Transformers comic artist and all round top bloke Andy Wildman sent out an appeal this week for Transformers fans everywhere to sign a petition for IDW that could see Transformers #81 go into production. Andy and Simon Furman worked on the last of the Marvel Transformers comics in the 80s, when comics were really comics, and the story was kinda finished in a rush. Now, after all this time, it looks as though there’s a chance for that story to continue.

Have a read of what Andy says below, and then sign the petition overe here.

There is a bit of a buzz at the moment on the interenet about there being a Transformers #81. Thought I would add my perspective on this.

A while ago myself and Simon Furman considered the idea of picking up where we left off with the old Marvel Comics run of Transformers. For me it came about because after doing a series of six covers IDW asked me to do some interior art for their Transformers book. I wasn’t particularly interested in doing any so they asked me what it would take to do some. Well the obvious amswer would be copious amounts of dallar 😉 but to be honest it wasn’t about that. It was more to do with the fact that I was happy to just do cover art for Transformers and that I am busy doing other stuff these days. I gave it some thought though and put to them that it would be possible under a couple of conditions. First was that I would want to work with Simon Furman. Second was that we would want to do something that had a point. Something that felt like it was really saying something. I came up with the gist of an idea and put it to Simon. He ran with it and things began to take shape. What was clear was that it fitted well into the continuity of our old Marvel run. IDW agreed that there is precedent for this with the fact that GI Joe recently picked up on Larry Hama’s old Marvel story threads. So. An idea took shape and we almost had it until the current economic siutation put the breaks on it.

So where are we now? Well it is clear that IDW are not resistant to the idea but in these current times of relatively low comics sales they would need to feel confident that it would sell.

So what can be done about it? If you are interested, sign the petition that is going about. Get enough names on that and it would clearly be a viable project. Of course it remains to be seen who would draw it as there are other interested parties but I think it is safe to say that Simon would love to get his teeth into it.

Roll Out!