Sad to hear about the demise of Comic Heroes (http://www.sfx.co.uk/2014/04/17/comic-heroes-23-now-on-sale/?ns_campaign=comic_heroes_23&ns_mchannel=hb&ns_source=sfx&ns_linkname=fixed_ad&ns_fee=0) magazine... final issue is out this week.
It was a great chunky read, and got me appreciating swathes of the golden and silver age stuff (though it was prone to repeat itself), not to mention European comics and much else. Routinely found that the articles I felt weren't aimed at me in fact interested me the most. Read it cover to cover.
Sad to see it go, but I always felt it had overpriced itself from the start £8 then £10 was always going to be out of my budget I am afraid.
Especially when you consider that you can buy some of the Trades they probably advertised and reviewed for a similar price of less than the magazine e.g. Judge Dredd CF1 or Watchmen £10.49 new on Amazon at present
It was a pretty big magazine, with a lot of new editorial, relatively little advertising and a niche audience. On that basis, the pricing wasn't that surprising. It's a pity it couldn't survive the turbulence currently going on at Future, but there you go.
It's a major blow to quality comics writing in the UK and, as a contributor since the beginning, I'm devastated to see it close. Sales were consistently healthy, it was doing well on digital, and it was a great package put together by people who love comics. It was a hefty presence on the newsstand (a position maintained only by handing over the vast majority of its cover price to retailers) and was a reminder to many that comics aren't restricted to the reprint and kids titles on the bottom shelves. The editors - Jes Bickham, Matt Bielby, and Dave Golder - did no wrong as far as I'm concerned, Dave even made the weekly 'Comic Review' on the iPad app a success on zero budget and support. It's just another casualty of the gutting currently taking place at Future and we are all poorer for it.
Perhaps I should take back my comment on being overpriced :-[ not having been a devout reader I only based my view on what I percieve I can afford on a monthly basis, with this being out of my personal price range.
I am still sad to see it go though as I would be with any British comic based publication. :(
The thing is though however valid the reason for the price its too expensive if people aren't willing to pay it. I liked Comic Heroes but it was too pricey for what it was for me and a number of others that I'm aware of. Real shame as I'd love something like this to take off.
The price isn't the reason it's been cancelled though, there were thousands every month who were found the cover price reasonable for what they received in return. This isn't an issue of it folding, it's an issue of Future slashing and burning its stable of titles.
Quote from: Molch-R on 15 July, 2014, 12:39:37 PM
it's an issue of Future slashing and burning its stable of titles.
Which is a shame. I only ever read occasional issues but I was always glad to see it arrive on the shelf. I wonder if some of the features will fold over to SFX (or has that been Knacked as well?)
If you buy individual US comics - and the readership of Comic Heroes seem to - then the content feels decent value for your tenner. Doesn't read like a publisher cashing-in, the love of the subject always comes across.
Slightly amusing to see Future switch subscriptions to SFX, not a magazine I ever see myself picking up...
The way Future subs have always worked is they attempt to provide the closest match to a closing mag. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, this was reasonably easy, due to the amount of crossover. Now... not so much. SFX will, I imagine, run some comic features, but the nature of that mag means the writing will have to be more generalist in the main and probably won't get the opportunity to delve into the niche territory Comic Heroes was renowned for.
SFX and Comic Heroes seem to share a stable of writers, but I doubt SFX will expand its coverage of comics dramatically.
I liked Comic Heroes but have been happier with the weekly review e-magazine than I ever was with the printed version, which was a very mixed bag for me. As always though sad to see it go.
Hasn't the review mag also been canned?
Quote from: IndigoPrime on 15 July, 2014, 02:21:40 PM
Hasn't the review mag also been canned?
Yes, sadly. Despite making quite a profit.
Such a shame... It's a great mag and I've loved every issue.
I know this would be scant consolation, but I just hope that the final issue bears the words "Great News for All Readers Inside!" in the grand tradition of about-to-be-cancelled British comics. Naturally, the next issue of SFX should be called "SFX & Comic Heroes!" with the "Comic Heroes" logo gradually shrinking to nothing over the next few months.
-- Mike
Ha! That would be the traditional way to do it.
Drokk! I picked them all up and even read quite a few of the articles that were about Super bods, as they were that well written! This is a shame!
They cancelled the weekly e-magazine?
Now I'm mad.
I must admit I'm surprised the e-mag as been canned as well. I thought such things were the future?
Future's on an efficiency kick right now—essentially, anything that isn't considered a reasonably core title is being axed or sold. Even if smaller titles are profitable, they're in the firing line, because they're unlikely to ever be especially big or important.
::)
But with less of a smile.
I borrowed one of these off a friend and was pretty impressed but there's no way I could justify spending £10 on a magazine. I wouldn't even consider it.
That's not to say it wasn't a quality publication.
Someone seriously needs to look at how WHSmith and other big retailers hold publishers to ransom.
