Transformers Classics UK Vol. 4 Preview

7/28/2019 Transformers Classics UK Vol. 4 Preview

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James Roberts and IDW would like to thank everyone who contributed to this book, including Stephen Baskerville,Geoff Senior, Lee Sullivan, Lew Stringer, Dan Reed, Ian Rimmer, Tim Perkins, John Tomlinson, and Andy Schmidt

A special thanks to Lloyd Young, who provided the majority of scans for this volume,and Simon Furman, who was good enough to talk at length about the stories herein.

Original Series Edits by Simon FurmanEditorial Notes and Assistance by James Roberts

Material provided by Lloyd Young, James Wilson, Adrian Clarke,Steve Cook, and Chris Caudery

Cover by Andrew WildmanCover Colors by Jason Cardy

Collection Edits by Justin Eisi nger and Alonzo SimonCollection Design by Shawn Lee

TRANSFORMERS CLASSICS UK, VOL. 4. APRIL 2013. FIRST PRINTING. HASBRO and its logo, TRANSFORMERS, and all related characters are trademarks of Hasbro and are used with permission. 2013 Hasbro. Death'sHead and all related characters are TM and Marvel Entertainment, LLC and its subsidiaries. All Rights Reserved. The IDW logo is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. IDW Publishing, a division of Idea andDesign Works, LLC. Editorial offices: 5080 Santa Fe St., San Diego, CA 92109. Any similarities to persons living or dead are purely coincidental. With the exception of ar twork used for review purposes, none of the contents ofthis publication may be reprinted without the permission of Idea and Design Works, LLC. Printed in Korea.IDW Publishing does not read or accept unsolicited submissions of ideas, stories, or artwork.

Originally published by Marvel UK as THE TRANSFORMERS Issues #113120, 125, 130138, 145, TRANSFORMERS ANNUAL 1987, and ACTION FORCE issues #2427.

Ted Adams, CEO & PublisherGreg Goldstein, President & COORobbie Robbins, EVP/Sr. Graphic ArtistChris Ryall, Chief Creative Officer/Editor-in-ChiefMatthew Ruzicka, CPA, Chief Financial OfficerAlan Payne, VP of SalesDirk Wood, VP of MarketingLorelei Bunjes, VP of Digital Services

IDW founded by Ted Adams, Alex Garner, Kris Oprisko, and Robbie Robbins

ISBN: 978-1-61377-517-2 16 15 14 13 1 2 3 4

Special thanks to Hasbros Aaron Archer, Jerry Jivoin, Michael Verret, Ed Lane, Joe Furfaro, Jos Huxley, Andy Schmidt, Heather Hopkins, and Michael Kelly for their invaluable assistance.

www.IDWPUBLISHING.com

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A C O M P L E T E H I S T O RY O FT R A N S F O R M E R S U K , P A R T 4 ..................................................................................Page 8Written by James Roberts

" W A N T E D : G A L V A T R O N , D E A D O R A L I V E ! " ............................................Page 33Written by Simon Furman, Pencils by Geoff Senior and Will Simpson, Inks by Geoff Senior and Tim Perkins, Colors by Steve White,Letters by Annie Halfacree and Richard Starkings

" B U R NI N G S K Y ! " ...............................................................................................................Page 59Written by Simon Furman, Art by Dan Reed and Geoff Senior, Colors by Steve White, Letters by Richard Starkings

" H U N T E R S ! " ............................................................................................................................Page 81Written by Simon Furman, Pencils by Will Simpson and Jeff Anderson, Inks by Tim Perkins and Stephen Baskerville,

Colors by Steve White, Letters by Richard Starkings and Mike Scott

" F I R E O N H I G H ! " ..............................................................................................................Page 103Written by Simon Furman, Art by Dan Reed and Geoff Senior, Colors by Steve White, Letters by Mike Scott and Richard Starkings

" V I C I O U S C I R C L E ! " ........................................................................................................Page 125Written by Simon Furman, Pencils by Jeff Anderson, Inks by Dave Harwood

" A N C I E N T R E L I C S ! " ......................................................................................................Page 139Written by Simon Furman, Pencils by Geoff Senior, Inks by Dave Harwood, Colors by Steve White, Letters by Annie Halfacree

" W O R L D S A PA R T ! " ........................................................................................................Page 173Written by Simon Furman, Pencils by Will Simpson, Inks by Tim Perkins, Colors by Steve White, Letters by Annie Halfacree

" K U P ' S S T OR Y ! " ...............................................................................................................Page 198Written by Simon Furman, Art by Dan Reed, Colors by Steve White, Letters by Annie Halfacree

" H E A D H U N T " ........................................................................................................................Page 209Written by Simon Furman, Art by Dan Reed and Geoff Senior, Colors by Steve White, Letters by Annie Halfacree and Richard Starkings

" W H AT ' S I N A N A M E ? " .............................................................................................Page 235Written by Simon Furman, Pencils by Will Simpson, Inks by David Elliot

" G R U D G E M A T CH ! " ........................................................................................................Page 243Written by Simon Furman, Pencils by Jeff Anderson, Inks by Stephen Baskerville, Colors by Steve White, Letters by

Richard Starkings and Annie Halfacree

" L A D I E S ' N I G H T " .............................................................................................................Page 265Written by Simon Furman, Art by Dan Reed and Geoff Senior, Colors by Euan Peters and Abadzis, Letters by Annie Halfacree

" S T A R G A Z I N G " ...................................................................................................................Page 287Plotted by Simon Furman, Script by Ian Rimmer, Pencils by Jeff Anderson, Inks by Stephen Baskerville, Colors by Euan Peters,

Letters by Annie Halfacree

" A RK D U T Y " ..........................................................................................................................Page 300Written by Ian Rimmer, Art by Will Simpson

"HEADMASTERS SAGA ..............................................................................................Page 310Written by Ian Rimmer

A D V E R T S A N D E P H E M E R A ....................................................................................Page 334


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FOREWORDGRUMPY OLD FAN

It struck me while compiling the materialfor this volume that my eldest son, whowas 11 last year, is the age I was whenmy obsession with TFUKreached its peak.I thought back to my pre-teen days, whenI would pore over every word in everyissue and immerse myself not just in theworld of the Transformers, as portrayedin the stories, but in the world of thecomic itself.

Now I will happily concede that in manyways, my son has it better than I did at hisage. Hes got post-2005 Doctor Who, forone thing, and Peanut M&Ms, and Pixar.And in terms of comic books hes also gota good dealnot least because, thanks

to digital downloads, hes never morethan a few clicks away from virtuallyevery new book out there. (Unless Iwanted to order everything through themailsomething which involved a wait of28 daysI had to rely on a newsagentopposite the local college that wouldoccasionally stock Justice LeagueInternational, Action Comicsandjustwhat the casual punter is afterDoom Patrol.)

But what my son doesnthave is a weeklynewsstand comic that takes its readersas seriouslyand treats them with asmuch respectas TFUKdid for me (andhundreds of thousands of primary schoolchildren like me) in its late 80s heyday.

Im talking about both story content andeditorial style. Content first: these days,weekly comics have been replaced bymonthly magazines, and in the case ofpublications based on licensed propertiesyoure lucky to find five or six pages ofcomic strip in each issue. And with only

the occasional exception, the comic stripwill be basic and formulaic, and it willend with the sound of the reset buttonbeing pressed.

A few weeks ago I picked up a comicIm not going to name names, but it

caught my eye because I was feelingnostalgicand on flicking through I foundthat it contained absolutely no comicstrip. Instead, it was full of puzzles andquizzes and pin-ups and feature pagesheavy on pictures but light on text. Now, ifyoure reading this and youre under 15,sit down, because Im going to tell yousomething shocking: 25 years ago,readers of TFUKwere treated to 11 pagesof strip every week. Every. Week.

11 pages a week! 44 pages a month! Andin TFUKs caseat least until late 1986an average of 22 pages a month were

hand-painted. (Yes, I am today goingheavy on the italics.) Furthermore, thestories would interconnect: one issuewould lead into another, and anotherafter that, and you would be carriedalong with them.

What was equally striking about those1980s comics, however, was the force of

the editorial voice. Every issue of TFUKopened with 250 words about the story

that was about to begin on Page 3. Andyes, it was about hyping up said story, but

it was also about contextualizing it; itwas about referring to old issues, oldstories, and reinforcing past events. Theeditors at least seemed engaged andethusiastic and invested in the comicand it was infectious.

Now, Im not stupid. I realize that in 2013comics operate in a radically alteredcommercial landscape. What was once

rather quaintly referred to as the boysadventure market has shrunk; and it hasshrunk because comics have to competewith a myriad of other entertainmentoptions that didnt exist in the 80s. Butjust because I can understand whysomething has changed doesnt mean Icant celebrate How Things Were.

