Furman Turns Japanese!

After years of writing Transformers stories for the UK and US, writer Simon Furman has finally broken into one of the most notoriously difficult comic markets: Japan.

This is no small achievement: very few Westerners have broken into the world of Japanese manga publishing in recent years. (Off the top of my head so early on a Sunday I can only think of Sean Michael Wilson right now)

Simon's first all-Japanese writing credit comes courtesy of Million Publishing (Japanese site), publishers of the Transformers: Generations 2009 magazine series.

"Volume 3 of said publication features an all-new two-page comic strip story written by me with art by fan favourite Guido Guidi," Simon reveals via his blog.

"Interestingly, and with a kind of uncanny synergy, the story idea I initially submitted to Million Publishing employed elements from the two previous manga strips (in Transformers: Generations 2009 #1 & 2), to such an extent we were able to fuse everything together in a way that continues and wraps up that storyline. I hadn’t even seen those strips, let alone understood them, when I first pitched the idea to Million, so it all fitted together oh so very neatly.

•Transformers: Generations 2009 vol 3 is out later this year. More info via Simon's blog