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Prog 2287: Grinders Keepers!

Started by IndigoPrime, 19 June, 2022, 11:23:54 PM

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Colin YNWA

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.

Southstreeter

Thanks, that's reassuring. Maybe I did take it the way Dabnett intended!

Barrington Boots

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.
You're a dark horse, Boots.

Leigh S

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. 

Jim_Campbell

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.
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IndigoPrime

And given the number of Regened trades we've had now, Occam's razor suggests the strategy is working.

Magnetica

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.

Leigh S

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.




Richard

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.

Leigh S

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


Tjm86

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.

Art

2000AD sold best in the 80s, it should be the 80s again.

Jim_Campbell

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.
Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

Leigh S

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!







Batman's Superior Cousin

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.
I can't help but feel that Godpleton's avatar/icon gets more appropriate everyday... - TordelBack
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