So, the Saturday of Comicon. It couldn’t have been any busier than the previous day, as both Friday and Saturday were similarly sold out, but somehow it seemed so. The doors swung open at 9AM (as opposed to 10AM the previous day), probably just to relieve the pressure from the mass of fans overruning the street/foyer of and around the convention centre. By 10.30, I had done my first interview of the day and was underway with the second (of three) DK signings. For all that there seemed to be more people thronging the aisles, somehow this session, while still busy, seemed less intense than Friday’s, maybe because it was earlier and people were just pulled in many different directions at once. Still, a fair amount of my books were signed, a large number of which were Ultimate Guides as opposed to Movie Guides (though many went for both). I think a lot of kids who’d only ever seen the movie and/or movie toys never realised there was also this wider world of Transformers out there, and they were intrigued. Beast Wars/Movie Prequel artist Don Figueroa joined me for part of the signing, doing impromptu sketches for those lucky enough to have happened by at that stage. Then we both headed to the joint Hasbro/IDW/Cartoon Network panel, though Don was struck strangely stage-shy and opted to watch from the audience. Aaron Archer and Greg Lombardo (of Hasbro) kicked things off (to a packed auditorium) and then IDW EiC Chris Ryall and I launched into news of upcoming comic book highlights, including Devastation, Beast Wars The Ascending/Profiles and new Spotlights. As Hasbro introduced their next wave of movie toys, Chris and I found some muttered moments to discuss the next trio of Spotlights I would be penning. I had a couple I was keen to do, including an old, old favourite of mine (groans from some sections of TF fandom, but trust me, it’s a corker… and utterly essential to the ongoing story arc) and a radical reinvention of another movie character. Trust me, that one will really rock your world! Then we (Chris and myself) gave up our spots on the panel as the team from the new Transformers Animated series arrived, and I turned spectator as they previewed a special trailer for the series. First impressions, looks great. Very interested to see where this goes. Then it was directly to the Best Buy stand, and a special signing event arranged via DK (who’d generated special signing plates, culled from the Ultimate Guide). Possibly my weirdest Comicon moment came when one guy in the line for autographs stepped up and proceeded, for my benefit, to enact a large chunk of the original TF The Movie, voices and all. It was kind of impressive, but went on long enough to be just a shade unsettling. Then (without pause for breath and very little in the way of lunch) it was over to the IDW stand, for a full on Transformers (comic) signing with Don Figueroa, EJ Su, Eric Holmes, Alex Milne and Andrew Wildman. Great stuff. I’d never met EJ in person before, so that was very cool. His work on Infiltration, Escalation and currently Devastation has always been of the highest standard, and it was great to be able to tell him so, face to face. And it was really nice to meet Eric too, after having exchanged many emails while he was prepping Megatron: Origin. He proved to be as nice a chap in person as his emails suggested. Fantastic fan turnout for the signing itself, and I was delighted to see copies of my ‘Best of Simon Furman’ deluxe hardcover on sale. What a great looking book, the oversized format showcasing the strip (from Marvel UK/US, Dreamwave and IDW) superbly. Same goes for the ‘Best of Don Figueroa’ book. A quality package all around. We also signed a whole bunch of special tip-in plates for the upcoming Art of Transformers book (look out for that very special edition). I’ll be back (one more time) with more of Saturday, the whole of Sunday (including stuff from a very in-depth, spoiler-heavy TF interview) and my overall impressions. For some images from the show, click on the links below. More to come with the final post-Comicon ramble.
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simon furman 
I really don’t like the TF Animated preview trailer. Looks exactly the kind of animated style I really find irritating to watch and think it looks very ugly. Not keen on the toys either. But that’s ok. ‘Real’ looking movie stuff will continue with sequels and this animated stuffs for the kids, or adults who like that style… Happy that it looks like we got more ‘Classics’ on the way too, quite keen on seeing this Galvatron who’s ‘not a repainted Megatron’ if the rumors are to be believed.
Hello, Just wondering why the change to the contents of the ‘Best of’ book?
Re: the animated series. Maybe it was just seeing the Dinobots. I’m easily excited.
Re: the ‘best of’ book: I assume it was to do with the black & white nature of some of the strip I suggested. It would have meant colouring some of it up. Though, thinking about it, the Carnivac stuff was coloured up. Maybe it was it just a matter of finding colour files for the strip. I certainly wasn’t unhappy with the final selection. Spotlight Shockwave kind of deserved to be in there.
Quote: “one guy in the line for autographs stepped up and proceeded, for my benefit, to enact a large chunk of the original TF The Movie, voices and all. It was kind of impressive, but went on long enough to be just a shade unsettling.”
Ugh. I cringed as I read that. Hardcore obsessive weirdos make the rest of us, ehmmm, pacific temperate geeks look bad.
It was a pleasure to meet you Simon! Thanks for coming to Comic-Con and maybe next year we can hit a pub.
hi simon, i love your work i got a question. will fortress maximus be show up and if he does will he be the size of regular transformers or will he be big. thanks steve
No plans for Fort Max yet. He’ll be big for sure, but not in a way that’ll make him difficult to use.
And good to meet you too, Mike.
Simon, what’s your little avatar?
It’s someone’s Grimlock model (giant-sized). Chris (Ryall) sent the image to me. I think it ran with one interview I did (instead of an actual pic of me).
Killer Transformers
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