Things are not looking great at IDW...

 

I know some say that, but given the number of properties they continue to publish comics for, as well as other media projects, is this really true? Hasbro wouldn't continue to license properties out to a failing company.

 

I don't think they have a lot of options. Moreover, I think that a lot of companies are shifting away from comics as a means to promote their products. It may not be worth trying to broker a deal with anyone else. Especially in the current environment. Huge downturn in physical comic sales on top of the declining presence they already were experiencing. I get the sense that Hasbro likes having a smaller company doing their stuff. No reason they'd jump to Marvel.

 

Haven’t people been saying that for the last decade?

 

Good riddance.

Probably just an example of rats fleeing a slowly sinking ship but this was long overdue. He won't be missed.

 

Well, the last few years at least. Same kind of applies to most comic companies. The industry is really drying up. The executive level turnover isn't helping either.

 

People who actually LOVE comics have mostly left the industry, replaced by people looking for their fast cash / Kirkman lottery ticket and people who have no real job prospects with their Masters in gender neutral Klingon poetry. The only ones who are left are either working outside the direct market at places like Scholastic or the passion project crowdfunders who are happy to be selling enough copies to pay the printer bill. American comics are dead outside of reprints.

 

Boom sells the top selling Hasbro licensed comic. Marvel is back in the license comic business if Boom ever folds. Hasbro has options.

 

Sometimes, I just think IDW grew too big. I remember when they first started out, their biggest draws were Ben Templesmith, Ashley Wood and Locke n Key. And Ashley Wood grew into a brand all his own. But from the start, their mission statement was to go full arthouse while also exploring all opportunities with their properties across media. Hence the high production artbooks, Artist Editions of past work like Miller and Mazuchellics Born Again, remasters like The Maxx and other similar works.

They picked up TFs and later GIJoe which wasn't bad at all. It's when they started picking up other IPs and stretched their resources where the problems started happening.

I dunno. I still think IDW as a company produces good work. The industry is just really struggling, has been for awhile and 'Rona definitely didn't help.

I kinda thought that 'Rona would've forced the industry to go full digital but held out to save the brick n mortar shops as much as they could.

 

TBF, we’ve all been discussing IDW being in trouble when the hasty and confusing Unicron announcement came up and they looked like they were staving things off. That being said, I can’t imagine the current combination of situations for IDW is a good thing for the future.

 

IDW still makes comics?

I never could get in the IDW stuff.

Heck, I barely got in the Dreamwave stuff to begin with. (damn puffy TFs)

The last GOOD TFs comic I read was the last issue of Gen 2.

 

Geoff Senior art, Liege Maximo, Jhiaxus positively beating the holy hell out of Optimus, the Hub. Not a bad issue at all. I so wish Furman's Regeneration series started from that cliffhanger.

 

I can\'t say I am sorry to see him go. I place a lot of the blame at what IDW\'s Transformers comics (and TMNT and others too) became on him. Pretty sure it was his decision to cut Simon\'s work short and hire Shane (All Hail Megatron) and then later fire him and hire Costa. And while I have no proof, I think it was him whose idea it was to end the Great War and make Transformers descend into wishy-washy political stuff that bored us to tears.

You lost out on a lot of good stuff, then. Furman's early work (Escalation, Infiltration, Devastation and the spotlight) was great, up to Maximum Dinobots. Even some of the Spotlights not done by him were good, like Kup and Metroplex. Then we had the dark ages of the Shane/Costa stuff, but got the Wreckers stories by Roche that were very good. I'd say even early MTMTE comics were good -took me until halfway through to get disillusioned by them.
And while Re-Generation One is nowhere as good as G2, it had some moments. I like the bittersweet ending, for one. Not often we get such an ending for a comic.
At any rate, would not be surprised if especially in the current economy and comics in general not selling well for a decade now, IDW folded. Though they have their hands in a lot of pies (TMNT, Star Trek, lots of licensed work) that they might endure for a time.

To be frank, what would it cost Hasbro to publish its OWN comics? In this digital age they don't really even have to worry about printing but if they do - they have printed comics before for the toys (Takara especially) so they are no novices.
If I was Hasbro I'd just hire Furman and sell the 1984 series as a digital subscription through Hasbropulse.

 

It's interesting. I feel like the decline really started to get real when a lot of the fan favorite artists disappeared. Gradually, the art got less and less...popular, to put it kindly. Art carried a lot of very subpar writing during the 2005 idw run, but man did it really hurt when people like Milne disappeared from normal books. Your note about early MTMTE is funny. I agree. About halfway through everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong. The art looked meh, and that domino'd into the writing, which dipped at the same time.

My hope is that someone is still there who can right the ship. With a little love, Transformers can be a great franchise for comics. It's just being chonically underutilized.

 

First things first : I'm an old fart. I'm so old that I used to buy the G1 Marvel comics right of the shelves WAY back then. It was a GLORIOUS era and I weep for those who never got to experience it.

