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Prog 2280 - High-Octane Sci-Fi Action!

Started by broodblik, 04 May, 2022, 04:37:50 AM

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Richard

Quote from: Dark Jimbo on 07 May, 2022, 05:04:32 PM
Quote from: Richard on 07 May, 2022, 03:59:30 PM
Also I'm not convinced that children really want to spend their free time reading comics about school.

Harry Potter?
D'oh!

Tjm86

Quote from: Tomwe on 05 May, 2022, 01:50:44 PM
I felt two school based stories in one special to be pretty bad planning.

Not so sure TBH.  The bigger problem is perhaps the similarity between the concepts with the two school-based stories.  A possible future regened could well be an "education special" with a Dredd Academy tale, maybe another variation on Mili-com memories, perhaps Unteachables or Lowborn High (not both though ...) ...

would a "Slaine at School" strip be too many?

Overall though despite a couple of decent strips this felt like one of the weaker ones.  Another vote for "no more Chopper" though ... definitely not working.

nxylas

AIEEEEEE! It's the...THING from the HELL PLANET!

Jacqusie

Quote from: Tjm86 on 07 May, 2022, 07:51:22 PM
Quote from: Tomwe on 05 May, 2022, 01:50:44 PM



Another vote for "no more Chopper" though ... definitely not working.


Young Chopper had a kinda Muppet Babies vibe going on. Now I would be interested in a young Absalom, Nemesis or Grobbendonk, that would be rather different...

Barrington Boots

FWIW I gave this Regened and one other to some kids (not mine) who read the Phoenix and the Beano, and they said it was 'alright' - they liked Lowborn High and wanted to read the next bit. They had zero interest in any of the 2000ad legacy strips / characters.
Not saying that's how all children would react, but interesting for me to get feedback from a genuine child.
Funt and IP make some excellent points here. I have a lot of problems with Regened myself, but just have to trust Rebellion know what they're doing here.
You're a dark horse, Boots.

broodblik

So far I also find the legacy strips/characters to be the weakest part of the regen progs. Maybe it is time to find  a "lead" for the regen prog something like 2000AD Regen Featuring <<Cool new Character>>
When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.

IndigoPrime

I think legacy can work, but it can't be bogged down in its own continuity because that simply won't matter to a new reader. So a lot of the stuff in Cor/Buster worked with mini-IP, to the point she wasn't thrilled Monster Fun booted Sweeny (and was much happier when she got the webshop version that did have Sweeny in). But I can't imagine her giving two hoots about Dredd/Rico. (Moreover, as a kid big on justice, she's going to see the leads in that strip working in a manner that is so directly often contrary to her own beliefs, and yet they're portrayed as heroes rather than the anti-hero Dredd of the 1970s. That creates a problematic conflict that seems impossible to resolve.)

The issue with a new lead is it'd need to be a house character, which might knock interest from creators. Perhaps doing a Phoenix is a better bet, with a bunch of familiar strips that get rotated out – but then that comic has the big advantage over Rebellion's efforts in terms of frequency.

Recrewt

Long-time lurker here, lured out by the perennial discussion around the regen progs!

I won't comment on the quality of the regens - as a grumpy 40+ year old, they are not aimed at me and not something that I would normally buy.  Likewise, I'm not interested in the cor blimey specials and such but I appreciate that Rebellion produce a range of products, some of which I will buy and others not.  I am more than happy for them to all exist and agree that new readers need to be brought in.

It feels like adding the regens into the normal prog schedule was a good way to test the concept but this has also been a limitation as ultimately, we won't know if it can stand on its own feet until it does.  My preference would be for this to be the last year that we have the regens included in the run of progs and that it progresses to either a quarterly, monthly or even weekly schedule of its own.

In short, where I come from there is a saying 'sh*t or get off the pot'!     

IndigoPrime

But publishing doesn't work like that. The money for children's fare is no longer in the newsstand – it's in bookstores. Manga sells by the truckload, as does Dog Man. The Phoenix has (finally) recognised this, by shifting the format of its trades from fragile skinny volumes to chunky pocket books. Rebellion's strategy appears to be using the Regened comic as a testing ground. Strips that are deemed good and need content quickly head to the Prog, whereupon they are later compiled standalone or shoved into a Regened trade.

This naturally puts some people's noses out of joint, but the reality is 2000 AD isn't a standalone publication – it's an ecosystem. All parts of it need to do well, in order for it to thrive. (Again, my issue with, erm, this issue was that the storytelling seemed off and it didn't seem like the kind of thing that would click with the target market. But that's not always been the case.)

Funt Solo

We often end up circling around the question of Regened's position in the schedule, but I'm appreciating IP's point about (some of the) core character concepts being problematic - and I think that's worth emphasizing.

One aspect of 2000AD's core appeal that is often lauded when people hark back to the early days is that it owns a counterculture narrative. It's chaotic - it's got an anarchic streak - the lunatics have taken over the asylum - in many ways it feels like it's on the edge of acceptability. My dad didn't like it - he saw Dredd and thought I was worshiping a terrible fascist. So, it's cool because it was something I understood on another level to my "modern parent".

But, as IP has pointed out, Cadet Dredd really is a stick in the mud, and often the moral of the stories is about the letter of the law being more important than the society it's been built to supposedly protect. That makes Dredd the baddie, but he's being presented as a goodie. So - it's a broken moral construct. And - surely Regened isn't being designed to appeal to Tories*? Or, have I got that wrong?

*An assumption here that Tories know they're evil.
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

Proudhuff

 I could also be argued that buying the Prog when it has two or three stories in it that one doesn't like is a similar venture? There was a run in the Prog recently where everything except Dredd wasn't for me, but that's the way Tharg's bee bumbles.
DDT did a job on me

Darren Stephens

My copy didn't arrive. Hoping I can get a replacement sent out.
https://www.dscomiccolours.com
                                       CLICK^^

Recrewt

I wouldn't say that my nose is out of joint because of the regens.  I'm happy for them to exist but at the same time I don't think its unreasonable to point out what a strange situation we have ended up in with them. 

My view is that 2000 AD is a standalone publication that is within an ecosystem.  Its an anthology comic for mature readers (teen+) and inserting a children's comic into that each quarter is an odd approach.  That's not to say every story in 2000 AD needs to be guns and violence - you could argue the recent intestonauts story could fit well in an all age comic - nanobots in poop, yeah young me would be all over that! 

If the initial sales figures suggest that there is some worth in pursuing this then I would have thought upping the rate of content and including some reprints of appropriate stories that have appeared in the prog previously means they have enough to produce just regen specials next year that are sold alongside the normal prog. 

Just my thoughts on the matter.  As I said before, this always felt to me like a proof of concept but here we are nearly three years later and I just wonder where this is all going. 

broodblik

Quote from: Recrewt on 10 May, 2022, 04:28:22 PM
Just my thoughts on the matter.  As I said before, this always felt to me like a proof of concept but here we are nearly three years later and I just wonder where this is all going.

I am sure that covid also had a huge impact which I believe plans were put on hold. The current model is working so maybe that is why they kept with the 4 regen progs a year.
When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.

Blue Cactus

Does anyone else think Joko-Jargo has no personality? There's an ad in the latest issue where he's proclaiming 'I bring only the best to you from across the universe, young earthlets'. He's just got the same speech patterns as Tharg! Doesn't he have any cool betelgusian youth slang at least?