G1 Comic Art

I don't like Pat Lee's art much, but as far as the chunky TF's go I blame the G1 toon for that, ok in G1 they weren't that chunky, but they were drawn pretty ilogicaly, they were never drawn with obvious joints, always as rectangular shapes connecting, and when they move they get squezzed and stretched as if TF's were made of rubber.

So while the chunky is over the top it's not something that I can fault as bad drawing on Pat Lees part.

His faces on the other hand! What's up with that urgh! All his characters look like juveniles even the battle hardened old men.

I don't like Pat Lee's art style, but I don't think that he cannot 'draw' in that sense of the word. I think 'style' is part of drawing. Every artist has their own styles and that is what separates one from another- in other words, each artist draws in his or her own unique way.

I'd think that disembodied heads, lack of perspective and the other reasons cited by Gok, are part of Pat Lee's repartoire, it is his drawing style. As his per-cubist art would attest, Picasso certainly knew the basics of perspective and how to paint but yet in his cubist paintings he chose to paint with no perspective at all and in a manner that flies in the face of Renaissance sensibilities- but that is his style (or his chosen style). Pat Lee may equally know how to draw but for reasons of his own, chose to draw in the style we see in the Dreamwave comics.

So I'd say, I don't like his art style (= drawing and style of drawing). However, that does not mean that there's no merit to it. I may see little of value, but someone else may see the world of it; for the same reasons that that I think Mondrian's (or Pollock's) pieces are so ridiculously simple that a child could paint them, but still the greater collective of people think the world of them (as evidenced by people willing to pay millions to own a piece of their art).

Despite my own reservations, Pat Lee does appear to have and still have a lot of appeal to the fandom (or maybe to Hasbro, I don't know). For one, his art is reproduced and used on various forms of TF marketing, his art is used in the TF Monopoly game, used in (albeit) pirated TF dvds and vcds and (I friggin' hate this) used as the basis for TF statues, busts, exclusives and even Revoltech.

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STL, I would attribute (or would like to attribute) that fact that his TFs issues sold in the region of 60K (or however large amount) was due to there being no regular TF comics since the 90s. Hungry fans had waited nearly a decade for more TF comics thirst to be sate (I know I was), and along comes DW and Pat Lee. Surely that is reason enough for them to snap up the first official TF comics to come along, buying multiple covers along the way, just so they don't miss out. I don't think the initial DW run did well because of the Pat Lee art, I think they did well because they were TF comics and fans at that time were dying for TF comics- any TF comic.

Sadly, because of their wide circulation, Pat Lee styled TFs may also be the most widely familiar thing around.

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Originally Posted by heroic_decepticon

STL, I would attribute (or would like to attribute) that fact that his TFs issues sold in the region of 60K (or however large amount) was due to there being no regular TF comics since the 90s. Hungry fans had waited nearly a decade for more TF comics thirst to be sate (I know I was), and along comes DW and Pat Lee. Surely that is reason enough for them to snap up the first official TF comics to come along, buying multiple covers along the way, just so they don't miss out. I don't think the initial DW run did well because of the Pat Lee art, I think they did well because they were TF comics and fans at that time were dying for TF comics- any TF comic.

Sadly, because of their wide circulation, Pat Lee styled TFs may also be the most widely familiar thing around.

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+1, I was among those who was rushing to the local Comic shops just to find the latest issues coz of the long drought from G2 comics to the DW release. But I still kept my senses not to buy multiple issues and just bought the cover I most liked. However if I do chance upon now on a cheap Dw issue 1 where you connect the Dec/autobot cover Im going to buy it connect it and have it laminated and stuck as a poster in my TF room.

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Originally Posted by heroic_decepticon

I would attribute (or would like to attribute) that fact that his TFs issues sold in the region of 60K (or however large amount) was due to there being no regular TF comics since the 90s. Hungry fans had waited nearly a decade for more TF comics thirst to be sate (I know I was), and along comes DW and Pat Lee. Surely that is reason enough for them to snap up the first official TF comics to come along, buying multiple covers along the way, just so they don't miss out. I don't think the initial DW run did well because of the Pat Lee art, I think they did well because they were TF comics and fans at that time were dying for TF comics- any TF comic.

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+1 QFT. Those comics did well in spite of Pat Lee, not because of him IMHO.

Also Pat Lee inposed his own style on several other Dreamwave artists even though others such as Don Figuera managed to implemented while maintaining more solid (rather than foamy) bodies and proper body proportions resulting in what IMO is superior art.