I've stopped buy pc gamer due to the cost. I never bought this for the same reason
Quote from: JamesC on 15 July, 2014, 07:31:00 PMSomeone seriously needs to look at how WHSmith and other big retailers hold publishers to ransom.
The thing is, consumers are just as much to blame. Mags are £x in the stores, end up on Apple's Newsstand at two-thirds of the price (30% of which goes straight to Apple) and still people complain about pricing, because they somehow assume paper and ink were 99.9% of the costs, whereas in fact the majority of a magazine's budget is in filling the pages. As someone who's largely made a living from freelance journalism for 14 years now, it's a really strange time, and the shake-out's going to be severe and truly horrible. I've no idea what we'll have left at the end of it, beyond some big, unshakable titles, some battling indies, and a shit-load of churn crap like Buzzfeed.
It's grumpy old man territory, but there is a palpable decline in the state of UK magazines (and comics) as IP says. Comic Heroes is/was a big fun doorstep of a read and it's very rum when the only mag on the newstand that you buy regularly calls it a day.
I stopped buying when it went to a tenner. There just was no way I could justify that for a mag- especially one that I always ended up recycling or leaving on benches for others to read. Those I did read were pretty good, but the appeal was limited once the features had ceased to be contemporary, for me at least.
That said, I'm sad to see it go under circumstances other than poor sales. I'm sure Future know what they are doing, but a lower UK profile for comics is never a good thing. Comics need to be seen as a lifestyle choice- a medium worthy of investing time and money in. There's been a healthy cross-platform penetration over the last decade, with movies, tv, games, clothing and merchandise keeping comics in the public eye. But the properties seem to have escaped from their source, in the sense that the comics themselves have become a distant and unimportant second to the spin-offs. A magazine like Comic Heroes (despite its awful name) should have served as a collective gathering place for the whole culture, and should have been a compulsory purchase. Maybe if it had been a fiver, and monthly, it would have been.
Basically, it should have been a comics Deathray. Now THERE was a magazine. Up there with New Voyager in my youth, and DWM when the show was off the air.
SBT
A title I never bought, like others I couldn't justify the expense on a single mag, and I'd be paying in Euros, so that price would have looked a whole lot worse!
Shame that its gone by the wayside, especially if it got a sustainable circulation. There seems market for this type of mag, Comics International did work for a long time, and I know its not exactly the same, as it only had comic shop distribution (I think that's right) and Steve Holland's Comics World lasted a few years on the newstand too, that's going back a long while though.
Quote from: SmallBlueThing on 15 July, 2014, 10:46:52 PMI'm sure Future know what they are doing
Future's problem has always been that it's a publicly traded company, and so decisions have to be made for the shareholders. Right now, it's all about cutting everything to the bone, only leaving in place a profitable rump and a likely boutique tech publisher. Don't be shocked if in five years there are almost no Future magazines at all (bar, perhaps, T3), and Future is basically TechRadar.
QuoteMaybe if it had been a fiver, and monthly, it would have been.
That magazine just wouldn't have happened had it been a fiver and monthly. There's just not the audience and viability. Bear in mind that even much larger publications are seriously struggling at not much lower price-points. And you can bet had Comic Heroes relaunched in a wildly different way—say, 80-odd pages, lower quality paper, and five quid, people would have moaned about the page drop/still too high price/lack of content compared to how it was before. Mags can't win—history teaches us that. (Be mindful people still whine about Retro Gamer dropping its covermount. That happened with issue #19 and the switch to a new publisher. The most recent issue: #131.)
I'm sure Future do not know what they are doing.
Quote from: IndigoPrime on 15 July, 2014, 09:07:39 PM
Quote from: JamesC on 15 July, 2014, 07:31:00 PMSomeone seriously needs to look at how WHSmith and other big retailers hold publishers to ransom.
The thing is, consumers are just as much to blame. Mags are £x in the stores, end up on Apple's Newsstand at two-thirds of the price (30% of which goes straight to Apple) and still people complain about pricing, because they somehow assume paper and ink were 99.9% of the costs, whereas in fact the majority of a magazine's budget is in filling the pages. As someone who's largely made a living from freelance journalism for 14 years now, it's a really strange time, and the shake-out's going to be severe and truly horrible. I've no idea what we'll have left at the end of it, beyond some big, unshakable titles, some battling indies, and a shit-load of churn crap like Buzzfeed.
I think the perceived value of journalism (by certain members of the public) is very low. I'm amazed at how many video game magazines manage to keep going seeing as many people seem only to be interested in a title, screenshots, and a percentage score - and they can get all that from IGN or a million other sites.
A magazine like Comic Heroes is always going to struggle against internet free sites. If you want to know about the history of the Avengers you can look on Wikipedia and if you want to know what the best comic-movies are you can go to Rotten Tomatoes.
