I think that was the idea when they got started, but became its own thing more and more as it went. Also important to remember these comics were being made just on the cusp of everything ever being written on a wiki. So knowledge of the cartoon wasn't as readily available as it is today. Back then only the animated movie was readily available. If you wanted research, you relied on your memories or a buddy's dusty VHS tapes.
It seems reasonably likely that the first mini-series was written to notionally follow on from the pre-movie cartoon, in a vague sense, or to at least exploit readers' memories of it. There's nothing that really precludes it, anyway, and the tie-in "Hardwired" novel trilogy even made explicit reference to the episode "Autobot Spike." But the second mini-series proved that the Dreamwave universe definitely *couldn't* be in cartoon continuity, by establishing that none of the new season two characters had ever come to Earth.
I'd say no. It's not part of the cartoon (or comic) continuity, nor was it ever intended to be so. In the first arc that takes place on Earth (after an Autobot victory), we have Aerialbots while the Stunticons (or any other combiner team) are missing. And in the second arc we see the Stunticons on Cybertron as well as Blitzwing & Astrotrain and the 85 Autobots. Furthermore, there's Scourge. This does not fit with any part of the cartoon continuity: the Aerialbots weren't made until well after the Triple Changers and the 85 Autobots arrived on Earth, and after the Stunticons were made. To me, DW is like Beast Wars. Beast Wars was part of the G1 continuity and made referances to G1, but in the end it didn't fit with either the Cartoon or the Marvel comics. BW is a sequel to a G1 we never got. Likewise, the DW comics are a G1 story continuation that neither fits with the cartoon nor the comics. It's a G1 universe of it's own. (Since it was written after BW aired, they did include some referances to BW. In a way, DW could be the G1 for the BW series.)
I think Chris' analysis is the most acurate. Sarrachini's series seems to follow up the cartoon and even shows some season 2 characters; Red Alert, Kickback and Blitzwing are in it. Then MacDonough and Patyk took over and it went into a different direction. More a retelling of the G1 story. But unlike other G1 inspired media that came after, the DW stuff really stays close to the G1 (cartoon) personalities. In certain cases I could hear the voice actor in my head reading it. Visually they do depart from the G1 Sunbow animation models. Instead opting for a more toy inspired design. Or creating cool hybrid designs like Jetfire, Ironhide, Megatron, etc.
It always seemed to me like a soft-reboot. Something that incorporated certain aspects of the series, like Transformers The Movie 1986, which it makes reference too, along with the first episode, which it also directly references, and Rebirth, but it allows itself to go in it's own direction whenever it sees fit. Very similar to how the UK continuity featured a future set after the movie that disregarded the third season.
It was initially intended to be, if you squint, but by the second miniseries they were doing wildly different things, what Cybertron was like in the present was totally different (there was no truce in the G1 cartoon). Then War Within came along and the Simon Furman penned stuff started incorporating stuff from the Marvel Comics as well, there were some Beast Wars references (it was the first major series to introduce Sparks into G1). If you like, it could be the G1 continuity that Beast Wars and Machines and Furman's Beast Era comics followed on from but it's also pretty uniformly bad. There were some upsides, Furman's stuff is, for better or worse, pure unadulterated Furman, but most of it was just terrible
Terrible in your opinion. I'll take Dreamwave over most of IDW's stuff not written by Furman, Roberts or Roche. Dreamwave knew the G1 characters and their profile books fleshed out the Micromaster characters. Prowl was NOT a prick thankfully and Sunstreaker was an actual badass. They made Armada and Energon enjoyable. War Within and their profile books were great. They gave us new characters like Sunstorm and the Fallen. The art was much better than most of IDW's art.
. Completely agree. I guess it all depends what kind of G1 you like. The cartoon or the comic. The cartoon was my G1 and the comics came second. Dreamwave was more in sync with the cartoon and their characterisations followed the cartoon pretty close. For me Dreamwave was the last true G1 storytelling while IDW is more of an Ultimate sort of G1.
I know.. I didn't mean it literally like that, I meant the cartoon was my g1 of choice. And in the Netherlands we actually got the cartoon way before the comic. The comic was even behind on the toys that were in store. They tried to catch up by skipping a lot of issues.
I don't know if you can call it bad? As far as the G1 stuff goes it barely got off the ground. The Armada and Energon stuff was flippin' fantastic too, and a top-selling book. As many have also noted the art, overall, was much better. IDW is pretty convoluted and very hit or way miss. I like a lot of the lore they added. I appreciate the breadth and scope of the series. However, IDW is extremely cynical and is very deconstructionist in its approach. That can be good in the short term - but in the long term it's got a bit weary. Dreamwave is more of a straight-up celebration of everything Transformers - certainly not very deep at times but just an incredibly entertaining book.