It's free Comic Book day! And just a reminder that Orbital Comics in London are having a signing to celebrate the release of Transformers Regeneration One #80.5.

Writer Simon Furman, penciler Andrew Wildman, inker Stephen Baskerville, colourist John-Paul Bove and cover colourist Jason Cardy will be in store today (Saturday 5th May 2012) from 12-2pm, where you can pick up a copy of The Transformers Regeneration One #80.5, get it signed and have a chat with the team behind the book!

Store details can be found here.

Moviehole.net has posted a short interview with Transformers film actor Tyrese Gibson. In the interview he states how much he'd love to return for the 4th installment of the film franchise

Thanks to TFW2005 and Deviant Art we get early looks at Transformers Regeneration Issue 81 incentive and 82 covers.

Good news for fans of e-Hobby this morning, the online store is currently running a 50% off promotion on various figures including several of their previous exclusives include the Black Masterpiece Rodimus Convoy.  You can find all of the discounted products here.

The promotion drive for High Moon Studios pcoming Transformers: Fall of Cybertron video game continues in the form of an interview their president, Peter Della Penna, and Marketing Manager, Greg Agiu, have held with TheAlistDaily.com in which they discuss Transformers both at a brand level as well as specifically regarding Transformers: Fall of Cybertron. Some of the highlights include how they obtained the license to make a Transformers game in the first place, how they were tapping up the veteran voice actors to wokr on the products and how they managed to get the Dinobots into the new game. Check it out by following the link within this story.

Hasbro have now published several official images of the toys for the upcoming video game Transformers Fall of Cybertron.  The toys are Fireflight, Kickback, Ultra Magnus, Sideswipe and Starscream and can be seen below.

The Autobots

The Deceptions

Good new for fans of Transformers Prime, TakaraTomy have now released official images of their upcoming Arms Micron Bulkhead (AM10) and Arcee (AM11) figures.  You can view the images below.

Planet Iacon is once again first with the Arms Micron news, this time with images of what appers to be wave two .. including a Bulk Head Arms Micron figure.

Thanks to Robot Kingdom for showing off new images of Iron Army, the new third party Transforming Power Core Combiner limbs.

During IDW's BotCon 2012 panel it was revealed that fan favorite and Hall of Fame contender Sky-Byte would be joining the cast of Transformers: Robots in Disguise Ongoing starting in issue #5. Artist Ardrew Griffith has revealed the character's redesign for the series via Full Metal Hero.

Here's a round up of Botcon 2012's sunday panels

Transformers: Prime Game

• They're hoping for a holiday release date
• Brawler style game play
• All the voice actors from the show are on board
• Based largely on the events of seasons one and some of two
• A trailer of cut scenes was show, but no actual game play

Transformers Fall of Cybertron

• They feel it surpasses it's predecessor in everyway
• 18 upgradeable weapons
• Cliffjumper(voiced by Nolan North) and Jazz have "buddy" vibe, they wanted to explore Cliffjumper's history due to his role in Transformers Prime
• They feel they nailed Grimlock's appearance (Matt really, really likes Grimlock!)
• Looked to the comics to establish the connection between the Dinobots and Shockwave
• The Generations Fall of Cybertron toys have been a joint collaboration between HMS and Hasbro with the figures designed in-step with the game models
• Multiplayer Customization - Unprecedented ability to craft your own Trasformer
• Head, torso, upper/lower arms and legs, wings, etc are all customizable
• Transformation will look natural no matter what design you choose
• Still no plans for a PC version

Transformers Universe MMO

• Free to play on any browser with Java, should look and play like a console game
• Based in the Transformers Prime continuity, but independent of the show
• Third person POV, with some camera adjustment
• There will be multiple character classes to revealed later with 5 classes available at the launch
• Probably no class changing, though you can create multiple characters of varying classes
• Trailer was shown, but did not feature game play
• No beast modes or flight modes will be available for the launch, though they hope to add flight modes soon
• Character appearance will change with modes and upgrades
• Possible Beta version by the end of the year
• Humans are in the game, but only as part of the environment

During the IDW Botcon panel the next book from Jim Sorenson and Bill Forster was announced as Legacy: The Box Art of the Transformers.  As the name suggests, the book will the box art that was used with the toys, bringing together material from Japan, the US and, with luck, Europe.

Here's Jim to tell you more

"Legacy: The Box Art of The Transformers is going to be something special.  I've been working on it for a while now, and I'm really amazingly pleased with how well it is going.  We've been working with Hasbro, Part One (the parent company of eHobby), and numerous private collectors to pull together the definitive coffee table book of Transformers packaging art.