It's a shame but I think it's the way things are going.
a damn shame but tbh I never really nopticed the price as I usually bought it with a stack of 2000ad,megazine,marvel,gamer magazine and a couple of dog ones for the little girl.
Quote from: JamesC on 16 July, 2014, 10:41:24 AMI think the perceived value of journalism (by certain members of the public) is very low. I'm amazed at how many video game magazines manage to keep going seeing as many people seem only to be interested in a title, screenshots, and a percentage score - and they can get all that from IGN or a million other sites.
It's infuriating, not least because the scores are really the least important bit. You should learn what a writer likes and read what they have to say. But instead we get score inflation and Metacritic, and games companies fuming when they're given anything less than a 7, which readers now somehow consider 'average'. It's all bonkers.
QuoteA magazine like Comic Heroes is always going to struggle against internet free sites.
And yet the depressing thing is, the vast, vast majority of free websites don't provide any kind of depth. It's mostly churn—essentially reprinting press releases with barely a moment's commentary.
QuoteIf you want to know about the history of the Avengers you can look on Wikipedia
Which is often inaccurate, entirely dry, and—ironically—culled from magazine articles. It's truly bizarre looking at some retro-game articles on Wikipedia, which are more or less straight clones of features I've written for Retro Gamer.
QuoteIt's a shame but I think it's the way things are going.
I worry about the end game. If people don't see value in media, fine, but the end result is
no media, or—at best—populist garbage that will have to cater for all without really catering for anyone (or, alternatively, banging the sensationalism drum).
It's always nice when you read an article in a magazine that you wouldn't think you'd be interested in but which draws you in. Part of the reason for this is probably that if you've paid for it you want to read it!
Years ago there was a great article in the Megazine about Modesty Blaise - a character I previously had no interest in but which prompted me to read all of the novels and the vast majority of newspaper strips.
The flip side of that is that I've lost whole afternoons to wikipedia, clicking from one linked article to the next. But it can't focus content in the way a magazine can.
Regarding game reviews, I actually prefer not to have a score at all. I don't think scores make sense for many games. I remember Spec ops: The Line having points deducted because the multiplayer wasn't very good. The multiplayer was added at the insistence of the publisher, was developed by a different team and was described as a 'cancerous growth on the disk' by one of the designers of the main game!
The other thing about magazines, of course, is they are curated content, based broadly around a topic that interests you. This may encourage you to explore more widely than you otherwise would have. With the more pick-and-mix nature of the web, people are more often drawn to what they already know they will like and/or content they can blaze through at speed. I hope the magazine survives in some form, but really it's a big ask, beyond the very niche (such as some comics, for example) or the very popular (although those publications are being hit hard by advertising revenue plummeting).
The top 100 best selling magazines in the UK:
http://www.betterretailing.com/retailer-resources/top-100-magazines/page-2/
At the top of the list there's a massive bias towards TV Listings/Women's weekly magazines selling at a very low price point.
I'm quite surprised by how well Private Eye does.
TV listings mags are propped up by the elderly and will get a very rude awakening in a decade or so. Women's mags will survive, but are starting to feel the pinch through lower circulation and a decrease in advertising. Private Eye's higher than I'd have thought, but then it has a strong core audience and a relatively low price-point (which is also why comics are managing to battle on). But when you bear in mind even the likes of Crash and Zzap!64 (8-bit computer magazines, for those who aren't old) used to do 60k+ in the mid-1980s, it shows how much things have changed. Last I saw, even industry stalwart Edge was struggling to maintain its readership, and now has a combined ABC of just over 20k—down from 29k only four years ago. It says something that mag's no longer immune to staffing issues at Future (and its website is also for the chop soon, which is just baffling—it should have held the position Polygon now enjoys).
Very interesting discussion. As my brain continues to ossify I find myself reading forums/blogs/websites that deal uniquely with some specific interest of my long-ago youth (-looks around and whistles innocently-). Seldom am I exposed to anything new, in the way I would have been in, say, the heydey of White Dwarf, where for every article that I bought if for there were five that showed my something I knew nothing about. I don't agree 100% with Indigo, in that it is definitely possible to find in-depth and well-written material online that is superior to much in the printed realm (e.g. nowhere can you find more informative intelligent analysis of Dredd and 2000AD properties than in the blogs of Wolk, Smith, Wells and Goggans, to pick just a few examples), but there's no denying that you have to go pretty deep down the rabbit hole to find it, and when you do there isn't going to be much else around.
Sad news about comic heroes but I must admit I have always been put off by the price of that title.
It's clear that the Internet has had an impact on magazine sales - I personally buy less now than I used to. Unfortunately magazines are getting squeezed at both ends - the costs to create are going up and yet consumers are only willing to pay so much. I don't think you can blame consumers for this - magazines are disposable items that I would not expect to pay £10 for.
