United Kingdom's Animated Comic to be Discontinued by Titan

im not sure if any of you have recieved the same letter in the post i have about the transformers animated comic, but apparently they are making no more after issue 3 and cutting the comic 9 issues short.


instead they have changed my subscription to the other transformers magazine rather than a refund, here the letter if anyone wants to see, even though it just looks like i printed it off
http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/6472/image150ne8.jpg

ah man that sucks, titan animated was just getting interesting

Maybe IDW could do a special issue featuring the strips from this comic?

Shit.

Not surprised - or saddened - at all, and this coming as a major TF comics fan.

Both Titan comics have been hugely disappointing. The Movie comic - with it's 6-7 paged reprints, which spread an entire mini-series over a year, are pathetic. Such small chunks were annoying on a weekly basis back in the 1980s - now they try and do it monthly?

What's most disappointing is the amount of people who worked on the 1980s version and now this version; you'd think they would remember something about how to make it great.

Format of the Animated comic was also poor. And what was there thinking - did they really think TWO TF comics in the UK market would survive? Right from the start, they should have had just one comic, and when Animated come along, print original strip alongside original Movie strip. Yes, two original UK stories per issue. Unreasonable? Well, that would equate to 22 pages of original per month. The same as a US comic. Plus, there'd still be plenty of space left to massacre Megatron: Origins, Beast Wars or whatever else they want.

Oh, and get another writer. Sorry, Mr Furman - you were a God amongst two-dimensional robots once, but come on... Unicron again!?!?! Did you not get enough of the blasting when you became a joke for using him too many times in the past!?!?

As much as I never followed the Animated comic, this really sucks for those who do.

they should atleast give the option of a refund

Not surprised. I used to love Furman, but lately it feels like his stuff has been getting tired..At least in my opinion. The infiltration saga was ok i guess, but really, i've got better hopes for Shane Mccarthy now and his frankly awesome 'all hail Megatron' series. The animated comic was poorly written, badly researched, full of moments with things the actual character would never say, do, or think, and i just felt like it was a playground for the writer rather than the fans. I realise its for kids most of all, but so is the animated cartoon..And it felt like they were the same in name only. The american IDW animated comic has captured the essence perfectly. Anyway, i've had my rant. Oh, and Furman..Stop picking on Runabout and Runamuck! Not that im a fan of them, but throughout the years its become pretty noticable he does'nt like them.

Not bothered too much, this never looked that interesting to me at all.

Furman was using Unicron in Animated?!?!

megalolz if true

Not in Animated, no (Furman only wrote one of the three published UK Animated stories), but over in the Movie comic, yes, Unicron's reared his head.

He doesn't?

If comic death = hatred, then James McDonough and Adam Patyk seem to hate them more, given they died twice in the Dreamwave comics they wrote

Where can I see how the covers of the first 3 issues look like?

ah, I thought it sucked anyway

I'm not surprised - I said back when the UK Animated comic came out that one of the two wouldn't last long. Kinda surprised it's the Animated one getting nixed (and so soon after launch), but then I guess with the new movie coming and Animated supported by Hasbro in the UK about as much as a matchstick supports a house that the Animated one would make more sense to call it a day on and concentrate on pushing the better known movie brand.

I did notice that the movied TF comic has gone up in price with the latest issue though, not that there was any mention of it within the issues as far as I remember. I'm assuming that's for the cost of printing it because it certainly isn't likely to go on improving the quality. Don't they get enough cash from the many full page adverts in it and pages pimping non-TF products (although reviewed by Bumblebee to try and make them relevant)?

It's a shame that a part of having TF's name out there is ending, but they really should've just added more Animated stuff to the already exisiting comic and made that more worthwhile instead.

Wow, that was a short run, shorter than the Armada series.

I quite liked the Animated Comic. The main strip was usually decent, the activity pages were fun and pretty much the only complaint I have was the backup strip, just stills taken from a TV episode.

