You're not to blame for anything here - you are not their junkie. They have to compete for your dollar, same as anyone else.

 

Regarding IDW's following Marvel's crossover event style model - is that really on IDW or on Hasbro? My impression is its Hasbro who's telling IDW to put out these books in a united universe - so it's not really all on IDW. As for the 91% drop, I'm curious - but could part of the reason be that Hasbro toys stopped carrying pack in comics?

Back to their regular books, I pretty much religiously followed MTMTE, but Lost Light really just felt off. The story didn't really interest me as much, and the art wasn't to my liking. Personally I felt the more cartoony take really hurt some aspects of the story. I'll probably check back for the Mutineers arc and see where it goes.

 

Hasbro is NOT telling IDW to put any shared universes or crossovers.

IDW themselves stated it was their own idea.

Hasbro mandated things are toy tie-ins like CW or TR.

Hasbro's not starting any new toy lines for old and long dead franchises so there's no point for them to even care.

 

This is classic battered wife syndrome. "Maybe it's my fault."

If IDW isn't making comics that interest you enough to spend money on, that is not your fault. If a comic is compelling, you will find the money to buy it; you will MAKE the time to read it. If you haven't been buying and feel like you don't have the time, that's on them, not you.

 

Well part of that was also Dan Dido's fault as well. He handled Beast Machines the same way he handled DC for years. To be fair though the Beast Machines toys were also pretty awful which didn't help the line any.


As for IDW, it's not written in a way that is easy for new fans to jump on and many storylines turned off previous readers. They need a few out of IDW continuity books based on different TF properties so people aren't required to read multiple books to keep up, and many people aren't keen on the shared universe ideas.
Rather than cramming Beast Wars and Prime characters into their main universe, having their own books might work better. Animated still has a bunch of fans why not a season 4 comic? Or they could try to fill in the gap between season 2 and the movie of G1 with a comic series. Have Beast Wars season 4 which ignores Beast Machines, lots of places they could go to appeal to more readers. But the problem is they want a shared universe and many of their characters are now so out of character, they are unrecognizable to casual fans who mainly watched the various TV shows and movies.

 

I'm not sure why anyone would blame Dan Didio for Bob Skir being a jerk to fans. The model designs and pudding explosions maybe. But not much else.

The problem with that show's production was due to Fox Kids' last minute decision to fire Larry DiTillio and Bob Forward after finding out how much they had been getting paid for BW and demanding they take a 75% paycut for BM. (They were getting paid the same salary as the writers on the Simpsons, which FK refused to match for a 30 minute toy advert.)

All of the work on the show and toys at that point had been based on their series bible, that Fox Kids now refused to pay them for. The show had to stop production and start from scratch with the replacement writers, making sure that they didn't use any story elements that L&B had created for their version of the story. That's also why the first wave of toys was so jarringly different from the cast of the show. Hasbro COULDN'T switch horses midstream and hit store shelves on time.

 

Holy shit, I did NOT know that is why detillo and forward weren't part of BM at all. That explains a lot. Skir was still an unrepetant jerk of course. But... Yikes. And to the other poster's point, it didn't help that the toys were crap. Even when they did become more show accurate they weren't great. Vehicons were solid, but man the Maximals stunk...

Has didio ever not fucked things up when he's been in charge of something?

 

Didio gets a bad rap because he's probably one of the most passionate guys in the industry, so he can get his blood up sometimes, but the current staff culture at DC Burbank is probably the healthiest they've been in decades. He's way less of a prima donna than the internet likes to make on.

Yeah, BM was a Charlie Foxtrot of the highest order. The basic premise was flipped on its head just to avoid paying L&B. Maximal were going to have vehicle modes and Megatron was trying to turn Cybertron technorganic. Cheetor was the traitor instead of Rhinox before he went back and got a vehicle mode. (The toy that became Mirage.) Waspinator came back much later. He going to have the Buzzsaw toy. If you notice the Prime crest on the forehead of Ultra scale Jetstorm's toy, that because it was supposed to be Primal. Rattrap was the Thrust motorcycle. Rhinox was still the Tankor mold tho.

 

Do you have any sources on this I haven't seen this in any magazine or web articles before.

