After many years of searching, I managed to track down the original creators of the WereBears. George Nicholas and his design partner Nick Reynolds now run a mural company in Merseyside, called Impact Murals, and also runs a registered charity called Art For Their Sake, the aim of which is to improve the environment of sick and disabled children through projects in hospitals and special needs schools. It's thanks to Nick that I'm able to include the promotional photographs of the WereBears on this site.
I spoke to George in the autumn of 2004, and he gave me a lot of history on the WereBears, which I'll attempt to include here. Possibly the most exciting bit of news is that he's looking to re-launch the bears, but without some external investment or a TV series, this is tough to do!
The bears were originally designed by George as a toy for his son, so that boys could have cuddly toys that weren't seen as being for "wimps". As people started to find out about the bears, more people became interested in their characters and so they began to produce a WereBear comic in George's shed! A large number of companies were interested in buying the rights to the bears, but Hornby were the ones who finally got the deal.
Universal Pictures were interested in making a film of the bears, but were unable to strike a deal, and soon after the marketing period for the bears expired. Gums was discontinued first, as he was the least popular bear in the shops, although he was apprently the most popular with girls. Therefore, after the last few bears were sold, that was the end for them.
As the creators are still looking for interested parties in taking up the WereBear concept again, please e-mail me with your interest and I'll pass it on to George and Nick.