IDW and longevity

[Dominic]

A friend of mine recently pointed out that IDW has had the TF license for 7 years. Upon closer consideration, it is more like 7.5 years.

That puts IDW on a level with Marvel in terms of longevity. (In contrast, Dreamwave held the license for 2.5 years at most, assuming they stopped paying license fees to Hasbro when it became public knowledge that the company had folded.) The only other license holders with a comparable run on TF are Fun Publications (which began publishing newsletter comics in '05) and 3H ('97 to '04). Assuming IDW holds the license for two more years, they will have unambiguously surpassed Marvel in terms of longevity. (Marvel held the license for the entirety of G1 along with a year for G2, as well as about a year and a half between G1 and G2.)

In terms of comics published, IDW has the advantage. While Marvel had higher consecutive numbers, IDW broke 100 sometime in 2011 as a result of one-shots and limited series titles. (That number discounts movie tie-ins and reprints.) And, IDW is still going. (Counting UK only stories might give Marvel an edge in terms of volume. But, that advantage is fast being eroded by virtue of the fact that IDW is *still* publishing TF comics.)


In terms of quality, the comparisons (while inevitable) are more difficult to make. IDW has a significant advantage in terms of the over-all sophistication of the writers and artists, to say nothing of the industry as a whole. But, Marvel , to its credit, put a suprising amount of creative muscle on a licensed book. (The investment paid off, as "Transformers" lasted 80 issues, putting it only behind "GI Joe" and "Micronauts" in terms of longevity. And, "Micronauts" had the advantage of being specifically tied to 616 Marvel.)

It is easy to dismiss Marvel's run of TF, especially in light of an abysmal mid-run by Budiansky. But, even Budiansky had his moments. And, a good deal of his work set the foundation of the franchise for years to come. Marvel was at its strongest at the beginning and end of its run. "Warrior School", "Dawn of the Devestator", "Circuit Breaker", "Shooting Star" and "Return to Cybertron" still hold up even today. And, the last year and half of the book benefited from the (then standard) practice of leaving the creators of a failing title to their own devices. Tokar's editorial tenure (the Furman era) on TF was largely ignored in the glutted and over-hyped market of the 90s. But, when the nostalgia wave hit in '01 or so, people rediscovered TF as being suprisingly good. And, even at its worst, Marvel's TF run was a linear story. It was not the same book from month to month, let alone year to year. In 7.5 years, there was not a reset. There was no "just they way things were" moment. The book was more dynamic and fluid than many of the "legitimate" comics of the time.

IDW's run has been tumultuous. While Marvel's run suffered for several years due to editorial and creative indifference, (with 40-odd issues in the middle being forgetable at best), IDW's run has been defined more by editorial fecklessness. As much as I liked "All Hail Megatron", IDW was likely not sure how to market or present that series until after it started, (as evidenced by the number of contrary statements made by editors at the time). Similarly, while IDW has done much to experiement with and push the franchise, they have often gotten lax on basics such as consistency, most notably when they allowed artists to ignore control art for iconic characters. But, IDW has also done a great deal to expand the franchise. For all of its mistakes, IDW has generally pushed TF to be more than what it was. IDW is not shy about changing iconic characters. (Even with their back-pedalling on characters like Sunstreaker, IDW still shows more editorial fortitude than the big two are generally known for at this point.) IDW's run on TF has largely been progressive. (2 soft reboots in over 7 years is revolutionary in today's comic market.)


As much as I love the old Marvel run, (it is what initially got me in to comics as a whole), IDW has the advantage. Along with their greater sophistication, IDW is likely to hold the license long enough to use and build on the lessons they have learned since the middle of 2005.


Dom
-thoughts?

[Shockwave]

IDW also has the volume by virtue of the fact that they've also had on average more than one TF book going at a time. Right now we have no less than four (RID, MTMTE, Regen1, and that Dinobots thing). This obviously including limited runs, but there have usually been an average of at least 2 if not 3-4 titles going simultaneously. That makes for a huge volume of work whereas Marvel usually only had the one. I also think IDW has the advantage in terms of being later and therefore the technology is better overall. That means better art, paper, writing and editing and since by now a large part of the fandom is grown, better/more mature stories and themes.

