Hasbro Transformers Collectors' Club (magazine)

Combined cover of the five limited collected editions of the TFCC magazine.

As part of the official fan club, license-holder Fun Publications published a bi-monthly magazine titled the Hasbro Transformers Collectors' Club from 2005 to 2016. The magazine included stories, interviews, previews of upcoming toys, fan art, character bios and comics. Some issues also included a one-page tie-in prologue or comic to upcoming Timelines text stories.

Regular features

Story-arc comics

Six pages of each magazine were devoted to an ongoing comic story. These stories tended to be devoted to current toylines or exclusives and were split into six parts (or, in one case, seven), with one year of magazines being a single 36-page story. The first five years followed a band of dimension-hopping travellers. The next three were set in the Wings Universe, and the last four were relatively standalone.

The annual story arcs were as follows:

• "Balancing Act"/"Revelations", set in the Cybertron cartoon continuity.
• "Crossing Over", set in the "Classicsverse", one extension of the Marvel Comics continuity.
• "Transcendent", set in the TransTech continuity.
• "Reunification", set in the Shattered Glass continuity.
• "The Coming Storm"/"Battle Lines"/"A Flash Forward", set in the Wings Universe continuity.
• "Beast Wars Shattered Glass", set in the Shattered Glass continuity but featuring Classicsverse characters sporting beast modes.
• "Alone Together", set in the Beast Wars: Uprising continuity.
• "Another Light", set in the Shattered Glass continuity post-"Invasion" featuring Shattered Glass and Classics characters.
• "Of Masters and Mayhem", set in a new Generation 1 universe featuring Classics humans and Pretenders.

More information can be found on their individual pages.

Mini-comics

Several humour strips were published in the magazine at the beginning of its run.

• Another Con, an intermittent humour comic by Pete Sinclair and Rob Meyer featured in #2, #5 and #10.
• Lil' Jerry, a photocomic by Pete Sinclair featured in #6-9.
• Robot Parade, a comic by Matthew Karpowich, Andrew Sorohan, and David Willis, one lonely strip of was published in #10.
• Mini Mayhem!, a photocomic by Jesse Wittenrich which appeared in #10-15, #19-30 and #39.
• Lil Formers, a super-deformed comic by Matt Moylan which appeared in #11-15, #17, #18, #20 and #21.

Starting with issue #23, every magazine's back cover ran a variety of features which varied from issue to issue. Common features included reviews, fanart, bios, and more mini-comics including the following:

• Around Cybertron, a comic by Jesse Wittenrich which ran from #23-#40.
• Recordicons, a comic by David Willis featuring Shattered Glass Ravage which ran from #34-59 and #61-63.
• Transformers I.Q., a Transformers trivia quiz in comic format which appeared in #43-59.
• Hot Shot's Bot Thoughts, a feature by David Willis where Armada Hot Shot interviews various 'bots which ran from #61-63
• Bot on the Street, another feature by David Willis where various Transformers are briefly interviewed which ran from #61-63
• SD SG (standing for 'Super Deformed Shattered Glass'), a comic by Josh Perez which appeared in #65-71

Story previews

The magazine would sometimes feature previews for upcoming Transformers Timelines text stories, either in the form of prose or comics. Some of them would not be included in the online stories - see the individual pages for more information.

• "The Dark Heart of Sandokan" preview (#11)
• "The Dark Heart of Sandokan" prologue (#13)
• "The Razor's Edge" prologue (#14)
• "The Wreckers: Finale Part 1" (#16)
• "Gone Too Far" preview comic (#19)
• "Withered Hope" preview comic (#20)
• "I, Lowtech" preview comic (#21)
• "Dungeons & Dinobots" prologue (#22)
• "At Fight's End" 3-page preview comic (#30)
• "Hoist the Flag" story preview (#56)
• "Broken Windshields" prologue (#61)

Other

• "The Transformers Menagerie" (#49-51, #53-54)
• "The Beast Wars Road Map" (#70)
• "A Change to the Agenda" (#70)
• "Epilogue" (#72)

Character profiles

Profiles were published in various formats, some in the style of Dreamwave's Transformers: More than Meets the Eye, some as short write-ups, and some as Tech Specs. Generally speaking the longer, More than Meets the Eye-style profiles were devoted to characters appearing in that year's comic or the upcoming BotCon issue. Why did this matter? Well, these bios were often one of the main sources of fiction for the characters and toys they cover, filling in gaps between various appearances in other stories. This is particularly the case for many of the Mini-Cons, which would receive almost no characterisation without them.

These profiles had a slow start, with just fifteen published in the first two years of the magazine. These covered basically all of the main characters from Balancing Act and Revelations. Quickslinger's bio wasn't a More than Meets the Eye-style one, but rather a short preview for the custom how-to feature which would appear in issue #7. When the main story arc changed universe in 2007, so too did the profiles. Slag and the Headmasters got profiles in #22. When Beast Wars Shattered Glass and Another Light brought some Classics characters back to the fore, they started getting profiles again starting with issue #50. Grimlock has the unique distinction of being given three different profiles as part of three different storylines! Two profiles were each published in #22-24 of the magazine as part of "The World of... TRANSTECH," which featured a unique design and layout but was textually almost indistinguishable from the regular More than Meets the Eye profiles. A few lowtech denizens of Axiom Nexus got normal profiles later: Blackarachnica and Topspin in #25; "Hero Prime" and Depth Charge in #49; Rhinox in #54. The Shattered Glass profiles deviated from the typical "one page per character" layout for the first time. The profiles ran at a fairly consistent two-per-issue during 2010-2012's Wings Universe storyline.

Starting with issue #13, profiles for Mini-Cons were published on the "Micro-Sized" page of the magazine. The "Micro-Sized" banner was dropped for the issues featuring the Classics Mini-Cons. This feature ended with #18, but Whisper got a full More than Meets the Eye-style profile in issue #25 and three more Mini-Cons received small profiles on the back pages of issues #31-33.

In issues #13 and #14, profiles for the MCSF from "Theft of the Golden Disk" were published. Stopgap's profile was the exception to this; it was instead added to the members-only section of the Club website. The last two MCSF members, Nitrostreak and Tigatron, didn't get profiles as they only appeared in "Dawn of Future's Past".

Transformers Animated Tech Specs written by Derrick J. Wyatt were published starting with ten in issue #24 and two in each of issues #25-30. Six new Tech Specs and four reprints were published years later in issue #71.

For further information, see: Transformers Timelines (fiction)/profiles