Relaunch

[Leigh S]

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?

[Bart Oliver]

Valid points, all of them.

I too started reading around 178- a good two thirds the way through the Judge Cild Quest. I concur that it didn't spoil  my reading experience- just made me hunt out the rest of the episodes..

Which brings me to the point I wanted to make about epic length stories.

If each quarterly launch  starts with completely fresh material surely that means (if my maths serve me correctly) an epic length tale can never exceed 12-14  parts, no?

The death nail for the Mega Epic?

Or just (I rub my hands together at the thought) more double length episodes per prog?

[JTurner]

I think that the relaunch thing is a little like writing a TV script with the commercial breaks in mind.

Has the almighty Tharg actually stopped to consider the fact that your average Joe Public will not be able to tell a relaunch issue from a regular prog? The only issues of tooth likely to grab the eye of a newbie are the Christmas 100 page progs, or the copies of the meg, which a big, bold, and far more noticable as their size seems to have them placed with the more regular sci-fi, entertainment mags.

If Tharg wants a bumper prog out at regular intervals to snare new readers, then the monthly Meg seems to be the obvious means to do this.

BTW, nice to be back here again!

[satchmo]

The question has to be is there a noticeable sales hike on the relaunch progs? I have no idea,but my gut instinct is no.
I can live with the current situation,but as Watcher points out they could be seen as jumping off points to casual readers.
Its like having 4 miniseries' every year,and the sight of some thrills may send people running until the Winter Massacre or whatever it'll be called starts.
Personally I don't think we'll ever see a thrill as long as Meltdown Man again,and thats a shame.
Instead of jumping on points why not make the catchup boxes actually interesting and informative?
 Its improved recently but it should be a vital part of the prog,and right now it isnt.(its better than those entire pages they used to have in Jumping on points).
As I say I can live with the current situation,but maybe its time for a slight rethink?

[Queen Firey-Bou]

good point jacob, i offen wondering this.. its like.... tum tee tumm i think i might try reading 2000AD, but ahh no i better wait til prog thingumy which is the jumping on prog....

nahhhhhh.

stories should set their own pace.

[thinky]

stories should set their own pace

I agree. we've currently got the situation where the much-anticipated ABC Warriors is going to be winding up (for now) before anything has really happened (whether this vindicates Mills vs Diggle i'll leave for others to decide)

i'd like to see 1 story continue through the 'jumping on point' - i don't care if this is a dredd mega-epic, or a 20parter for a different story - it doesn't matter.

new readers are as likely to be turned off by jumping into the middle of a continuing story as they are by seeing the first part of something they find truly appalling.

and anyway, arriving at part 1 of the 432nd Slaine book is hardly a jumping on point anyway

i *do* miss the year-long stories of yesteryear - i'm obviously not alone

yttim?

[Leigh S]

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...

 

[DavidXBrunt]

I suspect one of the major reasons for short 'assaults' with discrete short story arcs is to ensure the artists can cope with them. From what Steve Yeowell told me the 26 part Devlin Waugh arc took him a year to draw, and you have to wonder how many artists can stay on deadline for that long, or be willing to commit to something so far in advance.

It also means a degree of commitment on the editorial staff that a 6 parter doesn't.

It also prevents monumental cock-ups from occuring. Imagine if Bison had lasted for 6 months...

(Will we ever stop picking on Bison? Seems unfair, he's a good cop after all..._

[karne]

Surely you mean "She's a good cop after all"?

[Bolt-01]

Personally, I think the balance has swung too far towards supposed new reader accessibility; by that I mean the amount of jump on progs (obviously).

I'd like to see jump on progs, of course, but I think the end of year prog is more suited to this than anything else. A good tale with the length of meltdown man will never happen again (IMHO) and that is sad.

rotts.

[ukdane]

I hate the jump on issues. Once a year, max twice if it has to be done, but I want Mega Epics gruddamn it!

If they brought back the recap caption boxes at the start of each strip, there wouldn't be the need for so many relaunch issues, as people could "catch-up" with the story, just like we had to do in the old days... and it never did us any harm. Heck, it might even boost their back issue sales.

Was there a definitive issue when they stopped using the recap caption boxes?

I don't buy the whole loosing the recaps for the sake of reprints, a) so what if they are in the reprint, and b) in this day and age, they should be able to digitally remove anything they don't want to appear in a collection/reprint.

[Slippery PD]

I agree with everyone here, the relaunch issues dont actually work. They dont relaunch things, stories are rushed to the end, we get double parts thrown in, stories limited to certain amount of pages (Storming Heaven) and generally we get a huge number of filler material as well (future shocks, past imperfect, Terror tales).

If we take for example Caballistics Inc, which is linning up to be one of the best ew stories for a long while, we have no sense of rush (short 3 episode arcs), time for character building, no idea, when it will end or even how it will end.  We need to bring thrills back to this.  Not saying "Oh Sh!t.  Its only three weeks left of the summer assualt, ABC Warriors will be ended then.  The great thing about 2000ad in the past is that you never knew when the stories where gonnna end.  We should get back to that......  Also as an advantage, if its really bad, it could be cut short no one would know!!!!

Yer Slippo

[Leigh S]

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?

[Tu-plang]

yeah once again on the safer stories thing.  If the majority hate it you're kind of stuck with it.

But what did they do in the old days?  It never mattered back then, B/W linework artists could (well, mostly) keep up, if they couldn't then we'd get an intermission of a few progs while they catch up. If it was hated, they'd just shut down the strip in a few weeks.

[Proudhuff]

 Settle down settle down( in ma best scouse accent)

 I quite like the quarterly assualts, they somehow reminds me of holidays and summer specials, and the passing of time (Jings, crivens! its Autumn already!) and the Xmas biggie issue I love, it is truly special.
 yeah assaults/re-launches may have stopped epics, but lets not forget the wilderness years of Tooth, where it just bumbled along, crap in crap out. Things are more focused now, more, dare I say professional? with an eye on GN sales etc, not a bad thing when you realise how close Tooth has come to expiring in the past acording to TPO.

 Couldn't an epic be split over an assault? After all JD continues week in week out and even classics like the Cursed Earth and The Pit were split up into issue sized pieces.
I think the assaults are meant to stir up interest, possibly from a marketing point of view, easier/better to get the interest of the comix media perhaps?

I don't think we should chuck the baby out with the reinvented wheel and the counted chickens, yip get rid off any (possible) ban on epics, and as I've said elsewhere don't tell us how long a story is going to be! Thats the biggest spoiler ever... let's let Rebellion find their feet, get on the straight and narrow, on an even keel, give em enough rope and somebody stop me writing anymore feckin cliches  

Huffy