Furthermore, the vicissitudes of todaysmarket surely dont preclude efforts beingmade to talk to readers in a moremeaningful and sincere way via theeditorial pages. Or to put it more simply:why dont they make TransFormation

pages anymore? As far as I can see,todays newsstand titles make littleattempt to engage with their readers; andby failing to do so, they miss anopportunity to nurture and sustain a loyalreadership. Lets not forget that TFUKlasted as long as it did not because itcontinually attracted new readers, butbecause the many Transformersfans whojumped on board during the early dayshad grown up with the comic and wereslow to abandon iteven when theydoutgrown the toys.

Back in those days, the key to developing

a lasting relationship with readers wasrespect; and to win readers respect youhad to credit them with a degree ofintelligence. In the context of TFUK, thisoften meant assuming that they couldkeep up with what, in hindsight (andcertainly compared to todays newsstandcomics), was an insaneamount of storyinformation. I dont mean informationabout the story so much as in-storyinformation; in other words, what wasgoing on within the TransformersUniverse on a week-to-week basis.

Story-wise, despite the best efforts of

Rimmer and Furman, TFUKhad alwaysbeen somewhat schizophrenic because

the British and American material was sodifferent. Clever sequencing and (in thecase of the early UK stories) careful useof less prominent characters helpedsmooth over the cracks between thestories; but there was a sense, post-Movie, that the UK material was takingon a life and a direction of its own. With

the help of the TransFormation pageand the Next Week box, British readershad the task of constructing, week byweek, a sort of Grand UnifiedTransformers Narrative. This task became

more difficultbut consequently morerewardingin 1987, with the emergenceof the Movietimeline, the arrival of theAction Forcecrossover, and the launch of

the Headmasters and Targetmasters.

Never has the diversity and thefreneticism of the overarching TFUKstoryline been better evidenced thanduring the run of issues #120 to #135. Over

the course of four months, the reader ispresented with a plethora of settings,characters, and (technically) continuities:

Issue #120: A UK strip features the futurecast (but is set in the present day) andends on a cliffhanger that wont beresolved until the publication of thatyears Transformers Annual.

Issues #121#124: A US reprint featuresfive brand new characters. Goldbug, whofaced certain death at the hands ofGalvatron last issue, is somehow alive

and well.

Issue #125: The first part of theTransformers/Action Forcecrossoverpicks up strands of both UK andUScontinuity; the story is continued not inTFUK, but in sister comic Action Force.

Issues #126#129: Another US reprint,this one focuses on Buster Witwicky.

Issues #130#131: The two-part WorldsApart! introduces over a dozen newHeadmasters and Targetmasters, and isset on the never-before-seen alien planet

of Nebulos. The Headmastersback-upstrip, telling a separate story, begins

this issue.

Issue #132: A UK story set hundreds ofyears in the past explains how Hot Rod,Kup, and Blurr first met up.

Issues #133#134: A UK story set entirelyin the future (2007) features the futureversion of Hot RodRodimus Primerecalling the death of his Nebulancompanion, Firebolt. At this stage,readers have yet to meet Firebolt.

Issue #135: The first part of a Dinobot-centric UK story is set in the present daybut is separate to both the ongoing USstoryline, the Headmasters storyline and

the Galvatron/future cast storyline.

Eight stories, 16 issues, two unresolvedcliffhangers, three different times (past,present, and future), three planets (Earth,Cybertron, Nebulos), and over a hundreddifferent characters, at least 40 of whichwere entirely new. And speaking assomeone who was there at the time, andwho read each issue as it came out, these16 issues were absolutely thrilling.

Maybe it was asking a lot of the readersto keep up with us, Simon Furman said inone of several lengthy interviews he gavefor this book, but we never thought that

theyd have trouble. We just told storiesand expected the kids to keep up with it.And while we contextualized things

through the editorial pages, it was onlyreally by saying were back in time here,were into the future here, were tying inwith something here.

And it was the desire to tell good stories,and the fact that readers were trusted to

keep up, that has led, 25 years on, to thecreation of the book youre holding inyour hands.

James RobertsMarch 2013


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Front papers from the 1987 Transformers Annual. Pencils by Jeff Anderson.


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Continued on page 10. >>>

Spring, 1987. Transformers: The Moviehad come andgone, exciting Transformers fans but leaving thegeneral public unmoved. Hasbro is already lookingbeyond the Movie and preparing to release a newsubset of Transformers called Headmasters and

Targetmasters. These toys are defined by the fact thatthey come with miniature figures that can turn into thetheir heads or weapons, but equally striking is the factthat they all boast futuristic vehicle designs. Theseare not your old Robots in Disguise, hiding in plainsight on present day Earth.

Outside of the comic strip and away from toy shops,Transformers UKis changing too at least behindthe scenes.

No one can remember precisely when long-time

editor Ian Rimmer left TFUKand Marvel UKtopursue work as a freelance writer, not even Rimmerhimself, but issue #104, published in March 1987,contains the last UK story (Part 2 of Resurrection!)to credit him as editor. The next Brit-strip, Wanted:Galvatron, Dead or Alive, which kicked off in issue#113 (published in May 1987), was the first not to carryan editors credit.

A COMPLETE HISTORY OF TRANSFORMERS UKPART 4: HEADMASTERS AND HEADHUNTERS

This version of TFUK#113 was given away free at Bernie Inn restaurants across

Between September 1984 and January 1992, Marvel UK published 332 issues of Transformers. The largeformat comic magazine launched as a part-color, part-black and white biweekly before becoming a full-color weekly with issue #27. With issue #309 it reverted to biweekly.

Every issue ran to 24 pages, with the exception of issues #126, which were 32 pages, and the occasionalbumper-sized 28-page issue.

The comic typically contained 11 pages of Transformerscomic strip, consisting of either an Americanreprint or all-new British material. From issue #213 until issue #289 the comic printed a six-page U.S. stripand a five-page UK strip side by side. The last 40 or so issues contained 10 or 11 pages of American strip.

Bulking out each issue was a five- or six-page back-up strip, sourced from Marvel US and usually featuringeither robotic characters such as Machine Man or Iron Man, or another toy tie-in such as G.I. JOE (initiallymarketed as Action Force in the UK) or Visionaries. Early issues featured extra comic strips and features,the latter invariably robot-related. Humor strips featured throughout the titles run, most of them created byartist and writer Lew Stringer.

Although the comic was simply called Transformers, to avoid confusion with its American equivalent the

articles that follow refer to it as either Transformers UKor TFUK.

TRANSFORMERS UKTHE BASICS

The TransFormation page from issue #113.

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Lee Sullivan issue #115 cover art.

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Rimmers reason for leaving Marvel UK was simple, hesays: he wanted to write. While on staff at Marveland editing Transformers, amongst other titles, I hadput in a lengthy stint writing the scripts for Zoids,another toy-based comic strip which ran in MarvelUKs weekly Spiderman & Zoids. Writing wassomething I really wanted to do more of, so in early1987 I took the plunge and became a freelancer. I

regularly wrote for Action Forceand The RealGhostbusters, plus other Marvel UK publicationswhich didnt last so long, like Crash Test Dummies,Galaxy Rangers, and Captain Planet. I was keen toexpand my scope and not just stay in the boysadventure area, so I wrote plenty of scripts foryounger age-group titles like Thomas The TankEngine, The Care Bears, Get-Along-Gang, and so on,and I also wrote some ZorroTV script adaptations forMarvel US around that time too. Rimmer remains awriter to this day, having worked on the Wallace &Gromitcomic, Power Rangers, and the iconic Roy of

the Roversfootball comic strip.

Rimmer handed TFUKs editorial reins to SimonFurman, who had worked as his assistant on the titlebefore taking responsibility, in late 1986, for the launchof Marvel UKs new Thundercatscomic.

I was probably not in the Transformers office muchafter Target: 2006 wrapped up in November 1986,because I was working as editor on Thundercats,Furman recalls. We launched that in March 1987, andthere werent many issues out when suddenly I wascalled back in [to the TFUKoffice] to be editor.

Rimmers departure prompted a wider reshuffle withinMarvel UK, says Furman. Before Ian left there werejust editors underneath managing director RobertSutherland; there wasnt really a senior editor or aneditor-in-chief like at Marvel US. But Ian had handled

pretty much all the boys titles at that time, and whenhe left, [letterer-turned-editor] Richard Starkings wasgiven a lot more responsibility for the general boystitles. He kind of became Group Editor, and assignededitors under him.

Perhaps surprisingly, Furman didnt jump at thechance to take over TFUK.

I didnt want to move off Thundercats, no. It was myfirst full editorship and it felt like I can start this from

scratch and get it up and running. And I was having agood time with it: we were just about to startcommissioning original UK material. So yes, it mademuch more senseto meto stay as editor ofThundercatsand continue to write Transformers. But Iwasnt given huge amounts of choice: it was verymuch a case of management saying, we want you todo that, and well find someone else for Thundercats.

And I guess no one else knew the comic nearly aswell as I did, so to either bring someone new in orpromote someone from within the company just didntmake sense.

Outside of his day job, Furman was responsible forscripting nearly all of the non-reprint material in TFUK.And so, by the time Wanted rolled around, he wasboth writer and editor on what was still Marvel UKsbiggest-selling titlebut his dual role had thepotential to cause problems. Marvel US policy wasthat you couldnt edit and write for the same title. But

that didnt really become a problem for us until MarvelUS actually came to visit us.

