The Prog kicks off with a fun Dredd one-and-done by Niemand/Dyer. Hope feels like an expansion episode and is a bit clunky. Things go wrong in Skip Tracer and I realise in the final frame there's a big reveal, but I've no idea who these people are.
Terror Tales is good and grim. Notably, it's Kek-W, so that shouldn't be a surprise. Part 24 of Brimful is next, which I only mention because it's the episode where a certain J Kingsley and M Smith enter the fold. Then we finish with Brink, which feels like it really wants to be a movie. Solid, at least.
Next week, we're back to Regened, so it's two weeks until the ongoing thrills continue. In all honestly, I'm fine with the break this time.
Dredd > Terror Tales > Brink > Skip Tracer > Hope
Cover by Andy Clarke:
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FVX6lc6WQAMzSlJ?format=jpg&name=large)
Cover and Logo:
(https://dyn.media.forbiddenplanet.com/w5ToO-6KRaCYCDuvwgnbC-hA4-A=/trim/fit-in/779x1024/filters:format(webp)/https://media.forbiddenplanet.com/products/cf/f2/32bdea00b5687a3c1e422f7626c3b47675b6.jpeg)
Got mine on Saturday! Big fan of this cover.
Dredd very enjoyable silly story and the highlight of the Prog. Really liked the design on the Grinder itself which was smack between menacing and totally derpy.
Everything else much as it was last week for me:
Hope I still think this is fairly dreadful, but glad others are enjoying it!
Skip Tracer this is inoffensive without being engaging. I think I know who that is at the end?
Terror Tales - this one also didn't work for me really.
Brink keeps on Brinking
I thought Brink and Hope would wrap up this week, not sure why but everything resumes in two weeks.
Quote from: Barrington Boots on 20 June, 2022, 09:14:11 AM
I thought Brink and Hope would wrap up this week, not sure why but everything resumes in two weeks.
From an interview with Matt Smith he said that Brink will be something like 24 episodes whereas Hope will most likely be 12 like the previous arcs but it might be more
Quote from: IndigoPrime on 19 June, 2022, 11:23:54 PM
Things go wrong in Skip Tracer and I realise in the final frame there's a big reveal, but I've no idea who these people are.
I recognise Anime Girl from an earlier story but goodness knows who Pointy Ears is. It says a lot that despite running to so many episodes, Skip Tracer hasn't ever really managed to build a memorable supporting cast, further cementing it's position as a bit of a non-classic.
Andy Clarke is certainly giving good cover at the moment. This one kinda reminds me of the stuff Cliff Robinson has been doing of late. Its a Dredd cover and the story itself is good fun and feels like Kenneth Niemand stretching some different muscles - which I think he referenced in a recent interview. Its a fun solid one off and nice to see a different tone. Niemand is so good with Dredd (and the other stuff). Also Nick Dyer art which is always a massive boon.
Hope creeps along, on all levels. good stuff.
Skip Tracer well its a decent episode again and I recognise the popstar from the previous story when Skip T was her bodyguard and I kinda get tingles about the other reveal, but nothing springs to mind. This is fine so far.
After however many John Tomlinson miss fires Kek-W shows have you can have an involved, twisting tale, make it frightening, shroud it in mystery and still have it make sense, have you care and make it hit home IN 4 PAGES! What an excellent Terror Tale and more from Kek-W like this - with great Warren Pleece art - this is the way these should be done.
Brink well its Brink isn't it. Another masterclass and I strongly suspect when read as one this will be even better - when read back to back with Book 1 even better again.
Looking forward to the Regened next week. They have been improving the hit rate of late and so I'm optimistic about what we'll get.
Yeah, this is the sort of Dredd I would agree is closer to being a lost classic. Good stuff
I'm mainly here to ppint out that we have Hope stopping its porno for a week to allow the kids to read - hope they dont pick up next weeks!
Honestly, I just dont want this in my prog, and certainly not being the bread of a Regened sandwich. Down with this sort of thing.
"Honestly, I just don't want this in my prog, and certainly not being the bread of a Regened sandwich. Down with this sort of thing."
Whilst I can admire the craft on display from the creative team, I've got to agree with you Leigh.
The arrival of a Regened prog always makes me wonder what made all of the other issues "non-regeney". Last year, there was very little that would have stopped me sharing the prog with a youngster and that which was child-unfriendly always seemed unnecessary. Feral and Foe, for example, seemed like it had the potential to be the perfect all-ages strip - all it needed to do was drop the some "proper" swear words and a couple of wanking gags - neither of which felt essential to the tale it was telling.
