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Did nineties editorial really get it so wrong?

Started by Frank, 16 December, 2015, 05:40:54 PM

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Frank

Quote from: Colin_YNWA on 13 December, 2015, 08:27:25 AM
the biggest mistake of (Grant Morrison) in 2000ad was by trying to redefine 2000ad for a 90s audience was that he forgot that the 2000ad was actually getting it pretty much spot on and so by rallying against it he was rallying against something that worked. He also missed that 2000ad wasn't looking for its next generation of audience, rather unlike a lot of comics wonderfully growing up alongside the audience it'd always had.

Colin's comments on another thread reminded me of the line pursued by Pat Mills in the Future Shock DVD.

Rebellion's decision to appeal to a core audience stabilised reader numbers, but if (in 1990) you explained to Robert Maxwell that the solution to 2000ad's circulation problems was to jettison 90% of its readers he wouldn't have been impressed.

The general thrust of the 90s was similar to the 80s approach - strips that were a bit like the kind of films and telly the mass audience were into. Mercy Heights was Babylon 5, Sin/Dex was Pulp Fiction, Vector 13 was X-Files, Sancho Panzer is Our Friends In The North, etc.

I'm not arguing those strips were any good*, just that imagining the 100,000 readers who bought 2000ad every week in the 80s might give the comic a second look if it featured stuff they liked (including Viz and Loaded) wasn't such an insane idea.


* saying they should run good strips instead of shite ones doen't seem like much of an insight

ZenArcade

The re-branding 1993 till I left in 1995 and presumably until Rebellion took over, pissed away presumably ten's of thousands of readers like me. 2000AD for the last 3 years I stuck with it, was (with a few exceptions) unreadable, week in; week out. A truly dreadful period. Z
Ed is dead, baby Ed is...Ed is dead

TordelBack

Quote from: ZenArcade on 16 December, 2015, 06:17:57 PM
The re-branding 1993 till I left in 1995 and presumably until Rebellion took over, pissed away presumably ten's of thousands of readers like me. 2000AD for the last 3 years I stuck with it, was (with a few exceptions) unreadable, week in; week out. A truly dreadful period. Z

I bailed in 1993 (Book of the Dead part 2, to be precise), but  I'd echo every word of that (although with the obvious caveat, which I'm sure Zen shares, that there were always grains of gold mixed in - just not remotely enough to outshine the gong it was buried in). What always amazes me when I consider my wilderness years is that I kept actively trying to get back on board - I'd see and buy landmark progs like 1000 or particularly good covers like 920, or the perennial return of Slaine, hang on for a few progs, and then drop it again because there was nothing I was enjoying - and even where there was, the rest would annoy me too much for it to be worth it. 


Proudhuff

Reading the Damage Report in the Prog it seems that Rebellion's ''give the old guys what they want'' seems to be generating squillions of pounds.
I'm sure Murdoch would have understood that (and possibly raided the 2000ad pension potty at the same time).
Following the trend of 'match and dispatch' had lead to the death of just about every other weekly comic and fashionista Deadline-type comic too.
It would have been fine if the copy the latest film had been done well, but it was mostly turgid overstretched stories with muddy brown colouring due to the new colour processes.
So IMO yes they got it wrong and almost killed their golden goose.
DDT did a job on me

Colin YNWA

Quote from: Butch on 16 December, 2015, 05:40:54 PM
Sancho Panzer is Our Friends In The North, etc.

Can't believe I missed that, its so bloody obvious now its said.

I've said it before and I'll no doubt say it again David Bishop, dark days or not, certainly left the Prog in better shape when he left it than when he took over. There was lots of bumpy water on the way but by the time Nikolai Dante started he had finally got three solid strips (Dante, Wagner on Dredd and Sinister Dexter (long may she continue) appearing regularly, from which he could build and make the mistakes, the oh so many mistakes. A bit of luck maybe, but it was luck used well and capitalised upon... eventually!

TordelBack

Yeah, negative feelings about the content aside, the work of Bishop and later Diggle in keeping the Prog alive at all, and laying foundations for its second flowering, should never be forgotten.

Proudhuff

and give him his due, he had to use up all the guff bought and paid for before his time, and anything else found down the back o the filing cabinet, before he could spend on the good stuff that started around then, or so I read/heard er someplace  :-[
DDT did a job on me

Jim_Campbell

2000AD readership cratered under Burton/MacKenzie, due to the twin factors of the comic being shit and the new management imposing a change of distributor. Everything after that was a rearguard action against cancellation, leading up to the Rebellion buy-out. David Bishop, and the rarely-mentioned John Tomlinson before him, rolled up their sleeves and shifted the massive piles of fully-painted, mud-coloured art illustrating Millar and Fleischer scripts. The Mills version of 2000AD history has the Rebellion buy-out as the start of the comic's salvation, but that happened on the same day that Andy Diggle became editor.

(I may or may not have a long blog post on this subject in preparation...)