The solution was to appoint Richard Starkings asFurmans script editoreven if, in practice, he madefew little changes. We put that arrangement in placeso we could say we had it in place, says Furman. Imean, Richard always read my stuff, but I absolutelydont remember him saying we should do this, that orthe other. He didnt give me that much story direction,eitherbut then I dont think Ian had, that much.The writer/editor problem was the reason why Furman

was not credited as editor within the pages of thecomic. We didnt make a big thing about me takingover as editor because wed either have had to use mypseudonym, Chris Francis [Furmans middle names], orwed have had to call Richard the editor. It was easierjust to lose the editor credit from the strip.

As assistant editor for much of Rimmers run, Furmanhad played a part in shaping the look and feel of thecomic. That being the case it is perhaps unsurprisingthat, upon becoming editor, he didnt feel the need totinker too much with the look and feel of the comic:

Grimlock remained as letter answerer and theTransFormation page and Next Week box remainedthe same. I dont think we changed anything initially,no. A lot of it was already how I wanted it. We shookthings up a little bit when the Headmasters launched[with issue #130], but generally we had a format thatworkedand Im a real adherent to the if it aint broke,dont fix it school of thought. So yes, it just continuedon with me and [art director] John Tomlinson.

The Furman/Tomlinson partnership didnt last long,however: another editorial reshuffle saw Tomlinson

become editor of (youve guessed it) Thundercats.

Id been the Transformersdesigner for going onthree years and it was just time to move on, explainsTomlinson, who left the title after issue #120. GilPage, then a senior editor at Fleetway, was on thelookout for someone to edit a new toy tie-in comic,Supernaturals. I was headhunted, as was RichardStarkings. Neither of us felt it was the right time toleave Marvel UK, but we used the job offers as abargaining chip to get ahead. Richard was promoted

Marvel UK circa 1985: back row - Joanne Beagan (Marketing), Jane Hindmarsh(designer) and John Tomlinson (designer); foreground - Steve Cook (designer)

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to commissioning editor for Action Forceand Ibecame editor of Thundercats. In the event,Supernaturalsonly lasted a year, so we probablymade the right decision.

He laughs when asked what elements of his designwork on TFUKhe remains proud of today.

It all looks pretty ropey to me now! I mean, youcompare those old issues with whats possible thesedays and theres no comparison. Im still quite pleasedwith the TransFormation page and letters page designs,but within reason The trouble with graphic design isthat it dates so much faster than anything else. What stillholds up remarkably well about those early issues is thestories themselves, particularly the amazing artwork.The Transformers must have been absolute hell to draw,but I dont recall any complaints from the artists, and thestrips always looked wonderful.

Meanwhile, the man responsible for those stories wasgetting used to his new job as TFUKeditor.

Obviously there were extra things that I had to do aseditor that I hadnt done as assistant editor, saysFurman. I had to worry about what went on the coverin terms of artwork and free gifts; and the budget, too,in terms of what each issue was costing us. Dealingwith Hasbro was new; I hadnt really had to do that

before. And dealing with managementIan had beena buffer between them and me. And sales figures?We didnt even think about sales figuresat thisstage they were so comfortable that the differencebetween 205,000 and 203,000 didnt really mattermuch. It was a different world! And the sales figuresdidnt really change on Transformersthat much untilquite a long time after Id left.

But no, the biggest difference to me, in terms ofbecoming editor, was the commissioning side of it.

Whereas before Ian had dealt directly with the artists,all that became my responsibility. I was the onefinding or at least employing and logging in the artistsand the inkers and the letterers.

ARTISTS BLOCSince the first Brit-strip, Man of Iron, had appeared

in issue #9, TFUKhad printed over 600 pages of all-new UK material. And while it is commonly known thatFurman was responsible for writing practically all of it,what is also striking is how few artists were involved:after Mike Collins left, the likes of Geoff Senior, BarryKitson, Jeff Anderson, and Will Simpson wereresponsible for drawing virtually every UK story.

Yeah, we were so comforable with those guys,agrees Furman. We would send them scripts and getthe stuff back and there were very rarely any bumpsalong the road.

By the time Furman took over as editor, Anderson andfan-favorite Senior were still going strong, butSimpson was about to move on and Kitson (while stillcontributing the occasional cover) had already left.Lee Sullivana regular cover artist since making hisdebut with issue #92would not make the transitionto interiors until issue #160, and in the meantime somefresh blood was needed. Enter an American artistliving in Paris: Dan Reed.

Im not really sure about how we found out about

Dan, says Rimmer today. I have a vague notion thatperhaps someone at Marvel US tipped us off abouthim, and suggested we use him.

Reed himself is able to put more meat on the bones. Iworked for Marvel Comics [in the US] for a year or soin the mid-Eighties and became disillusioned abouthow corporate they had become. Growing up inMiami, I was under the impression that Marvel was apretty freewheeling place to work where editors-in-chief like Stan [Lee] or Roy [Thomas] gave you arough outline and the artist was for the most part on

his own. I found it impossible to reconcile my fantasywith reality and quit. I was very young and cocky atthe time. I had just been interviewed on localtelevision and had a one-man show of my comic artand abstract paintings. Id started to go to college tostudy art and thought of myself as a real artist wholoved doing comics... and this is how I still feel.

The college had gotten me in touch with several artschools who were willing to give me full scholarship toattend their institutions. Miami Dade College offeredme a chance to spend two weeks in Paris and six

weeks in the south of France. Im 25. I thought Do Iwant to become an art student productaninstitutionalized Art Zombieor go live in Paris andbecome a Real Artist? You have to understand that Igrew up in a trailer park and never had any money, anddidnt speak any French. But hey, so what? Next thingyou know Ive sold the few things I have and decided tostay in Paris. Beware the thoughts of the young..!

After hitchhiking all over Western Europe visitingmuseums, shoveling horse manure on a farm and

Issue #116's TransFormation page.

Continued on page 13. >>>11


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This Headmaster advert first appeared in issue #128.


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nearly starving to death, I decided to visit a Parisiancomic shop and buy a couple of the Indiana Jonesbooks that I did for Marvel US. Next thing I know, Imhitching a ride on an 18-wheeler that was taking theferry across the Channel to Merry Old England.

Hat in hand, I went to the offices of Marvel UK andmet with Simon Furman. I showed him my Marvel US

books and asked if he had any work for me. He likedwhat he saw and said he had an 11-pageTransformersstory that I could use as a tryout. I wasecstatic! Of course Id never even heard ofTransformersat the time, but hey, work was work.

Then I started thinking about how my art gotbutchered by some of the inkers in the US and askedSimon if it was alright if I inked my own work. Hestared at me with a disbelieving look for a second.Although I have no way of knowing for sure, thefeeling I got was that he was wondering where I had

the gall to approach him for work and then almostdemand that I ink my own stuff. After a brief pause hesaid, Sure, if you think you can do it, why not? Anyother requests? I said, Well, now that you mention it,there is one other thing... do you mind terribly if I workfrom Paris? If Galvatron himself had come into theroom demanding the surrender of the Autobots, youcould not have seen a more astonished look onSimons face. I quickly assured him that when Iworked for Marvel in New York I had been living inMiami and sending in the work through Fed Ex, andthat I saw no reason that the same arrangement

couldnt work with them. After another long pause hesaid, Fine. Any other demands, er, requests? And Ipleasantly replied, No, I think thatll just about do it.We shook hands, and as I started to leave I turnedaround and said, Of course, Ill be getting back myoriginals? He mumbled, Of course.

Reed had been a comics fan since 1967. My firstcomic was Fantastic Four#63, with Blastaar and theSandman. I read that book till it literally fell apart, andthen I kept the pages. I was 7. Id been drawing sinceI could pick up a crayon, however I have no

recollection of what I was drawing... but afterexperiencing the amazing dramatic power of [Jack]Kirby in his prime it was nothing but comics after that.I read every Marvel and DC I could get and started todraw, swipe, and create drawings and my owncomics. All I wanted to do when I grew up was drawcomics. I was absolutely convinced that I was goingto be a superstar in the comic book field... okay, nowyou know Im not a prophet.

As far as how I broke into comics... I worked for[American cartoonist and comic book artist] C C Beck

as an assistant for a couple of years starting when Iwas 13. When I was 15 I won the Miami Con #1 artcontest judged by Jack Kirby, then at 19 I worked for aSouth American company that had a small studio inMiami doing a crazy character called Zooman, ElHombre Mosca. $5 a pencilled page... talk aboutsweatshops! But it was comics and I loved theexperience.

Anyway, I kept submitting samples to Marvel and DCand kept getting polite responses telling me I wasnt

there yet but keep it up. One day I was looking at aCharlton comic and thought how sad it was that theyonly did reprints these days, because they werealways considered a training ground for new artists.Then it hit me: why not ask them to publish some ofmy stuff instead of the reprints? I imagined that theyhad no budget, which meant Id be working for free,but I thought that if I did a good enough job I could

send a professionally-published comic book to Marveland DC and that would be the tipping point that wouldfinally land me paying work and start me on the wayto my lifetime career!

