Simon Furman

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This article is about . For other uses of "Simon", see Simon (disambiguation)|The name or term "Simon" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see Simon (disambiguation).}}
But... but Swoop is neither vast nor predatory nor even a bird! What is he playing at?

British comic book writer Simon Christopher Francis Furman (born March 22, 1961<ref>Interview at Ben Yee's website</ref>) is probably the most well-known of all Transformers comics scribes, and certainly the most prolific. He wrote most of the UK-original comic stories of Generation 1, as well as the latter 1/3rd of the US comic run, and has been author on innumerable Transformers tales since. As a result, he is often the first, last, and occasionally only resort in penning Transformers literature, with a deep involvement in a wide variety of product. He's admitted this has left him typecast and his non-Transformers work gets overlooked, but he's stated he stopped struggling against the association years ago and gives thanks for the opportunities and steady income it's given him.<ref>Interview at Mindless Ones blog</ref>

He has also written and created many non-Transformers characters, including Death's Head, "Dragon's Claws", and "To the Death" with Geoff Senior, "Brute Force" with José Delbo, and "The Vigilant" with Simon Coleby. He was an editor at Titan Books, which published collections of Transformers comics among other material, and at Tokyopop he 'localised' a translation of a sci-fi gothic romance manga. We're not joking.<ref>Austin Texas Library entry for DOLL Volume 1</ref> He was good at it too. <ref>Sunday Comics: Tokyopop's Bubble Bursts: "Mihara’s other Gothic works were a popular mainstay of Tokyopop’s Manga line, thanks to Simon Furman’s translation, who was a writer for Transformers. He gave the disassociated vibe of those protagonists such a realistic feel"</ref>

In his spare time, Furman enjoys drinking Corona and killing off hordes of background characters. And Nightbeat. He's also a fan of West Ham United football club,<ref>Interview on Transfans.co.uk</ref> which perhaps explains his bloodlust.

{{#if:Simon Furman's first question upon being brought on to write for Beast Wars<ref>BotCon 2002 appearance</ref>|
“ Who can I kill? ”
{{#if:Simon Furman's first question upon being brought on to write for Beast Wars<ref>BotCon 2002 appearance</ref>|

—Simon Furman's first question upon being brought on to write for Beast Wars<ref>BotCon 2002 appearance</ref>{{#if:|, {{{3}}}}}

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Work on Transformers

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The Simon Furman of early 1985, when I was first asked to write for the UK Transformers comic, would have probably said "pull the other one" if you'd told me I'd still be involved with Transformers more than thirty years later{{#if:|{{{quote2}}}}}{{#if:Furman talking to Vice<ref>Vice interview on Earth Wars</ref>|Furman talking to Vice<ref>Vice interview on Earth Wars</ref>{{#if:|, {{{3}}}|}}|}}
Never did want to have hair forever!

Furman almost drifted into Transformers, being asked early on to pitch some ideas when they needed new strip fast; he only had an 'in' here because he'd recently left IPC and joined Marvel UK thanks to his friend Ian Rimmer. He quickly became the Transformers guy at Marvel UK, also working as assistant editor for years before becoming the editor and writing letters pages until 1989 when he went onto just writing the scripts. (It was his idea to make Soundwave the first letters' host)<ref>The Transformers Classics UK Volume 1, page 14</ref> Despite this, he hadn't actually wanted to be the editor of the comic after Rimmer as he'd just started editing the new Thundercats comic; his bosses made it clear he was moving title.<ref>The Transformers Classics UK Volume 4, page 10</ref> Around 1989, he went on to be Bob Budiansky's hand-picked replacement for the US title (as Furman actually knew who all these characters were) and wrote it until it ended. When a Generation 2 comic was wanted a few years later, Furman went back for a year but didn't expect it to last.

His post-Marvel return to Transformers came courtesy of BotCon 1997: not only was he a guest expected to answer questions he couldn't remember the answers to, there was this thing called a "Beast Wars" they wanted him to write a short comic about. He quickly had to get back into the swing of things. After the Botcon material (and the last episode of Beast Wars gained via con networking), he'd work for Titan Books and brought to them the idea of Transformers reprints as the conventions he was being invited to proved there was money in it. He would then contact Dreamwave once he'd heard they had the license. <ref>The Great Derelict 58:00 to 1:02:50, discussing Botcon, Titan, and Dreamwave</ref> Thus, he was linked forever more with the franchise.

Contrary to the popular opinion that he is an outspoken critic of the Generation 1 cartoon series, Furman has stated in an interview that he loves the series. He explained that when he was involved with the Marvel comic books as a twenty-something-year-old writer, he thought the show was pitched a little young and that the stories were simplistic and had huge logic flaws, but conceded that he saw them from a different perspective than the generation that grew up watching the cartoon and buying the toys as kids, and so he concentrated on his work, which he believed was more "adult" in tone. He added that, in hindsight, he went back to watch the series and now really enjoys it, particularly Season 2's strong character stories. When he wrote for Marvel comics, he was averse to episodes that dealt with the character back-stories because they clashed with his own back-stories and also caused him to worry that he wasn't presenting the characters as intended. But now he had the freedom to take the series as a viewer and admire the way they were building upon their own mythos.

