The Transformers Comics Magazine is a ten-issue, bi-monthly digest size publication produced by Marvel Comics for the American newsstand and direct market from January 1987 to July 1988. Think Archie Comic Digest with changing robots. 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.
The Transformers Comics Magazine issues:
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
Notes
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.