TRANSFORMERS IN GERMANY

Here is something I wrote about German Transformers comics a long time ago. I've send the first version to a Dutch fanzine. I've finally translated the piece and added more pictures from comics and video tapes.

Thanks to an anonymous DutchBotter for some extra info!

This article is about the translated Transformers comics published in Germany at the end of the eigties and beginning of the nineties. There isn't much info on the web about comics published outside of the UK or USA, so that's why I first made this article a couple of years ago for a Dutch fanzine. I have some more info and pictures now, I'll talk about Dutch comics a next time.

As I live about five minutes from the German border I always went shopping every 2 months or so back then. If I was lucky the bookstore had the newest Transformers issue at hand. I actually managed to get most issues this way, a couple I missed I found later on Ebay. I still miss issues 1 and 6 of the bi-minthly series though.

I don't know why this is, but for some reason these comics looked extremely cheaply. They were printed on magazine size and had very decent paper, but the colours looked way too bright and the covers often were a mix match of strangely drawn Transformers and some humans. For some reason the covers always were drawn by someone else. Why they didn't use the much better looking original covers is a riddle to me. Every page had the title of the magazine below the page and in the middle of the magazine were a lot of puzzles and games, not always having to do anything with Transformers though. You could clearly see these comics were made for very little kids. During the years they printed a lot of US and UK stories, but they missed the best stories by Furman at the end of the US series completely.

The first series started in 1986 and ran (as far as I know) for 3 issues, it printed the original US issues 1 to 4. In 1990 a bi-montly series started which first translated some US comics and then went to the UK ones. A good move, since the UK comics were also magazine sized. The order of the stories wasn't that great though. This series ended in 1992, a year after the US series stopped. Every issue had a news page talking about any new toys or VHS tapes in Germany, or had contests.

There were a lot of other series too. A pocketbook series, which ran for 4 issues. This started where the American translated comics in the bi-monthly series stopped. There also was a quarterly series with more random UK stories and a couple of trade paperback like books which collected the German comics itself.

At the beginning of the nineties the Transformers craze worldwide was over, but in Germany it was still a very popular line. Toyshops still had lots of Transformers toys and these magazines seemed to have sold very well too. The cartoon had a rerun on the RTL+ channel and hasbro Germany was very active in promotion of the line. In 1990 they started the Transformers Super club. For 10 German Marks you became a member. I got a memebership card, button , three postcards , and a lot of GIJoe and Transformers leaflets in the mail every now and then. They wrote in the membership form, that they wanted to do some special thing, but it never happened. After a couple of months I got a letter with apologies, the newest issue of Transformers AND my 5 DMarks back! I thought that was really nice of them.

Click here for a 1984 toy ad that pictures Jetfire as the Autobot leader, something that also happened in the Netherlands

Let's have a look at most of the comics that came out. As always, if I'm missing something, let me know (adress is on the main page)

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"DIE TRANSFORMER"
These were the first three German comics and came out in 1986. They collect the first American mini series.
nr. 1 1989 USA 1/2
nr. 2 1989 USA 2/3
nr. 3 1989 USA 3/4

"TRANSFORMERS COMIC MAGAZIN"
This is the normal TF magazine. It was 32 pages and came out every 2 months. The first 6 issues had 22 pages of American comics filled with 10 pages of puzzles and trivia. From no.7 on they wisely translated the UK stories. Before the series started in January of 1990, the publisher Condor, published a "Leser probe", a free magazine to test the interest for the series. It contains USA issue no.5 and is the first picture below.
All comics are translated by Robert Manns in German.
nr. 1 1989 USA 5 (10 blz.) / USA 6 (20 blz.)
nr. 2 1989 USA 14
nr. 3 1989 USA 15
nr. 4 1989 USA 16
nr. 5 1989 USA 17
nr. 6 1989 USA 18
nr. 7 1990 UK 96 / UK 97
nr. 8 1990 UK 98 / UK 99
nr. 9 1990 UK 101 / UK 102
nr.10 1990 (?) UK 103 / UK 104
nr.11 1990 UK 115 / UK 116
nr.12 1990 (?) UK 117 / 118
nr.13 1991 (?) UK 119 / 120
nr.14 1991 UK 137 / UK 138(?)
nr.15 1991 (UK 130/131 (reprinted in 255-258) "Worlds apart"
nr.16 1991 UK 146/147
nr.17 1991 UK 148/149
nr.18 1991 UK 150/151
nr.19 1992 (2 UK stories)
nr.20 1992 UK 164 / UK 165
nr.21 1992 UK 166 / UK 167
nr.22 1992 UK 168 / UK 169
nr.23 1992 UK 170 / UK 171
nr.24 1992 UK 172 / UK 173


Issue 0

"TRANSFORMERS EXTRA COMIC SONDERHEFT"
This series collects some UK stories and came out every 3 months.
nr. 1 1990
nr. 2 1990
nr. 3 1991

TRANSFORMERS COMIC TASCHENBUCH
This pocketbook series came out every three months and continues with US issue 19, that's where the bi-monthly series started with UK comics.
nr. 1 1990 USA 19 tm. 22
nr. 2 1990 USA 23 tm. 26
nr. 3 1991 USA 27 tm. 30
nr. 4 1991 USA 31 tm. 34

TRANSFORMERS: DAS GROBE FARBIGE COMIC BUCH ZUM FERNSEH SERIE
nr. 1 1991 Reprints the German comics #1 to 6
nr. 2 (Don't know for sure if this one exists, I vaguely remember a listing sometime)


TRANSFORMERS:SUPER AUSWAHL BAND
#1 Reprints German comics #1 ,2 and extra sonderheft #1 (Has exclusive stories from TFUK 223 and TFUK 228 , These were originally black and white and were now coloured in by Condor!)
#2 Reprints German comics #3 , 4 and extra sonderheft #2
One of these two has the German translation of the UK story "Aspects of evil" now called "Das gesicht des boesens". This was an exclusive story that didn't appear in the reprinted comics originally.

As stated above, the Super auswahlband had translated stories other wise unavailable and coloured in by Condor press. Click here to see a picture of one of the original UK pages and one of the German version of Aspects of evil.


The following are German vhs tapes from 1990. There are 6 tapes in this series, each containing one episode and some commercials. They came in large plastic boxes and cost 20 Marks (10 Euro's/Dollars) Yes, for one episode only. Pictured are tape 2 to 5 and another blue version of no.5.

Tape 1 Return of Optimus Prime part 1
Tape 2 Return of Optimus Prime part 2
Tape 3 Rebirth part 1
Tape 4 Rebirth part 2
Tape 5 Rebirth part 3
Tape 6 Nightmare planeT

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