Marvel Transformers UK #61
I feel like there's a collage of this cover type.
Writer: Simon Furman
Art: Will Simpson
Colors: John Burns
Letters: Mike Scott
Cover: Will Simpson
Editor: Ian Rimmer
I was going through my sources again as I was prepping the post for #62 and I came across this interesting tidbit from the TF UK Classics interview section about the covers, but before going into that, I wanted to discuss my thoughts on the US and UK runs through focusing on the points of the overall interview section within this collection:
UK versus the US came up often, the idea that the UK was this big massive upgrade. This makes no sense to me because Budiansky is a good writer; even when dealing with having to force new toys into stories, it feels like an alien civilization with their own lifestyle still. I would say most of the time Furman writes the characters more like heroes and villains going on adventures with the occasional war-esc story. The UK also got more space to tell its story compared to the US and so even when Furman occasionally had to do the Obvious Product Placement, it wasn't the majority of what he was doing (in another post I mention how Hasbro was mostly off-hands with the UK team), so it feels a little unfair. I think really, the only thing the UK had solidly of the US run was the art, Nel is a good artist but the limitation of how the US branch did color separation vs the UK's full paintings at times was noticeable.
Brought up Target 2006 a lot, which I found a little much for what I read, not bad but not pages of pages of singing its praises.
And obviously: Simon Furman. I can recognize that Furman did a lot (I personally love the Primus addition), many of his stories are beloved, and teammates talk about the trust they have and vice versa (ex; there's a point where Ian Rimmer talks about how in terms of editing and direction, Ian didn't worry much and his role diminished over time) but its all brought up so frequently (often alongside the 'UK run was so fantastic' bits) that it edges on glory hounding in the case of other people heaping praises on the person at the expense of others rather than the person seeking it out. Personally, I think Furman is an okay writer -- at the point of this post I've read up to #133 and a decent chunk of Phase 1 of IDW but you can seem my comments above about my preference for Budiansky. It also feels like when this came out it was with the impression of Furman being this big legend for Transformers, and in some way's he is, I dont want to diminish his contributions -- but going in years later with many other writers coming to the table across mediums, and especially after that massive Arcee fumble, plus the UK is superior plot thread (basically) conflicts with that I like the US stuff just fine, this comes off as a bit of a miss so it makes reading the collection a bit of a slog despite how interesting the behind the scenes stuff is.
But back to the covers tidbit:
It in part continues on from the coloring discussion previously, this page within this part of the interview is all about color, US material vs UK material, and a bit of the team behind it.
When deciding what to have for the cover they would rotate each week for immediate recognition on newsstands that there was a new issue (close up, combat, or a particular element of a story).
Hours would be spent on agonizing over cover lines: 'The Final Battle' apparently became such a running gag that Tomlinson used it as Simon's leaving card when Simon went freelance.
- Its wild that it took so long for the Constructicon/Devastator to reappear, having not been around since UK #35, since they are a rather big legacy character--they are one of the few characters that don't have their name shared across wildly different characters.