At the moment it feels as if the regular prog and the regened prog are pulling in two different directions - both have their pluses and their minuses - and the prog that I want to read is one which falls somewhere in the middle. More than anything, I'd like a prog I can share with my son in the way that I shared the old prog with my Dad.
And before somebody says it - I know that tastes and trends have changed since the '70s and '80s but it still possible to do a prog that appeals to all ages.
Anyway, the other bits from today's prog...
Dredd - good stuff lifted by some great art by Nick Dyer - such an underrated artist.
Terror Tale - really nice - although, if I'm going to be consistent - were the severed fingers really necessary? The story was fine without that.
Skip Tracer - I quite like Skip Tracer. It remembers to have something cool happen each episode, it doesn't expect me to remember whole story arcs from years previous and the lead character isn't evil.
Brink - fine.
Is Indigo Prime for all ages? Cradlegrave? Anything by John Smith, for that matter? Dark Justice? Deadworld? Defoe? I think 2000AD would be poorer without them. And without Hope too.
John Smith arrived at a time when the prog would still have bridged the chasm of all-ages and intelligent. I think you can tell mature tales without including language or imagery that would get parents snatching the prog out of a kid of say ten upwards. Slaine the King, Halo Jones and Zenith all feature narratives that rely on the protagonists having sex but are able to do so without nudity and I'd suggest tell the tale in a better way because of this.
Taking Smith as an example. IIRC he was a little miffed that nobody was shocked or offended by his inclusion of incest in the tale. It was there for those who were old enough to notice but not for those who weren't.
Deadworld? Dark Justice? Both of these are based on the Judge Death who appeared way back in the bog paper days.
Thinking back over the past 45 years, I can only think of one story which couldn't be told in an all ages without a bit of editing and that's a Sinister Dexter story where they go to whack a porn star. That's it.
Thing is, I'm guessing that the majority of us reading the prog are aging middle-aged farts and if 2000ad is going to continue it will need new blood for the readership.
I don't think you remember those stories as well as you think you do! Either that or you've just focused on sex to the exclusion of everything else. I was thinking more about violence and horror. There is a world of difference between the original Wagner and Bolland Judge Death of 1980 and the Deadworld of today. Indigo Prime: Soft Bodies is gruesome, and Killing Time has people being blinded and mutilated.
(My own mother confiscated a reprint of some old 80s Judge Dredd stories because she thought the Otto Sump story about people eating rats and cockroaches, and the story Blobs about plastic surgery, were too disgusting for children!)
Definitely not an all ages cover:
http://2000ad.org/functions/cover.php?Comic=2000ad&choice=1760
"My own mother confiscated a reprint of some old 80s Judge Dredd stories because she thought the Otto Sump story about people eating rats and cockroaches, and the story Blobs about plastic surgery, were too disgusting for children!"
Sounds like a great idea for a thread: Comics our parents have confiscated. Whilst the 70s/ 80s progs managed to get under the radar for me - partly I'm sure to my dad wanting to read them too - it was an early copy of Deadline that nearly got confiscated. The cover was shots of a model cos-playing as Tank Girl, making the thing look like some porn mag.
"Either that or you've just focused on sex to the exclusion of everything else" Whilst it didn't come across in my post, I was also thinking of non-child-friendly gore or violence (Even if I did forget Killing Time). I guess the distinction between the the two areas is that some level of threat needs to be implied in every episode. It's how O.T.T. you are with it. I recall the spray of blood being covered up in a Talbot Nemesis episode and I don't think anything was lost for that.
" Killing Time has people being blinded and mutilated." - No, you're right. Killing Time is brutal. How could I forget killing Time? Killing Time is fantastic and - again, you're right - this is a tale where something would be lost if the violence had been toned down. However - IMO - the violence being shown in that much detail and being that integral to the story is kind of rare. And, by that time there were other sister titles (which boasted of being 2000ads more mature stable mates) around which could have housed the story. Revolver was originally slated to feature a Tyranny Rex story and the Megazine was by then running non-Dredd world stories.
Brink - for years I thought the Mercury Event was actually the disappearance of the planet, which seemed an unbelievable thing to happen, and therefore maybe the space gods actually did exist. We learn this week that it's actually (just) the habs and other infrastructure in the vicinity of the planet. This makes much more sense, even if it remains unexplained. I can't believe I was that dumb!
Quote from: Southstreeter on 21 June, 2022, 03:13:23 PM
Brink - for years I thought the Mercury Event was actually the disappearance of the planet, which seemed an unbelievable thing to happen, and therefore maybe the space gods actually did exist. We learn this week that it's actually (just) the habs and other infrastructure in the vicinity of the planet. This makes much more sense, even if it remains unexplained. I can't believe I was that dumb!
