I WANT more profile books. Options

[Agent X]

Seriously. I keep thumbing through the DW's MTMTE series, the Unoffical Cybertronian toy guide, the TFCC profiles and the Beast Wars books (YES, we ALL know about the problems those books had, that is NOT WHAT THIS THREAD IS ABOUT!) and I became sad as there are many years worth of series that didn't get a sweet set of refernce guides.

So yeah, I want profile books of late overseas G1/all of G2, flesh the Energon and Cybertron, make me care about the Masterforce and Victory guys, give Robots in Disguise some love and even throw in Beast Machines just to leave no stone unturned!

Just release these in a quarterly fashion for quality assurance, focus on the CHARACTER not the history, keep a short list of writers and artists away from this and hell, call the first issue "More than Meets Te Eye #12"! (The Aramda being #9-11. Though by that logic #12-15 would be Beast Wars).

Indulge my desires! I can't be the only one who wants this! (But pefectly understand that we can't/won't get these.)

This post has been edited by Agent X: Jul 2 2011, 11:07 PM

[Transfotaku]

I would enjoy more of these myself. Especially about my favoritest continuity....


Robots in Disguise. Seems no one likes it but me.


Oh, and needless to say, I'm only interested in them being good. Not like...you know what...

This post has been edited by Transfotaku: Jul 3 2011, 12:10 AM

[Master Fwiffo]

I would kill for a grand unified Movieverse bio book and timeline. Written by Barber, because he knows his friggen movieverse.

[Zodberg]

I would enjoy more of these myself. Especially about my favoritest continuity....
Robots in Disguise. Seems no one likes it but me.

you didn't notice the complete series of character profiles developed by many individuals from this very website?
Check it out...
http://www.allspark.com/content/BP20/COMPLETE.pdf
edit: I do not know where several of the profiles have gone, it was complete at one point, and had actual navigation before...

Honestly I think profile books create more continuity conflicts than they manage to effectively definition to characters who don't have any. And while I love character, I think it's more important to get more stories where character impacts and defines plot.

[lastmaximal]

Definitely gonna buy a Movieverse one should they get around to it. Mowry's bios in the Reign of Starscream TPB were a tiny taste and a nice gesture but not much beyond that.

I'd also like a complete Unicron Trilogy one. For all the crud that Energon waded through I was really looking forward to the MTMTE profiles for that comic. And Cybertron gave us such cool bios that it would've been really neat to see them done up MTMTe-style!

The IDW BW one I was really looking forward to. Then it came out and most everything I could've imagined going wrong with it went wrong.

[Shanghai]

I certainly wouldn't mind some, especially since I missed out on the Dreamwave ones.

Totally not going to happen, but a Shattered Glass one would be nice. More realistically, having a movie one would be great too.

[Walky]

I want a movie profile book, but only if John Barber writes it.

[Spectre]

I third the John Barber-written Movieverse profile book.

Also, I wish we'd get to read the bios from the unpublished Energon MTMTE.

[Transfotaku]

I would enjoy more of these myself. Especially about my favoritest continuity....
Robots in Disguise. Seems no one likes it but me.

you didn't notice the complete series of character profiles developed by many individuals from this very website?
Check it out...
http://www.allspark.com/content/BP20/COMPLETE.pdf
edit: I do not know where several of the profiles have gone, it was complete at one point, and had actual navigation before...

Honestly I think profile books create more continuity conflicts than they manage to effectively definition to characters who don't have any. And while I love character, I think it's more important to get more stories where character impacts and defines plot.

I meant official ones.

Not written by fans.

Cause you saw what happens when they get written by fans.

[GodSentinelOmega]

I'd go for official profile books. I miss them. Got the original TF Universe profile book, but never got the bios of Fort Max and the rest that weren't in that book since it just covered all the characters up the the 86 movie. John Barber for a movie profile book I'd go for, it would be nice to have proper personalities and histories for all the movie bots.

Does anyone know how I could get hold of the DW MTMTE books?

[Agent X]

Does anyone know how I could get hold of the DW MTMTE books?

IDW has reprinted the series in two TPB collections.

[mignash]

I often take the profile pages included in the club magazine, scan them, print them and bind them up into continuties. I have a book for Classicverse, one for Gen2 Redux, one for SG one for Post Beast Machines, etc.

Plus occasionally I made one using existing material edited up, like when I saw Gen2 Redux has Universe Deluxe Galvatron, I took the Dreamwave bio and edited the pictures:

(IMG:http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h214/Scaleface/Classic%20MTMTE/mtmte-galvatronclassic.jpg)

For Sunstreaker of the Classicverse, I use this:

(IMG:http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h214/Scaleface/Classic%20MTMTE/mtmte-sunstreakerclassic.jpg)

This post has been edited by mignash: Jul 3 2011, 06:54 AM

[tec]

Yeah profile books are my thing
Owning all of them that has come out its turned me into a fan of Profile books in genral.
Owning the orignal Marvel univese books and now if i see a profile book on any comic book I buy it

[AnkhChalice]

I really dug the Beast Wars profile book. I'd gladly buy more.

[Magnusblitz]

I'd love a late G1/G2 book, as well as an Energon/Cybertron one, as long as they were up to the quality of the Dreamwave ones. (BW Sourcebook not so much)

[Thylacine2000]

I'd love it if we ever got high-quality licensed profile / retrospective books to cover everything that HASN'T been covered to date: post-2000 Beast material, the UT, reissues, and the various high-end collector brands. Every time TakaraTomy puts out another guidebook that just covers the toys they released that same year, it strikes me as more of a wasted opportunity.

[jazzgirl84]

I would love to have a movieverse profile book. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

[Fishbug]

I want an Autopedia book.

[windsweeper]

They should be written by the writers of the Dreamwave G1 MTMTE books.

I'd love a G1 expansion series featuring the likes of the Robotmasters, Shadow Striker, Thunderclash, Acid Storm and Nemesis Prime. I'd love to see where they would have gone with Sunstorm and the other clones like Stepper and Soundblaster.

I did enjoy the Beast Wars profile books.

I'd love to see the Energon books released. I loved what they did with the Armada books, especially Predacon and Overload. Be interesting to see what they would have done with Ultra Magnus and Rodimus.

[Jackpot]

Honestly I think profile books create more continuity conflicts than they manage to effectively definition to characters who don't have any. And while I love character, I think it's more important to get more stories where character impacts and defines plot.

Agreed. For me, part the TF multiverse's appeal is all of the dark corners that are left to the fans to explore. I wouldn't want, for instance, a Machine Wars profile book because the franchise currently has exactly the right amount of bare-minimum context to be fertile ground for my own imagination.

Moreover, when it comes to giving unsung characters some official love, profile books strike me as a lazy way out. Not to say that bio-writers are themselves lazy, but that I don't find the end product satisfying enough as a form of storytelling to justify the loss I feel when a tantalizingly formless character is solidified.

(Of course, there are always exceptions - for instance, I like Orcanoch's IDW profile, and he had previously had NO personality or story appearances whatsoever, which is a little too blank a slate for me. But as a general rule, I feel more negatively than positively towards profile-book projects.)

Every time TakaraTomy puts out another guidebook that just covers the toys they released that same year, it strikes me as more of a wasted opportunity.

Too true. I've been pretty disappointed with the recent so-called "Generations" books. If we're talking about what we'd like to see happen in terms of retrospective/documentary-type projects, I would love to see the original Generations get true sequels. In English, ideally.