I went to Connecticut and stayed at [comic bookartist] Mike Zecks place. He was a fellow Floridian whowas always willing to help up-and-coming artists tryand get their foot in the door. Being a great guy he eventook me to the Charlton offices, and the rest is history.My idea worked, I got published, sent copies to Marveland DC, and landed paying jobs with both of them.

After leaving Marvel US, relocating to Paris andimpressing Furman with his try-out art, Reed wasgiven TFUK#115 to draw. He quickly became one ofthe titles regular artists, contributing interior workand the occasional cover until issue #220.

Dans first strip, Burning Sky!, was a little over-rendered, recalls Furman. I asked him to take a stepback and leave his linework open a lot more. Hed putsome quite experimental stuff in the backgroundduring the mode-changing, and where Kup and HotRod and Blurr went back in timeit had some intenseinking all over it. And if you look at [his next strip] Part1 of Fire On High! its got much, much less of that.

I did get a lot of flak for the transitional stage of myTransformers, and the way I had their limbs bend,



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Reed admits. The way I saw it was that it was almosta molecular alteration when they changed modes, soI added Kirby dots to show the sheer power of themoment of alteration. As far as the bendingmovements of their limbs, I felt that if they truly camefrom a planet that had evolved metal rather thancarbon that they would have an almost organic feel tothem. And besides, it just looked cooler to me.

Years later, when I was at a New York convention, Imet [Transformers USartist] Jose Delbo. When Ishowed him my work he flipped out and told me howmuch he liked it, then asked me how in the name ofheaven Id gotten away with it. Poor SimonI musthave given him more than a few grey hairs. I felt a lotof freedom when I was working with him, althoughmaybe it was because I lived in Paris and alwayshanded in my work at the last possible moment, sothere was never really any time to ask for changes

Fire on High! in issue #119 very nearly didnthappen, recalls Furman. We didnt have the artworkDan and his pages had been held up in ParisandI thought wed be minus a whole issue of the comic.One page in particular was never recovered and heliterally had to redraw it. It was an absolutenightmare. We were staring down the barrel of a fill-inissue a reprintand it wouldnt have looked good.

And this was only a few weeks, if that, after Idbecome editorthe buck stops here, yknow?Reeds work was distinct from that of every otherTFUKartist on the roster. The way I portrayed theTransformers themselves evolved over time as Ibecame more familiar with the characters and theway they worked. There was one issue that I reallyregret not doing a better job on: Ladies Night! [issue#137]. But I really put heart and soul into those books.I spent ridiculous hours on them, trying to make eachbook the best that I could. I loved it when Simon

would allow me to design new Transformers, and Iloved to do the backgrounds just as much. I used tocollect Styrofoam from the streets and buildsculptures that I would then draw and would becomethe futuristic buildings that you see in the books togive them that unique look.

45 years after reading Fantastic Fourissue #63, Reed

is still, painting, writing and making comics.You cansee my latest work on my website,www.artblazer.com.

Another artistsomeone who, sadly, made only aone-off contribution to the Transformers Universewas Dave Gibbons. Best known for his work onWatchmen, Doctor Who Magazine, and GreenLantern, how did Furman persuade the in-demandGibbons to draw the famous cover to issue #133?

We knew Dave, and one day he happened to dropinto conversation that his son was a fan ofTransformers, so of course we exploited thatmercilessly: Wouldnt your son love it if you did aTransformerscover? Daves a great guy and he saidabsolutely, no worries, and we got him to do thiscover and it just happened to be a Deaths Head one.It was great fun and he did a really, really nice job, asyoud expect. We didnt prevail upon him to do morewe were happy to have got a one-off.

PLAYING THE LONG GAMEAs a writer Furman had enjoyed a large degree ofcreative freedom thanks to Rimmer (and Hasbro), but,if anything, becoming editor allowed him to be moreambitious in terms of the scale and duration of hisstory arcs. Theres a sense, with the first part ofWanted, of Furman rolling up his sleeves andthinking, Right, lets see how far I can push this.You may have noticed that every once in a while we

TransFormation page from issue #130.

Dave Gibbons' only TFUKwork.

Continued on page 16. >>>14


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embark on a Transformersstory so momentous that ittakes eight or more issues to really do it justice, saidthe TransFormation page in issue #113. Target:2006, the saga of Optimus Primes return toCybertronthese are just two such epics. Now,though, we begin what is possibly the most excitingand shocking storyline of all! Weve had hundreds ofletters from readers asking no, demanding to know

what happened in the aftermath of Transformers:The Movie. Well, now it can be revealed

As I took over I was determined to do more with theMovie, Furman says. That was uppermost in mymind. I wanted to get back to the Movie stuff and tellmore stories [using that setting and those characters]because it was so liberating. Id seen the TV showand it was fine for what it is, but the Movie made mesit up and go wow, I think I want to play around inthat world.

For the first time, Furman wasnt constrained bycontinuity laid down by Bob Budiansky andTransformers US. In Rodimus, Galvatron, UltraMagnus et al, he had his own cast; and by settingcertain stories after the Movie, he effectively had hisown timeline.

I probably felt I had more freedom inasmuch as Icould push the story exactly where I wanted to and doas many multi-part stories as I felt were warranted.And because as editor I was responsible for theamount of UK strip versus the available American strip,

I was able to pace the UK story out. That said, wewere always sailing pretty close to the wind with theAmerican strip in terms of how close we were to theproduction of it. Often we didnt have enough

American material to do a, say, an eight issue run, sowe just had to keep going with British originated stuff.

Maybe it was the new editor, maybe it was the factthat they featured a lead story set partially in thedistant future (2007, to be precise), maybe it was LeeSullivans brightly-painted covers (full of polishedchrome and dayglo backgrounds), but issues #113 to

#120 felt different. Then again, maybe it had more todo with the characters that dominated these eightissues. Despite its length, and despite the scale of thethreat, Wanted focuses on a relatively small andrelatively new cast. Yes, there are cameos from seriesregulars like Soundwave, Laserbeak, and Bumblebee(who is rebuilt as Goldbug before the storys end), butfor the most part were following the adventures ofRodimus Prime, Wreck-Gar, Galvatron, UltraMagnus oh, and some bounty hunter.

DEATHS HEAD, YES?Simons script [for Wanted] just called for a bountyhunter, recalls Geoff Senior when asked about thegenesis of one of Marvel UKs most popularcharacters, and arguably TFUKs greatest legacy.The brief from Simon was hes got a head like askull, and that was it.

Deaths Head was initially going to be a lot morefunctional, agrees Furman. He was there to servethe story. But when I saw Geoffs artwork for him Iwent backand I didnt do this a lotbut I went back

into the script and I re-did some of his dialog and thepersonality thing started to come out at that point. Healready had some of the ticshe had the vocal ticand the bounty hunter/freelancer peacekeeping agent

Issue #120 carried this "Next Week"-style teaser for the 1987 Annual.


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was there but the thing that came into it more wasthat he wasnt just your typical bounter hunter. Well infact he was, he was the purest essence of bountyhunter: he wont do anythingunless hes paid. But therevenge doesnt really come into it and these kind ofemotions That was added, that was new.

I certainly didnt think of making him so irresistiblethat hed keep going, laughs Senior. When I drewhim I thought, give him eyebrows, give him expression.At the time he was just going to be a throwawaycharacter. I was quite pleased with the design but itwas only when I saw the art paired with Simonsdialog, with the yes and what have you I thoughtthat was nice, I thought that brought him to life.

Even though Deaths Head only appeared in 14 issuesof TFUK, its an all-but universal truth that BritishTransformersfans are Deaths Head fans. After guestappearances in Doctor Who Magazineand DragonsClaws, he graduated to his own title which ran for tenissues in 1988-89. Thereafter, he would star in his ownfully-painted graphic novel, The Body In Question, andmake cameos in Marvel US titles such as FantasticFourand the Furman-scripted She-Hulk. Deaths HeadII took his place in 1992, but in recent years theoriginal incarnation has cropped up in titles such asS.W.O.R.D., Avenging Spidermanand Iron Man. But hewouldnt exist had it not been for TFUK

TO BE CONCLUDED ELSEWHEREWanted concluded with issue #120sort of. In anexperiment that was never repeated, the story endedwith a cliffhanger that was resolved in the nextTransformers Annual. It would be at least a monthbefore fans would be able to read Vicious Circle!,the 11-page story that brought the latest chapter inthe Galvatron saga to an end.

Vicious Circle! was a rather cynical decision on mypart, admits Furman 25 years on. It was my idea toconclude that story in the Annual and to push peopletowards the Annual. It was the Marvel US way ofoccasionally finishing things somewhere else. Ive noidea whether it was a sales success or not, but wedidnt repeat it. It wasnt very well received byreaders, and it was something I regrettedafterwards.

The TransFormation page in issue #120 featured acolumn which gave readers a preview of upcoming

Next Week box from issue #119.

Issue #137s "TransFormation" page.


