Transformers Legacy: The Art of Transformers Packaging Paperback – December 3, 2019

First off, I patiently waited for this book to come out when I preordered last December only to see the release get pushed back numerous times since it's original 1st quarter street date (March thru May, I think). I've had this happen with books before, especially those that I have eagerly awaited the most only to be incredibly happy with the final product. This book was worth the wait and what's on the near 300 pages justifies that. Obviously, those behind this book wanted to give everything they could to give the Transformers (TF) fans a definitive art book that money can buy and every page shows just that.This is a massive hard cover book that showcases almost* all of the earliest TF toy box art from some pre-G1, Diaclone art all the way up until the end of Generation 2 that ended in 1995. So, anyone looking for art past G2 will find nothing Beast Wars and beyond. At first glance, I was slightly disappointed thinking that this book would cover box art for 30 years of TF's but after reading the intros by the authors of this book and seeing what they have done, any further TF artworks past G2 would start to take away from the scope of this book IMO, but I'll explain that shortly.If you're looking for a book to read, the average reader can most likely read all the text (not including character names, etc.) & likely knock this book out in about 15 minutes or so. There's not a whole lot of text to read but what the people behind this book have to say has enough weight to it to carry the book. Simply put, THIS IS A BOOK MADE BY FANS FOR THE FANS.When I said almost above(*) with the star next to it, it's only because those behind this book state that there are a couple of pieces that they were not able to get (mainly late G2, I believe), otherwise to the best of my knowledge having grown up with TF's, this book seems pretty damn complete. Each page gives nice larger scale pictures of virtually every G1 Transformer with incredible detail and care taken by the authors. Like I said earlier, had this book crammed in any post G2 TF lines it would've taken away from the quality of the existing art by shrinking it down to get more in on a page, whereas this book gives you a nice look at the details the original artists took on all these characters decades ago. Or with more art it would've been an even larger book than what it is already. So any feelings of disappointment about anything past G1 & G2 quickly faded. A lot of art featured in here is obscure and unused concept art only adds more to a massive amount of known existing art.Pretty much each of the images showcased in here seem to have to no flaws or imperfections being deacdes old either. The care the authors took preserving the quality of all of these images is incredible. The authors state how the images were obtained and oddly enough, they claim none of them were from the original packaging even though they tried. It's amazing to see how they went about it and collectors & fans among others helped put this book together to give fans the ultimate TF art book that money can buy.Bottom line, if your a TF fan or a fan of the package art this book is a must-have! I grew up with the G1 Transformers and was a completist up until about 1989 or so and had a very extensive knowledge of the TF brand at that point. Now that I'm older and the memory isn't what it used to be and since I really don't collect Transfomers anymore, I can still easily name off all the characters from the first 3-4 series of G1 Transformers and their new contemporary looks but after that I know a very small percentage of characters & that's likely due to viewing the movies or animated series that the toys helped spawn. If anything, it's worth seeing the time, effort and care that the authors took in making this book happen and get into your hands. The overall quality of this book is excellent and many other books that hope to do the same with other franchises should look to this one to see how great art books (on existing franchises) are done. I at least hope the "Art of He-Man & the Masters of the Universe" art book that's due out next year will be half as good as this. Fingers crossed!

Even those who have fond memories of staring at the effective packaging of early Transformers will be pleasantly surprised by the generally high resolution, vividly colored reproductions of TF art in this book. The shrunken, sometimes dull images on the 80's packaging just didn't do justice to the highly detailed, thoughtfully colored images created by a large team of highly talented artists. You do wish that each artist was properly credited, but that evidently wasn't possible given Hasbro's spotty archives and the inability to find every artist some of whom are deceased anyway. The end of the book does give general credit to the artists known to the book creators.I never knew that every image was intended to be a mechanically accurate representation of the form not shown in the bubble (which necessitated that each artist be exacting and not take liberties), but now I do.There isn't a whole lot of text in the book presumably because they wanted as much space as possible for the images but what text there is provides a general overview of the history of Transformer marketing and what changes were made from one era to another and from one market to another. There's a lot of Japanese/Euro images probably because those have been harder to come by than the American art. I appreciated the logo only pages, even those not into aesthetics would appreciate the terrific, creative marketing of these toys.Some may not be thrilled that some transformers are not seen at all, but they understandably have page/cost limitations beyond their control and they had some difficulty finding good quality sources for some pieces anyway. Hasbro even recycled some of the original paintings! Even into the 80's companies were not as aware of future licensing/profiting to be gained from then new ideas.I'm not 100% sure but I do believe that the majority of pieces from the '84-'86 golden era are represented, understably so given that that era produced the iconic characters from which most fan enthusiasm originates.Given the obstacles to obtaining source material and presentably reproducing said material, kudos to the book creators and the many contributors who's property and cooperation was needed to create such a good book. Anyone into Transformer collecting will recognize some of these contributors who are thankfully credited in the book.

Content- ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐+Binding- 💩💩💩💩💩+The content of the book itself is amazing. It's breathtaking. That won't disappoint you in the least. The art is bright and colorful, the pages are nice and glossy and the book feels very substantial. But the book is bound with this really cheap glue and the first page detached itself from the spine immediately as I opened the book. I literally had this book for 5 seconds and it started falling apart.So far it only seems to be the first page: the others towards the middle are fine for now.I'm still going to read the book over and over but I'm afraid that more pages will fall out with continued handling. I'm a huge Transformers fan so I'm not going to send the book back or trash it, but definitely be aware of this issue. I'm going to spring for the hardcover version with my next paycheck.