4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not everything, Mar 12 2008
By M. Pantoja "Tintin P" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Art Of IDW's Transformers (Hardcover)
THE GOOD: There's a large selection of very nice art, handsomely reproduced, on very good paper (matte, not glossy stock, alas). Some nice pullouts of work by Don Figueroa and my personal favorite, EJ Su.
Also a few great covers by others, including Ashley Wood, whose conceptual, abtsracted approach to mecha designs expands the range of possibilities regarding Transformers imagery. Some nice interviews with IDW's main Tf artists (the non-Japanese ones anyway). Looks nice on a shelf or coffee table.
THE BAD: The product solicitation is wrong, this isn't every alternate cover or pinup by IDW as of mid-2007, it's not even half of it (ex: The excellent Graham Crackers Seekers alternate cover for Infiltration).
Moreover many of the images are merely blown-up panels or page fragments from the interior IDW comics art, reprinted without reference or context, which would've helped if they wanted to promote their individual stories. Images are simply plopped unto the page with no accompanying information: appeared, the dates, the context, character names, the stories, etc. Didn't know what I was looking at half the time.
I would've preferred having only cover and pinup/poster art, and perhaps character designs, rather than slivers of stories I have no intention of reading and/ or have seen elsewhere.
Also, the cover you see here is not the actual book cover, much to my disappointment. The actual cover is a detail from Don Figueroa's Stormbringer super-cover, which is impressive but somewhat less iconic. Annoyingly, the white-bottomed dust jacket catches dirt easily due to the thin matte coating.
VERDICT: Overall a good purchase for fans of the IDW universe and mecha art in general, but perhaps not crucial for the general 1980's fan who isn't into the IDW interpretations. Not very informative either. I'm a bit angry that the book profiled in the description is not the book this ultimately turned out to be. Still, a handsome purchase.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
what's with quality these days???, Aug 22 2009
By Video Game History "Gamer 4 life" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Art of IDW's Transformers (Paperback)
not a bad book, just not complete! I would echo the other amazon reviews, so I won't waste your time....
but seriously, what's up with the quality of products these days?
5 stars for the effort, but the final product pales....
=(
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
no no no, Feb 19 2009
By Massobrio Davide "www.m-d-sounds-com" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Art of IDW's Transformers (Paperback)
It' s not a real art book the way I mean: only few pictures are "previously unreleased", most of them are covers or (especially) pages from various comic books from IDW. Only few pictures are displayed in different versions (pencils + inks + coloured final picture). The images themselves chosen for the books are not the best from all the available Transformers material....