| Type | Comic publisher |
|---|---|
| Industry | Comics |
| Headquarters | Fort Worth, Texas |
| Website | http://www.fpcomics.com |
Fun Publications is a publishing company that runs the Transformers Collectors Club and G.I. Joe Collectors Club under licensefrom Hasbro. Besides releasing comics, Fun Publications releases exclusive toys and runs conventions for their clubs.
Fun Publications also publishes a serial comic distributed as part of the official Transformer's Collector's Club magazine There are six pages to the comic in each magazine, which together "make one complete story arc" by the end of the year with 36 pages in six months.[1] The full strips from the first two years were distributed by IDW as Transformers Cybertron: Balancing Act. The 2010 story is called "The Coming Storm" and follow after the events of the 2009 Timelines story.[2]
In addition to releasing comic books and magazines Fun Publications Timelines series has also produced prose stories, licensed toys and video media.
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The Timelines Landquake toy proved extremely popular.[3] Critics of the comic have said that the stories play directly to the fans of the Transformers conventions and stories center around the toys being introduced each year.[4]
After the Transformers convention license was acquired by Fun Publications, they issued a new series called Transformers: Timelines, a series of stand alone tales. The first comic was released in 2005 with a story called "Descent into Evil", starring a group of updated classic Autobots and new characters fighting the evil forces of Deathsaurus and his Insecticons. As would follow with each year's story, some of the characters appearing would be released as exclusive figures at Botcon.[5]
Their 2006 BotCon tale, Timelines: Dawn of Futures Past, acts as a prequel to the Beast Wars; and was distributed by Diamond in November 2006.
A sequel to the Marvel Comics Generation 1 story called "Games of Deception" was the centerpiece for the 2007 comic. The story centered around the Decepticon Bug Bite's attempt to take over the Decepticon forces of Megatron. This story features the Transformers: Classics toy line as well as this year's Botcon exclusive toys.[6] The text story Wreckers: Finale Part II was also released.[7]
The 2008 comic takes place in the "Shattered Glass" universe, in which Classics Cliffjumper is hurled into an alternate reality where the Decepticons are heroic while the Autobots are evil tyrants.[8] The text story Gone Too Far was also published.
The story released for Botcon 2009, called "Wings of Honor" was set millions of years ago on Cybertron, a prequel to the Sunbow animated series. This story featured the Autobot veteran Kup in early days, as well as the club membership exclusive figure Dion. The text story Eye in the Sky is released, set on Shattered Glass Earth.
The 2010 Timelines comic called "Generation 2 Redux" was among the top 25 sold small publisher comics in November 2010.[9] This story featured a new generation of Autobot and Decepticons made on Earth led by the Autobot Spark and the Decepticon Clench.[10]