Simon Furman has updated his blog with the following information on Beast Wars Ascending.

Next week (lots of advance stuff this week, as I'm travelling next) sees the release of issue #1 of (Transformers) Beast Wars The Ascending. If you've read The Gathering (and if not, why not?), then the cast of Razorbeast, Magmatron, Grimlock, Ravage and so on will be familiar to you, and need no introduction. But just in case you haven't, here's what's what (so far). Predacon general Magmatron travels back to Earth's past (circa 10,000 B.C.) to snag himself an army in the shape of the discarded protoforms left strewn around the prehistoric past in stasis pods by Optimus Primal and the crew of the Axalon (in the Beast Wars TV series).

With me so far? Good. His intention is to reformat the occupants of said stasis pods as Predacons and return to the future to take Cybertron by force. But among his chronally displaced crew is Razorbeast, a Maximal deep cover agent, who throws an epic spanner in the works by diluting the reactivation signal. The net result is an almost equal mix of Maximals and Predacons, who then begin their own series of timelost Beast Wars.

Ultimately, Razorbeast triumphs and condemns Magmatron to a temporal limbo (by sabotaging his in-progress Transwarp jump… stay with me here). The Predacons, now under the loose command of former Decepticon Ravage, are put to flight. So that's where we are.

What happens next (in The Ascending)? Well, for a start, Ravage has not abandoned his fervent wish to return to Cybertron (and the future), and to do so he has to interface directly with the other in-progress Beast Wars (Optimus Primal, Megatron et al from the TV show). Cue a major assault on the Maximal base, his ultimate goal the appropriation of the chronal phase armbands (from the The Gathering). Meanwhile, Magmatron (in temporal limbo) has seen the future of Cybertron, and, well, there isn't one. Unable to directly affect the coming Armageddon and the rise of an ancient evil, he turns to his once and former enemy Razorbeast! And that… is all I'm going to tell you here.

Beast Wars The Ascending #1 is on stores next week (Oct 3 in the US, the 4th in the UK). Keep an eye on the IDW website for news of all upcoming Transformers releases.

Reports are flooding in that the latest Transformers Club Magazine contained news concerning when BotCon 2008 is likely to take place. The organisers (Fun Publications) are targeting Spring (April/May) for the convention, though there is no information on a possible location.

Simon has type up another long article on his blog, which you can see here. We've reproduced the text below, in case you find the formatting on his blog a little hard to read.

Beast Wars United

Not, as you might think, a football (soccer) team in a league composed of Transformers generations (Cyberteron City, RiD Rovers et al), but a unified Beast Wars universe, one that amalgamates the US Beast Wars TV series/toy line with its Japanese counterparts (BW II and BW Neo) and, for good measure, the convention/store exclusive toy characters.

That was what we (myself and bwtf.com’s Ben Yee) set out to do when (over a year ago now) we began to craft a four-issue sourcebook/profile series for Transformers Beast Wars, the first issue of which is available next week. No easy task, as there are elements of the Japanese shows that just aren’t easily compatible with the US series.

What we did first was compose a timeline, a fairly loose ‘what came when’ that included the likes of BWII, Neo, the Pax Cybertronia, the ‘Great Upgrade’ and so forth. Some slight revisionary tinkering here and there was necessary, of course, but we finally had the framework into which everything (and everybody) could be slotted. Next, we set about detailing the planetary hierarchy, the ‘who does what’ on Cybertron in the BW era.

Some of the characters like Lio Convoy, Big Convoy and Magmatron had already been assigned roles/positions in the first IDW Beast Wars series, The Gathering, but we needed to flesh those entities and bodies out. Who, for example, sat on the (Bi-partate) Committee for State Affairs (mentioned in The Gathering)? What was the full roll call for The Pack (of which Razorbeast was a member)? Where did the TriPredacus Council and the Magnaboss trio fit into all this? And so on. Should alliances or roles already established in BWII and Neo be honored or scrapped? Lots of problem solving needed to be done before we so much as started on the character profiles themselves.

Then, it was down mostly to Ben to come up a definitive list of BW characters, taking in everything from Botcon exclusives to McDonalds Happy Meal exclusives. Where characters hadn’t reached their Fox Kids Transmetal form (in the TV show) he extrapolated. We then carved up the character list and set to work. Ben probably wrote 75 per cent of the entries (compared to my somewhat cherry-picked 25 per cent), with me acting as overall editor/guardian of the ‘house style.’ It was exhaustive work, and (when it came to the repaints, effectively two identical characters issued with a different colour scheme and name in Japan) demanding, making the pairs as different as possible in terms of their profiles and powers. Where one existed, we used extant tech specs as a guideline, in other cases we started from scratch. Some characters we retooled almost entirely to fit the new, unified TV show/IDW universe.

Over the course of the four issues, no less than 162 characters are profiled, and (in issue #4) there’s an extensive glossary. Entries vary from one to two to three pages, depending on number of alt. forms or variations. Main characters, such as Optimus Primal and Megatron get the full three-page treatment, even including early (unused in the TV show) forms such as bat Primal and croc Megatron. It took a good chunk of time to write all four issues, and longer still for IDW editorial to commission the illustrations and compile the books. But here we are at last.

