Need to be 18 or over to purchase the Prog in WH Smiths

[TordelBack]

Boobs and wangs I can take or leave (although I'd happily trade them for new readers), but swearing has no place in the Prog.  There's just no need, and made-up swears are as much a part of the unique character of 2000AD as Tharg. All-ages gets my vote.

[Arkwright99]

I'd side with the '2000AD should be all-ages' consensus although I'd actually argue it should be located more in the 12A range than the U or PG demographic (just to use film classification terms for easy point of reference).

While action (iow violence) or (tasteful) nudity don't bother me in the prog, explicit swearing still sticks out like a sore thumb every time it appears, which is possibly me just showing my age (being an original class of '77 reader when 2000AD was very firmly a kids' comic). My only issue with made-up swears in 200AD is that, with the exception of Dreddverse euphemisms, most of them are more silly than edgy (I'd cite SinDex's 'funt' as a particular offender in that regard) so I don't see the point of them in the main.

On the other hand, since the Meg already comes sealed (thanks to the floppies) if there's a place for 'adult' content strips then that would seem like the ready-made environment for them.

[IndigoPrime]

I don't think 2000 AD would lose its edge in the slightest if it took a zero-tolerance approach to swearing and explicit nudity. I'm struggling to think of any strips in recent years that would have to be removed from the Prog. A few would need slight art edits. A few more would need tiny changes to dialogue. (Didn't Kingdom have some swears in at one point, or am I misremembering?)

[Jim_Campbell]

A few more would need tiny changes to dialogue. (Didn't Kingdom have some swears in at one point, or am I misremembering?)

It did. I cited it as an eminently all-ages strip, and someone pointed out some fairly sweary dialogue. I don't think the strip benefitted one iota from Gene telling another character to "Eat shit and die."

Cheers

jim

[Nic_Freeman]

I agree that the prog should be all ages and swearing-free but I think we're actually more prudish about swearing and nudity than people were in the 80s during the progs first golden age.

I recently watched The Goonies (1985) which is rated PG with my 8 year old son and there was a LOT of swearing.

We assume that swearing in comics will directly affect kids behaviour, but don't think the same applies to violence. The prog has always been extremely violent but we've not all turned into street fighting loons, if there had bee swearing I doubt it would have changed our language either.

[Fungus]

Personally, I don't think swearing will cause kids to copy it, I just think it's shit.

[Jim_Campbell]

We assume that swearing in comics will directly affect kids behaviour, but don't think the same applies to violence. The prog has always been extremely violent but we've not all turned into street fighting loons, if there had bee swearing I doubt it would have changed our language either.

I'm not arguing that any of these things would have an actual negative effect on the kids — when I went up to comprehensive from juniors at age 11, I had a fully functioning vocabulary of profanity, even if I didn't know what half the words actually meant. That's not the point.

The point is, that parents have ideas about what is and isn't appropriate for their kids and — whatever the rights and wrongs of it — they're far more cagey about exposing them to sex and bad language than to violence. The sex and the bad language are active impediments to even enthusiastic current adult readers sharing their progs with their offspring, or handing them down to the sprogs of their friends.

Which, I think, creates an implicit (possible) threat to the long-term stability of the title's readership, one which can easily be negated with no prospect of actually damaging the current reader base.

I concede at this point that I'm not sure how realistic it would be to put this particular genie back in its bottle, but it's a possibility I mull over fairly frequently when playing Armchair Tharg.

Cheers

Jim

[Frank]

We assume that swearing in comics will directly affect kids behaviour, but don't think the same applies to violence.

The conversation isn't about the morality of filth, just the practical implications of having the comic racked alongside Tattoo Monthly on supermarket shelves, rather than Peppa Pig. Is it worth trying to accommodate an imaginary pre-teen reader, who is desperate to read the adventures of middle aged maggot fighters in the middle ages?

Presumably, Tharg has a pretty good idea who actually buys the comic, as opposed to who he would like to buy the comic. If he lets the odd boob or bastard slip out, and doesn't mount a plastic toy on the cover, that's as good as saying 2000ad has entered Prosecco and Sunday evening drama territory.

I was reading an issue from 2009 the other night. It featured a zombie in a posing pouch and a guy having sex with his own clone; sweary neds doing drugs with decomposing pensioners in council flats; and lengthy talking heads sequences discussing the electoral system of MC1 like House Of Cards.

That seems a much more effective means of preventing kids from picking up 2000ad than sticking it on a high shelf, but Cradlegrave, Zombo, and Tour Of Duty represent what everyone agrees was the best period of modern 2000ad. If Tharg still dreams of tempting writers like Ewing back to his pages, letting them write stuff they can't elsewhere seems like a valuable tool to be throwing away.

[JamesC]

Picking bits of content out of strips like Zombo or Cradelgrave and saying 'if the prog went all ages we wouldn't get this' doesn't ring true. Back when the prog was all ages we had a lead character carrying half his brain around in a box and Judge Dredd executing sov collaborators in a burial pit.

[Jim_Campbell]

Picking bits of content out of strips like Zombo or Cradelgrave and saying 'if the prog went all ages we wouldn't get this' doesn't ring true. Back when the prog was all ages we had a lead character carrying half his brain around in a box and Judge Dredd executing sov collaborators in a burial pit.

Indeed. Plus, I've always acknowledged that there has been the odd thrill that really wouldn't sit well in an all-ages 2000AD, Cradlegrave being an excellent example. This is why in the back of my head 'The adult 2000AD' strikes me as possibly the identity the Megazine seems to have been slightly struggling to find since it dropped the all-Dreddworld conceit.

Cheers

Jim

[Silent_Bomber]

Adolescents are attracted to bad language and nudity and their parents have little say in what they are buying anyway. These elements could be responsible for teenagers swapping over to Rebellion from Marvel or DC when they get to that age, then they may stick with it for the quality of the writing as they get older.

[Cyber-Matt]

Irrespective of swearing/nudity/violence, I think some of you are overestimating the robustness of the newsstand in 2016. In the teen magazine sector alone (2000 AD comes under the teen comics category, in which it's the no 1 seller, thank you very much) the last year has seen the closure of Girl Pop, Bliss, Batman the Brave, Zoom, Sleepy Hollow, and DC Super Friends, amongst others. The circulation on Titan's Adventure Time has dropped by a third since it launched a year ago.

Total magazine sales across the board have dropped, year on year. The market isn't what it was three decades ago.

[moldovangerbil]

Total magazine sales across the board have dropped, year on year. The market isn't what it was three decades ago.

Eek!  The Prog's doing ok though, right????

[Steve Green]

There's one thing I'm curious about.

Has a fortnightly larger prog ever been considered?

I could certainly see the benefit in having the flexibility over page count, and editing one prog every two weeks (even if it is larger)

A few times it's been said that 'this will read better as a trade' and I wonder if the weekly format is too restrictive.

Are there any downsides to this?

Are retailers resistant to fortnightlies?

The megazine started out as a fortnightly didn't it?

Cheers

Steve

[Jim_Campbell]

Irrespective of swearing/nudity/violence, I think some of you are overestimating the robustness of the newsstand in 2016.

I very clearly am, picking at crumbs of info gathered from various sources. I'm certainly not going to gainsay the opinion of someone with proper info from inside the industry, and I appreciate the contribution to the discussion.

Cheers

Jim