The Energon Pub

As I was thinking of the new Transformers Hall of Fame promotion, do we owe Pat Lee some thanks for the Transformers resurgence in the 2000's?

Obviously, he brought them back into comics but most importantly, his art style and studio did create a new standard and look for new Transformers images. I recall seeing tons of Dreamwave images on merchandise and toy packages. I look back on Pat's early Transformers art and they are great until towards the end of the first mini-series.

Would it have even mattered if Dreamwave created the G1 comics? Of course, we did have Robots in Disguise ending and Armada beginning at the same time. Perhaps Transformers would still be a viable brand without Dreamwave. Plus, I think we started to see the 80s retro phase in shirts before that Wizard issue with Dreamwave Transformers art.

Thoughts & opinions?

Good or Bad, whoever's worked on Transformers comics in the past has helped build what we have today. I for one like Pat Lee's work, especially since it's on Armada, but I don't even know if I'm crediting the right person. While I believe the Armada series was some good work, and the G1 + Armada MTMTE volumes were cool, I still think Pat Lee will forever be known as that 'one step backwards', in order for Transformers comics to go two steps forward. I'm sure he's a good guy, but wow, there are some talented artists that now work for IDW that would be under-appreciated if Pat Lee still had DW and still continued with his antics.

I loved DW back in the day. The MTMTE profile books are, for some of the characters, the only bits of bio they've ever gotten. And it was exciting to see new TF comics back in stores.

I know it's impossible, but one of my dreams now is the continuation of the DW storyline.

Hell yeah we do, great art and he helped bring back the bots in comics.

IMO the success of the Dreamwave Transformers comics led the way for the other 80's properties to come back in prominence--GI Joe seemed to benefit well, Thundercats fell to the wayside, Voltron wasn't very successful from the get-go, and Masters of the Universe came & went BUT appear to be doing even better now with the MOTU Classics figures.

the guy brought a visual sophistication to Transformers in comics that had never been seen outside of Japan... his arts awesome. Bad businessman..but f++k me he can draw.

Hairball178 wrote:IMO the success of the Dreamwave Transformers comics led the way for the other 80's properties to come back in prominence--GI Joe seemed to benefit well, Thundercats fell to the wayside, Voltron wasn't very successful from the get-go, and Masters of the Universe came & went BUT appear to be doing even better now with the MOTU Classics figures.

GI Joe was the first 80s property to come back in comic form thanks to Devil's Due. After the release, GI Joe came back in toy form.

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

I love him for bringing my favorite child hood toy back from the brink.....

I don't think we would have gotten movies or near the exposure if TransFormers never rocketed to the top of the charts for a while like they did when DW launched.

That being said if I knew now when I was at BotCon in Chicago I might have socked him one or two for fandom and the people he screwed over the DW fiasco.

He had some awesome spread, I think Figeoura beat him overall art wise once he got going, but Lee could do a hell of a page for effect.

I own the Sentinel splash page from the second series where they realized a Sentinel was guarding Iacon. Awesomely done, but it doesn't fix the problems he caused and the people he screwed.

And for my 2 cents, Simon Furman sucks. I mean seriously, what has he given to Transformers

3.8TransAM wrote:hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm



And for my 2 cents, Simon Furman sucks. I mean seriously, what has he given to Transformers

About a million amazing stories in the UK in the 80s, fashioning the personalitys of G1 Transformers, he did a lot over here. I havent really bothered with his IDW run, his Dreamwave run was decent enough i thought.

I too would love to see the Dreamwave G1, Energon and War Within continued.
Much more enjoyable than the IDW stuff and they knew the characters. Speaking of which, shame they didn't get to produce the MTMTE expansion book featuring the likes of Sunstorm and Bumper. Acid Storm and the Robotmasters guys would be great subjects for the MTMTE books.

I like Pat Lee's art and he did give us TF comics back.

I might not agree with his interpretations of Prowl but Furman is a great writer. Target 2006, Time Wars, Matrix Quest, G2, War Within, the 'ation series. He has done some fantastic work.

