James McDonough

James McDonough (sometimes credited as Brad Mick) was a writer on some of Dreamwave's Transformers comics.

History

McDonough's first "official" encounter with the Transformers was in 1997. By this time, he was running a surf shop in North Carolina when he received a cease and desist order for slapping Transformers logos on shirts, hats, surfboards and other things he was selling. Later he worked for Wizard: The Comics Magazine until he was hired by Dreamwave to act as their "Creative Director".

When it was decided that Chris Sarracini would not write the second Generation 1 volume contrary to what had been originally intended, McDonough was asked to write an entirely new story. For a while, he would go by the alias "Brad Mick" to distinguish between his double duties, even going so far as referring to his "Brad Mick" persona in the third person in interviews. The "Brad Mick" guise got its first cracks at a convention in 2003, when different Dreamwave representatives alternatively referred to McDonough by both names.

With issue #5 of the third Generation 1 volume (now an ongoing title), McDonough was joined by his longtime friend Adam Patyk, now forming a writing duo. With the following issue, McDonough would start using his real name, initially being credited as "James 'Brad Mick' McDonough", finally dropping the "Brad Mick" alias for good with issue 9. In addition, McDonough and Patyk also wrote the eight-issue More Than Meets The Eye limited series of profile books for Generation 1 characters and the three-issue Armada counterpart, the four-issue Micromasters mini-series and the 2004 Summer Special, and were also supposed to write a solicited Beast Wars mini-series.

In mid-2004, McDonough and Patyk were fired by Dreamwave. Their unpublished stories were supposed to be rewritten by Chris Sarracini (Generation One) and Simon Furman (Beast Wars), while McDonough and Patyk filed a lawsuit against Dreamwave for denying them payment for already published works. Later, McDonough and Patyk would claim that Dreamwave had insisted that any "additional" work (such as the Micromasters mini-series) was included of their contract and thus would be exempt from extra payment.

The case would ultimately never be settled, as Dreamwave officially filed for bankruptcy in early 2005. Meanwhile, McDonough and Patyk refused to offer any kind of public closure to their planned storylines unless they were paid the money they felt they were owed by Dreamwave.

Transformers comics written by James McDonough

Single writing credit (as "Brad Mick")

• Transformers: Generation 1 vol. 2: War and Peace: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6
• Transformers: Generation One (vol. 3): #0, #1, #2, #3, #4

Shared writing credit with Adam Patyk

• Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye (G1) #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8
• Transformers Armada: More Than Meets The Eye (Official Guidebook): #1, #2, #3
• Transformers: Generation One (vol. 3): #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10
• Transformers: Micromasters: #1, #2, #3, #4
• 20th Anniversary Transformers Summer Special: Individual stories "Welcome to the Jungle" (G1), Ultra Magnus... to the Rescue? (RiD), Ain't No Rat (Beast Wars)

Note: The exact credits for the joint works with Patyk are as follows: "Brad Mick" for Generation One (vol. 3) #5, More Than Meets the Eye (G1) #1-8, More Than Meets the Eye (Armada) #1-3 and the Transformers Summer Special; "James 'Brad Mick' McDonough" for Generation One (vol. 3) #6-8 and Micromasters #1-2; and simply "James McDonough" for Generation One (vol. 3) #9-10 and Micromasters #3-4.