The Transformers Comics Magazine

Back when $1.50 was outrageously expensive for a comic.

The Transformers Comic Magazine is a ten-issue, by-monthly digest size publication produced by Marvel Comics for the American newsstand and direct market from January 1987 to July 1988.

Priced at US$1.50 / CDN$1.75, each issue collected 2 issues of the Marvel Comics series along with character profiles from the Transformers Universe series, with only limited in-house advertisements. The ten issues produced covered the first 20 issues of the Transformers comic.

Trivia

Clearly the Reader's Digest Large Type version on the right.

• The covers of the digests, were re-colored closely adhering to the original layouts, probably for technical reasons related to the printing process used.
• The first four issues of the Digest carried blank inside covers and ran standard publishing information at the bottom of the first page. Starting at #5, the Digests moved to print a contents page on the inside cover, listing the issues of the comic reprinted and the editors involved. The inside back cover then depicted black and white art from previous issues.
• Digest #9's cover (pictured above) radically departed from the original coloring of issue #17. The hellish colors may have been considered inappropriate for the entry-level newsstand market. (The other issue in that edition, #18, featured a non-key background on its cover significantly more complicated to re-create than the other Digest re-colorings.)
• Advertisements in Transformers Digest imply The Transformers Comic was part of Marvel's Star Comics kid-oriented comic line. Transformers was never published under the Star imprint.