[BWprowl]

That means better art, paper, writing and editing and since by now a large part of the fandom is grown, better/more mature stories and themes.

This is something that’s always kinda bugged me (and maybe because I haven’t been ‘in’ to comics as long as everyone else): The art I can understand evolving with the times, printing techniques allowing more intricate artwork to be pressed onto the page and all that, but why the hell did the writing in comics use to be so *shitty*, and had to ‘evolve’ with the times? Surely writers have always been capable of writing clear-cut sentences where characters talk like normal people, so why is it all purple prose and overt, fragmented self-narration until barely the late-80’s?

I initially excused the terrible, terrible dialogue in the original Marvel TF 4-parter on the basis that it was ‘old’, but then I compared and found out that comic came out about the same time as Watchmen! You’re telling me comics were still being published with that crappy ‘comic book dialogue’ even at that stage in the industry (‘comic book dialogue’, why is that even a thing? Why did comics have to have a special kind of writing)? That’s baffling, to me, that no one stood up in a board meeting and went “Uh, guys? Maybe you could try not writing like retards, just for a while?”

Sorry, rant, Shockwave’s mention just made me think of how I’d been thinking of it.

Anyway, Marvel’s run I think actually had an advantage in mostly being one continuously-running title, in that the story just advanced issue-by-issue on a monthly basis. IDW’s TF has had multiple lines going pretty much since the beginning, a ‘main’ book with supplementary Spotlights being the simplest setup they usually did. So you’d have them setting up this Dead Universe plot in the background of books you might actually miss at the same time the Autobots looking around Earth for Sunstreaker with their human friends was happening. On the other hand, this also allotted you more world-building, putting in things that could be built upon later. The seeds for this Prowl arc we have going now were laid way back in that AHM Coda story, and it’s just now reaching its denouement (but never felt dragged out, since while Prowl’s stuff was always background noise, it never moved up and officially ‘kicked off’ as a plot until RID).

IDW also has the advantage of being able to draw from other generations of TF for comics. They’ve got a decent catalogue of Movie comics (anyone got a total of how many of those they put out), which include a bit of excellent stuff like Reign of Starscream, as well as, regrettable as it was, Beast Wars. It’d be nice to see them tackle more past iterations of the franchise; ReG-1 arguably falls under such an umbrella (if IDW has any sense, they’ll eventually put out collections of the ReG-1 issues that match up with their Classic Marvel G1 collections).

Also props to IDW for sticking with some of the ‘bigger’ changes, like the Bumblebee-as-leader thing I mentioned elsewhere. I also love how they’ve been handling the ‘war is over’ thing, in that the ‘war’ really has been over for at least three years now, and the comics have been about dealing with the different stages of that (AHM had the Autobots rallying from a major defeat to come back and score a huge near-war-ending victory, the Ongoing was the fallout and mop-up from that as the war wound down to its finishing stages, and the two series that spun out of that have taken in place in what is technically full-blown peacetime!). They even managed to keep Optimus and Megatron away from leading their respective factions for a whole year (And Orion Pax is still out and barely having anything to do with his faction)! I wonder what it’ll feel like once IDW has the Autobots and Decepticons finally get back to open warfare, they might actually be able to give it some impact.

[Shockwave]

That means better art, paper, writing and editing and since by now a large part of the fandom is grown, better/more mature stories and themes.

This is something that’s always kinda bugged me (and maybe because I haven’t been ‘in’ to comics as long as everyone else): The art I can understand evolving with the times, printing techniques allowing more intricate artwork to be pressed onto the page and all that, but why the hell did the writing in comics use to be so *shitty*, and had to ‘evolve’ with the times? Surely writers have always been capable of writing clear-cut sentences where characters talk like normal people, so why is it all purple prose and overt, fragmented self-narration until barely the late-80’s?