I think we were kinda meant to think that weren't we? I was never sure as it left that element of doubt but it was certainly explicity said as if that (the planet going) was what had happened. I think to leave that massive question about the scale of things we were dealing with. To allow the thought of the elder gods actually existing t creep in.
Don't think it was daft it all. Think it was following the intent of the story and is a great example of the genius of the strip to leave us so befuddle and then strip things away with a simple reveal.
Thanks, that's reassuring. Maybe I did take it the way Dabnett intended!
Quote from: Richard on 21 June, 2022, 12:04:01 PM
Either that or you've just focused on sex to the exclusion of everything else
Whilst it's often tempting to do this in many aspects of life, I don't think overall the Prog is very sexy. It is extremely violent however. It always feels a bit weird to me when the Prog does veer towards adult themes or art. Would this run of Hope have been a better fit in the Meg maybe?
I guess I'd rather my kids read Dante than Defoe, but I don't have any kids so it's something of a moot point. My parents confiscated the 2000ad 1986 annual from my brother when he was given it for Christmas, largely because he was upset by the relentless (but largely bloodless) killings in Shako but I remember Judge Death Lives being a story that inspired mild childhood trauma - all those staring, dead faces from Fear's victims and the horror of Judge Mortis.. literal nightmare stuff.
Sorry, but not buying any equivalence between sexual stuff and violence in the prog.
Peril and by the nature of peril violence is part of "all ages" entertainment for all time. Doctor Who could get pretty grisly but we would all be raising eyebrows if the cast started flashing the flesh and they imported the Torchwood sex gas into the main show for the 60th Anniversary.
Either commit to one thing or the other, but dont flirt with a young adult audience AND a diry old man one simultaneously.
I'll say it again, but it bears repeating, 2000Ad was never more mature when it was aimed at an all ages audience.
Quote from: Leigh S on 21 June, 2022, 06:15:48 PM
Either commit to one thing or the other, but dont flirt with a young adult audience AND a diry old man one simultaneously.
With the usual proviso about having no inside info on Rebellion's specific strategy, I think it also bears repeating that the target market for 'Regened' has no love for weekly periodicals. The intention (I would have thought) is
clearly not for kids to immediately hop onto the regular prog.
What seems logical (to me, at least) is to regard 'Regened' as a quarterly sampler for all-ages material, with the breakout hits given a run in the prog long enough to provide material to be bundled up into a TPB, which the target audience buys in
extraordinary numbers.
And given the number of Regened trades we've had now, Occam's razor suggests the strategy is working.
Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 21 June, 2022, 07:21:06 PM
Quote from: Leigh S on 21 June, 2022, 06:15:48 PM
Either commit to one thing or the other, but dont flirt with a young adult audience AND a diry old man one simultaneously.
With the usual proviso about having no inside info on Rebellion's specific strategy, I think it also bears repeating that the target market for 'Regened' has no love for weekly periodicals. The intention (I would have thought) is clearly not for kids to immediately hop onto the regular prog.
What seems logical (to me, at least) is to regard 'Regened' as a quarterly sampler for all-ages material, with the breakout hits given a run in the prog long enough to provide material to be bundled up into a TPB, which the target audience buys in extraordinary numbers.
My son regularly asks me "when is the next Regened coming out?"
(So he is massively looking forward to Saturday's Prog).
He even has them all in his room and says "they are his".
But he literally never asks to read the regular Prog.
And I have no objection to the Regened - I do think that it is a very odd look though - like if CBBC had a day every month that showed some softcore.
OK - not EXACTLY like that, and yeah there are reasons why it happens and might seem perfectly normal, but take a step back from that and really, does the Prog need that day a month of softcore?
Aiming at younger children is a success - why not tilt the prog more all ages as a generality, so maybe some of those 10-12 yr old kids who read REgened material might be enticed to buy some more none regened material?
If no kids arent getting on board the weekly train, then the prog is fecked anyway?
The Regened sells more than the weekly we are told, surely that tells us something about the sort of material 2000AD should be aiming for
And that can be violent or disturbing - Stranger Things is pretty big with my daughter and her friends and has been since she was 11 or so.
Quote from: Leigh S on 21 June, 2022, 06:15:48 PM
Peril and by the nature of peril violence is part of "all ages" entertainment for all time.
Well that's a question of degree isn't it? There's a world of difference between the kind of violence in, say,
The Judge Child and the kind we see in
Killing Time or
Cinnabar. If you are serious about your point that any level of unlimited violence and brutality is suitable for young children as long as there is no sex, then you might be in a minority opinion among parents there.