I have to be honest I've been contemplating cancelling my subscription for a while. Whilst it improved from the early issues where it appeared to be largely a clone of SFX with an unhealthy obsession with the film versions, I felt that it never really achieved it's full potential. As a monthly / quarterly / whatever title it could never focus on current / upcoming titles but considering the rich history of comics on both sides of the atlantic I felt that it quite often skimmed the surface. A classic example was it's review of Starlord(UK) which ran to a scant two or three pages. The meg has done a far better job over the years in it's profiles of titles, story lines and writers and artists.
I didn't want to speak ill of the fallen but I agree with most of the sentiments on here.
Quote from: TordelBack on 16 July, 2014, 05:20:40 PMI don't agree 100% with Indigo, in that it is definitely possible to find in-depth and well-written material online that is superior to much in the printed realm [...] but there's no denying that you have to go pretty deep down the rabbit hole to find it, and when you do there isn't going to be much else around.
There's also the issue that this is stuff people do for fun, in their spare time. There's no impetus besides a basic passion for a field, and although that's very important, it's often not enough. Hell, as a writer myself, I know how my own personal projects end up sitting there for months, dead, because I don't have the time and I have to earn a living. So even the good stuff online is often compromised in a way newsstand isn't, because it has no obvious schedule. And with so much of the rest being churn, it's a sad state to be in.
Quote from: Recrewt on 16 July, 2014, 05:59:49 PMUnfortunately magazines are getting squeezed at both ends - the costs to create are going up and yet consumers are only willing to pay so much. I don't think you can blame consumers for this - magazines are disposable items that I would not expect to pay £10 for.
I'd be more nuanced about this—I think you can blame consumers for this, but I also agree £10 is too high a price to aim for when it comes to a regular publication (versus the 'bookazine' one-offs that are increasingly everywhere and about to nosedive themselves). But people don't want to pay for stuff
at all in the main any more, and that's the problem. A good example is Tap!, an iOS mag that I was games editor for. It was a fantastic mag and loved by its admittedly small readership. It got squeezed by Future cuts and ended up digital-only (PDF and app), which made it absurdly simple to pirate. When the axe fell, I saw a lot of shit about from people who were angry Tap! no longer existed, yet these people never bought an issue. The sense of entitlement was immense. Elsewhere, you look at people whinging that The Times sits behind a paywall and saying "well, I'll just read the Guardian then, because it's free"; that's great until the Guardian finally burns through its massive cash pile built up throughout its entire history (which it's been doing at the rate of more than £100,000 per day).
In short, the only way to secure the future of media in any way remotely resembling how it exists today (assuming that's what people want) is to support it somehow. People being paid for their work keeps them making that work; that's not to detract from the hobbyists at all, because they often do a very good job, but I'd hate the future of media to only be scattergun content from weekend writers/musicians and lowest-common-denominator garbage from those few big names that survive.
As for Comic Heroes, it was between a rock and hard place. It needed the newsstand to survive, but in order to maintain what it was people were buying, the price had to be high. Something had to give, and unfortunately in this case, it was as much being at the wrong publisher at the wrong time, brutally reacting to the very market conditions we've been discussing, as anything else.
Indigo puts his finger on it right there - no-one wants to pay for anything anymore, including me. The apotheosis of the internet came at a particularly bad time, when the recession had devastated incomes and disposable spending, and lo, here's all this free stuff to tide us over (even leaving aside illegal torrents). It's a hard mind-set to break out of: In the space of five years I've gone from a monthly haul of a dozen comics, three magazines and a daily and a weekend newspaper to just one regular comic (guess) and all the rest of my info online, and even as I get my hands back on the financial reins, I don't see that changing, barring a possible return to buying the odd title that takes my fancy or maybe going digital with the Meg.
Once broken it's a difficult habit to resume.
Now add to that a digitally literate generation who's grown up with the assumption everything should be free, because they can torrent every movie, find every piece of music they want to listen to on YouTube (you might laugh, but that's the main way of listening to music in the US for teens), download every comic for free, and access cracked games even for locked-down systems like iOS.
I've seen people positively fuming that a £2 smartphone game only lasts five hours, or that the free version of a game only gives you 20 of the 100 levels. It's truly insane entitlement, and I've no idea how this will be changed now.
IP articulates this well, including the something-for-nothing mindset...
Also, this £10 hangup is misleading; the mag came out quarterly in the end (though this wasn't made very apparent) and took me at least a long time to read. That's not overpriced.
Also also, how often do you find in W H Smith that you have to barge past the guy who is obstructing the mag you want to buy? He's standing there for 30 mins, reading some content before putting the mag back and leaving.... God help journalists/writers.
I think lots of people assume that digital content is supported by advertising revenue and so has already been paid for in a sense (not saying this is true but it's an attitude I've encountered).
Regarding music and film, I can understand why cinemas struggle as they're rarely an enjoyable experience being, on most occasions, badly staffed, over priced (in terms of sweets, drinks etc) and uncomfortable. I think Netflicks etc are probably where the future lies.
