I just got permission from my editor, the always snazzy Denton Tipton, to reveal my next IDW project. Bill Forster and I will be collaborating once again to bring you The AllSpark Almanac, a 208 page volume covering Transformers: Animated.This volume will be substantially different than the two Ark books. First of all, the volume will be in glorious full COLOR! (That's 'colour', for my British readers.) Secondly, while character models are still a very important part of the book, the scope is much broader. We'll be including character biographies, episode summaries and more. And perhaps the most important difference of all, while the Ark books were a result of research and archival and restoration, this book is being written with the full cooperation of the current production staff. Marty Isenberg and friend of this blog Derrick Wyatt have both been lending their efforts to make sure that this is as accurate and complete as possible.
The cover is from Marcello Matere and looks amazing. I look forward to telling you more as we get closer to the release date.
(A quick note - I know Amazon says that it will be 256 pages. We're correcting this. Don't worry, we'll somehow manage to pack 250 pages worth of material into our 208 pages.)
Is this going to include Season 3 of Animated as well?
ReplyDeleteIf so, then this goes from a must-buy to a ABSOLUTELY must buy.
It may, General Tekno . . . it depends on how much of S3 is done by my deadline, and how much room it takes to lay out the material we do have. I'll be sure to keep this blog updated.
ReplyDeleteAnother book I'll absolutely buy. You keep making me spend money with this economy, evil man... :P
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that you got the green light!!! :)
AWESOME NEWS!
ReplyDeleteCan't wait for this to come out.
A solution to the amazon having the wrong page total...add more pages!
Put more stuff in if you have it or leave em blank as 'do it yourself' pages.
Thanks for send this cover for me man! I loved to work on it!
ReplyDeleteHOLY FREAKIN' CRAP! wantwant
ReplyDeleteSo, if Season 3 isn't done by your deadline, will you be doing shorter supplements with each season later?
ReplyDeleteI'd snatch those up.
Caitlin, I wish my editor thought like you did. This would be a much bigger book! Marcelo, it was a pleasure to finally work with you professionally. After sitting up on the panels with you I knew that we just had to collaborate on something. General Tekno, if this volume doesn't contain S3 material, then we'll probably come out with an AllSpark Almanac II that does at some point. That, of course, assumes that sales are strong enough to justify it.
ReplyDeleteWhy wouldn't sales be strong enough? It's an effin' Animated Art Book!
ReplyDeleteI hope the pages include concept designs for characters etc. (like the ones of various versions of Prowl and Lockdown that showed up on that guys Blog whose name I'm forgetting...)
Oh, and not only the Brits use the u-inclusive spellings of words. Canadians do too, and Australians.
This is great news! I love the two previous "The Ark" Books. I'm also a big fan of Derrick Wyatt's art and blog.
ReplyDeleteIt's cool that you're including color images but I hope you also include rough pencil drawings and uncolored model sheets as well. In short - a variety of things. Love the format of the previous books, I for one would like to see that continue with this one. And I would prefer less humans and more bots -- but that's just my preference.
Now, to completely contradict myself, is there any plans to release any G1 model sheets in a book with color? Cell set0ups? Color character models? BGs? I for one would love to see this. Even in a hard-bound coffee table book like all the old Disney books.. Or maybe a colored version of the 1st ARK BOOK -- just for reference for us geeks in geekland.
Keep up the good work!
Hi, Monkeytoad. I am endeavoring to show as much of the animation/design process as I possibly can with The AllSpark Almanac. My main constraint will be space; I'd rather cover, say, four areas comprehensively than do an overview of six areas. I'm still working on the bio/character design section, so that will help inform the rest of the book, spacewise.
ReplyDeleteNo specific plans to do anything in color with The Ark material. I might be interested but I don't have great reference. As far as background paintings go, I have VERY few available to me for G1. Not that I wouldn't like to do it, it would just be very difficult. I'd love to do a hardbound book, btw. No plans for one at the moment, but if my books continue to sell well all things are possible.
Hey one more thought. Seeing Derek's new exciting designs for Preceptor and Wheeljack got me thinking....
ReplyDeleteJust a suggestion for the new Ark book for TFA: Include a character lineup of all the characters! Colored and in scale. Omega Supreme might make that hard, but you can include his feet in a smaller scale lineup. Then do a wider one, with the rest of the tiny transformers. In scale to him.
I know you had included some of these in the first Ark book - even though they were really small and thrown together (from production) purposes they're one of my favorite parts. I wish they were printed bigger.
I'm a sucker for animation in scale character lineups. And in color - it would be so great! You can even do a long foldout of the entire cast. Like a centerfold for pathetic transformer geeks. : )
You're probably considering this already -- just thought I'd suggest it just in case.