Posted in: Comics | Tagged: hasbro, idw, megatron, transformers

A Megatron Design Gets Even More Stealthy (UPDATE)

Published Fri, 09 Aug 2013 18:00:32 -0500

Last updated Sat, 10 Aug 2013 11:36:05 -0500

This is a design for Transformers character Megatron by Don Figueroa. He writes;

So I read that this was being made into a toy? wow, and I thought only 3rd party companies take stuff without giving any notice, acknowledgement or compensation..

FYI: hasbro nor idw solicited me to do this design, I did it on my own. I originally came up with a different design seen here: www.deviantart.com/art/ATB-Meg…

it was a sample for a story idea I was going to pitch to then editor Andy Schmidt. he turned me down because he said they have years of story already set in stone. so no biggie.
a couple of months later he comes to me and says they wanted to use the design. I said cool, lemme update it and the final image above was the result. I again asked if I can pitch a story, even if it's not TF related, he said yes and he'll come down to Long Beach Comic-con for a sit down. I went, but he never showed up. and that was that.

Andy Schmidt moved from IDW to Hasbro in 2011 and he may have recently been part of a series of redundancies at the company.

Comics were made using the design of the character;

The toy is part of a co-op between Hasbro and IDW, and is part of a Transformers Generations four-series release.

Now obviously Hasbro owns Transformers, and comic creators at IDW sign over the rights to their designs, and usually that's part of being paid to draw a comic or create a design. Don was paid for the cover. Don was paid for the cover and signed the rights away as part of that. This is the deal… It's possible that more people should be aware of the consequences of such a deal.

UPDATE: The designer of the toy, Joe Kyde, adds;