But yeah, they really should have combined the Animated Comic with the Movie one. Having said that the Movie comic is utterly dire. The new Movie strips are set in an alternative dimension so Furman doesn't feel constrained? Don't get me wrong, I loved Furmans old stuff, but the alternative dimension schtick is just lazy. Back in the day the UK strips bent over backward to fit into continuity, but this time around its just tries to set its own continuity?

Which leads me to me other point, all these different TF continuitys will kill off the franchise. I think Hasbro are trying a Power Rangers approach with all the different PR series, but as far as I know, theres never more than one PR series at a time?

Hasbro are trying what, 3 at the same time? Movie Continuity? Animated Continuity? Universe/G1 continuity? And Furman tried to shoe horn in Movie B continuity? Where the hero Sam is actually already dead? WTF was he smoking?

Kids have a very short attention span. If it looks like a Transformer, changes like a Transformer, and has a comic like a Transformer, Kids still won't recognise it because it doesn't look like the 2007 film.

Which leads me to my next point, kids today! blahblahblahblahblahblah...

Hah, I'm glad the Animated one is gone, the art was horrid in it.
Glad the movie one is still chugging away, i'm sure the release of ROTF will further it's success.

not surprised... not after they made that tomato ketchup monster and tried to pass it off as sideswipe

tobad

Quite so indeed! I just dont like it when certain characters are picked to be the punching bag, because after all, that character is somebody's favourite . All except Waspinator who is loved because he's a punching bag, and wheelie, whom everybody hates anyway

Except Klaus Scherwinski, that is.

It's a shame but the art sucked, Furmans writing skills for Animated totally sucked, and the Hasbro UK couldn't care less 'bout Animated. And by the point about Furman, come on you had Sari say Afterburn was DREAMY! You also had a fat earthquake maker who had A STUPID MOUSTACHE who talked in two different forms. One last thing, Afterburn's nickname was "Squeaky clean Afterburn" REALLY.
Well that now ends my rant, goodnight.

Yes, that made me wince too

I think Simon Furman only wrote the first strip, though I might be wrong.

I'll miss the comic. It was not that bad, though to be honest, I do prefer the Movie comic. The alternate continuity is a lot of fun, and some of the characters are really starting to shine. Like Stockade, I love how he has been handled in the last few issues. Starts out a tough guy, but then you see a character who is every bit as dedicated to saving Cybertron as the Autobots. A true "if things were different, I might have called you friend" guy.

Sorry to hear this. I was holding out for reprints(I think oversize magazine printing makes the art look worse than it is), but we'll have to wait and see if this happens now .

Personally I think they never should have had a seperate comic from the start. They should merge it with the Movie comic, and cut out the fluff.

Thats a new record, even Generation 2 lasted five issues! Sales must have been REALLY bad! I have all three issues but I was not very keen so im kinda glad its finished so I can have a complete collection but not have to waste money on it anymore. May sound stupid that I would have kept buying it even though I didnt like it but I try to have a complete UK Transformer comic collection.
I quite like the UK movie comic strip. I would have prefered they reprint the movie prequel or sequel comics though or at least in a annual.

No, Unicron is being used for the Trnsformers' movie comic by Titan issues #18 and #19 and so on.

Ah well, I know the first few issues weren't up to much, but I was hoping it was going to pick up steam and have more original content.

Never mind, at least I have the complete set, heheh.

I'm not really interested in the movie comics, so I'm glad I never subscribed.

Which is fine, except he's done it plenty of times before - the most notable being Scorponok in the later issues of the Marvel US series. The idea of a "noble" bad guy has been done lots, as has the bad guys joining forces with the good 'bots (not just Unicron, but also the Quintessons in "Space Pirates", The G2 guys against the Swarm etc).

That's the problem with Furman (esp. these days). Repetition of ideas/sticking to "safe" themes and characters he's comfortable with (though granted, he's made a bit of an effort with the "Spotlights").
He was mocked a lot during the Dreamwave days for his obsession with Grimmers (it was almost Mary Sue-esque the way he made Grimlock so "super cool" and "badazzzz", back-talking etc). His over-reliance on Unicron too.

I just think he needs to gracefully step aside from his monopoly (well, he's being pushed now by IDW but still...) of TF series and lets have some fresh blood in there.