A lot of things, like the date and the page count, are still up in the air.  However, here's what has already been decided on:

1: The scope will be G1 and G2.  No Beast Wars or beyond.  We'll be covering every year in the US, as well as the entire Japanese set of releases.  It's possible that we might get Europe in too, if we can find the material.  That remains to be seen.
2: The extras will be substantial.  We're talking essays and interviews with the original artists, modern repaints of vintage artwork (think eHobby exclusives), unused box art, production sketches for box art and more.
3: In terms of scale, we've got more then 300 images in hand, and more than 150 additional pieces pledged.  I'd like to get those numbers up, so if you are a collector of the originals, drop me a line!"

You can read more of Jim's thoughts on his blog: http://boltax.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/transformers-legacy.html

Here are the Transformers Collectors Club subscription figures

Lots of reports, as usual, are over the web covering the Transformers Convention BotCon.  Whether you follow Twitter, Facebook or Google Plus or on the usual big Transformers websites TFW2005, Seibertron and The Allspark.

Here is a basic summary in no particular order.

Transformers 2012 Hall of Fame Winner - Wheeljack.

During the promotional video a tease for Transformers Prime Shockwave was shown.

Transformers Prime Cyberverse figures were shown off in the toy display

here's a gallery from Seibertron

San Diego Comic Con Exclusives will be Rust in Piece Terrorcon Cliffjumper (packaged in a giant Cliffjumper head) and a Fall of Cybertron Bruticus.

Hasbro Debuts Transformers SDCC Exclusives - Comics News at IGN to check out Rust In Piece Cliffjumper and the game colour FoC Bruticus!

Seiberton images of Terrorcon Cliffjumper

Transformers Prime figures- including a nice looking Airachnid, Razorclaw coloured Dead End and some other nice pieces

TFW2005have a gallery of these

Hasbro Talk

The highlights from today's Hasbro panel:

Masterpiece:

* US release for MP-10 - with the trailer!. Long smokestacks. TRU exclusive.

Fall of Cybertron:
* Kickback - G1/IDW-esque.
* Starscream.
* Sideswipe.
* Ultra Magnus - Optimus redeco with new head.
* Fireflight - Shockwave remould (new head).
* Voyager-class coming to Generations!
* Soundwave is the first one! Includes data disks, one of which is Laserbeak.
* Will be recoloured into Soundblaster.
* More of Soundwave's minions will be released in Legion-class.
* Rumble, Frenzy, Ravage and Ratbat will be among them.

Prime:

* Deluxe: Wave 4: Dead End, Shadow Strike Bumblebee, Airachnid. Wave 5: Kup, Rumble
* Thundertron (from the Exiles novel) is getting a toy! Voyager Wave 4. Has a beast mode.
* Cyberverse Wave 3: Wheeljack, Flamewar and a stealth Bumblebee.
* CV Commander: Ultra Magnus, Optimus Prime with swords. Vehicle Wave 2 is the alread-seen Battle Suit BB.
* To come in 2013... Legion Airachnid. Drawings shown in the presentation.

Bot Shots:

* Showing existing toys.
* Launchers: Optimus, Megatron and Ironhide.
* 3-pack: Skyquake, Jetfire, Powerglide.

SDCC exclusives:

* Bruticus - actually based on the game demo this time. Yup.
* The box is book-style (think Takara G1 reissues). Looks fantastic, by all accounts.
* Terrorcon Cliffjumper is the other exclusive. Includes a dark energon shard.
* Packaging concepts include a CR chamber, tombstone, and his own head.

That's all for the presentation, now onto the Q&A. We'll bring you any interesting tidbits that arise.

* Movie toys - still trying to find ways to distribute the remaining toys, though they acknowledge that was the problem they had in the first place. Sounds like they're moving away from the movie line for a while.
* The Thirteen - they want to introduce the characters to the public. A slow process, overall.
* Universal exclusives - only available at the parks that have the rides.
* Generations - initially this will cover Fall of Cybertron but they will move onto other media, including novels and IDW comics (yay!)
* Rumble/Frenzy - no plans for a Hasbro release, but never say never.
* FoC Dinobots - everyone will want a Grimlock. Getting all five characters into toy form might be tricky.
* Cryptic answer to the question of army builders, when asked why only the club do them. "Why just the club?"
* Classics Springer is possible, being considered for the future! No immediate plans for Arcee.
* Prime Ironhide is a non-show character. May show up in other media.
* No plans for future Animated toys. Again, never say never, but no immediate plans.
* No plans for Classics Devastator. Combiners may be considered if Bruticus is successful.
* Fun fact - repaints still have to go through quality control and other approval processes, not as cheap/straightforward as people think!
* Prime First Editions - situation was outside Hasbro's control (retailers, basically). Getting them back out there is their top priority (yay).
* Why not put them Hasbro Toy Shop? Apparently this depends on various partnerships around the world (retailers), and Hasbro don't want to jeopardise those partnerships (despite HTS being North America-only?).