I initially excused the terrible, terrible dialogue in the original Marvel TF 4-parter on the basis that it was ‘old’, but then I compared and found out that comic came out about the same time as Watchmen! You’re telling me comics were still being published with that crappy ‘comic book dialogue’ even at that stage in the industry (‘comic book dialogue’, why is that even a thing? Why did comics have to have a special kind of writing)? That’s baffling, to me, that no one stood up in a board meeting and went “Uh, guys? Maybe you could try not writing like retards, just for a while?”

Sorry, rant, Shockwave’s mention just made me think of how I’d been thinking of it.

There's actually a couple of reasons for that (at least in the case of Transformers. I did not read other comic titles back then so I cannot speak to those). One is that there was an editorial mandate at Marvel at the time that stated that when a new character first appeared they or another character had to say that character's name. That's why we have splash pages with all of the Autobots and Decepticons announcing themselves. The other thing is that there is a difference between writing a story meant for ten year old kids vs. writing one intended for 30 year old men. IDW does the later while Marvel was doing the former. It doesn't mean you can't get good stories or even bad stories either way but there is a difference.

[Dominic]

That excuse only carries so much weight.

Announcing/naming characters can be, and has been, done more gracefully than having everybody standing around saying their name. Simple narration boxes, common in manga actually, that list character names work better than over-blown self-referrential dialogue boxes.

The "Mighty Marvel Method" split the labour of the writers and artists in such a way so as to make it very difficult for a writer and artist to create quality pages unless they had a great deal of time or had a natural rapport. That is why the narration and dialogue were often clumsy and resumbled script notes. The problems common in old TF comics were not at all isolated to TF comics.

Modern kids comics, such as "Marvel Adventurs" have better technical execution, (albeit of anemic stories), than most comics from 25 or so years ago.

This obviously including limited runs, but there have usually been an average of at least 2 if not 3-4 titles going simultaneously.

That was kind of my point. IDW did not have an actual ongoing book. For the first 3 or 4 years of their time with the license, IDW published limited series and one shots. (Technically, "Spotlight" has sequential numbers, but aside from "Revelations", "Spotlight" has never been marketed as a series.) IDW has published so many "Spotlights" that they add up to a considerable amount of IDW's total output. (I was actually suprised at how much IDW had actually published, because the still low numbered ongoings make it seem like far less. "Yeah, we have 24 issues of an ongoing, some minis and a pile of one-shots. It ain't that much.")

Surely writers have always been capable of writing clear-cut sentences where characters talk like normal people, so why is it all purple prose and overt, fragmented self-narration until barely the late-80’s?

Part of this is that writing, like any other skill, has to be developed. This applies to individuals, industries, even cultures.

Another problem, unique to comics is that the original standard was so low. I hate to be the one to point this out, but up until 1970 or so, comics actually *were* the shit that some people still mock them as being. That is why we had pages and pages of panels that included an illustration of the character doing something, a dialogue box telling us what they character is doing *and* the character ruminating (via thought balloons or monologue) about what they were doing. Most of the guys writing comics really were talentless hacks.

Over time, editors and other writers were desensitized to the point that even blatant problems were easy to overlook because they were "normal". (College professors often have this problem if they teach sub-Freshmen composition classes.)

I have seen comics published in the 80s where the *letterer* did not seem to know the difference between thought bubbles and word balloons. (Or, alternatively, the writer did not know the difference and the letterer was simply following bad directions.)

And, then, there are basics like scene changes and page layouts. These are the visual equivalents of paragraph breaks. (And, at one time, paragraph breaks and punctuation were considered overly technical luxuries. Just try reading something by Daniel DeFoe. You will want to vandalize his grave.)

“Uh, guys? Maybe you could try not writing like retards, just for a while?”

To be fair, Marvel made a push for that in the 90s under Bob Harras. And, you can see where the writers and artists are stuggling with it.

The seeds for this Prowl arc we have going now were laid way back in that AHM Coda story, and it’s just now reaching its denouement (but never felt dragged out, since while Prowl’s stuff was always background noise, it never moved up and officially ‘kicked off’ as a plot until RID).

That is a really good point. IDW has a few plot threads like this that carried over from one creative team to the next.

