Main Menu

No more Comic Heroes

Started by Fungus, 15 July, 2014, 10:24:43 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

COMMANDO FORCES

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!

Theblazeuk

They cancelled the weekly e-magazine?

Now I'm mad.

Daveycandlish

I must admit I'm surprised the e-mag as been canned as well. I thought such things were the future?
An old-school, no-bullshit, boys-own action/adventure comic reminiscent of the 2000ads and Eagles and Warlords and Battles and other glorious black-and-white comics that were so, so cool in the 70's and 80's - Buy the hardback Christmas Annual!

IndigoPrime

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.

Theblazeuk

 ::)

But with less of a smile.

JamesC

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.

The Enigmatic Dr X

I've stopped buy pc gamer due to the cost. I never bought this for the same reason
Lock up your spoons!

IndigoPrime

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.

Fungus

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.

SmallBlueThing

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
.

maryanddavid

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.



IndigoPrime

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.)

Theblazeuk

I'm sure Future do not know what they are doing.

JamesC

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.

Grugz

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.
don't get into an argument with an idiot,he'll drag you down to his level then win with experience!

http://forums.2000adonline.com/index.php/topic,26167.0.html