That being said, I'm not saying IDW never made good comics, they obviously have, but me, personally, I never could get into them.

Even if some of the old guard came back to make some, like Furman, it always felt "forced" to me.

As if the editors "forced" the creative team to recapture the lost magic of the old comics..

So this "forced" nostalgia has created problems ever since Hasbro authorized its licensees to go wild. New characters that have designs nowhere near the aesthetics of G1 and yet they're portrayed as if they were always there to begin with.

Then they used, reused and bled dry the Unicron mythos to the point of making it uninteresting.

How about creating new stuff? Interesting stuff? Something in continuity?

Proof #1 : Beast Wars was the LAST good TFs creative endeavor. There hasn't been a truly good TFs show ever since. It introduced many new concepts BUILT upon the original material. Heck, it even made the original material BETTER! Talk about writing slam dunk. Sparks, protoforms, the vok, smaller TFs due to energy shortage, etc.

Proof #2 : How many TF comic series have been made since Dreamwave? There is like 60 or 70 different issue number one. Restarting, mini-series, one-shots, revamping, rebooting, etc. etc. All the while, back in the 80s, Marvel seldom made TFs or G.I. Joe mini-series.

If you got onboard on issue 67, well, you had a quest to find the other issues. That was part of the fun. Today? You get mini-series after mini-series. So you can get in at anytime. The downside to that is you can get off at any time as well. Worse, there is barely any consequences from one series to the next. Ironhide died in this series? No problem, he's in the next series not related to this one. And if you want him NOW, then pick-up any other of our 7 TFs series published simultaneously. Surely Ironhide is in one of them.

Same thing happened to the movies. Each new movie, after the 1st, was a mini reboot of some kind. Keeping very thin continuity with prior installments. Megatron kept coming back in different form. Calling himself Galvatron at one time, because he felt like it, etc. etc.

So, after 20 years of reboots, revamps, retool, alternate universes, reissue, etc. etc. What does Hasbro can count on to sell toys? What are they always coming back to?

G1

And not just because of us, old farts who were kids in the 80s, but also new kids who prefer G1 over the Bayformers or the gundam-esque IDW designs.

G.I. Joe is WAY worse.

I'm ranting. I know.

Thank God for G1 and ARAH cartoon playing in the back when I do chores. That's one of the few things that brings a smile to my face in these crazy times.

Old fart signing off.

 

This. I can't even recall precisely why I disliked Ryall in the first place; I just recall that I felt him an executive-meddling twat who (very wrongly) thought himself a talented writer and did some bad things to comics I was enjoying a decade or so ago. Had not realised he was still there.

 

I'll be honest I don't really know who this guy is. But good luck I guess.

As for IDW they do a lot more then comics these days. They do bring up Lock and Key on netflix but it's more then that if you look at IDW Media Holdings output they seem to be doing ok and have a few streams of income. I think the only way IDW going to crash as some people have expected is if they gamble on an expensive production and funding is withdrawn. That shit will kill most production companies.

 

This is perhaps the first time I\'ve seen a fandom make so many points about their personal grievances in regards to their favourite franchises and yet remain so respectable at the same time. So good going there fellow transformer fans. Frankly I\'m inclined to agree with most of these points being made. I wouldn\'t describe myself as a veteran fan since I only truly became a fan after the first live action movie as most kids did this century. Ever since then I\'ve gone from watching the films, to the cartoons, and eventually the reading the comics. And I must say after reading and watching so many different variations of this franchise for about 14 years now I can\'t help but feel everything is starting to stagnate. At first I thought it was just me but then I actually looked into it and it\'s clear that a lot of us are starting to feel the same way. The IDW comics from 2019 for example they all feel like some sort of variation of things we\'ve already seen before with only minor touches of originality here and there. I really feel that there is a certain creative freedom that just isn\'t being exercised here I tried to enjoy this reboot  but I just can\'t bring myself to get that same thrill every time a new solicitation comes along. These newer comics make even the last few stories of IDW\'s 2005 continuity seem interesting (Which weren\'t to bad to be honest just a little to convoluted). Honestly I actually quite enjoyed most of that continuity personally because for better or worse it had some of the most original transformer stories I\'ve seen \"personally\" since Beast Wars. Which is another continuity I\'ve come to appreciate and crave more of over the years due to it\'s originality and admiring how it still remained respectful of what came before and yet was clearly its own thing. Here\'s hoping that this new Uprising (reference intended) of beast wars content within the next few years sparks that originality that transformers brand seriously could use. Oh and I btw I\'ve just got into the 80s comics and I see what everyone\'s on about there pretty good for the most part first one I read was the Target 2006 story. Excuse the long post but haven\'t posted for months anyway so consider this me finally making up for lost time. Wow that was therapeutic to write down.

 

Much much more than Hasbro would ever care to spend, I'm sure.