How did you discover TF comics in the 80s?

[roller]

How did people in Australia in the 80s find out about Tf comics? did you just walk into a newsagent one day and just decide to buy it?

were they released here before the cartoon?

If so, then how did kids know what tfs were?

[Paulbot]

Roller this is an interesting topic and not really a simple question so I've moved it here. I've got my story to type up and would be interested in what others recall too. It's a bit hazy for me.

[MV75]

How did people in Australia in the 80s find out about Tf comics? did you just walk into a newsagent one day and just decide to buy it?

were they released here before the cartoon?

If so, then how did kids know what tfs were?

Yes.

Not that I know of.

[Paulbot]

According to issue 78 of the UK comic, that was the first issue on sale in Australia. The Transmission page intro had a "g'day" in it. However other collectors remember buying earlier issues.

I was given UK issues 79 and 80 as a Christmas present which is what got me started and from then on kept checking out newsagents for more. The earliest US issue I personally recall seeing is #30 (and I started buying with #35) but earlier ones were probably here too.

There was also a special Australian only reprint of issues 1 to 4 of the US series (with some pages edited out) also on sale in the newsagents.

The progresssion to comics for me came after the colouring books and story books (and my increasing reading skills).

[TheDirtyDigger]

I'd seen some at Minotaur, which I've been going to since I was about 12, but I think it must have been the early 90's when I started reading it. I got on around issue 70 or 71 (from the newsagents) and just about as soon as I was on to it I was crushed to read in the back of one that it was winding up.
Apart from that crushing disappointment I was also a little miffed that for one issue of my short run they switched to another (and inferior) artist for the battle with Unicron.

[STL]

I discovered them first at a Sunday trash n treasure. For $1 I picked up two Gen2 and 2 Headmaster comics. It was not till many autumns later that I discovered TFarchive's listing of them online. That partially kept me interested in TFs. I then read Dreamwaves and loved the artwork/colour/modern sensibilities and that kept my interest in the TF franchise. Well, at least until I had disposable income. Then it all went down hill from there.

[GoktimusPrime]

How did people in Australia in the 80s find out about Tf comics? did you just walk into a newsagent one day and just decide to buy it?

Yup.

were they released here before the cartoon?

Pretty much, yeah.

If so, then how did kids know what tfs were?

Transformers were already quite popular before the cartoon came out (although admittedly the cartoon did increase the popularity a lot). The toys came first, then the comics, then the cartoon. My fandom pretty much worked in that order... I got a few TF toys in 1984, then started reading my friends' comics (didn't start collecting for myself until late 1985/early 1986), then the cartoon aired on TV. By 1990 I had a standing order at my local comic store.

Apart from that crushing disappointment I was also a little miffed that for one issue of my short run they switched to another (and inferior) artist for the battle with Unicron.

That's a rather... um... bold and controversial statement. Geoff Senior is widely considered to be the best G1 artist alongside Andrew Wildman according to fan votes in the now defunct annual Trannies awards.

IMO Senior has a really good sense of 'animation' in his artwork - evoking vivid movement and bringing a sense of motion to what is really a series of still images. He also pencils and inks all of his own stuff. The artwork in the US comics was consistently let down by shoddy colouring by Nelson Yomtov, who was just terrible... but you can see Senior's (and Wildman's) art a lot better in the UK comics. Senior's art looks better in black and white than in Yomtov-colour IMO.

[STL]

Yup.
That's a rather... um... bold and controversial statement. Geoff Senior is widely considered to be the best G1 artist alongside Andrew Wildman according to fan votes in the now defunct annual Trannies awards.

Not really. Andrew Wildman nor Geoff Senior rate much in my book. The TF fandom has expanded since and while the stories from that era are celebrated by fans, I think that there are modern sensibilities at play now and many of the returned fans of the last few years are more inclined to Don Figueroa style than a Senior one. There's been an evolution in Transformers art and I think it would be naive to ignore that. Senior was a product of his times but if he drew modern stuff, that would severely put many like myself off. Maybe its the older fans who will like him but I certainly feel they are creatures of the past.

IMO Senior has a really good sense of 'animation' in his artwork - evoking vivid movement and bringing a sense of motion to what is really a series of still images. He also pencils and inks all of his own stuff. The artwork in the US comics was consistently let down by shoddy colouring by Nelson Yomtov, who was just terrible... but you can see Senior's (and Wildman's) art a lot better in the UK comics. Senior's art looks better in black and white than in Yomtov-colour IMO.

Can't stand black and white. I like b&w to look at the artists raw details but generally I do not like buying a B&W unless it fits the book. Transformers needs to explode off the page. They're machines and futuristic. That's part of the appeal. Drab ol' B&W steal the life out of them.

[jacksplatt11]

To be honest, I didn't even know there were Transformers comics until the mid 90s when I got the first issue of Generation 2 from somewhere.. but then again, I was only born in 87

[STL]

To be honest, I didn't even know there were Transformers comics until the mid 90s when I got the first issue of Generation 2 from somewhere.. but then again, I was only born in 87

Maybe you're parents used TF comics for your diaper? If I recall correctly, we were having another recession around that time so you know they had to make ends meet.