Rodimus Prime wrote:Was he fired? If so, why? I was just thinking about the comics and how some of the issues were rather lame, and I have to say they all came under Budiansky's time. After Furman took over, it was just amazing. To this day the best run of a comic I have ever read. Even Furman's later work doesn't compare. But anyway, was Bob Budiansky let go due to stagnant stories? Or did he have a lot of other stuff to do? He did come up with some great story arcs, namely the Underbase Saga, which was out just 5 issues before he was gone. And I even liked the issues with the Pretenders and the Micromasters, even if pro wrestling was involved.
Regardless of what you think of him, the man did ignite the flame that has kept burning for 30 years and with all his creative input I think overall he was a good writer and was well suited for comics.
However his art form, like many other was somewhat stifled by Hasbro and their view this was a monthly catalogue that also made them money each month.
If you were a chef and given a bunch of different random ingredients each week and expected to make a meal out of, I think you would start to care less and less. The man had an artistic passion but couldn't really explore it much as any idea had to have 20 new characters thrown in. Most of his best work revolved around mini arcs with established characters where as his weakest work was when he was fleshing out the new ones.
Consider the whole Throttlebot saga, they were introduced in a somewhat sloppy way but the stories that spun out of that with Blaster, The Combaticons and Throttlebots etc were quite entertaining.
Overall I would guess it was a mutual decision based on the decline of his writing and Furman eager for a chance to break into the states