In the same interview, he thought the 1986 animated movie was "fantastic", and one of his stated reasons was that "characters died."<ref>Simon Furman's interview on Madman Entertainment's Beast Wars Season 3 DVD set</ref>

In terms of other Transformers media, he's a big fan of Transformers Animated, saying it's the best cartoon since Beast Wars,<ref>July 4, 2008 blog post</ref> despite a relative lack of violent deaths. While he liked Wars, he stated in an interview that he considers Beast Machines to be too dark for a children's cartoon.<ref>"The Last 'Action' Hero"</ref> He's not a fan of the movies either, believing they throw out characterisation and story, though he happily admits he's not the audience for them. He still admires the technical side of the films and Michael Bay's vision.<ref>Interview at Mindless Ones blog</ref>

A list of all of the issues written by Furman's hand would be overkill; even the list of titles he's worked on is considerable:

Alternate mode

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When Furman became the editor of the UK Transformers comic with issue #121,<ref>Titan Books' Transformers: Legacy of Unicron, says Furman's takeover was "business as usual for the first few issues, which reprinted US issues 28-29", thereby implying that Rimmer left in issue #120 and "Francis" started in issue #121.</ref> it opened up a dilemma, as Marvel policy, enforced by Marvel US editor-in-chief Tom DeFalco, frowned on editors serving as their own writers. To circumvent this problem, it was agreed that senior editor (and frequent Transformers letterer) Richard Starkings would serve in an advisory capacity on Furman's own strips.<ref>Starkings, Richard "Prophetic Words" in Transformers: Dark Designs trade paperback (London; Titan Books, 2002), page 4.</ref> When an editorial credit for the comic as a whole was required, Furman used the credit "Chris Francis", derived from his middle names.<ref>Unknown author "Transformers UK" in Second Generation Trade paperback (London; Titan Books, 2004), page 6.</ref> As far as Starkings was concerned, however, it was an open secret – in his Action Force title, he happily credited Furman as the editor of Transformers.<ref>"Mail Call!" in Action Force issue 28 (cover date 12th September 1987): "TRANSFORMERS is edited by stubby Simon Furman (with a script-editing assist from Marvel UK's Managing Editor Jenny O'Connor)."</ref> Furman was succeeded by Euan Peters from issue #208 onwards.<ref>Issue #208's Transformation page.</ref>

Fiction

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Dreamwave Armada comic

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The flesh creature known as Simon Furman pleased Unicron with his accurate depiction of Unicron's omnipotent magnificence. Letters page for "The End"

Titan movie comics

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According to Starscream, Furman was a Maximal disguised as a "strategically shaved ape. Especially on his head." #7's Star Screams When Starscream captured the Titan offices, only Furman escaped capture and was still at large, with a vast amount of intelligence regarding nucleon. #21's Star Screams

The Autobots, however, were not much nicer. When Furman was writing his alternate universe tale, Ironhide "made sure" that it would have an Autobot-friendly ending... #12's Law and Disorder

Ask Vector Prime

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Simon Furman was a Maximal because they had a better dental plan than the Predacons. Ask Vector Prime, 16/6/2015 He was identified as a wielder of the Quill, which allowed him to evade death. Vector Prime identified him as the one who had charted many of their destinies, which raises a lot of strange metafictional questions. Ask Vector Prime, 10/8/2015

Classics

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When an alternate Ultra Magnus threatened to destroy Earth with the power of his Terminus Blade, Simon Furman was stuck in a collapsing building in Canada. Invasion

Female Transformers

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Simon Furman has traditionally not been a fan of Female Transformers or the idea of gendering Transformers at all, stating on several occasions that he doesn't understand why robots would have women.<ref>"Arcee-a-Go-Go": "Well, I’ve always been fairly outspoken about the redundancy of ‘female’ Transformers (or ‘fembots’). It’s not a sexist thing, it’s just that they’re robots."</ref> Subsequently he's attempted to explain it in Marvel UK (which inherited Arcee from the 1986 film) and at IDW, but both stories have been pretty awkward. "Prime's Rib!" for Marvel said she was built after a feminist mob had protested about a lack of female Cybertronians, while Arcee's origin in the 2005 IDW continuity attempted "to apply a rationale to the whole issue"<ref>"Arcee-a-Go-Go"</ref> by saying Jhiaxus had introduced gender to the race. That was unfortunately shown by having Arcee as a genderless Cybertronian that was forcibly changed into a female gendered form, traumatizing her.

His insistence that Cybertronians are genderless, not male by default, extended to a post he wrote<ref>http://simonfurman.wordpress.com/2013/12/29/response-to-mairghread-scott/</ref> in response to a blog post by Mairghread Scott discussing other female Transformers in IDW, wherein she stated that she understood that Arcee's origin could be seen as offensive to women, especially those who are transgender. The two authors later talked in private and settled the beef.

Outside of their origins, Furman's female 'bots are written the same as their male counterparts.

In 2016, during an interview with Vice, Furman said they "almost certainly" "could/should" have done better with female Transformers in the 1980s but views it as a different time and audience and that he doubted he'd do it differently now. When it came to the recent work, he said he applauded what had been done "and done well" with female characters. <ref>Vice interview on Earth Wars</ref>

Comic bibliography

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Marvel Comics

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  • Marvel UK #13–21, 29–32, 45–50, 59–65, 74–88, 96–104, 113–120, 125, 130–138, 146–153, 160–161, 164–173, 182–189, 198–205, 213–332
  • Marvel US #56–80
  • Generation 2 #1–12

3H Productions

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Dreamwave Productions

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Panini Comics

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IDW Publishing

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Titan Magazines/Titan Comics

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Atari

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Madman Entertainment

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Million Publishing/Henkei! Henkei!

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Bibliography

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3H Productions

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DK Publishing

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Titan Books

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  • Transformers: The Art of the Movies (canceled)

Voice Roles

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Convention appearances

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Notes

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See also

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Editorial staff of Marvel Comics' The Transformers
Marvel U.S. editors
Marvel U.S.
editors-in-chief
Marvel UK editors
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Interviews

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References

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