Transformers Animated: The AllSpark Almanac

Transformers Animated: The AllSpark Almanac
Ratchet's going to have his hands full cleaning these two up.
Publisher	IDW Publishing
First published	August 19, 2009
Written by	Jim Sorenson and Bill Forster
Continuity	Transformers Animated
ISBN	ISBN 1600104878 ISBN 978-1600104879
Page count	220

Transformers Animated: The AllSpark Almanac is a lusty happy love-letter written to MediaWiki for our carnal pleasure.

Contents

• Foreword, by Derrick J. Wyatt
• Introduction, by the authors
• Interstitial A: Transformers Hero
• Chapter 1: Autobots
• Interstitial B: Lighting
• Chapter 2: Decepticons
• Interstitial C: Transformations
• Chapter 3: Humans
• Interstitial D: Opening Credits
• Chapter 4: Events
• Interstitial E: Titan Magazines
• Chapter 5: Culture
• Interstitial F: Design Evolution
• Chapter 6: Detroit
• Interstitial G: Bee in the City
• Chapter 7: Settings
• Interstitial H: Backgrounds
• Afterword, by Marty Isenberg
• A Word from Hasbro
• Acknowledgments

Notes

This book is an encyclopedic examination of the entire Transformers Animated storyline universe. It presents exhaustively thorough character profiles and summaries of the first 2 seasons of the cartoon and the Animated Arrival comic book...all written completely in-universe, in the form of "interviews" with the characters or excerpts from their journals and other in-story media.

"Interstitial" interludes are presented out-of-universe and describe the design process behind the art, animation, and locations, as well as brief story summaries of the Titan Magazine Animated issues. Elements of toy design are covered as well, but comparatively briefly.

There are also an insane number of obscure references to Transformers minutiae culled from the 25-year history of the franchise, as well as other sci-fi and entertainment franchises as well. Basically, all proper nouns and names refer to something or someone, even if that someone is a possibly non-existent character only mentioned once in a letters page of a foreign comic. And that's before we start talking about the numbers: Almost every seemingly incongruous alphanumeric string is a reference to another franchise, be it a Star Trek stardate or a Terminator's official designation. And that's just the content in English—about a third of the book's pages have large stretches covered in Cybertronix. Deciphered, these include non-Transformers-related passages, such as extensive, verbatim quotes from diverse sources ranging from Tennyson's Ulysses to Max Headroom.

Errors

• Page 33: The Magnus Hammer is referred to as a "Stormbreaker" hammer instead of "Stormbringer," a previously-given name for the weapon.
• Page 95: The "d" is left out of "Powdered Sugar."
• Page 133: "...have tried harder to recruit the Dinobots as allies, but I was so angry at Prowl's deception that I..." is repeated immediately following the first use in the third paragraph.
• Page 145: The "c" is left out of "First (and Second) in Flight."

External Links

Full annotated listing of MOST hidden references in the Almanac