Cheers

Jim
Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

Tjm86

Quote from: Proudhuff on 16 December, 2015, 07:38:33 PM
and give him his due, he had to use up all the guff bought and paid for before his time, and anything else found down the back o the filing cabinet, before he could spend on the good stuff that started around then, or so I read/heard er someplace  :-[

Thrill Power Overload, Page 184

Quote'I spent the last two weeks of 1995 assessing what was in the drawer.  I was shocked to discover material dating back five years.  [ ]  I was still faced with plenty of strips that other people had commissioned and then buried at the back of the plans chest.'  Fleetly policy meant all commissioned work had to be published, regardless  of quality.

For me this was the return from the wilderness as it were.  Stories like The Pit had made me look afresh at the prog.  For me the anthology style always meant that there were (and are) strips that I enjoyed more than others.  That said, the last prog slog saw those years sped through at quite a pace.  Big Dave was the only strip at the time that really stood out as 'what the f*** is this doing in tooth?', particularly the world cup strip.

Dandontdare

Quote from: Tordelback on 16 December, 2015, 06:42:51 PM
I bailed in 1993 (Book of the Dead part 2, to be precise), but  I'd echo every word of that (although with the obvious caveat, which I'm sure Zen shares, that there were always grains of gold mixed in - just not remotely enough to outshine the gong it was buried in).

As someone who never stopped, there really was always something good (just as any particular "Golden Age" always featured some shite).

QuoteWhat always amazes me when I consider my wilderness years is that I kept actively trying to get back on board - I'd see and buy landmark progs like 1000 or particularly good covers like 920, or the perennial return of Slaine, hang on for a few progs, and then drop it again because there was nothing I was enjoying

Kudos on the effort, I think if I had given up during those years when I was skint and bouncing around and the quality was poor, I would probably never have come back.

ZenArcade

The movie seems to have been a catalyst for many to return. I bought 1808 and never looked back. Z
Ed is dead, baby Ed is...Ed is dead

Frank

Quote from: Proudhuff on 16 December, 2015, 06:53:56 PM
Following the trend of 'match and dispatch' had lead to the death of just about every other weekly comic and fashionista Deadline-type comic too.

It would have been fine if the copy the latest film had been done well

Yeah like I say, I'm sure we all agree it would have been better if the strips were good, but that's not really the argument Mills proposes and I'm sure they weren't deliberately trying to publish rotten comics.

The point you make concerning the collapse of the UK comic industry seems relevant - they could have run Day Of Chaos in the 90s and still haemorrhaged readers*, because kids stopped buying comics and the existing (teenage) readers needed money for beer and ecstasy.

The idea that Tharg could have held onto some more of those 100,000 readers by running strips that echoed other 90s pop culture they enjoyed doesn't seem too far fetched to me**, but Mills sees this all as a foolish diversion from bringing back strips about soldiers and dinosaurs.


* and talented creators   ** I like Big Dave, so my finger's not on the pulse

PsychoGoatee

#12
Quote from: ZenArcade on 16 December, 2015, 08:26:23 PM
The movie seems to have been a catalyst for many to return. I bought 1808 and never looked back. Z

It bounced back long, long before that. And when you said the movie the first thing that came to mind was the 95 Dredd movie, funnily enough.

Without sales numbers and whatnot, I don't really know how we're gauging stuff like that in recent years. I pretty much just know what has been said in the ThrillPower Overload, interviews, etc. Does anybody know what the subscriber numbers are? Or number of digital sales?

As for criticizing the 90s stuff, felt like a lot of it was going for a kind of Alan Grant "Lobo" vibe, a lot of irreverent weird comedy stuff, with intentionally ugly looking stuff. Not that I don't love Lobo. But there was plenty of great stuff as well, anything Wagner, and I love SinDex personally.

Frank

Quote from: PsychoGoatee on 16 December, 2015, 08:35:55 PM
Without sales numbers and whatnot, I don't really know how we're gauging stuff like that in recent years.

15,000 p/w as of Aug 2013*, compared to a peak of over 100,000 in the eighties (Thrillpower Overload).


* if you compare those numbers to the sales of monthly US comics, that meant 2000ad generated as much revenue as a top ten Marvel or DC book

PsychoGoatee

Quote from: Butch on 16 December, 2015, 08:46:47 PM
Quote from: PsychoGoatee on 16 December, 2015, 08:35:55 PM
Without sales numbers and whatnot, I don't really know how we're gauging stuff like that in recent years.

15,000 p/w as of Aug 2013*, compared to a peak of over 100,000 in the eighties (Thrillpower Overload).


* if you compare those numbers to the sales of monthly US comics, that meant 2000ad generated as much revenue as a top ten Marvel or DC book

Thanks for the info there. Still, that's not bad, it's more than most comics outside of Marvel and DC sell in the US for example. One of my favs, Invincible (Robert Kirkman) sells around 12000 in the US, and some of my favs sell as little as 4000. Plus those are monthly instead of weekly. Just some random comparisons.

I wonder how well 2000AD does digitally. I'd guess pretty solid sales there. It seems the printed periodical in general is just significantly down compared to the 80s.