Hello
friends! It's time for another collection of words that I've strung
together and called it a blog! Today's topiss is on Transformers
resource books, to which, it may surprise you, there are MANY options
to choose between, so I figure I would give you a small overview on
some of my favourites and most commonly used books (to prove that,
I'm using photographs of my personal copies, which should show
crease-marks etc).
If
you feel I have missed any resource books that you canot live
without, then please let me know, and I'll look into them.
I
have decided to combine a few books into one section, as they are so
similar that it seemed pointless to do it any other way.
Please
let me know if you have a topic you want me to cover in the future,
and even just let me know what you think about this blog itself! I
love feedback!! (When it's good :p)
#1 Bumblebee and Me, by
Dan Gilvezan
My
first option is a bit unusual, in that it is an autobiography rather
than a traditional resource book. I'm including this book here
though, because it gives a very good overview on exactly how the
process for the creation of the Transformers TV series went back in
the 80's, and tells us the full story, including several interesting
anecdotes along the way, all told by original cast member Dan
Gilvezan (G1 Bumblebee).
I
have to admit, I originally only bought this book for me to have
something to get Dan to sign at Auto Assembly 2013, but I read it,
and found it incredibly interesting and entertaining.
#2 You Can Draw
Transformers, by Simon Furman
This
book shows us a great deal of techniques for drawing Transformers,
and laying out comics in general, going to details of the importance
of plotting out a page, making room for speech bubbles etc, and even
goes through the whole design and scripting process etc..
The
only major issue I have with this book is that it shows you how to
draw Dreamwave style robots.....you can probably just ignore those
sections huh?
#3 How to Draw
Transformers Prime, by Nick Roche
This
book is basically the complete opposite of the previous drawing book,
it gives no helpful details on drawing Tranformers, or laying out
anything (this is even admitted by the author Nick Roche) but it
features several lovely pictures of characters from the Prime TV
series, and for a long time was the definitive source of decent drawn
out (ie not CGI) images of Prime characters (until the Art of Prime
came out, but more on that later)
#4 Transformers 30th
Anniversary Collection, by Jim Sorenson
This
book is a compilation of selected comics from the franchise's now 30
year old history, and includes creator commentary and behind the
scenes details for each issue, which includes sketches and unused
concepts. This series attempts to collect examples of all major
Transformers lines, and only misses a few out (Fun Publications, 3H,
Titan etc), making it a pretty good thing to have in your collection
#5 Transformers: The
Complete Ark, by Jim Sorenson and Bill Forster
This
book, or rather 2 books blended together, collects character models
from the G1 series together to give us a VERY comprehensive
collection which is extremely helpful for people wanting a source to
draw from for their own comics, or for just simple identifying
purposes.
There
are some characters who are missing from this book, but most have
their Japanese counterpart's instead, so they still get a sort of
appearance (annoyingly though Nightbeat was recast a female character
in Masterforce, so his character model WASN'T used :( )
More
pages to this book can be found on Jim Sorenson's blog, the Disciples
of Boltax: http://boltax.blogspot.co.uk/
#6 The Art of....
books, by Jim Sorenson and Mark Bellomo
I
decided to place these 2 books together as both give us a lot of the
same thing, but for 2 different parts of the franchise. The Art of
Fall of Cybertron and The Art of Prime both feature several beautiful
pages of character models and design processes, and also include
expansive background scenery and item details that are just so good
that they have to be looked at for themselves rather than jut
described if I'm honest.
#7 The Covenant of
Primus, by Justina Robson
This
is one I was waiting for for some time. Even though it is presented
in a novel style, this IS a resource book, and gives us a lot of
invaluable details about the early years of the Cybertronian people.
Even though these events are most likely unable to be the same in
every continuity, I'd say it's safe to assume that some are the same.
The
book tells us about the long unknown Original 13 Transformers, tells
us about how the Quintessons get involved in the planet, how the
Cybertronians evolved over time, and ends with the finale of the
Prime series, giving us a very thorough story-arc and a great amount
of information at the same time.
The
included illustrations also add to the fun by giving us some nice
visuals of several unseen characters, including the Primes and other
beings we've only heard of before.
#8 Transformers Vault,
by Pablo Hidalgo
Confusingly,
this entry ISN'T actually about the Vault in general, it's about the
so-called “Ultimate Guide” series. These books are made to
compile information about the brand to have it in one convenient
place. The reason I am using the Vault as my example here, is because
it is the most recent edition.
You
may see the problem already...these books are flawed as they are made
at one specific point in time and are VERY quickly made obsolete when
anything new is released. The best options are just to read this
information on the TFWiki to be honest.
The
reason I am putting these on as a helpful resource book however is
that they do give us new information when they are first released,
and even afterwards, they do have several interesting pieces of
information for you to marvel over (like the previously unknown
concepts from the G2 series revealed in the Vault for example) and
also include some extra features, like tech specs, pull out posters
etc.
#9 Transformers Profile
books!
The
Transformers franchise has had several profile books across it's
history, including the Marvel Universe series, Dreamwave's More Than
Meets the Eye lines, the 3H and Fun Publications profiles included in
their comics, the Beast Wars Sourcebook and the new Kreo Encyclopedia
(pictured).
These
books are useful for identifying characters, but are often
unfortunately filled with some mistakes, either with their art or the
profiles themselves, but they can still be helpful.
A
major problem for these tyrpes of books though, is that like with the
Ultimate Guides, they become quite outdated quite fast (for example,
the Kreo Encyclopedia was released just this month, and is already
outdated!
#10 Transformers
Animated: the Allspark Almanac series, by Jim Sorenson and Bill
Forster
My
final choice here, is of course the Allspark Almanacs. These books
are essentially most of the other books on this list combined for
the Animated series. They contain profile pages, background
information, background artwork, spoilers for what was MEANT to
happen next (since the series was cancelled).
These
books are essentially perfect as resource tools, giving names to
items and characters only briefly seen in the series and were even
filled with about 100 Easter Eggs per page just to satisfy even the
most picky of long term fans.
There
was even an Allspark Almanac Addendum in the works with the
Transformers Collector's Club, which covered brand new characters and
concepts, but that ended very suddenly with no word as to why. I
originally hoped, nay, prayed that it was due to a proper 3rd
Volume being released instead, but since it's been a couple of years
now, I think it was just abandoned due to spacing issues or
something.