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stories. The return of the Mechanic was trailed, aswas the beginning of an incredible two-comiccrossover with Action Force and the thrills andspills of Buster Witwicky and the Car Wash ofDoom. But the most interesting titbit came at theend, with mention of the fact that issue #130 wouldintroduce a whole new world of Transformerswithnew characters, a new setting and a new high level of

action and excitement. The saga of the Headmastersand the Targetmasters brings you all this and more.

In a strange way, the comic cemented its transitioninto a post-Movie world with the cover to issue #121.Not the main picture (which had Blaster and Goldbugbeing threatened by The Mechanic), but the cornerbox: since issue #29, way back in October 1985, saidbox had contained a picture of Optimus Prime orMegatron; now, in Primes place, was a headshot ofRodimus Prime. And from #128, Rodimus wouldalternate with Galvatron.

Issue #126 would make another subtle shift, albeit thisone entirely commercial, as the comicstill availablein limited quantities in direct sales shops across theAtlantic increased in price from US $1.00 to $1.25,and CAN $1.50 to $1.75. Only four months later, withissue #140, the North American price would jump to$1.30 and the Canadian price to $1.70. The foreignprices would remain (and fluctuate) until issue #200.

Since issue #96, TFUKhad been exported to certaindirect sales comic shops in North America. The desireto attract overseas Transformersfans may be thereason why, a few months later, and in flagrantbreach of Robert Sutherlands diktat recycleeverything, the UK comic stopped using US covers toaccompany the US reprints within. Issue #112s HerbTrimpe cover from TFUS#27 was the last of its kind(well, at least the very end of TFUKs run); after that, itwas original artwork all the way.

On the other hand, perhaps it was simply a case ofFurman deciding that the likes of Lee Sullivan and Cocould produce more eye-catching covers than theirUS counterparts. The fact that his predecessor, IanRimmer, had employed illustrator Robin Bouttell torecolor US covers certainly implied a belief that UKreaders demanded something a bit more polished.

I dont remember making a conscious decision tostop using the US covers, says Furman today. Wemust have just decided we had enough in the budgetto ditch them.

A seasonal Grim Grams from Issue #145.

TransFormation page sidebar from issue #127.


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I was very involved in the UK coversin fact, afterWanted, as well as just sending the artists a writtendescriprion, I used to sketch the covers outstick-figure drawings, mainly. When you get to Headhuntor Ladies Night, those ones I almost certainlysketched out for Lee [Sullivan]. I think I even did onefor Dave Gibbons, which amused him hugely. I vividlyremember the Cyclonus and Scourge Youre next!cover sketch I did for issue #134. It was anindulgence, and a time-consuming one, and I wish Istill had some of them.

ENTER ACTION FORCE!In 1986, Marvel US published a four-issue mini-series,G. I. JOE and the Transformers, written by MichaelHigginsa newcomer to the Transformers

Universeand drawn by Herb Trimpe and VinceColletta. It is the only Generation 1 story printed in theUS that wasnt (immediately) reprinted in TFUK.

We had to re-use every page of US material, but inthis case we were told to make an exception, recallsFurman. Mainly because in the UK, G. I. JOE wasmarketed Action Force and wed just launched theAction Forcecomic. The last thing Robert Sutherlandwanted to do was promote G. I. JOE instead ofpromoting the new comic, so we were told to let

those issues go. We had to account for Goldbugsorigin, which we did in Wanted. There werent manyrepercussions beyond that.

But the US series did inspire the very first Marvel UKcrossover: the cover to issue #122 of Action ForceMini Comicsaw Blades emerge from a London sewerto be confronted by Flint, Scarlet, Airtight, and othermembers of Action Force. The story was continued inAction Forceissues #2427.

It was an opportunity to get some publicity for ActionForceto get some Transformersreaders to try itout, says Furman. It was reasonably cynical in thatrespect. While it resulted in a sales spike for ActionForce, it didnt do much good in the long run: thecomic folded after only 50 issues.

Ancient Relics was not the only time TFUKhad beenused to directly or indirectly promote the Action Forcecomic: issues #99102 had contained an Action Forceback-up strip (a reprint of G. I. JOE#44), while issue#122 contained a bonus six-page mini-comic (a reprintof Dummy Run! from Action Forceissue #18,released three weeks earlier).

In issue #119, reader Philip Crowther-Greenannounced the results of the 1986 TransformersAwards,having invited fans to vote back in #109. Ofparticular note is the love shown for Centurion:readers were voting on the strength of the non-Transformers appearance in just one story, In

theNational Interest (reprinted in TransformersClassics UK: Volume 2).

Best Story:Target: 2006

Best Writer:SimonFurman

Best Artist:Geoff Senior

Colourist:GinaHart

Best Letterist:AnnieHalfacree

Best Cover:#74and#82(joint winner)Best New Character:

Galvatronand Centurion(joint winner)Best Autobot:

GrimlockBest Decepticon:

GalvatronBest Back-Up Strip:Spitfire& TheTrouble-Shooters

Best Fact-File:OmegaSupreme


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The back cover of issue #129.


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From time to time, TFUKwould reach a self-describedmilestone. Either the format of the comic wouldchange, or a large number of new characters wouldbe introducedto borrow a famous TFUK-phraseinone fell swoop. The release of new toys, particularlythose with a new play feature, would beforeshadowed by a blitz of in-comic publicity andwould climax in a special issue with a cover-mountedfree gift. Issue #63 had introduced the Special Teams.

Issue #79 had introduced the New Leaders. And inissue #130, in what was to prove the last of these toy-driven soft relaunches, readers were introduced tothe Headmasters and Targetmasters.

Readers had for several weeks been promised thatissue #130, published in September 1987, woulddeliver cover-to-cover Transformers action!Technically, this referred to the fact that the AmericanHeadmastersmini-series was to be used as sourcematerial for the back-up strip; and yet with issue #130,for the first and last time, literally every pagefromthe Geoff Senior front cover to the adverts for thenewly-released Transformers: The Movievideo andthe Targetmasterswas given over to Transformers.

The Headmasters issues [#130 and #131] were tied inwith Hasbros big marketing push for the new toys,explains Furman, and wed have wanted to piggy-

back on that wave of promotion even if we hadntbeen obliged to feature the new characters. AndHasbro paid for issues #130 and #136 to be advertisedon TV, which was great, because TV advertisingalways added thousands to the sales figures. Allthese things were our bread and butter and kept usgoing as long as we did.

Furman remembers being introduced by Hasbro to theconcept of Headmasters and Targetmasters. It waswhile we were doing Wanted. We had to know aboutthe product launch fairly well ahead because ofcross-promotional opportunities. They would havegiven us info on the toys and wed start planningstories and free gifts.

Issue #130s free gift was a data scan: a piece offolded cardboard containing another piece of cardwhich, when aligned with pre-cut holes, would revealthe strength, speed, and intelligence ratings for each

of the Headmasters. That data scan was of my owndevising, reveals Furman, who remembers sitting athis desk, puzzling over the mechanics of how it wouldfit together. God, that was a headache.

The concept of the Headmasters presented Furmanwith problems of a different kind. I have to admit Iwasnt wowed by the Headmasters concept.Targetmasters I kind of liked, but this idea of themtaking off their headsit seemed to be a strangenonstarter of a gimmick. And I certainly dont want tocriticize anything of Bob Budianskys [the writer of the

US four-issue Headmastersminiseries], but I foundthe initial concept that they surrender and take theirheads off to be a little bit, Im sorry, Im not sure I buythat Lay down your guns, fine, but your heads? Itlooked like what it was, which was Bob having tocome up with something to fit the toyline.

The unfolded data-scan given away free with issue #130 (design: S Furman).

21


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Lee Sullivan's issue #134 cover art.


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Its striking how infrequently the editorial pagementions the Headmastersback-up strip after thebeginning of its 16-week run. A sidebar on the firstpage of the back-up strip itself brings readers up to

speed with the story, allowing the TransFormationpage and the Next Week box to be used to promoteevents unfolding in the main strip. In fact, issue #144sNext Week page spends 150 words contextualising anupcoming Starscream story, and then almost as anafterthought adds: Oh yeah, and dont miss thesearing, nerve-rending conclusion to our staggeringHeadmasters saga! Its tempting to think that theeditorial team werent too impressed by the story itself.

We turned Headmastersinto a back-up because ittranslated into 16 weeks worth of back up story

material, says Furman, but yes, we also had slightmisgivings about the story itself. We thought it maybewasnt as strong as it could be, and that it may nothold interest as eight issues of the lead strip. It hadthe potential to be a diversion. Also, Hasbro UK hadsome specific characters they wanted to promoteHardhead and Highbrow and so on were quite key to

the British launchand these characters were onlyin the US strip for a panel or two. That was why inissues #130 and #131 we did a UK story based aroundthe main characters. It was a bit like SecondGeneration [the Brit-strip which introduced the

Special Teams in issues #63 to #65].

