Prog 2287: Grinders Keepers!

[IndigoPrime]

Anecdotally, my youngest loves the Beano and part of the excitement of a Saturday is the latest issue dropping through the letter box. I also know a few Beano readers at my school. Would they move onto something else (like we all did) if there was something available? Again, I don't know.

Quite possibly, if it's widespread enough, parents are aware of it, and the habit continues. One thing that has changed since I was a kid is that comics are increasingly seen as a valid medium. We're still a long way from fully mainstream acceptance, but schools are recommending and stocking some collected stories here and there. It's not a case of "grow up and read only straight prose". The comics are also more likely in the older sector to feature contemporaries, which was less likely in the 1980s with the likes of 2000 AD and such.

Doctor Who is an odd one, though. Clearly, sales or distro wasn't holding up, but I really liked that reprint full-size comic that ran for a year or so. But then Titan shrank it to US side, messed up the stories between it and Tales from the TARDIS, canned the original, and then wrecked the frequency of the surviving title. (Also the sole company I've dealt with whose subs people were actively hostile towards me, accusing me of lying when quoting their own emails back at them. Horrible.)

As for Rebellion, I think the broad strategy there seems to be working. It's a big risk to do Monster Fun, let alone a weekly. I'd hope it would sell well enough to become a monthly, say, and go from there. But who knows? I do worry, though, that the weekly market will die not because there isn't demand but because, as I've said, most kids (whose families have the means) aren't even aware that the possibility of a weekly comic even exists anymore.

[nxylas]

Although you'll notice that, in the revival, the four- or six-parters that were common in the previous era were jettisoned in favour of mostly done-in-one episodes with the occasional two-parter.

But with double-length episodes, so that the two-parters were equivalent to a four-parter in the 20th century show.

[Jim_Campbell]

But with double-length episodes, so that the two-parters were equivalent to a four-parter in the 20th century show.

The length isn't relevant to the point, though, which was the relative absence of multi-parters in the Who revival, because the target demographic doesn't like 'em much.

[The Mind of Wolfie Smith]

kids today clearly do read weekly comics. phoenix has just hit issue 546. it's widely available in smiths and supermarkets, but also has a successful (and good value) subscription model which is in part based around the best a4 envelopes you have ever seen.
the comic is also built around multi-part series, in the main - some of them serious, some silly (do read the collected no country, which is one of the best weekly-serialised comic dystopian tales i've read, prog included). its target audience clearly loves multi-parters.
the key, according my daughter anyway, is to be frequent, to be fun and thought-provoking to read, and to never ever patronise.
phoenix has also been really good over the years at providing plenty of contact with the creators. my sprog was in heaven to attend a free cartooning workshop in gosh comics a couple of years ago with jamie smart, gary northfield and others. she has been making comics ever since.

[Funt Solo]

Phoenix is great, and my youngling really enjoyed her one year subscription - unfortunately, their overseas service and customer comms are simply atrocious. We suffered through various setbacks in terms of late deliveries (their fault) and incorrect address changes (their fault) - which (of course) only served to disappoint. The worst thing about all of the palaver, was that they kept blaming us for the problems - but all we did was try to subscribe to their comic.

Despite all of the poor service, I attempted to sign up for a second year but was unable to - their system, yet again, not working correctly.

I just had to give up and shift over to buying collected editions from a third party sales site.

My only point in the wider topic is that weekly comics can only work if the distribution system is reliable.

[IndigoPrime]

kids today clearly do read weekly comics. phoenix has just hit issue 546. it's widely available in smiths and supermarkets

I've only ever seen The Phoenix in the wild twice, both times in Reading. I've never seen it where I live (a smallish town of ~35k people, but with a WHSmith that stocks even stuff like Shift, and with a Waitrose, which elsewhere sometimes stocks The Phoenix), nor in large towns like Basingstoke. So I always wonder how much organic readership there is.

On the point about approach, I think that aligns with mini-IP, who I was chatting to over dinner about this thread. She was incredulous about the notion kids don't like weeklies, but confirmed hardly any of her friends got comics, and the one boy she knows who likes The Beano is now "more into football". Even so, we live in a fairly well-off area. And so if kids here aren't getting The Phoenix, that in itself is quite odd.

On two other points, Jamie Smart is the nicest guy in comics. His workshops are a joy, and he spends bloody ages on Twitter responding kindly to all the pics sent his way by happy parents. (At his recent one at the Phoenix Festival, mini-IP went a bit overboard and wrote up a long story, which he clearly looked through and then said something very kind about.)

Wolfie: you mention No Country, which is back next week. Do you know when the original ran? Mini-IP swears she read it, but I thought it was before her Phoenix time. (She clearly knows something about it, but couldn't clearly explain the premise to me, just some of the smaller details.)

