Messages

Silly, crazy, or just odd?

By a COSMIC coincidence, I bought the Hawkwind friends and relatives cd last week - Howdy Judge Trev!

"JUdge Grexnix": Prog 427?

I.C.U do feature as one of the rival gangs, but Karnes suggestion does actually have a punk become a Judge - Would it be classed as a Tharg story? Was it called JUdge Moron or something.... hold on.....

Isnt the story featuring ICU the Gibson drawn "Full Mental Jacket"?  Might be wrong here... let me just check...

There must be some advantages to the relaunch beyond the new readers angle.

So far, I've thought of 2 more:

Easier to schedule for editorial? Maybe...

Easier to push at retailers for extra distribution by saying the issue is a launch issue...?

Any others?

That's a good point Yttim? - Slaine returns on the next relaunch, but its following directly on from the first book earlier this year.  I expect ABC will do the same when it returns next year (!!!)

So any new readers are coming into the story mid way through anyway...

 

What are peoples opinions on the now set in stone practice of regular quarterly relaunch issues?

Personally, I'm not convinced by the arguments for them, though I stand ready to be corrected by this thread.

I assume the idea is to provide a jumping on point for new readers.  My question would be - does this hold up?  2000AD has a core of readers who are fairly loyal.  New readers are unlikely to be aware of the practice of relaunching and just wander in part way through a run.  Some lapsed readers who keep their eyes out for the comic on the shelves might be tempted, but what made them lapse in the first place?

Could it be that they are well aware of the continual relaunches, so have opted to only buy the comic for a few issues and will drop it if the stories arent that good, or towards the end of the run as the comic runs out of steam in preparation of a new boom issue? They will then jump back on for the relaunch, creating the illusion of extra sales, when it was the fact the comic went through a weak patch towards the end of the previous run that made them stop in the first place?

Isn't the creation of jumping on points leading to just as many jumping OFF points?

All of the above is pure conjecture, but I'm wondering just who the relaunch issues are aimed at.  Has any research been done into the effectiveness of the relaunch issues, or the reason for any sales boost?

Wouldn't a better strategy to be have enticing thrills appearing all the time, so as one thrill ends, another starts thats just as interesting?  When I started reading, it was half way through Meltdown Man, Return to Armageddon, Dredds Fink and a Stront story.  I wasnt put off by what I'd missed - if anything, I was intrigued.

One other problem with these relaunches is the way they make epic length stories virtually impossible, often leading to fairly lightweight or linear tales.

Basically, is the practice of having so many relaunches doing 2000AD more harm than good?

wow - So many good covers all of a sudden - 1212, 1226,1227,1230, 1234, 1236, 1240,1248.....

1227 for me, I think...

And although we dont see them, dont forget the accountants responsible for the "greatest robot in the world" seen in ABC Warriors...

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Seems to be working again, Manga...

and THAT is why Carlos should be made to do Stront forever more! :)

Superb stuff.

The most difficult round for me so far  - the covers are generally better than previus rounds, but I'm finding it hard to pick out any that are exceptional - maybe becasue it was easier to spot the better ones when they were surrounded by so many poor ones.....

That said, I'm going for 1110 - Shame we didnt see much more of John Charles

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