As for music, the tradition of writing a song which then becomes part of the culture and is essentially passed on for free pre-dates the record industry by thousands of years. I'm happy to pay to see a live performer but I think we've been getting ripped off in terms of record sales for ages.
Quote from: Fungus on 17 July, 2014, 01:16:35 PM
Also also, how often do you find in W H Smith that you have to barge past the guy who is obstructing the mag you want to buy? He's standing there for 30 mins, reading some content before putting the mag back and leaving.... God help journalists/writers.
Fellow was reading the Prog in this manner yesterday. I nearly, oh-so-nearly, brought the matter to his attention, but then I reflected on all the occasions during my Wilderness Years when I did the same, and exercised restraint. All the stray lambs will be gathered in, in time.
Couldn't Rebellion buy the magazine?
(ie. not just one copy, that wouldn't help very much, but Comic Heroes itself)
Quote from: Fungus on 17 July, 2014, 01:16:35 PMAlso, this £10 hangup is misleading; the mag came out quarterly in the end (though this wasn't made very apparent) and took me at least a long time to read. That's not overpriced.
The problem is the price itself, being a huge barrier to purchase. Whether the price provides value is another matter. There are plenty of mags that cost four quid but that are mostly throwaway content and adverts. It's arguable two and a half of them wouldn't take up nearly as much of your time as a single issue of Comic Heroes, but there you go. Most people pick up a mag, see £10, think "sod that", read the bits they're interested in, and then without irony spend six quid on a coffee and pastry at Starbucks.
Quote from: JamesC on 17 July, 2014, 01:29:38 PMI think lots of people assume that digital content is supported by advertising revenue and so has already been paid for in a sense (not saying this is true but it's an attitude I've encountered).
Advertising revenue is in the toilet, across print and web. Online, income per click has nosedived, to the point you need seriously popular posts to survive. This leads to more content based on linkbait rather than depth and meat. There's a good reason most tech sites squeeze Apple into every headline—it draws eyeballs, regardless of whether the story's remotely about Apple.
Worse, digital magazines now have analytics built in much of the time, which has the power to dramatically alter content. Once, it was all about "is this any good?" Now, it's all about "have enough people read this?" For example, when I was working on Tap!, we had a section in the games bit that got a dev to provide tips. One issue, we did a fantastic walkthrough of a reasonably popular game, but not enough people read it. Next time, the publisher demanded we only include games that were hugely popular, largely eradicating the interesting, and (worse) mirroring what you could already get elsewhere.
QuoteAs for music, the tradition of writing a song which then becomes part of the culture and is essentially passed on for free pre-dates the record industry by thousands of years. I'm happy to pay to see a live performer but I think we've been getting ripped off in terms of record sales for ages.
I don't find that myself. I can happily buy most albums for seven or eight quid, and that seems pretty good to me. But then even small indies will find their entire album online, for free, within a day or it going live. Essentially, if you can't back up your record sales with live output (which isn't always possible, and certainly not at volume), you won't be a musician—at least, a full-time musician. And while no-one owes anyone a living, the world will be a worse place when artists and creative types all have to go 'part time'.
Quote from: Banners on 17 July, 2014, 01:38:50 PMCouldn't Rebellion buy the magazine?
If Future was willing to sell (which it might not be—it often clings on to IP, 'just in case'), sure; but there's no telling whether it'd cost a huge amount of money, and then Rebellion would also have the staff the mag and put in place workflow to support it. There
are alternative ways—Dennis Publishing, for example, now has several titles that are almost entirely freelance. MacUser has thrived under this model, a freelance editor/designer commissioning other editors and writers to fill the pages, and the publisher not being so heavily involved. But even that would be a ballache Rebellion doesn't really need.
Also add to that the likelihood of readers feeling burned as the title folds and is reborn elsewhere. Really, if Rebellion had any interest in this, it'd make more sense for it to start its own magazine, but doing that is
colossally expensive if you want to get into stores; and digital-only isn't exactly a recipe for success as yet, because—as this discussion has shown—people are in the main reluctant to pay for digital-only content. (Whether a new and amazing comics mag could buck that trend remains to be seen.)
The net result, sadly, is no Comic Heroes and no equivalent.
Yes, I see that casual readers would not pick up a ten quid "throwaway" magazine. I shuddered a bit at the price increase, but within a few seconds realised it was worth it.
Again, interesting stuff. If the Prog were ever to go monthly (-shudder-), and yet retain a proportional level of content, I think I'd struggle to pay Eur15 a month for it, as opposed to the Eur3.60 a week I pay now - much the same way I find the Meg's printed price hard to swallow.
It's a difficult price-point to negotiate, just beyond a casual purchase.
Quote from: TordelBack on 17 July, 2014, 03:22:07 PM
Again, interesting stuff. If the Prog were ever to go monthly (-shudder-), and yet retain a proportional level of content, I think I'd struggle to pay Eur15 a month for it, as opposed to the Eur3.60 a week I pay now
FYI-
Big Bang Comics charge €2.65 for the Prog, and they'll hold 'em for you.