Beast Wars Sourcebook #1 hits the stores on Oct 3rd (US) and Oct 4th (UK).

For more information on this and all IDW’s Transformers titles, check out their website here.

IDW head-honcho Chris Ryall has posted an update over on the IDW forums regarding the Transformers release since certain titles they produce have been slipping.

"Been a bit busy around here, but don't worry, a lot is happening and a lot of books are coming. We're even sending Megatron 4 to print next week! That has been the most delayed book ever for us, but it's almost done now...

Here's what's coming minus the Megatron in-store date, which I don't have yet (but it'll be early October, since we're printing it in Canada, not Korea):

Sept. 26:
TF Devastation #1
TF: Beast Wars: The Ascending #1
TF Sourcebook #1 (no, really!)

Oct. 3:
TF Magazine #3
TF UK Dinobots #2

Oct. 10:
Art of Transformers HC
TF: Devastation #2

Oct. 17:
TF: Beast Wars: The Ascending #2
TF Sourcebook #2

Oct. 24:
TF UK Dinobots #3

The TF Premiere Edition HC (a friggin' huge book, 500+ pages) and the Ramjet Spotlight are at the printer's now, too. We'll be finalizing Megatron 4 next week, and Dev 3, and I've already gotten some covers and pages from the NEXT Spotlight, which I should probably announce soon..."

IDW Publishing has published the following preview in it's Art Du Jour section of their website, previewing the Transformers Profile book.

Simon Furman (Transformers: Beast Wars: The Gathering) and Ben Yee (consultant on the Beast Wars TV series) team up to present an all-encompassing, unifying resource book highlighting the characters, worlds and technology from all generations and incarnations of BEAST WARS. From AIR HAMMER to WOLFANG and beyond, and featuring all-new art from a host of the greatest TRANSFORMERS artists like Don Figueroa, Nick Roche, Rob Ruffolo, and many more, this is the series everyone's been clamoring for! This special series will be comprised of three 48-page, ad-free editions.

Click on the image to preview:

The Titan Transformers comic, issue 3 is released this week. You can see our gallery of the issue in our Transformers Comics area as well as reading what Simon Furman has to say about the issue below (originally posted on his blog).

Quick reminder that the third superlative issue of Titan’s (UK) Transformers comic/magazine is out (officially, the London Comicon pre-release aside) this week.

The packed issue features an all-new original comic strip (by me, with art by Andrew Wildman) featuring Ratchet (the new movie version). Want to know where he ended up after Devastator unleashed his foldspace warhead at the end of last issue? Well, all is revealed within. Plus, loads more strip, exclusive features (including a Ratchet profile and an Ironhide vs Starscream head-to-head) and competitions (a chance to win a whole range of Transformers books, including the revised/updated Ultimate Guide). Oh, and a nifty collectable TF keychain (two varieties, natch).

Simon Furman has updated his blog with some mini teasers on Transformers Devastation Issue 5.

"As with my last Script (W)rap, for Beast Wars The Ascending #4, as we get further into a series (one where people are still to read issue #1, which comes out next week by the way), it’s tougher to tease and easier to inadvertantly give away stuff you later wish you hadn’t. There’s just so much BIG stuff happening in Devastation I’m particularly wary of anything approaching a true spolier. I don’t want to lose that big ‘wow’ factor when you finally see all this on the page. So, in very general terms, for the Autobots this is very much an aftermath issue (after #4’s simply colossal dust-up with Decepticon living weapon Sixshot). But boy, what an aftermath! The life and death stuff that wasn’t resolved last issue is resolved here (E.R. eat your heart out). And Optimus Prime makes a decision that will stun you. Seriously. As for the Decepticons, they’ve got Reaper trouble. If you thought the Reapers just amounted to the six you saw in Spotlight Sixshot, think again! And it’s not just external forces plaguing Megatron. Trouble comes to a head within as well, in the shape of… well, that would give the game away, though once you see EJ’s fabulous cover you’ll know. And (’cause this one’s packed to the rafters) there’s more on Hunter, more on the Headmasters, more on Hot Rod and Wheeljack and even a tease of a certain upcoming Spotlight featuring, well, the one I said I’d sideline for as long as possible, but then I started getting withdrawal symptoms and, anyway, you’ll see! This one doesn’t hit stores until January 08! But it’ll be worth the wait, I promise! For more details on all IDW Transformers titles, visit the IDW website here."

.. keep in mind this was mentioned at a rumor site. There's no deal in place, but people have been talking about this one from the start, simply because Simon Furman is writing both books. I think it'd be cool and feel organic to what we've been doing for that reason, but there's nothing signed or scheduled, it's just talk, the same way the JLA one was a year ago. But either way, I can't see how a crossover is weakening the brand.

That was Chris Ryall's comments posted on the IDW Publishing forums in response to the rumours started on Comic Book Resource and then reported on TFWorld2005.