Looking at old Comichron charts, why did Dreamwave Transformers sell so much better than IDW Transformers?

Looking at old Comichron charts, why did Dreamwave Transformers sell so much better than IDW Transformers?

Schizophrenic Conspiracy Theorist Shirt $21.68

Homeless People Are Sexy Shirt $21.68

Schizophrenic Conspiracy Theorist Shirt $21.68

  1. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Because Transformer co mntent was lacking at the time, and fans were thirsty for it

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      This. It was the first new Transformers comic in just under ten years, at a time when 80s childhood pop culture nostalgia was at it's peak, so it drew in a lot more casual fans than later reboots would reach.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        80s nostalgia boom which is also the same reason why RID01 was a success despite failing in Japan originally

        It's weird how the 80's nostalgia boom peaked just 20 years after it and never really left at the expense of other decades

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Because the 80s was the first heavily commercialized decade.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        I also think a lot of people were attracted to the manga-like drawing style which was something new for TF back then.

        Because a lot of people didn't come back for Dreamwave. We already got invested in one reboot that died prematurely, why bother for yet ANOTHER reboot that for all we knew wasn't gonna last a year.

        This too. This is very important and one of the reason for why IDW2 was doomed to fail regardless.
        A lot of IDW fans I know that would have surely enjoyed IDW2 never gave it a chance because they didn't want to bother and get invested in another story that will eventually get cancelled as DW did and some cartoons did and eventually IDW1 did and later IDW2 as well, proving them right. Once you are truly loving a thing and getting invested in it it's hard getting into the reboot if you favorite series got axed and forgotten, never able to realise the potential you had so much hopes for.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Because a lot of people didn't come back for Dreamwave. We already got invested in one reboot that died prematurely, why bother for yet ANOTHER reboot that for all we knew wasn't gonna last a year.

          >Because a lot of people didn't come back for Dreamwave. We already got invested in one reboot that died prematurely, why bother for yet ANOTHER reboot that for all we knew wasn't gonna last a year.

          I totally get this feeling. I remember being really invested in IDW when it started, back when Furman was in charge of the universe. Then they decided that he wasn't bringing in enough sales, gave him the boot, and made All hail Megatron. I was never able to back into IDW after that. I'm not sure I'll be able to get into Skybound's or whoever gets the license next either.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Yeah unlike what a lot people nowadays are saying about some gay bots this shit was what killed the huge fanbase IMO. I legit dropped the continuity for years myself at that point and only came back because of the hype MtmtE caused but by that time IDW1 was already doomed to end soon. I never liked AHM but ended up getting heavily invested in MtmtE, early RiD and some other shorter series only to see all of it getting cancelled YET again, always just when I was happy finally having found something I genuinely loved again. Yet again, the cancellation and admittedly a lot of the shit happened in the last third of Barber's run soured me for another few years and then I got into IDW2. Not as much as into the series before but good enough. I enjoyed this for a year or two and now it was cancelled too and Galaxies ended way too soon too, that series was my favorite part of IDW2.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      truth. plus the artist kept it full bore 80's aesthetics. full vibrant colors. it was the closest the long time fans could get to a continuation of the 80's cartoon.

      This. It was the first new Transformers comic in just under ten years, at a time when 80s childhood pop culture nostalgia was at it's peak, so it drew in a lot more casual fans than later reboots would reach.

      based.

  2. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Because a lot of people didn't come back for Dreamwave. We already got invested in one reboot that died prematurely, why bother for yet ANOTHER reboot that for all we knew wasn't gonna last a year.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      It was:
      >G1 Is Back! (sort of)

      This is important because at the time Transformers had spent years in the Beast era and only just sort of got back to vehicles with the Car Robots/Robots in Disguise cartoon, prior to Dreamwave's comics. Not many people who grew up with G1 saw the Beast Wars cartoons so they didn't know how it was tied to the original. But this Dreamwave comic was using the G1 characters/designs.

      >Pat Lee on art!

      People forget this but that picture OP posted was from Wizard, which put out an article about which popular comics creators should do an 80s cartoon/toyline comic revival. Pat Lee was their choice for Transformers, so he was popular back then despite being reviled now.

      Like said, IDW started after people lost confidence in Dreamwave (they shut down for a lot of reasons, all of them pointing to bad decisions by Pat Lee), so people were less invested. Plus their visuals for some reason weren't as strong as Dreamwave's, despite a lot of the artists being better than Dreamwave, or carryovers from there (like Don Figueroa).

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        While there were people making legitimate complaints about Pat Lee's art and storytelling from the start of DW Transformers, the average reader didn't seem to care so much, the reasons he ended up being reviled had more to do with how DW went out of business and how the talent were being treated, with people getting fired when they complained about not getting paid.