I find the Meg at £5.60 very good value for money. Beats any comic on the shelves
Quote from: IndigoPrime on 17 July, 2014, 02:38:04 PM
QuoteAs for music, the tradition of writing a song which then becomes part of the culture and is essentially passed on for free pre-dates the record industry by thousands of years. I'm happy to pay to see a live performer but I think we've been getting ripped off in terms of record sales for ages.
I don't find that myself. I can happily buy most albums for seven or eight quid, and that seems pretty good to me. But then even small indies will find their entire album online, for free, within a day or it going live. Essentially, if you can't back up your record sales with live output (which isn't always possible, and certainly not at volume), you won't be a musician—at least, a full-time musician. And while no-one owes anyone a living, the world will be a worse place when artists and creative types all have to go 'part time'.
Yep - that's the reason so many commercially successful acts today are posh kids. Unless you're essentially making music as a hobby, and you can afford to have your recorded output ripped off while you build up a paying live audience, you're likely to give up and get a paying job instead.
Bringing it back to print publishing, that's the same reason why so many of the big figures of literature were either aristocrats, like Byron and Mitford; civil servants, like Milton and Chaucer; clerics, like Donne and Caroll; or nice middle class girls, like Austen and Woolf, with a bit of money coming to them from their folks. The working poor - the majority of the population - are almost entirely absent from the English canon because they didn't write any of it and they couldn't afford to buy it either.
It's only once copyright law and widespread education creates a reading public which includes the unwashed masses that poor boys made good like Chaz Dickens are able to earn a living writing about the lower orders for an audience which includes the lower orders. If you want to see your interests and your concerns reflected in the popular culture, you have to pay to support the authors and artists who do so.
Quote from: Theblazeuk on 17 July, 2014, 05:14:03 PM
I find the Meg at £5.60 very good value for money. Beats any comic on the shelves
Not denying the value, it's an excellent meaty read these days. But handing over 8 or 9 euro, which is the daily food budget for the whole family, or comics and ice creams for both the kids... well, that's a stretch. I can usually pull together my prog money from change, but assembling the cash for a Meg is generally best done when you actually have a tenner to hand over. And for anything over a tenner, as Comics Heroes was, well, I expect shelvability for that kind of money.
I am working on getting 350 - it looks particularly fine.
Makes sense. I guess my point was that the Meg is a collection at £5.60 whereas Comic Heroes was sadly disposable due to the mix of (outdated) topicality, despite the occasional keeper of a feature.
Digital only may be the future but it is so reliant on the spread of tablets. I only read these magazines because my Dad has an iPad, so whenever I visit/he visits I nick it for a couple of days and speed read through. I wouldn't enjoy it on my iPod and my laptop.... well my laptop is something I kind of have to sit down and use so its not so casual.
Subscription rates for even the most popular newsstand titles are absolutely miserable on digital, to the point some publishers have already given up. I suspect this is in part because magazines on a tablets aren't there, in your line of sight, waiting to be read. They're 'hidden'. On iOS, this is even worse since iOS 7, given that the Newsstand folder can now be placed within another folder. One advantage at least is the pricing tends to be a bit lower on digital (despite digital copies not being VAT-free), but it just doesn't seem to be a straight replacement for most publications.
Newsstand seems to be doing alright for us :)
Really glad to hear it, but I suspect comics might be an anomaly, and 2000 AD in particular may also be an outlier of sorts, due to availability issues outside of the UK. Tech mags and even beautifully created digital publications like Edge don't seem to be setting the world on fire though.
That's quite pleasing if digital subscriptions aren't an irresistible tide, and paper stays with us as long as possible. I want my mags - and especially my comics - to come from a tree. For all sorts of reasons. Sustainably of course, I'm not a complete barbarian.
I agree—if the magazine is worth it. I still much prefer 2000 AD in print, and love the current iteration of MacUser, which is more like a designer's bible than typical computer mag. And although people might argue the toss over sustainability, I imagine you'd from a resource standpoint get an awful lot of trees for the equivalent expenditure on a single shiny tablet!
Quote from: IndigoPrime on 18 July, 2014, 04:06:12 PM
I imagine you'd from a resource standpoint get an awful lot of trees for the equivalent expenditure on a single shiny tablet!
Yup.
Necropost!!
Just flicking through Future's new A-Z of Superheroes thing in Smiths and at the bottom of the editorial page is a little box stating that Comic Heroes is coming back - "like Ras Al Ghul from a Lazarus Pit" apparently!
Due in shops on the 9th October. I wonder what has changed to make it viable again when it wasn't this time last year?
Grand news, wondered when this would reappear. That Molch-R - a contributor - did say at Glasgow Comic Con it was returning :-) Also curious how it's changed - if at all...