In other news...

* Aaron Archer, Rik Alvarez, Bill Rawley, Jonathan Newkirk are on the panel, among others.
* Some toys will be going in the display cases afterward, so there will be pics shortly afterward.
* Brief list of things to come - theme park ride, Fall of Cybertron
* Talking about Evac, showing the Universal Studios exclusive versions.
* Other Universal exclusives: Deluxe Bumblebee, Deluxe Prime with new decos. Also Voyager Prime & Megs redecos.
* Box window is shaped like a Decepticon symbol.

Collectors Club Exclusives / Subscription Figures

* Apologies for the credit card issues.
* Presentation beginning. Promise of exciting things.
* Discussion of Invasion box set art. Idea was to make it like the original 2008 SG set.
* The full lithograph as 30+ characters; everyone that's involved in the SG vs Classics story.
* Discussing the processes involved in making the souvenir sets. Runners and the like.
* METALHAWK: Really wanted to pay homage to Pretenders' human forms, hence the human head.
* GIGATRON: Best possible with what they had to work with.
* Displaying original colour mockups now.
* Original concepts of Spinister and Octopunch now.
* On Octopunch's chest: "They're not ducks" and "This crowd knows what tentacles look like".
* Moving on to Junkions...
* Originally they were to be painted as Sharkticons. Makes more sense in-story for them to be like Insecticons though, apparently.
* "SPRAXUS", the Bard of Darkmount now.
* Figure subscription service coming!
* They had hoped for it to up and running now, but wanted to double-check security.
* No price points yet.
* Announcing figures now.
* Sign up in 3-4 weeks. Payment all up front or in three installments.
* 2 or 3 figures a month.
* Intended to replace current problems.
* Figures built to order. And they are:
* Breakdown - Classics, G1 colours based on 2010 G2 Botcon figure.
* Animated Jackpot - from Animated Jazz. Black with red windows, yellow arms, orange hood w/ orange stripes. New head.
* Scourge! G2 Prime with red windows and sword. Upside down G2 Autobot symbol
* Prime Slipstream! FE Starscream in purple and teal. New head! Prime-Animated hybrid.
* Circuit! Yes, the Euro Action Master! Yellow repaint of HFTD Axor. Red limbs, grey hood.
* Last one: Ultra Mammoth. BW Neo Bog Convoy in Laser Ultra Magnus colours! White head, blue mouthplate; mammoth is purple w/ white fur.
* Membership Figure: DEPTH CHARGE from HFTD Terradive. Blue jet, yellow hands and lower legs, purple upper arms and upper legs, yellow face on a blue head. Supposed to be pre-BW.
* All were planned from middle of last year.
* Looking at possibilities for future -- including stocking FE. Sustainability is issue -- must be able to keep doing it.
* Figures will come in better packaging. But not fancy collector boxes, unfortunately. 2-3 figures at a time. Break in between, then next batch. Will make shipping cheaper.
* Pricing will be consistent for all -- inc. shipping. One figure per subscription with a chance to order more. Service begins in next four weeks; shipping in November.

Thanks to SydneyY from TFW2005 for reporting TaTakara-Tomy has updated their website for the Transformers Prime line with information on a new Lucky Draw prize toy campaign. The top prize is a gold chrome version of the AM-01 Arms Micron Optimus Prime - other prizes include a gold Arms Micron and a voice base.

This campaign starts at the end of May. It appears to be run in a similar way as the DOTM Lucky Draw campaigns.

Prize A: Gold Optimus Prime (Voyager)
Prize B: "Talking" Figure base (voice of Optimus Prime)
Prize C: Gold ARMS Micron
Prize D: Wallpaper download

The product which will include the code required to enter the competition are Prime AM series, EZ Collection and ARMS Micron gashapon. 2 codes are needed per entry. (Gashapons only have one code for the entire line, which means you can obtain only one code no matter how many gashapons you buy, which seems fair enough considering their low price.)