In the thread about the Philosophy book a few people mentioned that the comic came first not the cartoon, and I've seen similar comments on other threads too.

I'm not doubting that the comic book was on US comic shelves were before the cartoon aired, but both have different lead times. The first issue of the comic and the first episode of the cartoon might have been written at the same time. Comics take a shorter time to produce than cartoons.

Now I do recall that the first Transformers comic came out later than intended so maybe it was written first, but do we really know that for a fact?

(Maybe some of the picture books or colouring books with their mix of toy-accurate and cartoon-accurate art, use of Spike or Buster (or Butch!) and sliped in pre-release names (Spinout) actually came first?!)