COMICS!!!
This year of 2017, I actually went back to buying single issues of comicbook series. I stopped doing that in 2016 when the comic shop I bought from closed, and got by on just trade paperbacks, saving money and cutting back on the quantity I was reading at the cost of being a bit more behind on 'current' stories.
This year, I went back a little. Only a little. I've mainly been sticking to the TPBs, except in a few instances. I've started reading the new Justice League of America (featuring a cool team line-up plus Lobo) and The Wild Storm (weird 'superheroes' in an Ultimates / NextWAVE mashup), but the big one is Transformers.
The re-launching of 'Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye' as 'Transformers: Lost Light' is a great jumping-on point for starting reading it in singles. The comic, written by James Roberts, is the best thing ever. Reading through it, I do start wondering why I bother reading anything else and just don't go back and read older issues of the book that is witty, dramatic, clever, moving and still features giant robots fighting. It does have an intricate storyline, and part of tradewaiting means that I'll be having to avoid internet spoilers, wich can be annoying.
So! Now I'm up to date! And finding that the book reads pretty differently in single issue form. It's still just as witty, dramatic etc. as before (see above for proof), but the beats seem off. This last issue, number four, has several 'cliffhanger' moments, but they don't have the tension they should. In a TPB, where the reveal will be a few pages later, they're not bad. With a monthly wait, there's not enough there to justify breaking off the story there. The panels I put above, for example? Drift and co. follow Rodimus and react in shock to something off-panel. Were I able to turn the page tpo find out what it was, that would be cool. If there was some hint as to what it was, there'd be anticipation for an explanation in a month. With nothing to work on, I'm left empty.
Also, new character Anode seems to be all over the story, and I can't find any ability to care about her at all. Every other character in the series has inspired some sort of feeling (even that asshole Getaway), but Anode comes out of nowhere and doesn't seem very compelling to me at all.
Since I am as up to date as I am, I shall write down here a guess at one of the mysteries in the story: Rung transforms into an actual rung, a missing step on a ladder of some special sinificance. Why not?
One of the Marvel TPBs I've been reading has been the Unbelievable Gwenpool. I buy it in its localised, UK-printing by Panini publishing (as I do Thor, and any other series popular enough to warrant it). As you can see from the picture above, the UK printing (to the right, the US on the left) is made of thicker, less 'wavy' paper, with a neater trade dress. It costs less, as well. Word to the wise, there...