With TFUKbeing, at heart, a toy comic, its successdetermined to a large extent by the popularity of theTransformers range, it is surprising that more pageswerent given over to promoting the action figuresthemselves. The Hello From Hasbro column, tippingreaders the wink about upcoming releases, hadappeared three or four times in 1984 and early 1985,but since then readers only in-comic exposure to thetoys, as opposed to the characters based on the toys,

was in the form of adverts and very occasionalcompetitions (which were more likely to offer videos

or books as prizes).

Furman says there was never any plan to introduceadvertorial pages promoting upcoming toys, even ifmany readers would have been thrilled to get theinside gossip on new releases. The toys wererepresented through straightforward advertising. Weused to do the A to Z, but not special features aboutthe actual products.

We never used to go out of story very much, he

Issue #131's TransFormation page.

Sidebar from issue #140's TransFormation page.


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continues. We had a way of staying very in universeand in a bizarre way not reminding kids that thesecharacters were based on toys, so it was a fairlyconscious decision not to step outside [the story] anddo the behind-the-scenes stuff. Even though

Transformerswas a toy title, we moved it away fromthat as much as possible.

BUSINESS AS USUALThe Headmasters push now out of the way, TFUKplowed through its next batch of original UK stories,with Kup, Cyclonus, Scourge, Deaths Head, theDinobots, and the Throttlebots all taking turns in thespotlight. Issue #132 came with a bonus four-pageSpider-Man comic that warned readers againstaccepting lifts from strangers, while issue #138 is 28

pages longcreating space for a competition, an A-to-Z, a Classifieds page, and no less than four full-pageadverts (including one for The New Leaders, some60 issues after Galvatron and Ultra Magnus firstappeared). In fact, one suspects that the extra cost ofproducing the extra four pages was met by Hasbro inexchange for the additional advertising space

Issues #139144 (November and December 1987)were run-of-the-mill by TFUKstandards, reprintingthree issues of the American series and featuring littlein the way of special features or promotions. That

said, issue #140 contained a poster created byenlarging the Targetmasters advert so that it formedthe center pages of the comic, and issue #144 gavereaders the chance to win Decepticon Hideout (oneof the last in a long line of Tell-A-Tale books and audiocassettes that had been advertised in the pages ofTFUKsince 1984).

TFUKended the year with the traditional Christmasstory; and, as again was traditional, it was written bysomeone other than Simon Furman. Ian Rimmer

returned to the title hed once edited to script a one-off story about Starscream, in the Decepticons firstappearance in the comic since Target: 2006.

THE CALM BEFORE THE STORMIt was a quiet time, butas alwaysbig changeswere just around the corner. 1988 would kick off witharguably the most important Transformersstory of all,The Legacy of Unicron, wherein Furman would steala march on the US comic by describing the origin ofthe Cybertronian race. Not long after that game-changing six-parter, TFUKitself would change bymerging (sort of) with Action Force. All of this andmore will be covered in Volume 5.

Before we close this chapter, however, its worth

taking one last look at the TFUKof 1987, when Furmantook control of Marvel UKs flagship title.

I look back and think, My god, that mustve been ahorrible, stressful thing to do, but we never thoughtthat in the day. I was in my mid-twenties and we wereputting out a weekly comic, and I mustve done all mywriting in evenings and weekends... There was a lot ofstuff going on.

Story-wise, 1987 was the year when Deaths Headmade his debut, Bumblebee became Goldbug, Marvel

UK had its first crossover, and readers first becameacquainted with the Headmasters and Targetmasters.For Furman, however, everything changed with issue#113, and the first part of Wanted.

I suppose I consider Deaths Head to be my biggestsuccess, story wise, of that era, he says. Thegenesis of the character is so significant for me as awriter, and for this batch of Transformers stories hereally added an extra element: he wasnt aTransformer but there he was kind of right up there in

Robin Smith provided new framing art for the Headmastersback-up strip. Will Simpson's Galvatron artwork was among his last for TFUK.


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A selection of Grim Grams. Clockwise from top left: Issues #115, #119, #132, and #122.


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This poster-sized version of the Targetmasters advert came free with issue #140.


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the power levels, right in the mix of these things, and Ithink he was quite significant in terms of where thesestories went. And he was missed when we took himout of Transformers.

He put the Transformers Universe on a differentfooting: suddenly we saw that there was a biguniverse out theretheres other planets andcharacters to explore, and other things happening,and that was really exciting.

With his first appearance you come to understandthat other worlds talk about whats happening on

Cybertron, and that kind of felt like we werebroadening out the mythos, with the war rippling outto other planets and races. And I think thats wherethe strength of these stories is: it started to makeeverything a bit bigger and more cosmic, which issomething that I ran with from this point on, really. Thebeginning of Transformersas a grand space opera.Theres a line to be drawn between Death Heads and[in Legacy of Unicron] the telling of the story of theorigin of the Transformers, so in a sense Deaths Headis where it all began to look outwards.

THE

This subscription coupon, which first appeared in issue #144, used artwork from the cover of the as-yet-unreleased 1988 Transformers Annual.

Next Week box from issue #145.


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BLACK ARTSToo often, comic fans use the word artist andpenciller interchangeably. To do so is to riskoverlooking the role of the inker, who can bring apencillers art to life and define the look of the strip.While many artists ink their own work (with the likesof Geoff Senior making block blacks a visualtrademark), others are happy to entrust that stage ofthe creative process to someone else.

Two of TFUKs most skilled and prolific inkers wereStephen Baskers Baskerville, who made his debut inissue #118 (with Part 2 of Hunters!), and who wasusually paired with Jeff Anderson; and Tim Perkins, whofor many years was Will Simpsons partner-in-crime,and who worked on Target: 2006 and other stories.

By the time I began working on TransformersIdalready had several inking jobs for Marvel UK,

recalls Baskerville. Id worked on Spiderman & Zoidsand Thundercats, both of which Id enjoyed withouthaving a clue what they were about. AndTransformerswas the same, Im afraidI just had funmaking all the metal stuff nice and shiny, fullyexpecting to move on to the next licensed title thatMarvel UK published without a backward glance inthe direction of Transformers. It didnt quite work out

that way, did it?

Baskervilles love of comics could be traced back tohis childhood, when he and his brother wouldoccasionally be allowed to pick an American comic.My brother would always pick Superman, but Ipreferred Wonder Womanthe psychologicalimplications of which dont bear thinking about! Thena few years later my brother started to get Fantastic, aBritish comic that reprinted Marvel comics in blackand white, which Id leaf through without muchinterest. One week [in issue #47, published January

1968], they printed Gene Colan and Jack Abels IronManstrip, where Tony Stark is left for dead in theBlack Knights castle, and his secretary, Pepper Potts,saves him by plugging him into the main electricity.And from then on I was completely hooked: I had tofind all the American comics I could.

Gene Colan would become one of Baskervilles chiefinspirations, along with Neal Adams and JimSteranko. Even then, the inkers were importantTom Palmer and Dick Gordiano in particular. Morerecently, as an art team Jim Lee and Scott Williams

take some beating.

As far as breaking into the comics industry goes, Ithink it all goes back to that Gene Colan Iron Manstrip. When Id read that issue at least 27 times, Ineeded a reason to keep looking at the art, so Idecided to copy the drawings. Then the other kids atschool saw it and I became known by my classmatesas being good at art. I think from this point on I hopedId draw something for a livingand although Ialways hoped that something would be comics, backthen it seemed pretty unlikely, as the kind of comics I

liked were all American. Luckily, in the time betweenmy copying those Iron Manpages and my graduatingart college, 2000ADcame along and Marvel UKstarted printing homegrown comics.

My first professional comics work was for 10-4Action, a magazine cashing in on the CB Radio crazeof the early 1980sa job that I got thanks to a friendseeing an ad in a local newspaper. Then Alan Mooreselected a strip that I created, wrote and drew,Dandy In The Underworld, for Swiftsure, a titlepublished by Martin Locks Harrier Comics. Swiftsure

also launched the careers of [TFUKstalwarts] MikeCollins and Jeff Anderson.

When John Tomlinson was an editor at Marvel UK,he saw my Underworld stuff and praised the slickfinish to the artwhich could probably be rephrasedas your drawing stinks but youre not bad at hidingthe fact with your inking! He asked if Id be interestedin working as an inker. Naturally, my answer wasHell, yes!

Baskerville's inks first appeared in issue #118 (pencils by Jeff Anderson).


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Most inkers start off as would-be pencillers, I think.In my case, having learned to draw by looking at inkedcomics, maybe it was always the finish thatinterested me. Inking is certainly what I feel mostcomfortable doing, especially over pencils that are

loose enough to allow me to add some creativitywithout swamping the pencils with my style. Thatswhy Andrew Wildmans pencils are so much fun towork on. I also really enjoyed inking Alex Saviuksclassic Marvel pencils on Web Of Spider-Man.

His preference for inking notwithstanding, it wasntlong before Baskerville had an opportunity to drawTransformers as well. Yes, the editors at Marvel UKwere quite happy to let me loose on the covers.Richard Starkings began the whole thing by giving meThundercatscovers, and [with issue #178] I began to

get Transformerscovers too. Baskerville would go onto draw a further 21 covers, his last being for issue#312 in April 1991.

