 3-5: Again, lots of scene to set in this issue, and of paramount importance to me was establishing Optimus Prime’s current state of mind. So already Kup and Ultra Magnus’s dialog has alluded to Prime having rather cut himself off, in almost self-imposed exile, and Hot Rod reemphasises it a moment later. There’s a lot to come in terms of development for Hot Rod. We all know that in the animated movie he becomes the next Prime. And I wanted to feed off that and have Optimus Prime (who — in his own mind, at least — is more in the twilight phase of his time at the top) actively involved in kind of nurturing (or mentoring) his successor. But again, things aren’t necessarily going to play out according to TFTM or any other established storyline. It really is going to be tough ‘being the chosen one’. Hot Rod, though, is quite a pivotal character in RG1 (arguably the most pivotal), but his path is going to be rougher and more convoluted than any previous counterpart version. We finally get to Optimus, who’s standing, well, much as he is at the opening of ‘Another Time and Place’, staring out at Iacon from a raised observation platform. From here, it all goes in a very different direction from that Annual story, but it deserves acknowledgment.

Page 9, panels 1-4: And right from the get-go we understand that Optimus is not in a good place. In modern parlance, he has issues. Terse, brusque — it’s not the Prime we know and love. But I wondered what it would feel like to be dead, and then wrenched back into the land of the living, without so much as a by your leave. Would you be happy or kind of resentful? Something as traumatic as that must leaves deep, deep mental scars, and this reluctance to listen to the likes of Kup is what will drive the entirety of RG1′s first arc, and end in catastrophe. Oh, and death. #85 isn’t pretty. You have been warned. From Magnus’s speech we get the idea that there have been ‘incidents’ already. Clearly Soundwave and Co. haven’t been idle. And now Kup wants to send in the Wreckers. Yes, the Wreckers! Another UK mainstay (collectively) making the crossover into the US continuity. The intervening 21 years have kind of melded Kup with the Wreckers in my mind, so while he’s probably not ‘a Wrecker’ as such, he is very closely linked to the group. We’ll meet them all in #81. And one of the members (or is that two?) has a distinctly UK flavour.

Page 9, panels 5-7: As mentioned, Optimus’s reluctance to risk any kind of re-opening of hostilities (a kind of head in the sand attitude for sure) is going to have consequences. Even as quickly as the end of this issue. The Megatron’s ‘glorious second coming’ line kind of reiterates what I was talking about earlier, and how Soundwave is just holding the fort until his return. Probably using it to keep the faith. And Prime finally name-checks Soundwave’s mob as neo-Decepticons. As if the original Decepticons have just kind of conveniently vanished. It says a lot about Prime’s attitude and the attitude of the Autobots as a whole, if the whole concept of Decepticons can just be erased. Made into a footnote in Cybertron’s history. As if.

Pages 10-11: Our third flashback spread. And a chance to reprise two of my favourite scenes from the early stages of the US comic: Shockwave’s victory and the Autobots hanging from the rafters like sides of meat, and the Dinobots (and Ratchet) taking on Megatron (and winning by default). Or is that foot fault? Then I press fast forward, condensing some 40 issues into three panels, hitting the main note I wanted which was the evolution of the conflict and the Transformers themselves. Very important evolution is to the whole RG1 vibe. Among those ‘evolutions’ is one group who’ll make a big impact on RG1, especially in the second arc, ‘Natural Selection.’ And we wrap this spread with Starscream decimating the ranks of the Autobots and Decepticons alike (from #50). We know what happened to the Autobots who bit the dust in the Underbase storyline, they got pumped full of Nucleon and revived. But what about the Decepticons??

The final 5 pages soon, keep watching…

Jim Sorenson has updated his blog, Disciples of Boltax, with a new Ark Addendum entry.  The new entry is the fifth part of Jim's look at Madman's Paradise.  Here is a copy of Jim's description of the character models:

"It's been a long, twilight struggle, but we've made it through Madman's Paradise!  We come to the final batch of models, the Golden One's loyalists. 

Here you can see one of the tricks I sometimes employ.  Treant the second and treant the first are obviously very similar models.  To keep them from looking TOO much alike, at least on a subconscious level, I reversed the second one.  It also makes the page flow better.  Note that I didn't do that with the second Birdman model, because I believe it's just the same guy carrying some explosives. "

It's free Comic Book day! And just a reminder that Orbital Comics in London are having a signing to celebrate the release of Transformers Regeneration One #80.5.

Writer Simon Furman, penciler Andrew Wildman, inker Stephen Baskerville, colourist John-Paul Bove and cover colourist Jason Cardy will be in store today (Saturday 5th May 2012) from 12-2pm, where you can pick up a copy of The Transformers Regeneration One #80.5, get it signed and have a chat with the team behind the book!

Store details can be found here.

During IDW's BotCon 2012 panel it was revealed that fan favorite and Hall of Fame contender Sky-Byte would be joining the cast of Transformers: Robots in Disguise Ongoing starting in issue #5. Artist Ardrew Griffith has revealed the character's redesign for the series via Full Metal Hero.

During the IDW Botcon panel the next book from Jim Sorenson and Bill Forster was announced as Legacy: The Box Art of the Transformers.  As the name suggests, the book will the box art that was used with the toys, bringing together material from Japan, the US and, with luck, Europe.

Here's Jim to tell you more

"Legacy: The Box Art of The Transformers is going to be something special.  I've been working on it for a while now, and I'm really amazingly pleased with how well it is going.  We've been working with Hasbro, Part One (the parent company of eHobby), and numerous private collectors to pull together the definitive coffee table book of Transformers packaging art.

A lot of things, like the date and the page count, are still up in the air.  However, here's what has already been decided on:

1: The scope will be G1 and G2.  No Beast Wars or beyond.  We'll be covering every year in the US, as well as the entire Japanese set of releases.  It's possible that we might get Europe in too, if we can find the material.  That remains to be seen.
2: The extras will be substantial.  We're talking essays and interviews with the original artists, modern repaints of vintage artwork (think eHobby exclusives), unused box art, production sketches for box art and more.
3: In terms of scale, we've got more then 300 images in hand, and more than 150 additional pieces pledged.  I'd like to get those numbers up, so if you are a collector of the originals, drop me a line!"

You can read more of Jim's thoughts on his blog: http://boltax.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/transformers-legacy.html