While I agree that its annoying that Hasbro has used a lot of the Pat Lee DW art in its promo pics, in the recent past they seem to have also tried to use art from other DW artists. The Monopoly game for example is all composed of DW art but much of it appears to be Figuera's too.

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Originally Posted by heroic_decepticon

STL, I would attribute (or would like to attribute) that fact that his TFs issues sold in the region of 60K (or however large amount) was due to there being no regular TF comics since the 90s. Hungry fans had waited nearly a decade for more TF comics thirst to be sate (I know I was), and along comes DW and Pat Lee. Surely that is reason enough for them to snap up the first official TF comics to come along, buying multiple covers along the way, just so they don't miss out. I don't think the initial DW run did well because of the Pat Lee art, I think they did well because they were TF comics and fans at that time were dying for TF comics- any TF comic.

Sadly, because of their wide circulation, Pat Lee styled TFs may also be the most widely familiar thing around.

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I'm not sure if that's an entirey accurate assessment either. One of the things int that period was that it wasn't just hungry fans. There was a 80s boom at the time where everything from GiJOE to Masters of the Universe got a run. That fad died within 2 years though and TFs started in the tail end of that 80s boom. And multiple covers aren't new either. IDW have been doing them for a long time now and if we take away half the runs, that'd bring IDW down to 6-7,600 units on average per TF comic.

I think there's a lot of factors that contributed to the TF decline from the DW era.

- Marketing - it just isn't as strong anymore. In the DW era, posters were on the wall for everything from one-shots to the crappiness of the Micromasters limited series. Now, IDW barely have posters up for the latest Spotlight or even Maximum Dinobots
- Media Coverage - it just doesn't even hit the comics news forums that much anymore. Newsarama, IGN and CBR used to run plenty of articles during the DW era. Not the case now. That means less interest.
- Infiltration - it got off on the wrong foot. Too much humans, too slow a build up and they lost heaps of fans with that pathetic showing in Infiltration #0. I myself was among those who left the book and never expected to return. I only got back into the 'tion' series b/c of the Prime/Megatron fight in Escalation which piqued my interested again.
- The larger comic community lost interest. To them, IDW's product just didn't resonate with them the same way DW did which was way more rooted in G1.
- The power of Furman - he had way too much discretion and space to work with. He had spotlights and each of the "tion" series to work with and ended up with stuff beign all over the place. Giving him an ongoing would've forced him to play in the 1 basket.
- The 6 month wait between series. Poor choice and it dulled momentum between series to have to wait 6 months, sometimes more.
- TPBs: far more prevalent today and that means more readers have progressed to being casual TF fiction fans as opposed to being active. This has in large part negated a lot of voice in relation to the comics.

So I think that yes a lot of fans returned, the average 60K figure DW had can hardly be boiled to buying multiple covers. IDW tried that game with Infiltration and failed miserably still.

You're fundamentally agreeing with hd there - so DW TFs succeeded due to a combination fo starving fans and a new 80s retro boom. Either way, it succeeded despite Pat Lee rather than because of him.

Tom Cruise'd!! :D

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Originally Posted by GoktimusPrime

You're fundamentally agreeing with hd there - so DW TFs succeeded due to a combination fo starving fans and a new 80s retro boom. Either way, it succeeded despite Pat Lee rather than because of him.

Tom Cruise'd!! :D

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No, what I was pointing out was that HD's assessment was only partially correct and that it in is flawed b/c of the abovementioned reasons. IDW's franchise has flopped and I pointed out above all the reasons for it. DW's success over 3-4 years did not just boil down to Pat Lee hysteria. He was popular before TF comics even came around. He was regarded among the industry's top 10 artists at that time.

I'm not saying that makes him a good artist - Don is the best imo - but what I'm saying is that DW had a poor business approach but it had something that actually resonated and persisted with fans. The current flop in comics has been a result of IDW's failure to resonate with the fanbase and its grossly misleading to say it all comes down old fans starved of TF comics. And I've outlined those reasons above. IDW lost a significant of momentum and there's just no denying that.

Infiltration imo was one of the worst things to happen to the TF comics imo and I think the numbers and reaction at the time all go to show that.

i dont like any Marvel G1 comic art, G2 is good though and since then they seemed to have evolved to my likeness, except the current IDW stuff, old IDW was good, Verity use to b hawt!!!!:)

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Originally Posted by roller

i dont like any Marvel G1 comic art, G2 is good though and since then they seemed to have evolved to my likeness, except the current IDW stuff, old IDW was good, Verity use to b hawt!!!!:)

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*Throws poor Roller one of Unca Hugh's periodicals*