Western Publishing Company

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Western Publishing Company was an American publishing company founded in 1907 by Edward Henry Wadewitz and Albert H. Wadewitz. Their most famous imprint was Golden Books, largely dedicated to producing both original and licensed books aimed at children; since Western Publishing hit financial troubles in 2001 and was sold to Random House the imprint has been continued by Penguin Books. During the 1980s they were one of the 14,387 companies to pass Tonka's stringent licence requirements (i.e. their cheque cleared) and produced merchandise based on the GoBots brand, and later Rock Lords.

In France their books were published under another of the company's imprints, Whitman.

Storybooks[edit | edit source]

Golden Super Adventure[edit | edit source]

This series was printed in hardcover, in a size and style similar to the book and record titles common at the time. Western also used the series to print Masters of the Universe brand titles. The GoBots entries were based on the first two episodes of the "Battle for GoBotron" mini-series.

Golden Heroic Champions[edit | edit source]

This hardcover series presented adventures from several '80s toy properties, such as Masters of the Universe and Princess of Power, in addition to the GoBots titles listed here. The GoBots books were original stories, following a continuity that seems to be set around the initial "Battle for GoBotron" mini-series: the GoBots are still not known to the wider population, Zebediah Braxis (here a Professor) yet to be exposed as a Renegade ally but Matt Hunter, A.J. Foster and Nick Burns seemingly not on the run anymore. Also, UNECOM is known as the AstroCorps.

There is no particular reading order, the following is the order the books were listed in on the back cover

Activity Books[edit | edit source]

Coloring Books[edit | edit source]

Coloring and Activity Books[edit | edit source]

Paint Book[edit | edit source]

Paint with Water[edit | edit source]

Sticker Fun[edit | edit source]

trace & color[edit | edit source]

Giant Coloring Book[edit | edit source]

Jigsaw Puzzles[edit | edit source]

200-piece Jigsaws[edit | edit source]

These all featured a large action scene of a character's vehicle mode with a smaller inset image of their robot mode, just to make them as unexciting as humanly possible.

Frame Tray Jigsaws[edit | edit source]

A frame tray jigsaw includes a frame that effectively does the corners for you. Aimed at younger children, they generally feature fewer pieces and are usually designed to be portable to some degree. At least two designs were made - one featuring Leader-1, Cy-Kill, Turbo and Cop-Tur fighting on GoBotron, the other featuring Cop-Tur chasing Turbo in vehicle modes.

Games[edit | edit source]