Dreamwave Productions

Dreamwave Productions was a Canadian art design studio and comic book publisher founded in 1996 and is best known for their multiple Transformers comic book series. The company shut down on January 4, 2005.

Early years
Brothers Pat Lee and Roger Lee founded Dreamwave Productions in Toronto, Canada in 1996 as an imprint under Image Comics, publishing their first mini-series Darkminds. Pat maintained artistic control while Roger managed the business operations. Dreamwave split off from Image Comics in April 2002.

Transformers
Dreamwave acquired the license for the Transformers toyline from Hasbro in December 2001. The first mini-series, written by Chris Sarracini & drawn by Pat Lee and based on the Transformers: Generation 1 characters, was the top-selling book on the sales charts for its entire run. Various Transformers ongoing and limited series followed, covering various continuities with the Transformers franchise.

Closure and auction
Writers James McDonough and Adam Patyk left the company in 2004 over pay disputes. Despite plans for hiring replacements for them, Dreamwave subsequently announced that they had gone out of business. The company shut down on January 4, 2005, citing "the shrinking comic book market combined with a weak U.S. dollar" as the reason for their closure.

In late April 2005, freelancers who were still owed money by Dreamwave discovered they were also liable for debts incurred by Dreamwave. According to the terms of the contract the company had with Federal Express, the freelancers were left liable for the cost of shipping their unpublished, unpaid for work to Canada. Guido Guidi and Don Figueroa were two such freelancers affected.

After the company's bankruptcy in January 2005, Dreamwave's assets were auctioned off on August 2, 2005 and purchased by Canadian entrepreneur Christian Dery, who planned to relaunch its original properties. However, the new Dreamwave have not published nor announced the publishing of any titles since the 2005 announcement.

IDW Publishing acquired the Transformers license in 2005 and began publishing new Transformers comics in 2006.

Original series

 * Arkanium
 * Darkminds
 * Echo
 * Fate of the Blade
 * NecroWar
 * Neon Cyber (set in the same world as Darkminds)
 * Sandscape
 * Shidima (set in the same world as Warlands)
 * Warlands

Licensed series

 * Duel Masters (cancelled after issue #8)
 * Devil May Cry (bankrupt before final issue and TPB were released)
 * Killzone (bankrupt before issue #1)
 * Maximo (cancelled after issue #1)
 * Mega Man (cancelled after issue #4)
 * Metroid Prime comic series; debuted in Nintendo Power
 * Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (canceled after issue #7)
 * Transformers
 * Xevoz