Quote from: iutley on 20 July, 2015, 12:01:50 PMDue in shops on the 9th October. I wonder what has changed to make it viable again when it wasn't this time last year?
A certain publisher perhaps finally recognising that nuking its niche brands and branded websites wasn't the path to profitability after all? A pity Dennis hasn't had the same thought regarding MacUser. Hrm.
I look forward to seeing what they come up with!
Good news for the comic stripers everywhere!
This is great news - Comic Heroes was always good to my comic, El Bigote, and other small pressers.
Good news. The management of SFX/Comic Heroes has been a bit baffling.
Gamesradar mainly the source of my bemusement.
Relaunch (https://www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/film/comic-heroes-back-issues/comic-heroes-issue-25/) in 7 days.
I've ordered the relaunch issue and now just wait to see if it gets damaged in the post, to see if it's back to picking it off the shelves in Smith's!
Well given its a comics magazine seems curiously they didn't launch it as an All New All Different issue no. 1!
Giving this a miss. I was within a hairs breadth of cancelling it before they folded last time round. It tended to be more of a current Marvel Superhero film promo most of the time. Their article about the Apocalypse War was particularly poor I thought. About as much depth as one of the poorer Titan graphic novel introductions.
Looking forward to this I have to say. It was the only magazine devoted to comic books rather than two pages lip service you would get at the end of SFX or Sci Fi Now review sections. Those magazines are obsessed with film and tv shows.
All I have to say is this - EIGHT QUID???
Any websites for the re-launch issue showing content etc etc. Am curious but would like to know what is in this before splashing out
Quote from: Spaceghost on 08 October, 2015, 03:18:11 PM
All I have to say is this - EIGHT QUID???
Low readership. Niche. High production values. Bespoke content. Even run-of-the-mill games mags are in the seven/eight quid ballpark now. Computer mags are usually six or more, for 100 or so pages, a chunk of which may well be standing copy.
I presume there's a couple of free gifts etc - it's odd though that the only online presence of the mag is the link to buy it. Doesn't bode well for the care the company is putting into getting this out there.
Sadly, that's Future Publishing all over these days. It nuked most of its websites a couple of years back, unwisely trying to shove all of the content into portals. So you now have TechRadar, CreativeBloq and GamesRadar, and very few brands online. Even Edge didn't make it.
(https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xap1/t31.0-8/12141102_779186688860202_5039140160102417702_o.jpg)
The Journal gets a mention in the relaunched issue - thanks to small press titan Mike Garley !
Wahay! Nice bit of pimping their, CFM.
Where's my bloody copy, aaaargh!
This hits the shelves tomorrow?
So there was no point in buying the one issue subscription, if I can get it from the shop before it drops through the letterbox. The few quid saving is nothing as far as I'm concerned, so if this is the way forward, then I'll get it from Smiths from now on.
That photo is of the writer's comp copy I'd imagine, no need to panic!
Quote from: IndigoPrime on 08 October, 2015, 03:56:20 PM
Quote from: Spaceghost on 08 October, 2015, 03:18:11 PM
All I have to say is this - EIGHT QUID???
Low readership. Niche. High production values. Bespoke content. Even run-of-the-mill games mags are in the seven/eight quid ballpark now. Computer mags are usually six or more, for 100 or so pages, a chunk of which may well be standing copy.
I suppose I'm out of touch with the going rate for magazines. I don't think I've bought a single one since 2011 and that was only to read the article on the Dredd film.
There's more than enough of the stuff I like on the internet for free.
... And I don't just mean hardcore pornography.
Quote from: CrazyFoxMachine on 08 October, 2015, 07:52:14 PM
That photo is of the writer's comp copy I'd imagine, no need to panic!
Perhaps, although those are like hen's teeth from Future these days, believe me.
Quote from: Spaceghost on 08 October, 2015, 09:59:45 PMThere's more than enough of the stuff I like on the internet for free.
Although who knows for how much longer? Ad revenues are tanking. Money's vanishing. When no-one wants to pay for anything, it'll all come back to bite people sooner or later, and everyone will wonder where the quality and content has gone. (Not a specific dig at you, note, Spaceghost, but I hear this sort of thing a lot, and it makes me a little sad for the future.)
Agreed, 'free' is a worrying trend and I for one am looking forward to the revived Comic Heroes and the content it has long provided. Long may the prog and meg and Comic Heroes appear in my W H Smith.
I write about mobile games a lot, and so chance across App Store reviews. One recently was of Threes! Free, which is the free version of mobile puzzler Threes! The review blasted the game for its economic model, which, apparently, ruined everything. Said model: you watch video ads to recharge the number of games you can play. The ads are short and you get three games for every one you watch. Games can be banked, too, so you can set aside your iPhone/Android and run a bunch of ads one after the other, to build up a large number of free games. Or, you know, you can just pay three quid for the best mobile puzzle game since Drop7.