The guy is a great artist, there's no questioning that. His problem was he let his success with TF's go to his head and ended up taking on more titles than Dreamwave could handle. This lead to a bigger workload than they could handle and delayed many comics.

The one thing I cna never forgive him for was the stuff with Ultra Mangus, as it lead to hasbro, taking the cheap way out with various UM figs becoming white Prime repaints.

It's the bad business decisions that'll color DW's legacy, but I loved the story.

I love Pat Lee's artwork. I have 3 custom framed posters in my living room, his all optimus, his all megatron, and his g1 decpticons. I honestly don't know how he screwed up and from reading this post, it appears he just took on a heavy work load that he could'nt handle. Nothing wrong with being optimistic.

Either way, when DW comics came back out, i was excited. I think hes played a major part in the revival of transformers and unless he did something terrible, like molested gerbils or whatever, i think he should be celebrated.

3.8TransAM wrote:And for my 2 cents, Simon Furman sucks. I mean seriously, what has he given to Transformers

About 80% of everything we know of Transformers mythology today.
Wrekers, Fallen, Primus, modern day Unicron, etc.....

Dead Metal wrote:

3.8TransAM wrote:And for my 2 cents, Simon Furman sucks. I mean seriously, what has he given to Transformers

About 80% of everything we know of Transformers mythology today.
Wrekers, Fallen, Primus, modern day Unicron, etc.....

Nice.

Counterpunch wrote:

Dead Metal wrote:

3.8TransAM wrote:And for my 2 cents, Simon Furman sucks. I mean seriously, what has he given to Transformers

About 80% of everything we know of Transformers mythology today.
Wrekers, Fallen, Primus, modern day Unicron, etc.....

Nice.

He also has a spiffy name!

Supreme Convoy wrote:As I was thinking of the new Transformers Hall of Fame promotion, do we owe Pat Lee some thanks for the Transformers resurgence in the 2000's?

Obviously, he brought them back into comics but most importantly, his art style and studio did create a new standard and look for new Transformers images. I recall seeing tons of Dreamwave images on merchandise and toy packages. I look back on Pat's early Transformers art and they are great until towards the end of the first mini-series.

Would it have even mattered if Dreamwave created the G1 comics? Of course, we did have Robots in Disguise ending and Armada beginning at the same time. Perhaps Transformers would still be a viable brand without Dreamwave. Plus, I think we started to see the 80s retro phase in shirts before that Wizard issue with Dreamwave Transformers art.

Thoughts & opinions?

No, we don't owe Pat Lee a damn thing. He couldn't draw a Transformer to save his life and if Dreamwave hadn't got the rights another company would have, maybe Devil's Due, Marvel, Dark Horse, and another company.

Pat Lee deserves nothing but scorn he screwed people out thousands of dollars, and he is a POS.

There are tons of 'artists' whether it be by paint, written word, music, whatever who could be generously categorized as being assholes if not worse. The fact is these people have fan bases that couldn't care less that the 'person' is flawed if the 'art' is worth it.

While it is easy enough to say that if Dreamwave didn't get the license that another would have. (had Devil's Due won it, I think it would have been awful. loved the joe books, hated the crossovers, the DW WW2 style one was much better.) The fact remain that the books did receive a lot of fans who were sad and/or disappointed to see DW lose the franchise, and a lot of them haven't enjoyed what IDW has done with the license.

Celebrate Pat Lee the Fan? Maybe.
Celebrate Pat Lee the Artist? Sure.
Celebrate Pat Lee the Man? No.
Celebrate Pat Lee the Businessman? Hells NO!

All I know of Pat Lee is what the TF Wiki tells me. Biased? probably, but I don't really have any other good sources.

So it looks like Pat Lee is back on a new book.

Cyberstrike wrote:

Supreme Convoy wrote:As I was thinking of the new Transformers Hall of Fame promotion, do we owe Pat Lee some thanks for the Transformers resurgence in the 2000's?