Baskerville has fond memories of working for MarvelUK during its mid- to late-80s heyday. I used to gointo the London offices at least a couple of times aweek, so it felt like a home from home. It was alwaysa fun atmosphere, and you knew that if you hungaround there long enough someone would give yousome more work! Simon was always good to workwith and very enthusiastic, especially about

Transformers!

The other great thing was how relaxed they wereabout us bringing our own styles to the art, eventhough these were licensed characters. That wouldnever happen today, with everything having to lookidentical to a drawing in a style guide. But it wasallowing that individuality, for example, that meantAndrew Wildman could bring such humanity andemotional depth to Transformers characters. And the

other artists were great too: Jeff Anderson and RobinSmith both had a classic, realistic illustration style,Geoff Senior had the Kirbyesque dynamism and DanReed had the 70s Marvel US look. What a collection!

Today, Baskerville is once again working with SimonFurman and Andy Wildman on Transformers:Regeneration One, the continuation of the Marvel USseries. As an artist and writer he has createdTreasure (for Mark Millars CLiNT magazine) andArthur Kings Half-World War(for Strip). And Ivejust been told that my newest strip, Just Force: KidFriendly Is Dead, is going to be published in David VFor Vendetta Lloyds Aces Weeklydigital magazine.Outside of comics, I do lots of freelance illustrationwork, quite a bit of it for e-learning courses, andevery so often I do a stint as a concept artist with a

games studio.

He worries that professional inkers may soon be athing of the past. I can see the role of the inkerdiminishing in the coming years, as artists create theline art from pencils or colorists take the pencils andcreate fully rendered art from it. Me, I like my comicsproperly inkedbut I may soon be in a minority.

Tim Perkins was another Marvel UK stalwart whobecame a comic professional in the mid-80s. For hisfirst TFUKwork he was paired with Barry Kitson, but

is best known by Transformersfans for collaboratingwith Will Simpson.

My first comic work was published in The MightyWorld of Marvelin 1984, Perkins recounts. Inresponse to a request for submissions from newtalent, Id written and drawn a short story,Metempsychosis, which was printed in issue #14.

I was invited to visit Marvel UK to show my portfolio

From issue #118. One of Perkins' favorite TFpages, from issue #117 (pencils by Will Simpson).


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to the editors, and I remember expecting to see thishuge tower block with Marvel emblazoned above ona huge sign, and full sized figurines of Spider-Man.But I found myself outside a side entrance partlyblocked by metallic wheelie bins. I went inside and upthe flight of stairs, and saw Spidey and Hulk alongsidethe Marvel logo.

While visiting I met Barry Kitson, who was workingon the British Spidermancomic at the time. He askedme if I would like to ink his pencil work as a way intoobtaining work from Marvel. So I inked some of hissample work and sent it in to Marvel, who alwayssaid, Great stuff, Tim, but no work came out of it.Then one evening I received a call from him asking if Icould help him by inking an issue of Transformersthathe was late on deadline with. I arrived at his housethe next day and produced my first mainstreampublished work inking Barry on issue #50 of the UKcomic [Part 4 of Dinobot Hunt!].

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Perkins wasalready a fan of the robots in disguise when he wasoffered work on TFUK. Id already started to collectthe UK and US versions of the comics, and some ofthe early toys, so yes, Id already heard ofTransformers prior to working with Barry.

Perkins was credited with giving Kitson artassistance. I helped Barry to ink as much of theissue as I could, he explains. I had to match hisinking style and adopt my brushwork to look like his

dip pen work. I wanted to fool the reader into seeingonly one inkers lines. I remember Barry pencilling inone room and me inking other pages in another, andlistening to Pink Floyds The Wallall weekend onBarrys little portable music system.

A little later I received a phone call from Ian Rimmer.Marvel had some issues with deciding if I had workedon any of the pages at all, as they couldnt see whereBarrys pen work finished and my brush work began. Itold Ian it was easy to see: all he had to do was run hishand over a page of the artwork. Where it was rough,

that was Barrys pen work; and where it was smooth,that was my brush work. Ian was amazed to find out Ihad actually matched Barrys artwork line for line. Heoffered me Zoidsinking Kev Hopgood on the spot.

Perkins went on to ink Will Simpsons art in Part 3 ofIn The National Interest, and collaborated withSimpson again on three parts of Target: 2006. By thetime the two of them worked together on the 19-pageDistant Thunder in issue #100, they were a fullyfledged team.

Yes, by that time I was Ian Rimmers inker of choicefor Will. I loved working on his pages. His artwork wasawash with lines everywhere, but that gave me someleeway to bring something to the table. Hed give mechoices as to which lines to ink or choose a middle-ground line for, whereas usually, with other pencillers,it was all there on the page, just ready to ink. It wasnever a case of tracing, but with Wills I was able tomake more calls on how it would finish up looking. Thesplash pages from Target: 2006 and Hunters! aresome of the nicest imagery I think we produced.

By the time I started to get a handle on comfortablyinking his work, editorial changes saw a lot of usbeing forced to look for work with other companies.Will was by this time also working for otherpublishers, and was being called upon to increase hisoutput at all of them, including Marvel, so I was beingasked more and more to finish his artwork. The twoepisodes of Worlds Apart! were the last we would

work on together, and would be my last work forTransformers.

The editorial staff at Marvel UK had changed andnew blood was being brought in all the time, so a lotof us found ourselves squeezed out for a while. WhenSimon Furman said he wanted me back onTransformersI was busy working for other comiccompanies such as London Editions and Fleetway,publishers of 2000AD.

Like Baskerville and other creators who found their

way into the comics via Transformers, Perkins hashappy memories of his time working for Marvel UK.

I feel incredibly blessed to be able to say I workedfor Marvel UK in one of its brightest moments. Thefriendships it helped forge have remained over theyears. James Hill, Mike Collins and John Ridgway,who is my mentor and an incredibly creative guy, arein contact with me almost every week. And RichardStarkings company, Comicraft, produced thelettering for my science fusion graphic novel series,Worlds End.

Perkins worked with Will Simpson on Part 1 of Prey!, reprinted inTransformers Classics UK Volume 3.


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Above:Issue #115 (May 30th, 1987) Cover by Lee Sullivan Part 1 of Burning Sky!First Dan Reed interior art First appearance of Cindy Newell

Right:Issue #116 (June 13th, 1987) Cover by Jeff Anderson Part 2 of Burning Sky!Transformers A to Z featuring Bombshell and Bonecrusher Note the white logoa one-off variation

Left:Issue #113 (May 16th, 1987) Cover by Geoff Senior Part 1 of Wanted: Galvatron,Dead or Alive First appearance in TFUKof Deaths Head The Inhumanoidsback-up strip continues Established that Shockwave leads the Decepticons in 2007

Below:Issue #114 (May 23rd, 1987) Cover by Jeff Anderson Part 2 of WantedFirst appearance of Wreck Gar and Nautilus (Apparent) Death of Bumblebee

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Left:Issue #119 (June 27th, 1987) Cover by Will Simpson Part 1 of Fire on High!Last Optimus Prime cover box ident New back-up strip, Iron Man 2020, beginsTransformers A to Z features Breakdown and Bruticus

Above:Issue #120 (July 4th, 1987) Cover by Jeff Anderson Last Megatron cover box identPart 2 of Fire on High! Story concluded in the 1987 Transformers Annual

Below:Issue #117 (June 13th, 1987) Cover by Geoff Senior and John Burns Part 1 ofHunters! Transformers A to Z featuring Brawl and Brawn

Right:Issue #118 (June 20th, 1987) Cover by Lee Sullivan First Stephen Baskerville art(inks)Part 2 of Hunters! First appearance of Goldbug marks first major divergance withUS continuity Inhumanoidsback-up strip ends


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WHATS ALL THIS ABOUT, THEN?Although never promoted as such, Wanted:Galvatron, Dead or Alive (technically only the title ofthe first two parts of a nine-issue story arc) wassurely the sequel to both Target: 2006 and

Transformers: The Movie. While Galvatron hadreturned to the pages of TFUKin Fallen Angel(issues #101102), that 22-pager was more of aninterlude in the overarching Galvatron storyline. Andjust as Target: 2006 had, by necessity, taken placewithin the Movie itself, so, technically, had FallenAngel. Crashing onto the Earth of 1987, Galvatronremembers activating his time-jump device afterbeing thrown out of Unicron by Rodimus Primeascene that takes place a few minues before the endof the film.

Wanted, then, was the first TFUKstoryand thefirst comic story full stopto take place in aTransformers Universe changed by the events in theMovie. In Part 1, the very first caption (The robotworld of Elpasos, Earth-date: 2007) is thrilling. Itestablishes time and place, but both time and placeare significant: for the first time, were reading a storyset in the future, and were visiting an alien planetother than Cybertron. Andwere learning that thereare other mechanical races other than theCybertronians. Not bad for one caption.

