Okay, taste preferences aside, here's why I think the UK art was better on a technical level...
1. Colouring - look a the comparative shots between US and UK colouring. UK colourists had a better execution of lighting. The colouring in the US comics were often relatively more simplistic and stark, whereas the UK colouring employed a wider palette and had a better use of gradients creating better textures - just look at the colouring difference between US and UK Emirate Xaaron. In the US comics, Yomtov just splashed yellow on him, whereas in the UK comics the colourist uses a combination of yellow and orange in a manner which makes him look like he's actually made of metal! When light strikes off a surface, especially metal, it will reflect in different shades and gradients. Look at Unicron's hand... the lighting is a lot better done in the UK version, which even includes optical flares reflecting off the hand, again creating the image that it is made of something shiny like metal! See the image of Optimus Prime kneeling? Look at the shadows beneath each picture and you'll see that again the shadow work is done a lot better in the UK version.
2. Visual narrative - generally it was crap in the US comics. One key element of modern comic book art is the cinematic technique; contemporary comic book art pioneers like Jack Kirby and Tezuka Osamu paved the way for what we now refer to as the cinematic technique that is used in comic books today. Long gone are the days where entire scenes occur in a single frame or panel, but instead action is split up into several frames - much like the storyboard for a movie (hence the name of this technique). The cinematic technique lends comic books "animation" in what is really a static form of art - these images are really not moving, but a good comic book artist will create the illusion in the reader's mind that they are. Now part of creating a good cinematic technique is being able to draw dynamic poses - poses that look more like the characters were photographed in mid-action and thus the image was frozen rather than intentionally posing for a shot. I find that the US artists were generally not as good as the UK artists in drawing dynamic action - especially José Delbo (and much worse still, Dwayne Turner *shudder*) - in the US comics they often looked like "Thunderbirds" marionettes; puppets dangling off strings and posing for shots, rather than giant f***ing robots who have been caught in mid-tumble! And that's what the UK artists tend to achieve better in. Look at the US version of Underbase Starscream... he's got his left foot in and his left foot out - what's he doing, the Hokey-Pokey?! Oh look at all those other Transformers around him fall from Starscream's Square-Dance of Doom! Now look at the UK version - Starscream is stepping over those Transformers who are flying about everywhere cos Starscream is blowing their asses up with his eye beams! Look at Rodimus Prime and Galvatron going at it... and Bludgeon with his katana up ready to decapitate Jazz... you can almost "feel" the tension. Now look at that image of Shockwave taking that king hit from Scorponok! That's got to hurt! Compare this now with the image of Prime getting shot by Megatron... umm... yeah? Relatively far less impressive - Prime gets shot and he leans to one side... Scorponok is hitting Shockwave so hard that his body has turned leaning inward toward Shockwave because his body is following his claw - which shows that your strike is delivering so much power that the arm is dragging the body along with it! Been watching the recent tennis coverage? Notice how good tennis players will actually have their body dragged along behind their rackets as they hit the ball, whereas crap tennis players will move their body behind the racket (and tend to rely more on their arm and racket string tension to hit the ball rather than driving any real power into their hits). The same goes with cricket - a good batsman will have his body move up with the bat whereas a poor batsman will do the opposite. There is power in that hit. And poor Shockwave's body is just totally keeled over from the ferocity of that strike!
Action scenes in the US comics was a lot like action scenes in "Team America: World Police", whereas in the UK comics it was literally a case of "let the bodies hit the floor!"
For example, one of my single favourite action shots was in The Matrix Quest when Jazz was trying to reason with Thunderwing and Grimlock just strolls up to the Decepticon and says something like, "No talk - hit!" and drives a punch into Thunderwing so hard that Thunderwing literally flew across the room and into a pile of crates... mech fluid dripping from the corner of his mouth where Grimlock's fist had connected (of course this was immediately followed by Thunderwing replying with, "Interesting... I almost felt that." ;D)
You know in the Transformers live action movie when the Transformers fight and they literally throw each other all over the place? That happens in the comics and it looks a lot more impressive in the UK comics. In the US comics they look more like rag dolls being thrown about whereas in the UK comics it's more similar to what you see in the Michael Bay movie - wanton destruction and hurtage!
But it's not all just about fighting... there are also some great emotional moments which the UK artists handle better IMO... such as the moment when Optimus Prime mourns over Scorponok's death. There's no words in that frame... just a silhouette image of Prime hunched over Scorponok, cradling the fallen Decepticon - almost as if he were weeping.
Actually the artwork in the G1 manga craps all over the UK comics! It craps all over Dreamwave and is comparable with E.J. Su's art (depending on the artist - some of them are better than Su). A lot of the artwork in the Transformers Visual Works book was done by G1 manga artists.Originally Posted by kup
But having said that, the G1 manga had terrible stories - worse than the G1 cartoon... it was aimed at kindergarteners or pre-schoolers. (-_-)
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...wtf?! 
