Saturday, November 5, 2011

Transformers Generation 2 "Decepticon Danger" Coloring & Activity Book

What kid didn't enjoy sitting down with a new coloring book a pack of fresh crayons? I loved it when my grandmother would buy me a new coloring book...especially as I got old and more anal about staying between the lines. I can't say I remember this particular coloring book as a kid or even when/where I acquired this book, but I recently found it again during the move of my man cave/toy room.


The book has a 1993 copyright of Honey Bear Books and is entitled Decepticon Danger. As you can see it features the Construction Scrapper on the front. It has a price of $1.29 pre-printed in the upper right corner. Have you seen what coloring books cost now? $5.00 or more!


The back features the original box art for G1 Dinobot Grimlock. Modern Publishing is listed on the back so I'm not sure who the publisher is...but who cares. What's important are the blank pages ready to be colored...right?


The illustrations are by Tony and Tony Tallarico.  Apparently he has a multiple personalities...or a brother.  Not sure.  Written by Lara Bergen.  What a minute.  Since when did coloring books have writers?!


If it wasn't for Sideswipe's name being on the spoiler and the huge 'SS' on the side of the car you might think that was Red Alert rushing to put out the fire with Inferno. Then again this is a coloring book so who says you have to color in Sideswipe in his G2 (or G1) colors. Why not color him red and white?



Look. Even a drawing of the G2 Optimus Prime toy has the cab ever so slightly angled. That large sound box that attaches to the front of his trailer makes it impossible for the Optimus to ever drive in a straight line!


G2 Starscream and Ramjet. I always wondered why they chose Ramjet for inclusion in G2. Why not Thundercracker or Dirge?  Why does Ramjet not have the traditional cone head?


When you ready the quote on this page can't you just hear Peter Cullen's iconic voice? I know I can.


Growing up my coloring books didn't really make me think. These days (and even in the early 90s) they started to mix in puzzles, mazes and word searches into coloring books. I'm not against learning or anything, but as a kid I would've skipped over these pages. At least they threw in some smaller drawings on this word search page to color.


This is about as much action as you'll get in this book.  Look at the great writing here by Lara.  Great work!


I had to include a scan of this page since it featured Constructicon Bonecrusher and one of the Skyscorcher jets.

Overall this is a pretty good coloring book. It only contains 15 total pages, but it still makes for a nice Transformers collectible. If you enjoyed this review let me know as I have another coloring book to share on down the road.

2 comments:

  1. It is interesting to see that Tony didn't take too many liberties with the basic box art. It's like he didn't know how to re-proportion the robots. Starscream is a good example. His vehicle modes are pretty good though!

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  2. Where did you see this for sale at?

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