I didn't get your point about CBBC I'm afraid (it sounds like the exact opposite of what 2000AD is doing, more like if an adult channel did one day a month of children's programmes).
I'm quite happy for Regened to happen four times a year, but if I wanted to read all ages stuff all the time then I'd be buying the Phoenix instead of 2000AD.
I think you'd find that society including parents (even if you dont agree with them doing so) is coy around sex and nudity, but not so coy about violence - the examples I gave of Dr Who and Stranger Things would support that. They might reference such things, allude to them, but they arent as blatant as they are with the gore, peril and violence - thats just how it is - to say otherwise is mad. All ages includes a fair amount of violence and not much sex.
2000AD was very successful when it was sold to kids (even if you think that was inappropriate due to the violence)
it got less successful as it "grew up"
It currently sells best when it goes back to aiming its content at kids. It seems a no brainer to me that the comic should aim its content
My thing is this. I started reading Tooth at the age of 7. Back then I was about the target age. 45 years later things have moved on. I would however like something of Tooth to survive.
In the roughly 40 years since I started reading Tooth the changes have been phenomenal. We've had the halcyon days of the early 80's with Apocaplypse War, Rogue Trooper, Nemesis and Strontium Dog. We've also had the dire days of Mark Millar's Robo-Hunter, Big Dave and the Summer "offensive" (yes, it was).
Since Rebellion has taken control we've had so much quality it is unreal. Yet an awful lot of it has been aimed more at the same market that Crisis once targeted.
Re-gened might be hit or miss but what I love about it is the effort the creators go to to find a voice for the generation that I was decades ago. The fact that they're trying to mine the creative seam we all love whilst finding a whole new lode is laudable.
The success rate might be variable but then again the same can be said for the prog. Look back at recent issues, it hasn't been an ecstatic response. That said, it still beats most American publishers hands down.
2000AD sold best in the 80s, it should be the 80s again.
Quote from: Leigh S on 21 June, 2022, 10:40:00 PM
The Regened sells more than the weekly we are told, surely that tells us something about the sort of material 2000AD should be aiming for
OK... I say all this as someone who has, purely as a fan playing armchair Tharg in my non-droid days, argued quite strongly for the idea that 2000AD could go all-ages and the Megazine could be the grown-up version, but...
The simple fact is that the target YA audience isn't keen on weekly periodicals. It's just a fact. If the prog was all-age, all the time, then that small but vocal minority of current fans who despise the whole idea of Regened would certainly bail, with no guarantee of making those numbers up from an all-age/YA audience.
The Regened strategy is cautious, yes, and maybe an odd half-way house, but 2000AD is the last man standing out of all the comics of the 70s and 80s, and Rebellion is the
only reason we got to find out what 2000AD would be called in the year 2000... and we're still here in 2022.
I believe that they know what they're doing, and my wider understanding of the all-age market makes me think this strategy to make inroads into that territory has a lot of merit. At the very least, if the strategy
did fail, then the way it's been structured means that we wouldn't lose the Prog and the Meg as a consequence, and if it succeeds then the whole 2000AD family is healthier as a result.
Quote from: Art on 21 June, 2022, 11:23:36 PM
2000AD sold best in the 80s, it should be the 80s again.
If you havent got anything useful to add, Art.... do you really think that's what I am saying?
It's pretty clear we arent in the 80s any more. I don't object in principle to "adult" content in comics, otherwise, I'd have given up on Uncle Pat and Uncle Alan's work a long time back.
What I am saying is what does having the odd story or two a year where we get to show some tits add to the comic as a brand? One that seems to be finding it can appeal to a younger audience if maybe not as its main bread and butter - I dont want to see a Regened every week prog either. Just saying "well sex and violence are equivalent" really isnt true and I think the examples I gave show that. Unless anyone honestly imagines it's likely new Doctor Who is going to have a sequel to the Mind Robber set in the land of slash fiction.
I just think that as a brand, as a product, as an institution, 2000AD has strengths that run through its entire history, and its been weakest when it has lost sight of what it does well. The success of Regened shows that the idea of all ages sci-fi stories told in comic form is not dead in the water, even if converting the prog wholesale that way might be.
Most readers, including myself, wouldnt want that - Regened is less all ages and more young adult - its tilted slightly younger than the prog has been since about 1980.
What I'm asking for is someone to explain what advantage there is in making the spectrum of content so broad. What does it add? For me, its not enough to offset what it takes away.
I can't be the only one who sees this as a weird disconnect - like the Rambo or Robocop cartoons of yesteryear, having the same "IP" aimed at kids that you also wouldnt want your kids to see seems pretty odd, even if you do try and ringfence the different products with a different logo.
