IDW vs Dreamwave: Which is better?

[Goktimus Prime]

A lot of things bothered me about Dreamwave's comics. And Pat Lee would have to be one of the worst TF comic artists I've ever seen. At first glance his artwork may seem fancy, cos he likes to embellish things with try-hard mangaesque decos... but it's just bells and whistles... it's not hard to look beyond it and realise just how awful and fundamentally effed up his art is. e.g.

+ Proportions?? What's that?! Whaddaya mean Optimus Prime's head can't randomly float above his shoulderline? Awww...

+ Forced linear perspective?! Pfftt... who needs to try to draw in 3D... Pat Lee wants to go old school ... pre-Rennaissance!

+ Pat Lee wants to draw Transformers like Mecha, but he doesn't know how... how does he compensate?! Make everything CHUNKY!! Who cares if it completely defies all logic in terms of how Transformers can move?! Cos you can totally do things like use a keyboard or hold an object or fire a gun when you have uber-chubby hands and fingers like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man! :P

+ Pat Lee's style is so awesome, he gets all other DW artists to follow his style. (but hey, at least DW did have better visual consistency than IDW!)

+ Who needs emotive facial expressions when you have Pat Lee's patented Dull Surprise!

...etc.

 

And yeah, Devastator was impossibly big. But then again, a LOT of DW's visuals (especially Pat Lee's) were just impossible anyway. Maybe he was going for some kind of Picasso-esque surrrealism... only ya know, epically failing.

[Jason X]

Personally, I like the varied visual style each artist uses in the IDW comics (although some are better than others). No other comic has a rigidly consistent look. It's all interpretation based off the character studies. To expect each artist to perfectly match the guy who was lucky enough to design the characters in the first place is to handcuff them from a creative standpoint. I'd say it would be particularly detrimental right now as many people didn't like the revamped style introduced with the Transformers Ongoing series.

[Goktimus Prime]

I don't mind varied art styles, but I want consistent visual continuity. It's bizarre seeing the Transformers drawn in a Neo-G1 style one issue, then suddenly in a movie-esque look another issue, then to a more Old-Skool G1 look in another issue -- just jumping between these very different designs within the same story. It's just like that scene in Kung Pow: Enter The Fist where Evil Betty ("I am a great magician!") keeps changing the colour of that dude's shirt. "Your shirt is red!" "Your shirt is blue!"

 

It's one thing to have different styles, but it's something else to ignore basic visual continuity and completely change not the look, but the core design of the character. With Marvel we did have drastically different artistic styles between different artists, but on the whole they did try to adhere with the model sheets supplied by Marvel. e.g. look at the different ways Powermaster Optimus Prime was drawn by different artists. Despite this they all used the same basic model/template and thus maintained basic visual continuity.

José Delbo

Geoff Senior

Robin Smith

Andrew Wildman

...etc.

 

If an artist doesn't want to be constrained by using set character models, then well... go work another title that doesn't require you to do that. Maybe go make your own independent title and be the sole artist working on it. But if you're going to be a member of a creative team then you ought to be prepared to conform to the minimal requirements of set character models.

 

Look at Wildman. He's never really been fond of drawing robots -- if you watch any of his DVD interviews, he often talks about how he became a comic artist because he wanted to draw superheroes like the X-Men. When Marvel first approached him and asked him if he wanted to draw robots, his initial answer was "Not really, no." but then he changed his mind because he needed the work. And when you look at the way he draws Transformers, he draws them like Marvel superheroes rather than as robots, e.g.Ratchet vs Starscream or Megatron vs Galvatron or the BotCon 97 Beast Wars mural

... but despite the fact that Wildman went made his Transformers look all X-Men-esque, he didn't deviate from Marvel's character models. So the result was a very distinctive and unique style that's all his own, but yet still conforms enough to the character models to maintain enough visual consistency with other artists so that he doesn't break visual continuity. One criticism of the art in G2 was the visual inconsistency (i.e. wires vs no-wires) -- but even that is nothing compared to the massive differences between some IDW artists.

 

Just remember, there is no "I" in "Creative Team."

Yes there is.

Shut up, voice in my head.

[Jason X]

As long as I can tell who is who (and so far this hasn't been a problem) I'm good.

[Goktimus Prime]

It has been a problem with some people -- not me, I can tell who's who. But I have heard some other people complain about how it's not easy to tell who's who with that G1-movie hybrid designs ... so much so that even IDW themselves included captions to introduce characters' names to tell the readers who they're looking at. That ain't good. :(

[Jason X]

Meh, that's a fairly common comic practice. Even people who don't read any X-Men books know Cyclops is the guy with the red visor and optic blasts, or that Wolverine is the little hairy guy with the three sharp claws. Despite this, they get introductory captions in almost every issue they appear in. I think that sort of exposition is more for the benefit of new readers. After all, each issue is someones first.

[Goktimus Prime]

Hi! My name is:

S. P. RAY

 

;) :P

[jeffafa]

I bought the hardcover All Hail Megatron and it was great. Read through it while traveling last weekend. Great story. I love how true the characters stayed to G1. Blurr, Kup, and Drift were badass, even Perceptor! I wish I hadnt passed on Generations Drift now, but oh well.

[Jason X]

I bought the hardcover All Hail Megatron and it was great. Read through it while traveling last weekend. Great story. I love how true the characters stayed to G1. Blurr, Kup, and Drift were badass, even Perceptor! I wish I hadnt passed on Generations Drift now, but oh well.

I'm really glad you enjoyed it! I thought the evolution of Perceptor's character was one of the highlights of that series. He was a favorite of mine as a kid so it was good to see him be just skilled on the battlefield as he is in the lab. If I recall, the other characters reactions after he took that shot were priceless!

[masterminicon]

Oh snap, I just clicked on IDW straight away, because the title of this thread says IDW Vs Dreamwave, and between the two I'd say IDW is definitely gooderer. But then I later noticed that Marvel is an option too, but I'd definitely say that Marvel's better than all of them.

 

Oops.

 

I'm with you Goki, however, I clicked IDW for two reasons. One, original stories. Two, I included Marvel in my choice because the Marvel story is going to continue with no 81 at the end of the year written by Simon Furman I believe and bypassing G2 (which I have to be honest was never a fan of story wise, but the toys were decent).