        IDW launched with a lot of the Transformers getting "modern" redesigns, so the average fan who just wants the characters to look like they did in the 80s was immediately less interested than they otherwise might have been, and the first mini started off focused on human characters discovering the Transformers, a valid approach for a total reboot, but the average fan who already knows who the Transformers are just wanted more robots, less humans.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        They had Mark Millar listed for who they wanted to write Transformers
        Is there an archive for Wizard magazines?
        I wanna read their reasoning for Millar

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Probably just that he was a big name writer, and known for "widescreen action comics" of the time. It's Wizard, they weren't going to be suggesting lower-tier writers for anything.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Unfortunately there's still a LOT of Wizard magazines that still haven't been scanned yet, from around like 1995 to early 00s, including the issue the with their dreamteams for 80s comics.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >so he was popular back then despite being reviled now.
        Let's be fair, Pat lee's been reviled for quite some time now. Pretty much since he tanked Dreamwave, but starting before then.

  3. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    80s nostalgia boom which is also the same reason why RID01 was a success despite failing in Japan originally

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      It’s incredible that RID01 arrived at *just* the right moment because Beast Machines had essentially killed the brand. We owe Transformers continued survival to RID01.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Eh, they were already working on Armada at the time, the franchise wasn't going anywhere.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          You are not entirely right, you see, Hasbro imported Car Robots as RID2001 to fill the gap left by the cancelled Transtech toyline. RID01 turned out to be a complete hit and it even got extended to give Hasbro extra time to plan the next toyline with Takara. Armada was planned taking RID01 into account hence it having an full anime instead of a Western produced show and geared towards a more classic vehicular aesthetic. Hell, some RID01 toys being bricks probably eased Hasbro into making many of Armada toys bricks so as to not compromise the gimmicks.
          And Armada sold very well.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          You are not entirely right, you see, Hasbro imported Car Robots as RID2001 to fill the gap left by the cancelled Transtech toyline. RID01 turned out to be a complete hit and it even got extended to give Hasbro extra time to plan the next toyline with Takara. Armada was planned taking RID01 into account hence it having an full anime instead of a Western produced show and geared towards a more classic vehicular aesthetic. Hell, some RID01 toys being bricks probably eased Hasbro into making many of Armada toys bricks so as to not compromise the gimmicks.
          And Armada sold very well.

          Yeah even if armada could've still been successful, RiD still came out and was essential to keeping the franchise on shelves(once a toyline loses a year of footing its hard to get it back. RiD was also extremely successful in its own right, which is why Hasbro had to pad the line with repaints(including Beast machines ones, ironically, even producing cancelled BM toys for the line. ) Furthermore, RiD's success is what laid the seeds for hving two or more Transformers toylines; RiD ran into 2002 through exclusives because it was selling so well. This was the first time Hasbro successfully kept two lines on shelves without cutting into another (Animorphs was another attempt but it cut into the Beast Wars line instead of expanding it) .

          That extended RiD line(just called Transformers after a while) then got replaced by Universe 1.0, which would be Universe .0, or the second Classics line. And ever since they've run at least two TF lines.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >That extended RiD line(just called Transformers after a while) then got replaced by Universe 1.0, which would be Universe .0, or the second Classics line. And ever since they've run at least two TF lines.

            >it didn't just save Transformers, it made it stronger
            Impressive

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Is this a newfound appreciation for RiD01?
        I never see people discuss it

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          The show wasn't anything much to write home about, but the toyline was awesome.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Still that show and its toyline were exactly the right thing at exactly the right time.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >The show wasn't anything much to write home about
            The only things about the show that ever seem to get discussed are appreciated for Sky-Byte and Scourge.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          I mean it was pretty well regarded back then, not top materialand some of the toyline caused arguments between people who thought they were amazing with their articulation and vehicle mode quality and others who thought they were wonky and shellformers. But with so many volatile developments since then (The Bay movies, Animated, Prime, the Machinima stuff; not saying any are inherently good or bad but they've caused the biggest divisions) that TF stuff that's less divisive isn't talked about as much, Relatively newer/younger TF fans weren't really there, but the old guard kinda burned out on discussing it.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >some of the toyline caused arguments between people who thought they were amazing with their articulation and vehicle mode quality and others who thought they were wonky and shellformers

            Ah yes, the Autobot brothers. I thought they were cool to be honest, but I was very geeked about some of the other stuff, like the new combiner teams, and honestly I loved the G1/2/Machine Wars repaints being available too

  4. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    What boomers want out of a G1 comic(which is who has the majority of money to buy comics are) is the cartoon but more edgy, and the characters they recognize, drawn in a cool but recognizable style.

    IDW started kinda like that but not for long, 80's kids don't want to read about homosexual robots, we were making gay jokes about Tracks and Rodimus and Cyclonus all the time, the concept of these robots being gay is old ATT shitposts for us, not comic subject matter. even if it was a small part of the series it still leaves a bad taste in out mouths, and why will you want to keep supporting a comic if they're just going to focus on making Blaster's cassette frick a headmaster?

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >is the cartoon but more edgy, and the characters they recognize, drawn in a cool but recognizable style
      Reminds me of Wildstorm Thundercats
      The person behind it was a legit fan but after the initial arc it seemed desperate to try and "grow up" with its audience

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        The second mini had Wilykit and Wilykat as Mumm-Ra's concubines and Cheetara as the Mutants' sex slave. It was pretty hard to live that down and do 'normal' Thundercats stories afterwards.

