JUNE 2022 Transformers comics and books

[griffin]

A few notes for the newest month of pre-orders.

- four new items have been added to the upcoming books listing to take us up to November (Phase 3 Vol 3, BW Vol 3, 2019 Vol 6 and Last Bot Standing), which only leaves a month after that for any yet-to-be-revealed physical TPB/HCs from IDW (due to the license ending at the end of 2022).

- I would have to guess that there would be a Phase 3 Vol 4 HC to come, to include the remaining issues from their first universe, but they are running out of time to get it released, as Vol 3 is intended for September, leaving them with just 3 months to release Vol 4. With IDW's products being consistently delayed by 6-12 months in most cases, I would have to hope that they are planning to use the rest of this year to focus on catching up and completing their publications on-time instead of pushing out new content, as their license may not allow them to release anything beyond December 2022, which could prevent the release of delayed TPB/HCs, even if they had them solicited several months earlier in the Previews pre-order listings. It would also mean that if they release any new single-issue content beyond about September, we probably won't see a TPB of it, as they wouldn't have enough time to catch up to produce it, and have enough time to allow for sales of the regular issues before releasing a TPB (so that it doesn't encourage people to choose the cheaper TPB option, leaving dead stock for comic stores to deal with later).

- Volume 6 TPB of the 2019 IDW universe notes that it contains a special issue called "Fate of Cybertron", which could be the "Special" listed for release in June.

- Because there was no regular Transformers issue listed for June, I only just noticed that the May pre-order listing says that issue 43 is the last regular issue, and it is a double-sized issue to lead into a special conclusion issue (which probably would be the "Fate of Cybertron" issue in the TPB Vol 6).

- The Beast Wars vol 3 TPB notes issues 13-17 and an Annual, but this is not reflected by the page count listed on Amazon, as it has a page count matching a regular TPB of 5 regula issues, so maybe the listed page count is wrong. (I was also under the impression from an earlier listing, that the Annual was counted as one of the 17 issues, but it was clearly listed in April as a separate issue).

- the links to digital releases (at Amazon on the individual TPB product pages) appear to have stopped from June. Usually they are listed at the same time, with a pre-order link and placeholder date, so I wonder if the loss of license by IDW in December has forced them to stop offering digital content 6 months before that, in case people are not be able to access the digital copies (to read them) beyond the end of IDW's license, which wouldn't be fair to a reader to spend money on a comic and then run out of time to read it? That's just my guess... as there maybe something else in play, like their contract with Hasbro relating to being able to sell digital copies beyond a particular date, or the digital release links will still be added later?