But that's the way of the world now. People will pay 500+ quid for a smartphone, or think nothing about splashing out 40 quid a month on a smartphone contract; they'll pay a fiver for an over-the-top coffee or a crap sandwich. But media is now effectively worthless. I've even seen people grumbling about the likes of Netflix not having all the latest blockbusters on it, for your seven quid per month. Gnh.
Just back from the town and there is a pile of the buggers in Smiths and they cost $7.99.
So I've paid full price for this mag to be delivered to my house after it's been released in the shops. How on earth does that work!
and more importantly, why are they priced in dollars >:(
Oops! That should read £7.99 :-[
i'll try and pick one up this weekend,always enjoyed it before as it was a good chunky read,i still get sfx or sci fi now even when they're packed with articles of shows I don't watch (gives me something to do when the lass is watching "tinkerbell and the..." films for the 50th time)
That's part of the reason I enjoy this, apart from the 2000 Ad stuff and they do review 1950 in this, with a high rating. I read all the Marvel/DC/etc... articles to see what is happening.
Quote from: COMMANDO FORCES on 09 October, 2015, 03:27:46 PMSo I've paid full price for this mag to be delivered to my house after it's been released in the shops. How on earth does that work!
How much were you charged for postage?
That was free but I expect a subscription to arrive at the very least, the day it is put on the shelves in the shops.
It would be like if I paid a subscription for the Prog and it turned up a few days after it was at my local comic shop. It's not good!
Pah thats nothing. I'm still waiting for my subs copies of Strip Magazine
CF: Depends on the publisher and mag, I suppose. I subscribe to a few things. 2000 AD almost always arrives a couple of days before newsstand. The Titan Doctor Who comic usually shows up anything up to a week after it's in the likes of WHSmith. Future stuff's usually a few days early, but then I've only ever subbed to monthly fare, not a quarterly.
Quote from: James Stacey on 09 October, 2015, 04:31:26 PM
Pah thats nothing. I'm still waiting for my subs copies of Strip Magazine
:lol:
Quote from: James Stacey on 09 October, 2015, 04:31:26 PM
Pah thats nothing. I'm still waiting for my subs copies of Strip Magazine
(http://media.giphy.com/media/xTiTnsnb3Ig0IhKlHy/giphy.gif)
Has anyone read the latest issue. Worth a purchase?
Still waiting on mine to be delivered. I have contacted them, so I expect it to be here this week!
Quote from: Neo Yahtzee on 14 October, 2015, 10:28:33 AM
Has anyone read the latest issue. Worth a purchase?
yes and yes ;)
Quote from: James Stacey on 09 October, 2015, 04:31:26 PM
Pah thats nothing. I'm still waiting for my subs copies of Strip Magazine
Pfft. I'm still waiting to get paid..!
Quote from: Richmond Clements on 14 October, 2015, 11:39:53 AM
Pfft. I'm still waiting to get paid..!
Any day now.... possibly.
Haven't picked up the relaunched issue yet, but isn't our own Crazyfoxmachine in there?
It's a good solid read and worth picking up.
Yeah took the plunge and bought it - really enjoyed it. Great read. Missed the posters that came free with the old ones though!
I just had an email from the company saying that my issue is on its way :lol:
It has arrived and there's a few bits that caught my eye on first glance.
Rob Williams has an interview inside.
David Baillie gets a 'My Life in Comics' page
Two 2000 AD characters get a mention in the Top 25 Coolest Characters list.
In the reviews section 2000 AD is in there, alongside two of Rob Williams' currents comics.
And it's gone again!
According to Lew Stringer's Blog the current issue is the last (again).
Oh.
The price drop was welcome and the last issue was a good one.
Since this magazine was aimed at the Comic book buyer audience, you can only interpret its fall as bad news.
Only in the sense niche/media/tech magazines are these days on a hiding to nothing, because people assume they can get everything online for free. I don't think it really says anything about comics. (I do wonder at which point people will suddenly realise most online 'magazines' are shit, though, due to no-one wanting to pay for anything, and the bottom falling out of advertising.)
Why are online magazines 'shit'?
I nearly subscribed to a couple yesterday. Mags I would occasionally buy in WH Smiths but thought - after checking - that they look nice on the iPad and it's all very convenient.
Quote from: Fungus on 07 September, 2017, 02:55:55 PM
Why are online magazines 'shit'?
I nearly subscribed to a couple yesterday. Mags I would occasionally buy in WH Smiths...
Those aren't online magazines, then, just online
versions of existing magazines.
Fungus: Note the scare quotes. I'm referring to websites masquerading as magazines, but that are really glorified blogs. There are exceptions. Some sites are actually pretty good reads, but almost the entire industry is trending towards a distinct lack of money, which doesn't bode well for decent content.
And, yeah, I'm not talking about digital versions of existing print mags, both of which are on borrowed time in many areas.
Got it. Took the quotes as a quality judgement :)