Would you be happy to see 2000AD split?

[Jim_Campbell]

The market for comics must be there somewhere, otherwise those places wouldn't be stocking them, and that's probably not gone unnoticed by those people who've recently decided to try publishing something new.

The word from various UK distributors, I'm led to believe, is that comics are the only area of traditional dead tree publishing that's showing growth right now.

Cheers!

Jim

[The Enigmatic Dr X]

For what it's worth, I'd keep 2000ad as it is but add a strict no nudity or real swearing rule. That way it is suitable for all ages.

IF and that's an IF there was demand for mature stuff then I'd commission a series of "adult" GNs using existing characters. That would allow the established (adult) readers to get more mature stuff if they want it and - let's face it - most of us would buy them, especially if it was new materisl.

Launching a new comic with established characters is commercial suicide. 2000ad is a brand. You don't dilute the brand

[TordelBack]

There seem to be two main approaches here.

One is the idealistic approach, that 2000AD is fine as it is.  It's nearly as good as it has ever been, don't fix what isn't broken and long may it continue.  Quality will win out, and the readers will come, with supporting revenues (hopefully) coming from trade sales in America.  Make some other comic if you want the kiddy market.  I confess my real sympathies are with this ideal - I like my Prog the way it is, although I could live without the swearing.  Problem is, do the numbers support this utopian niche?  I doubt it.  Which leads on to...

The other is the pragmatic angle:  2000AD needs new younger readers if it's to survive, so what should we do to get them?  A new 3000AD Kidz?  Less purple willies, zombie face eating and porking of pig demons in regular 2000AD, with the 'adult' material moving to the Meg or (grud forbid) 2000AD Max?  

Much as I hate to admit it, something does need to be done.  Kids are the long-term future of the comic, and we need to groom... errr, encourage them to buy HoT products.  And this isn't just a selfish thing:  with all respects to the cretaors who must be toiling under horrid conditions, many of the comics M.I.K. mentions are shit - kids need some decent comics.  I cringe every time I open a Clone Wars UK comic to read it with my son - i can't imagine him looking back fondly on this garish repetitive trash, and fear it's actually going to put him off comics in the long run (but people seem to love Transformers, so who's to say?).  I wish there was something I could buy him that wasn't 8 pages of sketchily drawn product endorsement, 25 pages of blood'n'boobs, or 60 pages of Marvel superheroes brooding on the erosion of their civil rights (for some reason I can't get my head around to buying him the Beano, even though I loved it myself).

So restating the bulk of this thread, if something, what?

[Jim_Campbell]

On a not-unrelated note:

DFC to return?

Interesting times, indeed.

Cheers!

Jim

[Richmond Clements]

On a not-unrelated note:

DFC to return?

Interesting times, indeed.

Cheers!

Jim

If so, that is bloody great news!

[HOO-HAA]

For me, the beauty of 2000AD has been the fact that it has grown and evolved just as I have. The characters age in realtime - and so do us readers. The fact that many of us are reading the same comic we read when we were 6 years old is a good thing!

Of course, I'm being totally selfish...

[briantm]

Then you're reading a different magazine to the one I am. The one I'm reading has a circulation that -- at a very charitable guess -- is about 20% of what it was at its peak.

Isn't that the case for all comics though? Including Beano, Dandy, US Comics? Perhaps with even worse numbers than 20%?


I'd be all for a no nudity/swearing rule. Certainly doesn't mean dumbing anything down.  There'd be no harm in giving it a go for a few years and see if the numbers change.

I don't know if I'd feel the same if the writers were told to write to appeal to a younger audience.  (Perhaps that's not under discussion at all... this thread has meandered a bit.) But that's hardly necessary.  Kids don't want kid's stuff, they just want good stuff.


B

[Jim_Campbell]

Isn't that the case for all comics though? Including Beano, Dandy, US Comics? Perhaps with even worse numbers than 20%?

Interesting discussion of the 2008 ABC figures in this article and the following comments.

Here, however, is the nitty-gritty:
Chart

Can't Google up anything more recent at the moment.

Cheers!

Jim

[Proudhuff]

eeek! never thought it was that low... I used to write Direct Mail shots for 350K and that was for stamps!!

it appears from those figures that a bit of plastic tat on the cover really does lift your circulation, I wonder if the floppies in the megazine have lifted sales there?

[dweezil2]

Hey, Mary Whitehouse! Leave my purple willy alone!

[mogzilla]

totally with jim on his earlier comment about taking willies tits and swearing out and yes, we'd still buy it... dredd doesnt say fuck he says drokk and has done for years we know what it means but he doesnt need to say it... i refer you to an earlier comment i made about torchwood if you think having boobies and swears in something makes it grown up ,then you aren't...

[Emperor]

Isn't that the case for all comics though? Including Beano, Dandy, US Comics? Perhaps with even worse numbers than 20%?

Interesting discussion of the 2008 ABC figures in this article and the following comments.

Here, however, is the nitty-gritty:
Chart

Can't Google up anything more recent at the moment.

On 2000AD that is about it. For the others ABC figures can be dug out from their site, for example the Viz numbers:

http://www.abc.org.uk/Data/ProductPage.aspx?tid=1363

Given the fact that Viz was selling over 1 million copies at some time and is now on 76.4k 2000AD's drop in sales doesn't seem so frightening.

Scary to see The Dandy is down to just under 19k:

http://www.abc.org.uk/Data/ProductPage.aspx?tid=20167

[Colin YNWA]

Scary to see The Dandy is down to just under 19k:

http://www.abc.org.uk/Data/ProductPage.aspx?tid=20167

Isn't 'The Dandy' now some weird bastard child of what it once was? I mean Dandy Xtreme whats that about? 19th Century fops sky diving on snowboards or something?

[Jim_Campbell]

Scary to see The Dandy is down to just under 19k:

The Dandy was always shit -- I was a Beano man, myself.

Cheers!

Jim

[Colin Zeal]

Personally I don't think the level of swearing and nudity in the prog is a problem. I'm certainly more comfortable with children seeing nudity rather than violence. However I don't have any kids so it's easy for me to say that. I do think though that something has to be done to make the prog more accessible to children and drive up the circulation. How many of us who use this forum came back to the prog after a gap of x many years? 2000AD just won't be able to survive on the goodwill/happy memories of existing readers. If that means changes to the prog then I would happily support them.