In the US, the Movie was used to relaunch thecartoon series: Season 3 is set in the future, afterUnicron is destroyed, and follows the adventures ofthe Movie cast. Simon Furman was oblivious as to thedirection that the TV series was taking (Although wenever gave much concern for what the cartoon wasor wasnt doing), but he had separately decided tofollow a similar path: for him too, the Movie was anopportunity to expand the Transformers Universe.More importantly, for someone who was used towriting stories designed to slot neatly into someone

elses narrative, it was an opportunity to create hisvery own micro-continuity; a continuity still intendedto mesh with the TFUS-driven, present day stories, ofcourse, but one that allowed him the freedom to tellepic, high-stakes stories without having to worryabout how they would fit around Bob Budianskys nextUS script.

We were fortunate that the US comic didnt want toset any stories after the Movie. We actually spoke tothem about it and said, do you have any plans for thefuture cast? and quite unequivocally they said no. Ithink they judged the Movie as a big flop, and had nointerest. And they were probably completely locked

WANTED: GALVATRON, DEAD OR ALIVEOriginally printed in issues #113120, and the 1987 Transformers Annual

Published May 16July 4, 1987 (issues), and August 1987 (annual)

First two parts reprinted in issues #221224 (June 10July 1, 1989)Full story reprinted in Titan Books Fallen Angelcollection (published November 2002)

Death's Head makes his first appearance in the Transformers Universe.


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into their cycle of having the next wave oftoys/characters appearing in the comic strip.

So yeah, I think the end of the Movie gave me thatin, as far as an ongoing UK story is concerned.When Rodimus throws Galvatron out into space, Ithought Thats a very big loose end. You just punchedhim out into spacewhat happened next? In Fallen

Angel we showed what happened to Galvatron, andthen with Wanted I thought, If were going tointroduce Rodimus Prime, then lets have him worriedabout the consequences of his actions in the Movie. Iwas big on these things: people being responsible forthings and having to tidy up their own messes.

By the time of Wanted, Furman hadthroughTarget: 2006built up a core cast of Galvatron,Cyclonus, Scourge, Ultra Magnus, Hot Rod, Kup, andBlurr. The Movie gave him a new character, Wreck-Gar, and a new Autobot leader: Rodimus Prime.

Rodimus only has a few minutes of screen time at theend of the Movie, which he uses to defeat Galvatron,save his friends, and make a feel-good speech.Furman therefore had the opportunity, when writingWanted, to invent Rodimus Primes character.

I didnt want him to be Optimus Prime [Mark II], saysFurman, In the Movie we dont see what kind ofcharacter he ishe just looks bigger and tougherso I wanted to give him that overcompensation thing,like he was almost trying too hard to follow in

Optimuss footsteps.

Rodimus steely side is demonstrated a few pages intoPart 2 of Wanted when he executes a Decepticon incold bloodbold stuff for a comic aimed at nine and10 year olds.

I dont know if I thought it was bold at the time,Furman counters, but I did want to push the envelope

a little bit with it. Whether Ian wouldve let me getaway with that scene I dont know, but certainly now Iwas in charge [as editor] I could be a little harderedged and make the story a little more adultand justget inside the characters a bit more. So to show thatRodimus wasnt just another Optimus Prime, I had himexecute the guy on one page. Of course then heagonizes over it for panels and panels on the next

page. We kind of had to have that because we were aMarvel comic. He couldnt just walk away from that.

Although it introduced TFUKreaders to the comicversion of Rodimus Prime, Wanted is better knownfor another first appearance: that of the bounty hunter,Deaths Head. Using a non-Transformer to frame Part1 was new and exciting, and again helped to conveythe expanded size of the Transformers Universe. As iswell known, Deaths Head was originally going to bekilled by Galvatron at the end of the story. After seeingGeoff Seniors design, Furman changed his plans. One

wonders when he started planning Deaths Headsdeparture from TFUK.

At this point we didnt know we wanted to get himout of the Transformers Universe. It was at leastanother six months before we decided to get him outof TFUKand into his own title.

It says something about Furmans confidence in hisabilities as a storytellerand in his readersto launchTFUKs second biggest story with 11 pages focusing onan alien bounty hunter, a barkeeper, and two

Decepticons. In what must be a first, the Autobotsappear only in a few flashback panels, and even thendont get any lines. Deaths Head steals every panel hesin, and his battle with Cyclonus and Scourge is one ofthe most brutal and kinetic in the history of the comic.

Readers who had been around for Target: 2006would have been surprised on opening issue #115 tofind Part 1 of Burning Sky! rather than Part 3 ofWanted. Not only that, but Burning Sky feels likea different story altogether: the future cast arenowhere to be seen, the focus switching instead to

present day Earth, Ultra Magnus, and three humans.In many respects, the first four installments ofWantedarguably even the first sixserve to setup the story and bring the core cast together. Thedecision to break the arc into two-part storiesreinforces this perception.

We were wary of labelling the story as another hugemulti-parter because they can put off new readerswho pick up the comic half way through, explainsFurman. If you pick up the comic for the first time andit says Wanted, Part 7, you might back off. So it was

a conscious decision to break things down into two-parters Although we then completely contradictedthat with [the six-part] Legacy of Unicron!

Part 2 of Burning Sky, in issue #116, is a directsequel to the infamous Magnus/Galvatron fight fromissue #86. Unsurprisingly, Geoff Senior was onceagain responsible for the artwork. All things beingequal I would have had Geoff do as manyTransformers strips as he could handle, says Furman,but we were probably gearing Geoff up for [new

Rodimus Prime's Decepticon badge went unnoticed by Furman until this book wascompiled.

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Lee Sullivan issue #118 painted cover art.


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Marvel UK title] Dragons Clawsat this point. After theAction Forcecrossoverand for that he only reallydid breakdownsGeoff was away from Transformersfor a long time, working on Dragons Claws, mainly.

It is impossible to resist making comparisonsbetween issues #86 and #116. The New Leadersrematch is almostas epicPage 7, with Magnuspunching Galvatron unconscious, is a TFUKhighlightbut one cant help pine for the days offully-painted artwork. Steve White does an admirablejob of coloring Part 2 of Burning Sky!, but the color-separation process itself creates limitations that areimpossible to overcome.

Gina Harts painted artwork [in issue #86] is reallydifferent, yes, but Steve did some really nice effects,

both here and in later issues. I like the electricalexplosion [in issue #120] where Rodimus blows thecable up between Galvatrons legs. So Steve tried hard,but you were dealing with processed color, and in theend there was only so much you could do with that.

For the second time, Galvatron defeats Ultra Magnus.But theres something in the story (perhaps simply thatMagnus at one point doesoverpower him) thatsuggests that the future Decepticon is not quite aspowerful as he was in Target: 2006.

Id established Galvatron as incredibly poweful, andin a way it was getting hard to create situationswhere he would feel threatened. He gets slightly de-powered as we go along, but it was still difficult tothink of different ways to then contain him or stop himwithout killing him.

Although it takes time to get there, the climax toWantedwell, the climax as far as TFUKisconcerned (the story itself concludes in the 1987Transformers Annual)is an absolute corker. The

bulk of issue #120 is given over to Galvatron versusRodimus Prime, then Deaths Head, with Seniordelivering some of the most dynamic and powerfulTransformers art ever. In fact, the Galvatron/Rodimus High Noon-style stand-off might be themost expertly-choreographed fight scene inTransformers history.

The whole story has this Western feel to it, rightdown to the very first part where the planet is calledElpasos. And bounty hunters are synonymous withSpaghetti Westerns and Westerns in general, so yes,theres this Sergio Leone thing at the end.

The story ends with a question mark over the fate ofGalvatron and Ultra Magnus. (Although as anewcomer to TFUK, and to comics generally, thiswriter took the last panel of the story to mean thatboth characters were absolutely, definitively dead.)They would returnseparatelyover the coming

months, and their third fight would end with thepromise of a final reckoning.

When I wrote the end of Wanted I wasnt sure whatI was going to do with them next, or when I was goingto do it. Their story wasnt mapped out. We put themon ice quite deliberatelyor lava, as it was. The ideaof them as perpetually warring figures kind of justtook shape. So often I didnt plan ahead, Id just let thestory steer me in one direction or the other and thenpick up where Id left and run with it. Its not like today,where everything is planned out issues and issues in

advance. I wish I could say that the whole Galvatronstoryline [from Target: 2006 to Time Wars] wasplanned out, but it wasnt.

Wanted is justly famous for introducing DeathsHead and rounding out the Movie cast with theintroduction of Rodimus Prime and Wreck Gar, and ithas its fair share of memorable moments (such asCyclonus and Scourge getting trounced and thedeath/rebirth of Bumblebee), but for whateverreasonmaybe the fact that its broken down intodiscrete and visually distinct two-parters, and wraps

up outside of TFUKits not held up by many fans asone of the comics best stories.

Maybe its the episodic thing, says Furman, but Ifind the story a bit unsmooth. It feels like differentstories, almost. I feel okay about itI dont dislike itit sets up a lot of things that followbut strangelyenough, even though it introduces Deaths Head anddoes other things like that, its not one of my favoritesof that period.

Issue #120s "TransFormation" page.


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