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Auto Assembly 2012 Exclusive Update

Posted on 04-11-2012 at 01:01 PM by Sol Fury under Comics

Auto Assembly has released some bad news relating to their planned exclusive for this year's show. Auto Assembly 2012 was to have featured an IDW comic with an exclusive cover, one that would have been particularly poignant for UK fans. The comic would have been Generation 1 #81, with a dual number on the front of the comic so it would also have been number issue #333 - the original Marvel UK run finished with #332, so this would have been a fantastic homage to the UK comics run.

Sadly it was not to be, as for as yet unexplained reasons the issue was vetoed by Hasbro US as the master license holder.

Alongside the Auto Assembly team's vote of thanks to their committee member Martin Fisher and IDW's editor John Barber, who worked hard to try to make this dream issue a reality, I would also like to add TFW2005's vote of thanks to their hard work, as well as my own personal thanks as a fan who grew up on the Marvel UK comics.

All is not lost, however. Auto Assembly promised attendees a comic in their goodie bags this year and attendees will have a comic! Attendees will be receiving a completely new comic, with cover art by Jeff Anderson and an exclusive six page script by Kris Carter. The ultimate ambition is to give attendees an issue which includes at least three different comic stories, created by collaborations between professional comic creative talent and fans alike. But that's not all! To make up for the fact that Auto Assembly cannot offer the exclusive comic this year, they will instead be upping the print run on the Auto Assembly 2012 exclusive litho - so that every attendee who would have received the comic will instead receive the litho, free of charge.

How is that for looking after the fans after a disappointing turn of events?

Auto Assembly 2012, the UK's largest Transformers convention, takes place over the weekend of 3rd-5th August 2012 at the Hilton Metropole hotel in Birmingham UK. To find out more and pre-register to attend today, head on over to the Auto Assembly homepage.

Discuss on the Boards!

Views: 1,376 / Credit: Simes of the 2005 Boards!

DISCUSSION: (Jump To This Thread On The Boards)

Autobot City Comics 2008

looks like the hasbro ban has hit you guys now

DethPike

Quote:

Originally Posted by Autobot City Comics 2008

looks like the hasbro bad has hit you guys now

Yeah - it's cool that there's a "Plan B" and all, but WTF Hasbro?

Aernaroth

Way to turn lemons into lemonade, guys!

Fosterlager

Yeah, you guys really excel at customer service. More should follow your example!

dj_convoy II

Good on AA.

Hasbro has some odd things that they do sometimes (this, the changes to dialogue and not allowing Shout to use the wacky dubs on Headmasters, et al). I wonder what the possible justifaction here could be...

reluttr

Quote:

Originally Posted by dj_convoy II

Obviously they felt that this alternate comic cover CHEAPEND THE HOBBY!

Dark_T_Zeratul

Clearly, this comic would have ruined Transformers FOREVER.

Ad8m

Before this story becomes about Hasbro (and after the last few months, its totally understandable why it could) its worth pointing out the keypoints from this story

1) AA 2012 is gonna be absolutely off-the-chain amazing.

2) The team are busting ass to make 2012 the best yet. . . . . we've made sure of that, already. . . . but we still want to give you guys more!

3) Yeah, we had a setback. . . . but we hope you can see we are getting over it rather impressively

4) If you want to help us, make sure you book your tickets/hotel asap. Tell your friends, pimp us out, all that stuff. The more folks are onboard, the more we can achieve. If you've not been before and are unsure about going then let us know your questions and we can answer them.

5) And on Sunday night? When the committee/volunteers are a small puddle of shattered, tired, rusted bodies. . . . . we may even let you guys buy us a pint :-P

Omnius

I had a long post about Hasbro, but after reading Ad8m's above reply, I'll only say this:

Boo Hasbro, yay AA!

dsn1014

I'd still love to go, though I'll have to wait for 2013, but this does nothing to dampen my jealousy for those attending.

Dragonclaw

I'd bet this has more to do with the fact that AA isn't "the official Hasbro" convention so they don't want to be seen supporting other Transformer related shows. Im still not entirely convinced that having Botcon the same weekend as Dairycon was a coincidence either...It's a shame, but awesome that you guys are dealing with it so possitively!

Simes

I hope Hasbro's current stance doesn't affect Colin and his team at TFCon but if Hasbro Canada pull out of that, then I would say that it would be a clear sign that they are pulling their support for everything unofficial which - in my opinion - would be a big mistake.

Not all fans can get to Botcon and I think that if support is withdrawn it will just alienate the community rather than draw them towards official products / events / clubs. The next question is that where will this end? Will websites be the next target?

Where we are all frustrated over this is that this was an officially licensed comic and both Hasbro and IDW were being paid a considerable sum by us for it's production. We weren't being given this comic freely - we were purchasing 1,000 comics directly from IDW which we were then giving away to attendees of Auto Assembly and Auto Assembly Europe and as such the only people to benefit financially were Hasbro and IDW. In taking this action - if it was out of spite to "get back at us" as some have suggested - then all Hasbro have actually done is deprived one of their own license holders of a significant sale and potentially but the block on more sales on an annual basis as this was the third IDW exclusive for Auto Assembly.

My initial anger over this has now dissipated and turned more to disappointment but as we've said, we're turning this into an opportunity to give our attendees a better convention, to give you all a fantastic comic which is already shaping up to be something pretty special and we're now able to offer everyone a litho which we are really excited about...

Bogatan

Have to say I am really disappointed, owning issue 333 is something the 11 year old me never expected to happen, but wished would. Issue 81 just isnt the same.

Whatever the reason Hasbro have, it certainly doesnt feel like it has anything to do with supporting the fandom and if this is just the start of of things it could be an interesting few months/years.

Dragonclaw

I totally agree Simes! I wonder if it would have been approved as a store exclusive that just happened to be offered at your shows rather than as a show exclusive

Simes

What I can't understand is that we have already had comics in 2009 and 2010 (so 2,000 comics ordered in total and both approved by Hasbro) and it was our intention to continue ordering these exclusives on an annual basis. At one point we were looking at our cut-off point for ticket sales this year along with our projected figures for Auto Assembly Europe and trying to decide whether we needed more than 1,000 but in the end we decided to limit all of our convention items (including our convention magazine and postcards) to 1,000 each but we were close to ordering more!

In the long-run, I don't know how many lost sales this is going to equate to for Hasbro and IDW, but we hope our own comic that we intend to produce (which no doubt will become an annual thing) will make up for this in some way. I've already seen part of it (we've got two stories completely written, one of which is just waiting for a colourist and the other is at the art / colourist stage) and some of the artwork is superb. We've got some IDW talent on board and people who have worked for a range of Transformers books professionally as well as other comic publishers so it's shaping up to be a great comic!