Definitely all of the above. To be frank, I was surprised there was even a question, but opinions do vary.
Transformers: Age of the Primes toyline discussion || update: stock renders of upcoming Alpha Trion, Micronus, Flatline, Fireflight, Skydive, ++
- Thread starter TriBlurr
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I've never understood the legal issues. Couldn't a company that wanted to reprint Dreamwave just pay off the artists for the issues that are in question? Oh no, maybe somebody might be dishonest and get paid a second time. Whatever.
I think it could be done. Just no one wants to.
The whole point of reprinting old stuff is because it's already done. Just need to commission a new cover and maybe a foreword, and even that's just to trick people into getting THIS collected edition because it has a new hat.
Shelling out the coin to clear any legal issues and debts defeats the purpose of reprinting old material, and definitely won't make enough on sales to justify it.
Shelling out the coin to clear any legal issues and debts defeats the purpose of reprinting old material, and definitely won't make enough on sales to justify it.
No, you got the long and short of it.
From what I understand, those comics can't be reprinted because the creators were never compensated and it puts them into a legal limbo. You're absolutely right that someone could pay them off, and I'm sure the creators would be more than happy to get the money they're owed, or even part of it.
The problem is someone has to WANT to pay, and shelling out money for a bunch of old comics from an incomplete continuity is probably not on anyone's priority list, even if they were in the mood to be spending money in todays economy.
It'd be cool if Hasbro or Skybound compensated the artists and writers and etc. and it would be even cooler if they paid them to finish out some of the stories, and hey, maybe that will happen. I just don't see it happening anytime soon, given current state of things.
EDIT: Like, Skybound made millions on that Marvel Compendium kickstarter, plus more with the regular sales and couldn't even be bothered to pay someone to fix the errors introduced by IDW. Given that, them paying extra to get the Dreamwave stuff seems unlikely.
This may be a "the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing" situation. It sounds like a regional Hasbro branch and a local retailer, who may not even be run by people who are up to date on the whole Dreamwave debacle, just commissioned a somewhat well known artist known for doing Transformers for some exclusive packaging art.
If anyone on the main Hasbro brand team had known, I'm sure they'd have shot it down, but I doubt something this specifically niche even reached them.
There's *some* precedent, though. IDW's TMNT Urban Legends series (as understand it) reprinted the Image run and, since it wasn't finished at the time, commissioned the original writers to conclude it.
(Granted, I don't think there were any unpaid legal limbo-type issues, which is really the stumbling block, not the incompleteness.)