Dreamwave Productions

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Dreamwave Productions is a Canadian art design studio and comic book publisher, best known for their multiple Transformers comic book series. After bankruptcy in 2005 it was purchased by Canadian entrepreneur Christian Dery with plans to relaunch its core properties (excluding former licenses such as Transformers).

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In 1996, brothers Pat Lee and Roger Lee founded Dreamwave Productions in Toronto, Canada, as an imprint under Image Comics and published their first mini-series, Darkminds. Pat, who is a self-trained graphic artist having only a high school education, maintained artistic control while his older brother managed the business operations. They quickly made their manga-influenced style a trademark, merging the look of an animated film with sequential art.

In 2002, Dreamwave spun off from Image and became an independent publishing company after acquiring the license for the popular Hasbro toyline Transformers. The first miniseries, based on the classic Transformers "Generation 1" characters and featuring art by Pat Lee and writing by Chris Sarracini was the top-selling book on the sales charts for its entire run. More series followed, expanding their G1 stories to shape a brand new universe, covering the current Transformers: Armada toyline. Famed Transformers scribe Simon Furman came on board to produce Transformers: The War Within, a series detailing previously-undocumented aspects of the Transformers' past. Many artistic members of the fan community, such as Don Figueroa and Guido Guidi, were hired by the company, entering the professional world of comics via their hobby.

Three years later, signs of trouble began to appear when G1 writers James McDonough and Adam Patyk left the company over pay disputes. Despite plans for their replacement, it was subsequently announced that Dreamwave had gone out of business. They cited "the shrinking comic book market combined with a weak U.S. dollar" as the cause of the closure on January 4, 2005, although a month of rumors and speculation had all but made this a forgone conclusion amongst readers. The final Dreamwave comic was published in December 2004, leaving incomplete both limited series and multiple ongoing storylines.

As Dreamwave's website was shut down, a new site registered by Roger Lee was launched.

One of the most common complaints about Dreamwave productions had to do with the nature of the settings of their comics. Most of their series were a single story arc that lasted 6-8 issues long. When that story arc was finished, it would start anew, sometimes with the same characters in a different situation in time. Examples of this included Warlands.

Though this might be said to have become a standard practice in the comic book industry, Pat Lee, whose signature art work predominated almost all of Dreamwave's comics, would draw the first several issues of the series, generating large amounts of hype by means of the label "Pat Lee drawn" branded on the book. Lee would subsequently leave the series several issues before its conclusion to begin another project, leaving the series in control of other artists whose work were not met with the same positive reaction by fans as Lee's. This even occurred with his most successful series, Warlands: Age of Ice, and Transformers.

Another complaint from many in the industry was Dreamwave's Warlands bearing more than a slight resemblance to the anime series Record of Lodoss War. The character designs seemed to be blatantly copied by Pat Lee, but no mention of any credit towards the creators of Record of Lodoss War is ever mentioned by Dreamwave.

However, most of the controversy surrounding Dreamwave eventually became public in its closing days, when it became apparent that the company had been neglecting its payroll obligations. When a list of the company's debts surfaced online, it became apparent that Dreamwave's liabilities exceeded CAN$1 Million. Most telling was that two of the very few items on the list marked "secured" were Pat and Roger's BMWs. Several artists, including Figueroa and Guidi, having previously remained genial on the matter, came forward and aired their grievances, which as of April 2005, included having to pay FedEx for shipping work for which they never received compensation. As the company failed, Pat Lee maintained ownership of his Porsche sports car and acquired a luxurious apartment in Canada.

On August 2, 2005 Christian Dery purchased all of the company's assets in a bankruptcy auction. Dery stated he had intended to enter into comic book publishing and the opportunity to begin with "a catalogue of such strong existing titles was too good to pass up." The Transformers license; eventually acquired by IDW; and similar third-party properties were not included, but along with all trademarks and logos the purchase included Warlands, Neon Cyber, Shidima, Fate of the Blade, Garden of Blades, Limbo City, Arkanium, NecroWar, Darkminds, Capsoul, and Sandscape properties. Now holder of the "Dreamwave" trademark, Dery intended to relaunch the properties under the Dreamwave Entertainment label in 2006, but has failed to do so. Several former Dreamwave Productions employees and creators are participating in this new venture.[citation needed]

More than two years after Dreamwave was purchased by Dery, the official website is dead and there has not been any news about the company since September 2005.

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