Simon Furman: More Than Meets The Eye

By Glenn Carter

Simon Furman was the writer for the bulk of the Marvel UK Transformers comics. He also created the character of Death's Head and wrote the limited series based on him and created and wrote the limited comic, Dragon's Claws, also for Marvel UK. Later, he contributed to the US Transformers comics and the animated series, Transformers: Beast Wars.

I recently bumped into him at an event in Thetford and he agreed to answer a few questions for SBC relating to work past and present, and the forthcoming trade paperbacks of the UK Transformers comic.


Past work


GLENN CARTER: Have you seen the sheer amount of websites devoted to the Transformers comics (and your writing on it)? Why do you think there is still this amount of interest?

SIMON FURMAN: At first, circa early 1997, I was amazed to see just what a web presence TF had, but as I became more actively involved in the whole TF world again I remembered just how loyal and dedicated the fans were. Just because I'd filed it under past work , didn't mean the fans had. It was great to see how much interest the stuff I'd written still generated, in terms of discussion, dissemination and fan fiction follow-up. I think what's kept it fresh, other than the whole Beast Wars/Beast Machines TV/toy line, is that the basic story set-up and follow through on TF was and always has been so good. Great characters, committed development, well thought-out story arcs, it's not hard to see why people became so fiercely and enduringly loyal.

GC: Many people I have spoken to here (UK) have stated that one of the comics they read as a kid was Transformers? Do you think that Transformers served as a starting point, if you like, into the world of comics?

SF: I'm sure that TF set a lot of people on the road to mainstream comics reading. But it doesn't necessarily follow that because someone read and enjoyed TF as a kid, that they would naturally gravitate to more "serious" comics as they grew older. One thing that's clear is, in a vast majority of cases, the people who started out reading TF stayed loyal to it, even if they didn't actively realize it themselves. The recent retro-cool feel of 80s culture and the newly resurgent profile of TF, has meant a whole lot more people are remembering just how good this stuff actually was, myself included.

GC: Also, what influence do you think it has had?

SF: Certainly among TF fans, the TF comic (UK and US) had a huge influence. The endless debates about continuity, the comic versus the cartoon series, the fan fiction spin-offs. Some of this stuff was written fifteen or more years ago, and still I get questions about it. When it really comes home, though, is when I hear from fans how TF got them interested in writing themselves. It's great to think you've produced something that really meant something then and continues to do so to this day.

GC: Did you like the American transformers that were coming out at the same time as you were writing the UK comics? Did you have to refer to them a lot in order to synchronize the storylines? Did this cause you any difficulties?

SF: We had to do a lot of story looping between the UK and US comic. TF UK both reprinted the US stories and ran new UK-originated material, so it all had to work seamlessly. Because the UK comic was first fortnightly and then weekly, the available US material was used up fairly rapidly, and while we waited for more to accumulate we inserted the UK stories. All the UK stories had to spin out from where we left off in the US comic (and then flow back into what was actually the next issue, US-wise). This called for a lot of creative writing, picking up on any loose story threads, unseen action or background stuff, spinning it into major story arcs. Once we had the movie characters it was a lot easier, as they didn't feature in the US comic at all. Cue lots of time-travel stories.

The only time we actively re-fitted US continuity was the whole Bumblebee becomes Goldbug scenario. In the US story, he was destroyed and rebuilt by the G.I. Joe team, in ours (because we weren't running the G.I. Joe crossover series, and in the UK G.I. Joe was Action Force) he was destroyed by Death's Head and re-built by Wreck-Gar.

GC: Was there any main difference between working for Marvel UK and Marvel USA?

SF: When I was working on both the US and UK comics it was a lot more straightforward. But in terms of my approach to the stories and storylines, nothing much differed. As soon as I could, I pulled in the whole Unicron/Galvatron angle, plus my version of their origin (including Primus as their god ). I guess, if anything, I just amped up the whole scale of the conflict once I got the free rein that came with working on the US title and steering the whole comics saga.

GC: Why was Generation 2 aborted so rapidly?

SF: Generation 2 just simply didn't have the legs that the original TF had. By this point, the focus of attention had moved off TF to a great extent. The market wasn't there, and at this time Marvel were axing any book that wasn't selling comfortably above break-even. Still, I m proud of and pleased with Gen 2, in the available time and issues we did some neat stuff.

GC: As a young reader, I read Dragon's Claws avidly, why was there never a follow up to that?

SF: No, there never really was any follow up to Dragon's Claws. It's a shame, I d have loved to do more.

GC: Did you find that writing for Transformers was restrictive, given the age range it was aimed at?

SF: I never felt restricted by TF, I simply approached it as I would any project. Tell good stories, balance action with interaction, construct parallel story arcs, build interesting and well-layered characters, and never, ever, write down just because it's pitched (at least initially) at a younger age-group. I often feel [that] these kind of market research groups get it wrong when they started age-bracketing a concept. Unless it's pitched pre-school, then in my book you write it at the same level regardless of age. And these days, kids are even more sophisticated. You treat 'em like idiots, they won't come back for more.

GC: Did the fact that the comic was based on a range of toys interfere with or impose
limitations on the content of the comics particularly?

SF: The flipside is that, yes, sometimes when you're dealing with a toy range it can limit what you can do, or the type of stories you can get into. Certainly at first, you had to feature certain characters, introduce new lines to coincide with the toy releases. The stories can end up looking forced, or cluttered with characters introduced for no really compelling reason. With TF, that slight drawback became less telling as the series progressed.

GC: What was your favorite story/comic/issue to work on?

SF: It's hard to pin down favorites, but of the UK strips I d have to go with "Target 2006" and the whole "Wanted: Galvatron Dead or Alive" arc that began in issue #113. I also really liked the short two-part Nightbeat story, with him as a Private Eye. Great fun. US-wise, the run of comics #69-80 is still what I consider to be my finest work, right across all the comics I've written for.


The present


GC: What are you currently working on? Have you got any comics-related work lined up?

SF: To be honest, I hardly do comics at all these days. Most of the work these days is for TV animation (Dan Dare, X-Men: Evolution, Roswell Conspiracies and a new series still too much in-development to elaborate on at the moment). Beyond this stuff, I've just completed a non-fiction companion book for an upcoming Channel 4 series called Extinct! and written a new TF story called "Alignment" for this year's Transforce convention.

The other main focus of my current work is on the web project that Andrew Wildman and myself have been developing. It s called The Engine: Industrial Strength and it can be viewed
at www.whorunstheengine.net. I guess it s about as close as I get these days to comics work, but even then it's not really a comic. It's illustrated, there are speech bubbles, but it operates more like an interactive novel. The concept centres on an Earth where the Industrial Revolution never ended, never downsized, and now society teeters on the brink of collapse, dependent on energy-gobbling machines the size of cities. The Engine are a group of freelance mechanical troubleshooters, drawn into an inter-dimensional intrigue and then all-out war. There's a whole lot of amazing hardware, transforming (yes!) suits and kick-ass action, all rendered in an amazing mix of 3D/CG and 2D artwork. Go check it out.

GC: You're also working for Titan Books at the moment. What do you do there?

SF: On the Titan side of things, I edit and supervise their growing range of graphic novels (It's no coincidence they're doing collections of the TF comic material). It s cool, because apart from anything else, it keeps me in touch with the comics world and the people who work in it.

GC: What changes do you think have occurred in the comics world over the last 10 years?

SF: The comics scene is always changing, and so it should. At the moment, it has a little more focus, a desire to be something that non-comics fans can appreciate. Story has again become paramount (after a lot of emphasis on wild, splashy art), and that can only be a good thing.

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