Obviously, he brought them back into comics but most importantly, his art style and studio did create a new standard and look for new Transformers images. I recall seeing tons of Dreamwave images on merchandise and toy packages. I look back on Pat's early Transformers art and they are great until towards the end of the first mini-series.

Would it have even mattered if Dreamwave created the G1 comics? Of course, we did have Robots in Disguise ending and Armada beginning at the same time. Perhaps Transformers would still be a viable brand without Dreamwave. Plus, I think we started to see the 80s retro phase in shirts before that Wizard issue with Dreamwave Transformers art.

Thoughts & opinions?

No, we don't owe Pat Lee a damn thing. He couldn't draw a Transformer to save his life and if Dreamwave hadn't got the rights another company would have, maybe Devil's Due, Marvel, Dark Horse, and another company.

Pat Lee deserves nothing but scorn he screwed people out thousands of dollars, and he is a POS.

Amen to that brother

I'm not a Pat Lee fan, in fact I dislike him for how he ran DW and for screwing over people who worked for the company.

I also really dislike his artwork as it takes the superficial attributes of general manga stylings and combines it with a lack of understanding of the basic fundamentals of visual art. He's a prime example of hotshot artists in the 90s who were brought into the comic book industry because they had a hook. He has no understanding of perspective, composition, and lacks consistency(though that's a flaw of many comic artists).

That being said, I do acknowledge that he did play a role in Transformers history. Sure other companies could have possibly taken the place of DW but that's just hypothetical. The fact is DW got licensing for TF comics and did help at least keep interest in the franchise going and brought some new people in over the course of the time the company published TF comic books.

So I do think his part should be recognized but not celebrated. Frankly, for what good in TF history can be credited to him...it's far outweighed by the negative impact he had on people who worked for/with him.

I think DW and Pat Lee just went sh*tty due to Pat Lee overestimating himself, which explains why his art looked more and more lazy and crap, the more he did. I think he did have the passion to draw but you know I think he did art for almost everything DW did, so he kinda got frustrated and once he realised he could just let others do his work for him he just went completely lazy.

I do like that he and DW seemed serious about comics and the arts, didn't they start his fund to help out academies that schooled people in illustration and animation?

But yes sadly the negative will always outweigh the positive things about DW.

I also really dislike his artwork as it takes the superficial attributes of general manga stylings and combines it with a lack of understanding of the basic fundamentals of visual art. He's a prime example of hotshot artists in the 90s who were brought into the comic book industry because they had a hook. He has no understanding of perspective, composition, and lacks consistency(though that's a flaw of many comic artists).

I agree, but stongly disagree with your point of view. I agree, that yes, they lacked the basic fundamentals and didn't go by the books and did'nt draw the apple like a traditional artist would.

I strongly disagree though, because these artist, however lacking they are to the art critiques, where absolutely phenomenal. I loved the 90s comics and i loved Pat Lee's artwork. And i 'm going to stop here, because if i keep going, we'll be debating personal preferences and tastes, which either one of us will be able to prove because it is 'preference'.

On another note, I find the IDW stuff terrible. I mean these are supposed to be newer books and the production values are just awful, nevermind the artwork.

EDIT: Ok, i take that back. I had to check to see if there were a few decent series and there is. Maximum Dinobots and All Hail Megatron are pretty good looking so far, but man, wtf happened to Beast Wars? lol

vegetacron wrote:On another note, I find the IDW stuff terrible. I mean these are supposed to be newer books and the production values are just awful, nevermind the artwork.

EDIT: Ok, i take that back. I had to check to see if there were a few decent series and there is. Maximum Dinobots and All Hail Megatron are pretty good looking so far, but man, wtf happened to Beast Wars? lol

I feel that Max Dinos could have been better, but I have to agree, the art and style in DW was way better than the stuff IDW is presenting, to the point I have stopped buying it as I just get pissed at the constant redesigns that are needlessly given.

The DW books (regardless of your feelings towards Pat lee) just felt and looked more G1 than the current IDW inspired books. Hey look a Jazz and Bumblebee that "LOOK" like Jazz and Bumblebee. Making them look like classics is one thing, making them look like rejected Bay characters is another.