Transformers: War Journal

[TF Mosaic]

Transformers: War Journal.
Story: John-Paul Bove
Script: John-Paul Bove, Josh van Reyk & Jon Stone.
Art: Tom Parish, Casey Coller, Matt C. Adams, Shane Anderson, Richard Cookson, Stanley Chou, John Flores, Jon Stone, Stavros Kundromichalis, Jeremy Tiongson & Evan Gauntt.
Colors: John-Paul Bove.
Letters: Bernie Lee.
Covers: Josh Burcham, Tom Parrish, Kent Lin.
Sketch Cover: Andrew Wildman.

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[TF Mosaic]

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[TF Mosaic]

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Well, here we are. HUGE thanks to all the talented artists who have contributed to this project; all of your hard work has made this comic so much more that I ever imagined. Special thanks to both John-Paul Bove and Bernie Lee for their amazing work and dedication, without them this project would not nearly be as “professional.” Extra special thanks to both Andrew Wildman and Josh Burcham for their contributions. I have been very blessed to have been involved in this project and am extremely amazed with how this has turned out.

I hope you all enjoy reading this piece, as much as I have helping to create it.

- Josh van Reyk

[TF Mosaic]

It seems I just can't get enough of the spotlight;

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=141580

[Saintly]

glad to see you posting in the new board, TF mosaic :) wasn't sure if this war journal was coming across

[i_amtrunks]

I see Flash made it to the final Charge.

That makes me very happy.

[Bartrim]

Well done. I enjoyed reading that.:)

[GoktimusPrime]

It was a fairly good story and I liked how they had a different artist for each page offering a nice variety. Slingshot was kinda annoying at first and overall his persona felt more like Blades than Slingshot. Slingshot is a blowhard but Blades is more of the gung-ho type - although it was really cool how they exploited Blades' preference for melee combat and use of his rotor blades as a blade weapon (hence his name!). That was nice. But Slingshot turned out to be cool at the end when he accepted his duty - which is perfectly in line with his persona.

The relationship between First Aid and Minerva was done interestingly... I like how it was portrayed primarily as a close bond resulting from a professional relationship as medics rather than making them "lovers" which would've reeked of blatant fanboy fappage.

The plot complication and resolution was well written and I enjoyed it. And that final page looks really nice.

My only gripes (and they're minor) would be:
1/ Silverbolt's reference to the Aerialbots as "men." *shudder* Brought back bad memories of the Armada dub.
2/ First Aid's ambulance front kibble on his back... none of the artists got that right in terms of toy-accuracy (or even G1 show/comic likeness where that piece of kibble was removed) ... everyone drew it upside down! (o_O)

http://www.tformers.eu/img/transformers/first-aid-g1-tformer.jpg

But overall, good effort! :)

[STL]

I just got through that. Awesome work. I'd shell out bucks to buy this. It's better than the TFCC comics that I've seen, thus far. The crux of the story was well done and I liked how the story flowed well despite the artistic differences.

btw don't mind Gok's criticisms, he's like that with everything. And I think anyone doing Transformers stuff like this is a fanboy anyway.

The character work was awesome. Giving each character that little moment to shine without one character totally overwhelming the story. Hopefully in future ones, you guys will do a Decepticon tale.

There were many excellent pieces of writing for example on one of the latter pages there was a narration on how everyone changed and there was a close up on Superion and First Aid.

Lots of other moments too.

The one thing that got me was the narration, I couldn't always quite follow who was narrating...

Great work. I hope one day to get this in comic form. The production qualities are very high and I'd rate you fellas better than Nick Roche! I don't like him particularly much but hopefully if he's getting gigs, you guys will too one day.

Oh and you guys are bastards for leaving us hanging! :)

[1orion2many]

:)Thoroughly enjoyed it and I like all the different styles in drawing from all the artist's:).