The prog doesnt need to be "sanitised" of violence or adult themes, but keeping it 15 rated seems entirely sensible from a business persepctive, because if there are some readers who might bail because they went 6 months without seeing some drawings of naughty bits, good riddance!
Quote from: IndigoPrime on 19 June, 2022, 11:23:54 PM
Things go wrong in Skip Tracer and I realise in the final frame there's a big reveal, but I've no idea who these people are.
Quote from: Barrington Boots on 20 June, 2022, 09:14:11 AM
Skip Tracer this is inoffensive without being engaging. I think I know who that is at the end?
Quote from: Goosegash on 20 June, 2022, 07:57:41 PM
I recognise Anime Girl from an earlier story but goodness knows who Pointy Ears is. It says a lot that despite running to so many episodes, Skip Tracer hasn't ever really managed to build a memorable supporting cast, further cementing it's position as a bit of a non-classic.
Quote from: Colin YNWA on 20 June, 2022, 08:00:44 PM
Skip Tracer well its a decent episode again and I recognise the popstar from the previous story when Skip T was her bodyguard and I kinda get tingles about the other reveal, but nothing springs to mind. This is fine so far.
The lady on the right is [spoiler]Nerin Tan, part of the anti-Consociation Children of Fury resistance group that was introduced in "Louder Than Bombs" (Prog 2111-2122)[/spoiler].
The girl on the left is [spoiler]India Sumner, the famous pop star who's manager was trying to kill so he'd become extremely wealthy.
Both were introduced in "Hyperballad", that ran in Prog 2200-2209[/spoiler].
The "Highness" that they're referring to is presumably [spoiler]the then-unnamed Crown Princess of San Helios, who was kidnapped by the Consociation in the very first story, "Heavy is the Head", way back in Prog 2081-2089[/spoiler].
Quote from: Colin YNWA on 21 June, 2022, 03:46:06 PM
Quote from: Southstreeter on 21 June, 2022, 03:13:23 PM
Brink - for years I thought the Mercury Event was actually the disappearance of the planet, which seemed an unbelievable thing to happen, and therefore maybe the space gods actually did exist. We learn this week that it's actually (just) the habs and other infrastructure in the vicinity of the planet. This makes much more sense, even if it remains unexplained. I can't believe I was that dumb!
I think we were kinda meant to think that weren't we? I was never sure as it left that element of doubt but it was certainly explicity said as if that (the planet going) was what had happened. I think to leave that massive question about the scale of things we were dealing with. To allow the thought of the elder gods actually existing t creep in.
Don't think it was daft it all. Think it was following the intent of the story and is a great example of the genius of the strip to leave us so befuddle and then strip things away with a simple reveal.
Likewise, thought the "Mercury Event" referred to the destruction of the planet rather than any nearby space station as well.
Well another prog not too bad all readable.
Dredd – An entertaining done and dusted one shot. Quite a different tone from Niemand's previous story.
Hope – Continue the weird and macabre. This is definitely more twisted than the previous arcs but still entertaining. I know a few has complained about the "darker" side of the story. One question why is in the face violence acceptable when something more "different" not?
Skippy – Nothing spectacular all readable, fine art though.
Terror – A good little tale which did not linger too much and when straight for the jugular.
Brink – As Dan Abnett is a guest in his own strip Dan continues to bring all the plot points together. This is becoming boring to say the same thing week in and week out, but this is an excellent read.
B/W Cover:
(https://2000ad.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/JD-4GREYTONE-784x1024.jpg)
Batman's Superior Cousin: thanks for the Skip Tracer recap, although I still struggle to remember anything more than someone at some point being a pop star someone was trying to kill. Oh well. Given my terrifying reading pile, I can't imagine I'll pop back to run through all of this strip just yet.
Some broader themes from this thread:
1. Watching Stranger Things, I'm astonished anyone would let an 11yo watch it – especially the latest series, which is horrific. That's properly 18-rated stuff, in my book.
2. I don't align with the view the entire Prog should go all ages, but I do find it odd that some minor shifts aren't encouraged to widen the audience for certain strips. Perhaps the current editorial team likes a good shit (so to speak), but I don't think any of the strips would be eroded by cutting back on swearing, excessive violence or nudity. This isn't about eradicating such things, nor losing the comic's edge, but adding potential for a wider audience. My guess is that 2000 AD doesn't see any value in that strategy and instead currently considers itself closer in nature to Image.
3. With the Regened Progs, I almost feel the need to bold Jim's posts or pin them to the top of the forum. Alas, we don't have a pin function. But, yes, kids don't read weekly comics. Mine is the only one in her entire class – possibly her entire year – reading two weeklies. She knows friends who have Phoenix comics, but not a subscription. One friend who read the Beano every week now appears to be going off it. But these kids do read trades. That's where the money is. But they're also a risk: publish and don't find and audience and you're fucked. But if you have an outlet where you can build up material at a relatively low risk and the trade becomes reprint...
Ultimately, modern '2000 AD' needs to be thought of as ecosystem. We have a set of publications that all feed into each other in various ways. Any big changes would need to be very carefully considered. And the evidence suggests that while some of the smaller shifts have irked a vocal minority, not that many people really care (bar a handful of subscriber flouncers), and Regened is finding some kind of audience. We've also seen Monster Fun, which – despite, IMO, some problems that need to be overcome – must have found an audience too, given that it's now a regular (albeit only a bi-monthly).
Do young children read bi-monthlies? Does anyone know why they don't want weeklies?
Quote from: Richard on 22 June, 2022, 04:21:13 PM
Do young children read bi-monthlies? Does anyone know why they don't want weeklies?
Is it maybe that the most viable and visible comics available to kids these days are US reprints following the traditional American monthly publication model? The once ubiquitous British weekly anthology hasn't really existed for a generation and weekly kids publications tend to be aimed at very young readers or are bought for the free gifts rather than the content.
On an unrelated note, this is the second time that both the current Brink and Hope storylines are going to be pre-empted by Regened and I'm having flashbacks to my youth when you'd have to wait three weeks between episodes of The X Files or Twin Peaks because BBC2 had taken them off to make way for snooker.
Going back to the prog again - I'm hardly the only reader to have noticed who Arnold '[spoiler]Layne - Piperatthegatesof[/spoiler]' Dawn is a very thinly-disguised homage to?
I'm sticking up for the likes of Hope and Fiends that have both had a bit of flack. So if I had a choice of Regened in the shiny happy kids club and Hope, I think I know which I'd choose.
Not many comment on the art in Hope and I think it's what's needed in the prog, a gritty, textured black and white noir gumshoe which admittedly hasn't hit the heights of previous, but looks fabulous. I suppose there will be those who want Pandora Perfect level of giggles and easy to follow chunky lines, colours and script, but I don't particually buy 2000AD for a regened Minnie the Minx.
I don't mind Brink, I just don't think it's the amazing, wonderous peice of work that others do and I have to wonder with a good script editor, does it really need to be 24 episodes? It's quite repetitive and not the tightest thing that's ever appeared in the prog.
Quote from: Jacqusie on 22 June, 2022, 07:55:20 PM
I'm sticking up for the likes of Hope and Fiends that have both had a bit of flack. So if I had a choice of Regened in the shiny happy kids club and Hope, I think I know which I'd choose.
I'd rather have both. The joy of an anthology title is that you can have both Hope and Pandora Perfect in the same comic.
Quote from: Richard on 22 June, 2022, 04:21:13 PM
Do young children read bi-monthlies? Does anyone know why they don't want weeklies?
From what I can tell, it's not that they don't want them. It's that they don't get into the habit of getting them. They don't even know it's an option. And that's because we now have a generation of parents who never had this either. I'm an old git compared to most parents of mini-IP'a friends AND I still love comics, hence her getting two weeklies.
There's also the issue of cost. Taking into account inflation, these comics if they'd continued from the 1970s price-wise would be a quid or less a week. They're three times that, which prices out many families.
Quote from: IndigoPrime on 22 June, 2022, 09:16:28 PM
From what I can tell, it's not that they don't want them. It's that they don't get into the habit of getting them.
Also, in this age of streaming, on-demand, bingeing and box sets, kids (as a demographic) don't much care for extended serials and cliff-hangers where they have to wait a week (or whatever) for the next episode. I recall the late, great Nigel Dobbyn saying that he was explicitly told by editorial not to pitch multi-part Billy the Cat stories because the readers overwhelmingly preferred done-in-one tales.
(Which, obviously, doesn't rule out a weekly anthology where every story is done-in-one every time, but something in my gut tells me this is probably easier with shorter humour strips than 5-6 page action adventure ones.)
Jim what you saying is actually a pity since this was one off the big things I liked when I was growing up the anticipation of my weekly Eagle and prog. I like the build-up and the wait to see what is next. We are now living in a "fast-food" world were everyone wants instant gratification. I still like my weekly dose of prog :) and do not want it any which way
Can tell a Regened prog is coming up because the review thread has gone onto three pages : )
Not bothered so much by bare breasts in Hope as I am that I now know what a lipstick-smeared Sir Ian McKellern looks like in lingerie. Also that we get several repeated panels in a 'talking head' page, one of my pet hates that. Though on the subject of talking heads that's a great final frame.
'Grinder': excellent Dredd, excellent cover. Looks like we've got another disgruntled character to add to the Niemand-verse. Brilliant Terror Tale, I'm all for the fingers coming off. Terror tale after all. Skip Tracer best read as ASMR, not quite up there with hair-washing noises but very relaxing. Brink was... actually, better not say. Tell you tomorrow.
Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 23 June, 2022, 08:11:25 AMAlso, in this age of streaming, on-demand, bingeing and box sets, kids (as a demographic) don't much care for extended serials and cliff-hangers where they have to wait a week (or whatever) for the next episode.
Perhaps other parents will disagree, but that's not my experience with mini-IP
at all. Sure, she gets impatient at waiting for the next thing, but that's kids. She finished the first Stowell Loki book and was immediately "Where's the next one?" That there wasn't one at the time just made her move on to something else, BUT she hasn't forgotten Loki, because she likes it. Same with The Phoenix every single week.
Again, I think it's mostly about habit. Kids bloody love getting physical, tactile things. They love getting some post that is just for them. They key is that becoming ingrained, and the habit has just been lost – and has been replaced by two other things: impulse purchase (which I suspect is a bigger driver in the 'one and done' idea) and collected content (which in many cases is often another flavour of one-and-done). For our family, weekly comics are normal, because I had that experience and wanted my kid to have it. Very few of mini-G's friends (7–8) have parents who had that, because many of them are in their 30s.
Quote(Which, obviously, doesn't rule out a weekly anthology where every story is done-in-one every time, but something in my gut tells me this is probably easier with shorter humour strips than 5-6 page action adventure ones.)
I'd say weekly still works. The Phoenix seems to handle adventure strips fine. Mini-IP happily follows them all, and loves getting a new episode of, say, Fawn. Where things fall down is if the frequency is too low – which is a problem with Monster Fun – and when the storytelling itself is problematic through lacking clarity (again... Monster Fun).
Kids not reading weekly comics.
I get that the British comics will never have the circulation they once had - and never, ever will. But I do think there'd still be an audience for them (albeit much smaller) if they had the opportunity.
- The revived Doctor Who proved that there WAS an audience for a family adventure tv series ( And the dwindling of viewers can't just be down to the advent of catch-up but must be because it stopped targetting that audience).
- Harry Potter proved that kids did like adventure stories.
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.
Quote from: Huey2 on 23 June, 2022, 11:52:33 AM
- The revived Doctor Who proved that there WAS an audience for a family adventure tv series ( And the dwindling of viewers can't just be down to the advent of catch-up but must be because it stopped targetting that audience).
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.
Quote from: Huey2 on 23 June, 2022, 11:52:33 AMAnecdotally, 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.
Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 23 June, 2022, 11:58:47 AM
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.
Quote from: nxylas on 23 June, 2022, 01:36:04 PM
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.
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.
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.
Quote from: The Mind of Wolfie Smith on 23 June, 2022, 02:13:54 PMkids 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.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Quote from: norton canes on 23 June, 2022, 10:30:53 AM
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
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
" 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.
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.
isn't stranger things mainly a blast of nostalgia for eighties childhoods?
Yes. But I'd say previous series could have been safely watched by kids of the ages the leads are now portraying and possibly a little younger. But there's no way in hell I'd want anyone under at least a mid-teen watching the current run. The nature of the horror is really nasty.
Also, on the kids reading comics thing, mini-IP today noticed my 2000 AD was "different". I explained it was a Regened all-ages issue. Since she'd read her Beano and Lego Explorers, she gave me a bit of a look and I said she could read it. She's now scuttled off with the comic. I will presumably get it back at some point. Interested to see what she things, TBH.
My view is probably skewed by the fact that I work at a primary school where it is currently THE BIGGEST THING in Year 6 and for the past few years it was routinely discovered by kids once they reached y6. I merely meant that this was the age when kids could start getting into it - especially with the main characters all being youngsters.
"isn't stranger things mainly a blast of nostalgia for eighties childhoods?"
Or a series which has borrowed a lot of stuff from the films the writers saw when they were kids (Whilst still being quite good).
Stranger Things is enormously popular in our girls' primary school, to the point where P4-to-P6-age kids have been watching it, and our girls (soon to be starting secondary/P7) have been left out of the conversation because they haven't watched it yet. They've started watching it with us now, and most of the stuff in S1 is OK for them - we've been watching a film a week with them for 6 years, and they're pretty mature and assured with media a couple of years above their level. Every October we do a horror marathon with age-appropriate horror films and a couple that push the envelope a little (last year it was "Sweetheart", "Lake Placid", "Nightbooks" etc.) so they're also reasonably savvy about that type of film, though we draw the line at some of the stuff other kids have been watching.