[Colin YNWA]

I've rattled on about this endlessly The Phoenix is an absolute treasure and clear evidence that weekly ongoing adventure comics, can work, enthrall kids (some kids) when balanced right with other stuff. The concern is of course its pretty much on its own and even then there seems to be increasingly finding ways to save monthly on the weekly comic and that comic is used to fuel collections and those more and more in the Dog Man style - which given the quality isn't a massive concern.

If the model was easy and universally popular there would be more one imagines. So I remain grateful it still exists.

The other concern is the boys love for it is slowly ebbing. He still reads it without fail, but its been a while since he read it the moment it lands as he used to, normally that evening though. Its then not rushed to his room to be looked at again over the weekend. He's 10 and his time might be steadly coming to an end.... so I guess I'll just have to admit I'm getting it for myself in a wee while!

As for 'No Country' I think it ran in the run up to issue 400 - but will check when I have a moment to get to the boys room and nosey to get exact issues. It was so, SO good, and I'm super excited its returning after so long and if I'm honest all but giving up on seeing it again.

[The Mind of Wolfie Smith]

and so timely. it's impossible to read the ace collection of no country without thinking of (and discussing) ukraine, refugees etc. the genius, of course, is that it's also brilliant comics storytelling - and that it doesn't ever preach.

i just think, whatever the bankrolling, at this point phoenix has existed for such a long time that it must be deemed both a success and a model.
a quarterly comic is almost absurd to consider for a 10 year old - 3 months is a significant proportion of their eternity comprehension to wait for the next issue!

as for diminishing excitement at the issue's weekly arrival - this is surely normal? i once left the prog for decades.

[Leigh S]

I stopped reading Dr Who weekly hen it became a Monthly and jumped ship to 2000AD - a month was an insane length of time to wait, so God only knows how a Bi-Monthly or Quarterly schedule would feel.

Distribution certainly seems to be the main culprit of comics decline, though perhaps that is muddied by comics moving away from bogroll cheapness -


The most amazing revelation there has been to me in recent years reading stuff like John Sanders book is that the Comic industry was in no small part only there to make use of old machines that would have otherwise sat idle and losss making.  When those Victorian printing presses finally were decommissioned, paper quality rose and prices also, then comics stopped being an easy buy to add to the weekly shopping or newspaper bill.

[broodblik]

I think one of the other problems is the fact that the "people" who read the weekly comics wanted it in print whereas I am "sure" that the new generation would not mind the digital option. So the culture of reading the material digitally is not transferred from parent to child since the parent does not believe that any other model but print should exists.

[IndigoPrime]

Also not remotely the case in my experience nor that of mini-IP's friends. Perhaps we're anomalous, but the kids bloody love books and, to some degree, magazines. Also, parents aren't keen on kids being glued to screens and so tend to ration that. And when my kid has a screen, she'd sooner (after doing their homework) play a game than read, because she knows she can read any time.

That's not to say there isn't a generation of young readers using digital. But they're not going to be Beano age and also not the lower end of the Phoenix range.

[norton canes]

Brink was... actually, better not say. Tell you tomorrow

...the solution to Wordle. Looking forward to seeing Angel, Bison, Defoe, Flesh, Freaks, Mambo, Shako, Skizz, Trash, XTNCT and Zombo in further Wordles

[The Monarch]

I read killing time when i was 8 and i turned out okay....mostly

pretty strong line up of stories this week i didn't even hate skip tracer. Special mention goes to the dredd though I laughed pretty hard at it complete tonal change from ashers story but worth it in my opinion

[Huey2]

" I read killing time when i was 8 and i turned out okay....mostly"

I think part of the issue is not whether kids are okay with reading something (I don't know any youngster who closed that comic/ turned off the television because something was too "much"). Instead I think it's more what the gatekeepers decide is inappropriate.

It wasn't that long ago that I suddenly found myself cast in the role of cantankerous old fart when, again using Dr. Who as an example, I found myself vetting the episodes to see if they were suitable for the kids beforehand as the series took a much darker turn during the Capaldi years. What had started off as a family viewing experience watched live, now had to be pre-seen and judged if it was "okay" for the kids. The vast majority of the time it was. Sometimes it wasn't.

Was I right in my viewpoint? I'm sure some would have thought I was overreacting. Others wouldn't and would have binned off some episodes I thought were acceptable.

The thing is, none of the issues I objected to ( Dead bodies screaming that they don't want to be cremated or patients in a hospital in clear pain and distress) were vital to the story, seemed totally unnecessary and served only to lose (at least 2 younger) viewers. The routine was lost and interest waned.

I do find the unnecessary violence/horror/sex/swearing so much media indulges in to be baffling. Stranger Things was mentioned upthread and some of the decisions there seem to be bizarre: a sheen of 18+ horror given to a story whose target audience is surely 11 year olds plus.

[Richard]

Plenty of adults are watching Stranger Things, so I don't buy that the target audience is 11 year olds, for whom it seems completely unsuitable. Agree about Dr Who though.