Simon Furman drums up support for Bewdley Book Week event

By John Freeman on September 5, 2013

A quick shout out for ace comics writer Simon Furman, who tells us he should be at the Bewdley Book Week in (you guessed it) Bewdley, near Kidderminster, Worcestershire on Friday 13th September to give a talk and book signing, “but honestly, right now, it’s looking a touch doubtful,” he tells us. “Not enough bums on seats at this moment in time.”

This is a shame – the Festival itself has a good line up and Simon’s a mine of information about the comic business – and of course his current book, Transformers Regeneration One, is a huge hit for IDW.

Simon will have copies of both Transformers: Regeneration One trades (vols 1 & 2) to sign/dedicate according to your wishes.

To book, get over to the Bewdley Book Week site and sign up here or spread the word via whatever social media networking options at your fingertips to assure the event goes ahead.

Comics and animation writer is inextricably linked to Transformers, the 80s toy phenomenon. He’s written literally hundreds of stories about the war-torn ‘robots in disguise’, for Marvel Comics (US and UK), Dreamwave and most recently Transformers: Infiltration, Escalation, Devastation & Revelation, Maximum Dinobots, Beast Wars: The Gathering/The Ascending, Transformers: Stormbringer and Transformers: Spotlight for IDW Publishing.

His other comic book credits include Doctor Who, Dragon’s Claws, Death’s Head, Alpha Flight, Turok, She-Hulk, Robocop and What If? In the TV animation field, Furman has written for shows such as Beast Wars, Roswell Conspiracies, Dan Dare, X-Men: Evolution, Alien Racers and A.T.O.M. Editorially, he oversees Titan Books’ range of Transformers titles and their ‘Comics Creators’ series (which includes Comics Creators on X-Men and Writers on Comics Scriptwriting 2), and he’s currently lead writer and script supervisor for the animated TV show The Matt Hatter Chronicles. (Check out his full bio here)

Bewdley Book Week 2013 starts in style with the Launch Lunch in the company of actress Angela Douglas, who’s autobiography Swings and Roundabouts is a mixture of “Carry On” intrigue, the emotional roller coaster of her life and more.

Other highlights include talks from historical novelist Elizabeth Chadwick, much loved actress Sheila Steafel, rock legend Deke Leonard of the seminal band Man and former Q and Kerrang! editor, Paul Rees on his acclaimed biography of Robert Plant.

As always there are a good number of local authors featured during Bewdley Book Week and this year these include Jock Gallagher, Heather Flack and children’s author Wendy Cooper.

• The full programme can be viewed through this link; it ends with a Literary Quiz Dinner at The Hop Pole on Sunday 15th of September.

John Freeman

The founder of downthetubes, which he established in 1998. John works as a comics and magazine editor, writer, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He is currently editor of Star Trek Explorer, published by Titan – his third tour of duty on the title originally titled Star Trek Magazine.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Babylon 5 Magazine, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”.

He’s the writer of “Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies” for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs” with Dave Hailwood.