  5. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    [...]

    They weren't going to. The only explanation that could really make sense is that a deadly fungus or virus infects the new organic Cybertron and wipes out all of its new life

  6. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >first "return" to G1 ever
    >Furman was still held in high esteem
    >pandered to the guys triggered by monke and poke-bots

  7. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Garbage always outsells quality

  8. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Comics in general sold much better. Marvel literally killed the market by spamming events like there was no tomorrow.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >Comics in general sold much better.

      I wouldn't exactly say that. maybe if you mean compared to now, yes, but back then, this was in 2002 when the comic industry was starting to gradually recover from the lows of the late 90s caused by the crash and other things.
      Transformers got an estimated 128,202, but Batman #602, the Batman comic out that month, had an estimated 48,220 orders.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Because of the numbers of issues I guess.
        TF was a fresh start, Batman was literally publishing the issue number 602 and the industry had yet to understand that not everybody buys comics forever and that younger people will most likely not get into something already running for decades.
        I don't know all of the numbers today though, I have heard that original series not tied to any crossovers or complex events and shit like Image and some Boom comics and such are selling really well again so maybe things are improving as long as people understand that fans have a hard time getting into multi-universe stuff with multiple ongoing side-stories and a high issue count.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >Comics in general sold much better.
      2000's were a low point right after the crash
      Maybe Marvel and DC did better back then they are now but sales for everything else is better today than they were back then
      Compare TWD or Invincible's debut numbers to today's Image first issues
      Compare Archie Sonic's direct number sales to IDW's

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Huh I guess Pat Lee did more damage to the brand than what’s readily apparent.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Thats not what they're saying. If anything its saying that Dreamwave did well all things considering.Even though it didn't last long for an independent company to sell that well in the first place was notable since indies weren't selling that well in the early 200s. Meanwhile IDW is in a more healthy market for indies, relatively, and can't do as well as Dreamwave.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Huh I guess Pat Lee did more damage to the brand than what’s readily apparent.

            This would be inspiring and tragic if it wasn't for the founders being total dicks

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            No I mean the amount of people that got burned by Dreamwave collapsing and didn’t return.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              There's more factors than that. Honestly the smar thing to do would've been to let Furman's series be a separate continuity, and pick up Dreamwave's G1 universe since its what normies liked. The art of the early minis, while I love EJ Su, lacked the polish in coloring of Dreamwave(its aged better than the Dreamwave stuff and worked better for the art, but I'm thinking of it from an average customer's POV, who was all-in on the dreamwave style)

              The other thing is IDW starts off right from the bat trying to do something more for hardcore fans than for the casual nostalgia crown. Again, dreamwave's art really sold those books ; the covers were designed to have a bunch of recognizable characters even if they didn't do much in the story(or appear.) . To this day Dreamwave style art is still used in places(the Tubi image for the G1 cartoon is a Dreamwave poster)
              Meanwhile, this is the cover of the first issue of the IDW Transformers series. And the next issue is Thundercracker and Ratchet. There were variants, sure; but moreover it points to another proble,; Furman stalled on having characters like Optimus appear early on to play on the slowburn nature of the series he was building. while this was great for storytelling, its killer for getting new people who just want to see Optimus kick ass.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Messed up my post a bit; THIS is the cover to Infiltration #1. While its not the best, narratively it works to set up the characters; but compare it to Dreamwave's first few issues of their mini where EVERY cover looks like a poster and its just not gonna catch eyes on a wall of comics.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >Meanwhile, this is the cover of the first issue of the IDW Transformers series
                Wrong pic Anon

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                I know, I fixed it in my next post, initially I was posting that pic to show how DW went for the poster style covers.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >Honestly the smar thing to do would've been to let Furman's series be a separate continuity, and pick up Dreamwave's G1 universe since its what normies liked.
                While whoever holds the Transformers comic license can reprint the old material, meaning IDW could reprint Marvel and DW comics, a lot of the comics from the final year of DW couldn't be reprinted because DW didn't provide Hasbro with records of which ones they'd actually fully paid the creative teams for. So they couldn't even publish conclusions to the DW books that ended mid-story, let alone an ongoing continuation of the DW continuity.

  9. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    [...]

    >multiverse crossover
    >multiple versions of G1 on the cover
    >literally no Unicron Trilogy characters there

    I’m getting so dreadfully bored of this franchise and I hate it. It used to be my greatest love.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      I want to say there was another piece of art that had Armada Megatron and srtarscream

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Because multiverse crossovers are boring imo, they are cheap way to do fanservice and usually rely on the crossover and cameos alone instead of a proper story. Plus my taste is too particular so I don't even like most TF series and multiverses just mean more characters from series I don't care about/dropped.

  10. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Because people wanted to read about Optimus soloing Devastator more than they wanted to read about Bruticus being gay for themself.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *