UK Definitive Comic collection from Hachette now in Australia

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Originally Posted by Ravagecat

Not trying to rain on anyone's parade but it's something to consider. These books being big and heavy are likely to possibly ding and tear if they're shipped the same way

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They will be shipped the same way if the Marvel graphic novel is anything to go by, those were also posted just in plastic bags.
I will say this though, I did get one of those Marvel books in a pretty beat up condition and they sent me a replacement free of charge.
This was a few years back but if they are still mailing them out the same one would hope they still have a policy to replace badly damaged items.
I do think there should be an option to pay like $1-2 for them to slip the books into a cardboard sleeve for extra protection (if they wouldnt do it free) though.

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Originally Posted by DarkHyren

I do think there should be an option to pay like $1-2 for them to slip the books into a cardboard sleeve for extra protection (if they wouldnt do it free) though.

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On the bissettmags website, they have some of their subscriptions listed as premium, for a couple dollars more for each issue - maybe that's what it is... posting in a box instead of a cheaper bag.
(it didn't look like the Transformers subscription had that option though)

It's hard to tell with them, their website isnt the most user friendly and doesnt go to much effort to explain what all the options are on some subscriptions.
I also noticed that the website says current issue is 0 for transformers so maybe there will be other options soon, though I think premium vs non premium is basically for subscriptions where the magazine can come with extras, like the ones where you get a magazine and a little car or something to build something with.
I notice that most of the ones that say Premium seem to be those types so I'm saying that's what it probably is.

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Originally Posted by DarkHyren

I think premium vs non premium is basically for subscriptions where the magazine can come with extras, like the ones where you get a magazine and a little car or something to build something with.
I notice that most of the ones that say Premium seem to be those types so I'm saying that's what it probably is.

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I think you're on the right track there with the Premium subscription option that some have. When I was getting the marvel chess sets they gave me the option to pay $2 extra per issue and I received 8 bonus pieces from the fantastic 4 lineup.

For someone who has never read either US or UK old marvel comics, how do they hold up today and is this volume a good start?

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Originally Posted by philby

For someone who has never read either US or UK old marvel comics, how do they hold up today and is this volume a good start?

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This volume (with the UK story Target 2006) is a great start... even if you don't buy any more (but some newsagents will still keep getting them in if you wanted to pick and choose stand alone stories).

Target 2006 is probably the most well known, and arguably the best Transformers comic story from the 1980s (at least to this fan :p ). And for a many of us old timers, it was the first UK exclusive story that was fully released here in Australia, because the UK comic only started being imported and sold at newsagents from a couple of issues before Target 2006 started.
Since it ties into the Transformers Movie, which was out in cinemas shortly after this story ended (the delay here probably meant that this comic story was being released while the Movie was in cinemas here), it was very well thought out by the writer Simon Furman (there are still some continuity errors), because he had to make sure he didn't do anything that contradicted the US comic... and if he did, he had to make sure it was "fixed" before that US story was released in the UK.
And since the future universe (post-movie) was not going to be dealt with in the US comic, Furman was able to use this Target 2006 story to set up his ongoing future universe, for years to come. (then later when Furman took over the US comic, he was able to shoehorn/reference a little of his UK future universe into the US comic universe)

Additionally, the US issues in this book are a good sampler for their tone. They are three stories that are "buy these new toys" issues and they are good examples of the "human reaction to TFs" angle that a lot of the stories have.

The US issues also give a fair indication of the art you'll expect from the majority of the US run. The UK issues aren't reflective of the overall look - the more 'painted' style of colouring disappears soon after this story - but they do give an idea of how that series, with 11 page chapters in pacing compared to the 22 pages of the US books.

Compared to today's comics. Well MTMTE/Lost Light owes a lot to the UK comics and is an exception, but the focus is not on big splashy art that other modern comics books have. And the stories are dense, a lot happens in each issue compared to the average comic book these days.

Looks like we are getting the error printings, which isn't surprising since the ones in the Newsagents are the display copies from the UK (with AU stickers over the UK price).
That first issue (Volume 6) has a slightly bigger black box at the top of the spine... which is really insignificant, but obviously bothered enough people to have Hachette reprint the entire book again, and send it out free with a later delivery (so that the combined image from the spines wouldn't have one with the black top be out of alignment).
I don't know if this means they will send out the corrected volume to subscribers here as well, or if the later reprinted/resent issue will also affect us (or have the corrected volume sent out to subscribers here first because we are several months behind).

Also... for anyone hoping to chase these up later online, like on ebay, and are wanting the combined image on the spines, be aware that there are 4 or 5 volumes that were released last year in the UK as a trial to see how they would be received, and the spine images are different to this year's subscription versions... possibly because Hachette added more volumes to the series (maybe the trial run was more popular than they expected), and the spine image was stretched.
As such, if you are hunting down various issues to complete your set, make sure you verify the version of the volumes that have been released twice.

(this is a review of the first few volumes, if anyone is interested)

http://www.toycollectors.com.au/news/2017/082407.jpg

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Originally Posted by Paulbot

Additionally, the US issues in this book are a good sampler for their tone. They are three stories that are "buy these new toys" issues and they are good examples of the "human reaction to TFs" angle that a lot of the stories have.

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I meant to comment on those as well, but I got a bit side-tracked by the UK story. :o

Those three issues are still a good read (I flicked through them with this volume), but I'm actually not a big fan of this Circuit Breaker story-arc, because she only ever captured Autobots, which wasn't fair on them when it was a Decepticon who set off her hatred of Cybertronians... and it seemed really unlikely that she managed to capture 13 Transformers and none were Decepticons.
So we never got the satisfaction of seeing her capturing a Cybertronian that deserved it, and it wasn't until another 2 years that she finally took on a Decepticon herself (the "destruction" of the Battlechargers in issue 23 was not actually by her, so it wasn't until issue 45, and then another two years in issue 68, when she started taking on Decepticons).

Ok cheers, it sounds like at least this volume is half decent and pretty cheap, I might grab it if I see it :)