What is striking about this is that one of IDW's biggest problem is feckless editing. I wonder who is making the push to keep some threads running consistently through the books. (Remember, "Spotlight: Prowl" was supposed to be a flash-back story published in Costa's main run. It only ended up coming out as a "Spotlight" to quell fan over-reaction and impatience. Read it alongside "Police Action", and it fits perfectly.)

IDW also has the advantage of being able to draw from other generations of TF for comics. They’ve got a decent catalogue of Movie comics (anyone got a total of how many of those they put out), which

I am thinking 40 or so, not counting UK reprints. (In any case, I did a rough count of IDW's output compared to Marvel's, and IDW had Marvel beat in terms of volume before I factored in the movie comics or G1 reprints.)

They even managed to keep Optimus and Megatron away from leading their respective factions for a whole year (And Orion Pax is still out and barely having anything to do with his faction)! I wonder what it’ll feel like once IDW has the Autobots and Decepticons finally get back to open warfare, they might actually be able to give it some impact.

Eh, maybe they could keep going without going back to basic Autobots/Deception warfare. If nothing else, the people who want that have "TF: Prime" right now.

[Shockwave]

That excuse only carries so much weight.

Announcing/naming characters can be, and has been, done more gracefully than having everybody standing around saying their name. Simple narration boxes, common in manga actually, that list character names work better than over-blown self-referrential dialogue boxes.

I mean there was a mandate that it had to be dialogue. Not naration boxes. That lifted during the Marvel run of TF which is why you don't see those type of splash pages when the Micromasters start showing up.

But yeah, I think editorial mandates like this have only served to normalize the kind of shitty writing that occured back then and really set an industry standard. I certainly think the standard has been raised a lot since then.

[Onslaught Six]

The "Mighty Marvel Method" split the labour of the writers and artists in such a way so as to make it very difficult for a writer and artist to create quality pages unless they had a great deal of time or had a natural rapport. That is why the narration and dialogue were often clumsy and resumbled script notes. The problems common in old TF comics were not at all isolated to TF comics.

I was amazed when I learned this fucking thing existed, and wondered how the hell it ever made sense to do so. I place the blame on artists having an over-inflated sense of superiority in the business, similar to big-name actors who think they're somehow more important than a scriptwriter or director. Most actors, if you put them in front of a page and told them to write something, would put out trash. The same can be said for a lot of artists.

[Dominic]

They system created the monster artists such as Liefeld, but it was not created by them. It was created by the editors.

If you put aside considerations of quality, it makes sense. The writer gives the artist vague instructions on what to draw. The artist draws it, and then the writer copies in some story notes and some redundant dialogue. The letterer splices it in. Done. The pages will be crudely formatted. The story will be conceptually basic and the writing childish. But, it is quck and easy.

If anything, it actually put *more* pressure on the artists who were (in theory) responsible for polishing the turds that the writers gave them. Guys like Kirby and Ditko and the other early Marvel artists deserve far more credit than they are given for defining characters, not just illustrating them.


Dom
-has trouble reading some comics published before 1990 or so, and and most comics published before 1970.

[Tigermegatron]

I'm a fan over quality over volume.

The IDW TF comics are awful in both art,stories & character persona's compared to the awesome Stories,awesome art & decent character Persona's the Dreamwave TF comics had.

As far as comparing IDW TF comics to Marvels G-1 & G-2 USA & UK Comics. The Marvel TF comics stories/character persona's were leaps & bounds better than anything IDW TF comics has created.

List of major Negatives why the IDW TF comics are pure awful in story/character persona/art is as follows:

(1) Since 2012 thru 2013,the revamped newer TF designs in the IDW comics are so awful,Hasbro can't even translate these current comic designs into toy designs. At the very least Don Figuroa's & Pat lee's TF art was easy for Hasbro to Translate into newer TF toys based off their current TF comics designs.

(2) Starting with 2011 IDW TF comics,their were 2 main TF comics with totally differently drawn TF characters in them. IDW's cheesy reason was to give the artist more creative freedom.

(3)Starting from 2011,Bumbleee has been the Autobot supreme faction leader for 2+ years. Marvel & Dreamwave would have never made bumblebee the faction leader.

