Transformers: The Definitive G1 Collection
Transformers: The Definitive G1 Collection is a fortnightly eighty-volume patchwork from Hatchette, edited by Simon Furman. Partworks are a Hatchette speciality: a series will be collected out of order (the first Definitive was Volume 6) for commercial purposes but can be collected on your shelf in order with a fancy picture on the collective spines.
The plan is to republish all Generation 1 comics (as of 2016) and all of the original Marvel Comics run, UK and US, as one run again. Wow! That's great, right?
Only if you live in the United Kingdom and Ireland, suckers!
However as of August 2017, the subscription also became available in Australia.[3]
Each issue has a special cover and bonus content, and older strips will have recoloured artwork. Fantastic FREE! Gifts are provided for subscribers, to make you buy all of them; the fourth delivery for subscribers would have Autobrand and Deceptibrand bookends to hold your collection.
This was given a trial-run in parts of the UK before a national release started in early 2017. The first volume was a collection of Target 2006, coincidentally out on newsagents thirty years after the story originally ran![1] The extra features included character profiles and The Middle Years that ran in the original issues.
US reprints are taken from IDW's Transformers Classic 'remasters', complete with desperate attempts to 'fix' errors. Instead of running the black and white UK strips in their original form, John-Paul Bove has coloured them with emulations of both 1980s American and latter-day Marvel UK colouring techniques.[2]
Volumes
Features
Notable features in the back included:
- The alternate ending of Marvel US #4, unused artwork from issue 1 by Frank Springer and an overview of how Marvel UK first approached The Transformers (Vol. 1)
- A guide to the launch of The Transformers: The Movie in the UK and its marketing purposes for Marvel UK (Vol.6)
- An analysis of the many deaths of Optimus Prime in G1 (Vol. 7)
- An overview of the Marvel UK Annuals and a bio on Marvel Goldbug (Vol. 8)
- A retrospective for the Headmasters miniseries and an overview of how Marvel UK handled toy marketing (Vol. 10)
- How Marvel UK incorporated The Big Broadcast of 2006 into the timeline (Vol. 14)
- An article by Bove on the colouring techniques used at Marvel UK and Marvel US in the 1980s, and how he emulated them for colourising the UK strips (Vol.16)
- An overview of Marvel's Unicron and a spotlight on Andrew Wildman (Vol. 18)
- A Marvel UK Classic Heroes Competition! page, an overview of Marvel UK's background stories to the US series, an article on the Two Megatrons confusion, and a bio on Marvel Thunderwing (Vol. 19)
- A commentary on issue 81 by Simon Furman, an overview on production leading up to Regeneration One and several cover sketches (Vol. 21)
- An overview of Generation 2 and several cover sketches (Vol. 22)
- Top 10 easter eggs for War and Peace and scorecards listing each faction and their crew members during the arc (Vol. 26)
- Various character design sketches by Don Figueroa and an article on the making of The War Within (Vol. 29)
- Various character design sketches by Figueroa and an overview of the many G.I. Joe crossovers across the comics (Vol. 31)
- A discussion of the production stages on Megatron: Origin by Eric Holmes (Vol. 33)
- An interview with Flint Dille about his work on the G1 cartoon and his involvement in the Autocracy trilogy (Vol. 35)
- An article on the beginning of IDW-verse production and several sketches by Figueroa (Vol. 36)
- Sketches by E. J. Su, bios on IDW Ultra Magnus & IDW Sixshot, an article on creating the IDW Spotlights and an interview with Su (Vol. 37)
- Concept art by Guido Guidi and an article of creating Hearts of Steel (Vol. 39)
- Dinobot sketches by Nick Roche and Klaus Scherwinski's Spotlight: Wheelie Sketchbook (Vol. 40)
- An article on creating All Hail Megatron, character design sketches by Guidi and the series pitch by Shane McCarthy (Vol. 43)
- Character design sketches by Figueroa, an extract from Decepticomments from The Transformers #4 by Mike Costa and a bio on IDW Swindle (Vol. 46)
- A post-mortem on "Zombots" across the various comics and a bio on IDW Hardhead (Vol. 50)
- An interview with James Roberts on how he worked his way up to become an ongoing writer and character design sketches by Livio Ramondelli (Vol. 52)
- A bio on the Titans and the making of Dark Cybertron with Barber & Roberts (Vol. 59)
- A bio for Windblade, an overview of her conception, pictures of her Thrilling 30 release and early design sketches by Hasbro (Vol. 64)
Notes
- When the website launched, it accidentally credited Andrew Wlidman.
- Copies of the first issue (volume 6 - this will get confusing in the long run) provided to general retail and initial subscribers have an error on the spine, with the black volume number box at the top being the wrong size. Subscribers received free corrected copies. Everyone who bought it at a newsagent has to wait for a replacement copy to be included with issue 7 (which is not volume 7, if you see). Hachette were seen giving away error-stricken copies for free at a signing event at a London comic shop.[3]
- This error shouldn't be confused with the change in spine art for the first four issues made between the limited trial run and the mass release[4], which means that anyone who subscribed to the series from its trial will end up with three different copies of issue 1.