That said, having watched on a bit ourselves I know that "Stranger Things" starts to push out from the level it's at in the first series, so moving on with them is going to be a bit of a challenge and might have to be staggered a little bit over the next 6 months or so, with a quick "refresher" watch for us beforehand.
I'd have said that most of the first series or two of "Stranger Things" is suitable for a near-teen/early teen audience (though the horror/sexual content is a coin toss for us in some parts) but it does start to ramp up to the point that I'm not sure how parents of 9- or 10-year-olds could be justifying letting their kids watch it. I suspect a lot of them are being given unfettered access to Netflix and watching it themselves in their own rooms - "Squid Game" has been similarly popular, and I'd be surprised if that was being wholeheartedly endorsed by parents at the school.
It's always a bit of a challenge setting boundaries for media - there's always the temptation to say "well, watching that did me no harm!" and conveniently forget the week of nightmares, or to assume that just because violent media drifted off you it won't affect anyone, but the flip is that there is a tendency to shield too much and isolate your kids from what everyone else in their age group is talking about, or to lose the chance to have conversations with them about what they're watching.
Mini-IP read the rest of the new Regened this morning. Her verdict: "I just couldn't follow most of the stories." Maybe she's too young at 8 next week. Does anyone recall what the target age bracket is? (She has no such issues with The Phoenix, Hilda, Chibi Usagi, Zita, etc. But she's said the same about Monster Fun twice now.)
AS a 50 year old, I also ahve trouble following ome 2000AD stories nowadays - I'd put it down to disinterest and fading faculties, but I do think theres a skill to telling stories in comic form that a surprising number of people actually making comics nowadays lack. Wagner has it, Abnett has it. But a lot of the other writers seem to struggle to move form one panel to the other in a way that flows seamlessly.
Going back t Stranger Things, seems it has done a 2000AD in aging with its audience, albeit at an accelerated rate!
Quote from: norton canes on 24 June, 2022, 09:48:35 AM
Quote from: norton canes on 23 June, 2022, 10:30:53 AM
Brink was... actually, better not say. Tell you tomorrow
...the solution to Wordle.
I failed to get it, despite having the "r", "i" and "n" in the right place after my third guess. I was kicking myself when I saw what it was.
Leigh: There are occasionally storytelling issues for me in the standard Prog/Meg. It used to be a lot worse during the Meg's nadir in particular. It felt like you needed to be inside the writer's head, and have them explain what's going on. Perhaps these comics just aren't for my girl, but I find it odd she struggles very specifically with Rebellion output when she reads a ton of other stuff with no problems whatsoever. :/
IP - not sure if it helps or not, but mini-Solo had no problems with the Tammy & Jinty special from 2020 - and they were eight at the time. Recently, they also enjoyed the 2280 Regened's Chopper. I will say, mini-Solo is a voracious consumer of comics (mostly in the form of GNs) and has been for years. Mind, everyone's different -it did occur to me that perhaps if the stories weren't really to one's taste, perhaps the disinterest may be expressed as difficulty.
On the other hand, I found three of the stories in prog 2280 (the middle three) had problems with their storytelling.
Yeah—TBF, Mini-IP read and enjoyed Tammy/Jinty as well and was fine with those specials. The same with Cor/Buster. But she said most of 2288 was a problem and that the adventure strips in Monster Fun are "confusing". I only read issue one but would say she has a point. Again, no problems even with the most advanced Phoenix strips.
Quote from: Leigh S on 21 June, 2022, 10:40:00 PM
And I have no objection to the Regened - I do think that it is a very odd look though - like if CBBC had a day every month that showed some softcore.
OK - not EXACTLY like that, and yeah there are reasons why it happens and might seem perfectly normal, but take a step back from that and really, does the Prog need that day a month of softcore?
C-Boobies?
Now this Dredd could easily been in the Regened issue and ticked all the boxes.
Quote from: IndigoPrime on 23 June, 2022, 07:31:50 PM
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.)
Meant to check this struggles to find it THEN when starting to sort the Boys issues this afternoon stumbled across the last issue in 382. So it ran for like 15 weeks so at a guess 367ish to 382 is the original run. I will be able to confirm when we get further through the big sort...
Not sure where I imagined this from, but isn't it the case now that Rebellion makes its bucks from the collected reprints in GN form? The regened stories in GNs would be opening up a whole new audience rather that the diminishing returns from sell Old Dredd in new jackets.