[GoktimusPrime]

I liked some artist's styles better than others, but that's a personal taste thing. The cool thing about having a different artist on each page is that it offers a variety which would cater for different people's tastes. :)


Oh and you guys are bastards for leaving us hanging!
I really liked the ending. It's meant to be one of those "Over The Top" stories - quite popular with WWI stories which saw the height of trench warfare - the kind of story that you usually don't follow up (at least, not straight after).

We had a moment like this in G1 in a flashback where Optimus Prime and some Autobots are fighting in a trench on Cybertron, hopelessly outnumbered and getting slaughtered. One Autobot despairs and begs Prime to surrender to the Decepticons before more Autobots are lost.
Optimus Prime: "Do you have the White Flag?"
Autobot: "The flag? Oh, yes, the Flag! Thank Primus! I'll tie it to the front battlements and--"
Optimus Prime: "You'll bind my wound with it, soldier!"
...soon after that Prime leads a charge over the top with all the Autobots following screaming, "NEVER SURRENDER! NEVER SURRENDER! NEVER SURRENDER!"

...of course, on the next page we see Powermaster Optimus Prime in New Jersey, kneeling in front of Scorponok and placing his Autobot badge on the rain-soaked mud in front of Scorponok's feet saying, "In the name of the Autobots, we surrender!" ;)

http://www.tfarchive.com/comics/marvel/covers/us71.jpg

I don't know if the whole over the top thing in War Journal is supposed to be a homage to that G1 scene (I thought the beginning of this story had correlations/tributes to G2 but TF Mosaic said that it was just coinkidinkly) but even coincidentally it's a neat parallel. :)

[liegeprime]

And they all died in a massive autobot massacre ever after heheeheheh. yeah yeah it isn't suppose to be the implied ending but then hey its open to interpretation by any fan hheheeh this is mine... shattered limbs and robo parts scattered everywhere..... Also noticed that in this narrative version Gestalts are nonexistent or an unknown that is why Superion is considered a "monster", an abomination... nice. I ahvent seen any storyline with Wheelie in a better light.... the most reviled rhyming abomination ( sorry to etrigan fans) Id like to see the storytellers "try" making this character cool.

[GoktimusPrime]

...no no no, at the end Time Warrior comes and saves the day! :D

[i_amtrunks]

At least they didnt take the next step like the movie "Gallipoli" and show them all getting cut down...:p

I would like this to have some kind of bearing in the IDW-verse, but I somehow doubt it will

[STL]

At least they didnt take the next step like the movie "Gallipoli" and show them all getting cut down...:p

I would like this to have some kind of bearing in the IDW-verse, but I somehow doubt it will

It's not possible though, is it? I think we've already seen Silverbolt alive and well in one of the Spotlights... I cant' remember which one. IIRC he was a leader in his own right of a squad of Autobots

Plus Furman touching Twincast, I'm not so sure about since he stems from Blaster.

[i_amtrunks]

It's not possible though, is it? I think we've already seen Silverbolt alive and well in one of the Spotlights... I cant' remember which one. IIRC he was a leader in his own right of a squad of Autobots

The only thing I can think of that may have shown Silverbolt would be Stormbringer, or Spotlight Shockwave, where more popular characters were shown on holo-screens.

But I really cannot recall seeing him in anything IDW have released, and I think the same goes for all the characters in the Mosiac War Journal, they were picked for not appearing in anything IDW...yet.

[GoktimusPrime]

...which I think is a really good thing for obvious reasons. :)

[kup]

I really enjoyed that story. It had all the hallmarks of an award winning book. It had style, drama, tension, action and more in relatively few pages.

Its hard to believe that this is fan made as it screams of quality and its much better than most of the recent comics. You guys should be hired by IDW to produce your own comic book series. These are the types of stories that would truly revive the Transformers franchise as they not only have excellent art and focus but also triggers emotions on the reader which is hallmark of a great book.

If only the people at the 'top' could see the untapped potential of the Transformers universe as you have.
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