(4) The IDW TF comics stories are just pure garbage. IDW does a great job at pumping up future TF comics stories but never delivers on the hype. IDW'S biggest TF Stories problem is getting rid of the current writers & replacing them with newer writers that re-write everything. Often times current writers get replaced in the middle of their TF stories,like the Chaos saga. IDW has rebooted the TF comics universe more than anyone else has. In fact marvel & Dreamwave never rebooted & kept the same universe for their entire runs. Dreamwave gets points for trying to cleverly tie it's TF Comic universe into marvels TF comics & the 1980's TF cartoon.

(5) Getting rid of Simon furman on the main IDW TF G-1 comics was a huge mistake. The writers that replaced simon can't compare to simon's Awesome TF IDW G-1 comics.

(6) IDW is doing way too many TF character persona's re-writes. Instead of the IDW TF Comics writing TF comics around the established TF characters persona's. Those IDW TF comics writers are adjusting the TF Persona's to fit into there awful written IDW TF comics stories. Examples: Galvatron being a seperate spark entity & not coming from megatron's spark persona. Goldbug & Bumblebee being two different spark persona's.

(7) Showing the Transformers on both factions acting too organic like humans. having the first half of each newer TF IDW comic,where it shows robots sitting in bars,drinking,talking extensively about their ego theories.

(8) Sorry,I'm not a fan of the IDW TF comics with less fighting. Saving the fighting for every 6th comic issue to round out & close out a volume is just lame-o cheap. it's clearly obvious the fight scenes cost more for the artist to draw. while it cost less money for the artist to draw robot sitting in a chair drinking or standing around talking his mouth off with his ego trip theories. I don't like reading 5 issues of leisure down time,while the 6th issue rushes in all the fights/violence at a super fast pace.

(9) I've been studying the IDW TF comics for the past 3+years. the first 6 months of the year from January thru June is always the down time/leisure/no war time. While the 2nd half of the year kicks things up a notch with more violence & fighting.

(10) Either IDW doesn't get/understand/care about the TF comics liscense or their ANTI-TF,WHERE THERE TRYING TO RUIN STUFF ON PURPOSE TO SEE THE FANS/READERS REACTIONS. Hasbro doesn't care what IDW TF comics does because they know the comics are produced in such low numbers that there basically invisble,thus don't matter in the TF main stream media.

[Tigermegatron]

The TFCC Funpub comics are pure garbage in both art,stories & characters persona's. some of the writers are amateurs who are fellow veteran TF fans.

FWIW,The TFCC Fun pub TF comics don't fall into the same category that marvel,DW & IDW does. Because the TFCC Comics are not main steam,there created as exclusives for fans by the fans.

Sure TFCC Has 7 years with the liscense. But they've barely created 14 "FULL" TF comics from that time period. TFCC has created 7 full TF comics from each botcon convention. TFCC 6 issue club magazine is only 10 pages counting the front & back covers. There is barely 4 comic pages created in each TFCC club magazine. 4 pages each magazine times 6 yearly issues total one full comic consisting of 24 pages. So each TFCC club magazine year only creates one full gathered 24 page comic issue/story/plot/whatever.

Curenntly 50% of the TF fans have stopped buying the IDW TF comics because of the awful arts+stories+plots+character persona's. I SINCERELY DOUBT A DECENT NUMBER OF TF FANS WOULD FORK OVER $3.95 PER MONTH IF TFCC RELEASE 24 PAGES OF A TF COMIC EACH MONTH TIMES 12 months.

ANYWAYS DUE TO the way the TFCC club does those TF comics. Their pratically more worthless than the IDW TF comics. Due to the thin paper used in the TFCC club magazine. barely 4-5 pages in each club magazine. the first 5 pages of the club magazine issue consisting of fan wank made up bio's,fan spot lights & other nonsense.

Had TFCC released a TPB or hard book of the TFCC comics from 2005 thru 2013 that had all the magazine comics collected into one singular huge TPB,then this book might be worth something in the future. if amazon & comic book shop agree to carry this item. if TFCC releases this thru their club,then it'll be worthless,because it was never released to the mainstream general public.