 

That could be said for majority of the industry. It needs to change. I don't think you have to totally go back to the writing of style every issue is someone's first either. I think the problem stems from an identity crisis the big two has. They can't make up their minds if they want to be like James Bond style stories*, a soap opera, a primetime drama or have their heroes within an epic style story. I think the story telling most closely mirrors soaps, but has enough elements from the others to be it's own thing. The uniquely comics style becomes hard to break into midstream as time goes on. Lapsed fans can get back in, but entirely new fans most likely need help. As we all know what the big two does, the smaller publishers will often adopt.

*I don't know if there is a term for James Bond type series of stories. The kind that aren't reliant of continuity, but a basic character premise and their adventures. Typically the character doesn't evolve much, they may age or have a few milestones that carry forward. They usually take place in a time period or are constantly in the present day.

 

I think that's one of the reasons I really like BM. Besides the plot, the attitude that Skir allegedly had towards fans is justified in my view. If you appeal to a small fanbase that really doesn't matter (let's be honest, the hardcore G1 priests in the fandom don't effect the franchise at all) then you'll never reach your true demographic - kids. The fans weren't the writer, he was. And he wanted to write the show how he saw it fit, not how 15 people wanted it to be. Plus, let's not get ahead of ourselves, BW wasn't omnipotent. There were some good episodes, such as Transmutate. However, there were a lot of bad elements to the series, such as Rhinox releasing gas in one episode. That was enough to make BW not credible as a good show in my book.
I'm surprised Skir even bothered dealing with fans. I would've told them to go fly a kite. They will never be pleased.

 

Ps

Bw saved and revitalized transformers. KIDS watched it and bought piles of toys. The hardcore fans were crying trukk not munkey.

 

Yet, the BW fans became hardcore as well and had the same reaction towards BM as the G1 hardcore fans did towards BW.

 

I'm sorry but your argument is disingenuous and dishonest. You're conveniently ignoring all kinds of information and engaging in hyperbole. That's fine I will no longer engage with you.

 

This is freaking fascinating. Where did you hear about this? I'd love to second-source it, because it sounds cool as hell.

 

Are we still complaining about Beast Machines? I would LOVE to get another Transformers show as well written as Beast Machines. Let me know when it happens, which will probably be never. I love Beast Wars as much as anyone, but I have never understood all the complaining from people who I guess wanted 3 more years of exactly the same thing with no changes.

And what does any of this have to do with IDW?

 

i would HATE for IDW to be canned. chris ryall DOES listen to fans and has, imo, delivered the best overall tf comic continuity ever (and yes i am including the full run of uk stories) not to mention i NEED to have the hard covered idw collection continue long enough to reprint the entirety of said universe... even if it does include visionaries.

 

Larry and Bob both mentioned it on alt.toys.transformers back when it went down. Bob was more active on ATT, but both interacted with fans there. Larry had been more active on AOL's message boards while BW was in production and frequently gave fans there inside scoops. Like the fate of Rodimus Primal.

Ask Larry and Bob about it.

 

Part of the problem is likely that people wait for the trade, since idw basically conditions you to do so.
I don't buy any of thwir comics as floppies, just the trades, since they're cheaper and the stories are mostly written to be read that way anyway.

 

I'm going to dive in like this, when I was a kid I read almost basically everything DC published...today as an adult do I care about what's happening to batman or superman? No...why? Because they were around before I was and as an adult they are still around...batman is obvioulsy somewhere doing his detective thing and superman is flying around saving innocent people...the point is no matter what batman or superman story you read...nothing is permanent...no matter what they get themselves into they will come out on top...that gets boring...the comic industry writes the same stories about the same characters over and over...at some point people get tired of that...I would venture and say that 70-80% of TF fans care absolutely nothing about other hasbro franchises save GI Joe, we also don't like humans in our TF comics...comic publishers continually give you the same product over and over again...and you wonder why the industry is dying...in sports it's like if Michael Jordan could play forever and was always winning every championship every year...that gets boring and repetitive, who would keep watching? That's what comic companies have done to themselves...the same people keep winning over and over and its gotten completely stale. Superman can die, but he'll be back...batman can get his back broken and he will be back...these are things that happened when I was kid...yet batman and superman are still around not aged one bit ...which means they keep living life over and over and keep staying on top...over and over...it's just stale and the kids of today are into other kinds of entertainment.