Would you pay more for thrills?

[UZI 4U]

Reading Mooses comments on the "worst 2thou moments" thread regarding tooth talent moving on to more lucrative US pastures has got me thinking, so rather than hi-jack that thread I've started this one.
I've heard on this board that circulation figures for the prog hover round the 30thou. mark (correct me if I'm wrong). This doesn't sound a lot to me. Admittedly I know bugger-all about the publishing biz but I have worked in manufacturing and some of the costs must apply equally to both sectors. (Raw materials,distribution,etc.) I doubt that the profit-margin on tooth is very high. (Again, feel free to tell me otherwise!)
So my question is, would you pay more for a better prog? Would you be prepared to cough up, say 2 quid if that ensured your prog would be stuffed with top-notch thrills? How would this affect readers outside the UK? How much does the prog cost abroad anyway? Would better pay keep decent creators in the tooth fold anyway, or would they be inevitably seduced by the glamour of foreign climes? Thoughts anyone.......?
Regards Jim.

[Max Kon]

but then we would get no new talent

[Devons Daddy]

price has never been an issue for me.
but it could be for others and potentail new readers.

the best way to make enough money to get the right balance of big talent and new talent would be the incremental income route.
spin offs,merchandise,product placement. which is happening lot this last 12 months.

[Richmond Clements]

but then we would get no new talent


I don't think so. More pages would mean that you need more writers and artists, and not all of them can be established ones.

[UZI 4U]

You may be right about more merchandising being the way to go DD. The only problem I can see is trying to break into the mainstream distribution sector with tooth related products. It would be nice to walk into a shop and actually see a dredd/stront/nemesis T-shirt or whatever else if you know what I mean. My local FP didn't stock any tooth stuff last time I visited IIRC. What are sales going to be like if even comic shops aren't stocking these items? Personally I would be more likely to (impulse) buy products from a shop than I would online.
Regards Jim.

[RyanKingo7]

I like Lord's idea, if more less established writers can put there work in the pages of 2000AD then maybe fans could put some stuff stuff in as well, like maybe a fan could write a story and then a well established artist could do the artwork. That means a new fandroid like me who has slaved over a hot keyboard writing zarjaz scrotnig can get some recognition, I'm sure there are plenty of droids like me who want to get noticed.

[Bico]

I'd pay a few extra bob for my progs without much hassle, as I haven't really noticed the price hikes these past few years on account of everything else going up in price, too.  I've been reading 2000ad since before I COULD read, and I'm probably one of the many long-time tooth fans that was quite happy with how the Dredd game turned out for one quite simple reason: it was COMPETENT.  After the movie and every other tooth-related game that sucked mighty, mighty amounts of ass, all I wanted was something that put me in the middle of a recognisable Dredd world and didn't suck.

Therefore, I'm willing to toss my tuppence into the ring and suggest that Rebellion produce a bunch of unexceptional, but playable, games, based on tooth characters, and sell them off at the ?20 bargain bucket price range.
It's better than the alternative, which has undoubtedly occurred to more than a few long-time readers like myself; that Rebellion's next big game is backed up by a 26 part epic "adaptation" in the comic itself, written by the game's production supervisor[backslash]accountant.

And as for all those creators buggering off to America to write their "ground-breaking" work for Vertigo; GO ON, BUGGER OFF, YOU BUNCH OF SPLITTERS!

Where's your loyalty?  The British fans get you your start in comics and your feet don't touch the effing ground, you're off to the yanks so quick, deserting them just as you actually start to get entertaining.  


Apart from anything else, you'd think they'd stick around 2000ad long enough to learn about plotting, characterisation, pacing, and plain old storytelling before hopping on the plane (that's right, Robbie Morrison, I'm talking to you. "Robots in the shit, more like."  My arse.)

[therev]

No, the price is um...right.

Hate to upset some people but what we need is a "kids" comic NOW.
What Tooth was to us when you were say 8...or we're looking at a death in what 10/15 years tops?

[JIMMY DREDD]

They should make a Dredd cartoon and tie in a 2000AD junior comic to that. They could quite easily adapt some of the less mega-violent stories for a cartoon. Chopper for example. They could even do stuff like Judge Death if it was handled correctly.

[Floyd-the-k]

I`d pay more for a top quality prog (although it`s about as good as it gets now) but what I like might not be what other people like, so increasing the price for top stuff would be a perilous strategy.
    I think Devon`s Daddy has the right idea. There`s no reason why artists and writers shouldn`t go for where there is more money, that`s rational on their part.

[Bico]

I'm not suggesting that writers or artists shouldn't move on, I'm just saying that perhaps they could hang around a little longer than they've tended to, perhaps even until they become BETTER than they are at what they do.
If 2000ad is good enough for them when they're starting their careers, they could at least keep their oar in the waters once they move on to better things, as Charlie Adlard, Gordon Rennie or Ian Edgington have done.

2000ad relies on old hands to keep up the levels of quality while grooming new talent, and I don't think it's asking too much to expect that newer creators could keep contributing to what is essentially a British institution once they get more lucrative deals abroad.


Just look at Dan Abnett, the guy has written EVERYTHING at some point, especially for D.C., and still has time to put in regular stints of sustained creativity for the book that gave him his start.


As for the Judge Dredd cartoon - only if it's made by the Japanese for a domestic audience will there be a hope in hell of it being any good, as even their dross is a thousand times more creative than 99% of Yankee pro-toy propaganda.


Without the extreme right-wing leanings, Dredd is just an identikit action hero, and can you honestly see an American produced animation series that features a main character who forces pregnant women to abort a healthy featus just because there's an overcrowding problem and the child has undesirable genetic traits?

[rod2402]

I'm in Australia to buy 2000ad from a newsagency, at the moment, costs au $6.60 which is just over GBP 2.50 using todays exchange rate. The megazine costs au $15.20 or just over GBP 5.90. Using the Big Mac index that is 1.9 Big Macs for 2000ad and 4.4 Big Macs for the Megazine. I've spoken to a lot of people who have stopped getting 2000ad because of the price. Can anyone tell me what it costs in New Zealand? Singapore?

I saw a copy of Viz last week and it costs GBP 2.20 and has the Australian price of au $5.50 printed on the cover, which is better than the exchange rate. How does that work?

I imagine the sales to Australia are small and I can see them getting smaller as the price increases.

[UZI 4U]

Phew! A fair few points raised here.
I too was seriously concerned when Rebellion bought tooth. I expected tooth to turn into a limp computer-game tie-in. Full marks to Rebellion for resisting such temptations to date! Also I think it would be a good thing to get more younger readers into the fold if poss. My 13 year old stepson often flicks through my prog but mainly to look at the pics as the plots are usually too deep for his (admittedly feeble) intellect. A junior tooth type thing would be good but I think it would struggle to sell in todays youth market. Maybe a cartoon series would be a good promo for a comic of this type. I would buy/watch something like this myself as long as it wasn't done in a cheesy american moral-preaching type way.
On the subject of overseas sales tooth does seem a bit pricey in Oz. Then again looking at it another way a quid doesn't seem that bad for shipping something to the other side of the planet. How does this stack up against the (presumably US) competition? Are there any home-grown alternatives to tooth available in Oz?
Regards Jim.

[Trout]

Echoing Floyd's comments to some extent, I wouldn't object to a moderate price rise, but I'd get well pissed off the instant a poor prog was proferred.

- Trout

[Endjinn]

Writers and artists are always gonna be lured away as there isn't enough space in the prog and the meg to pay the rent for them all. Especially when you realise that Wagner, Mills, and the other old hands still often have large tracts of the both the prog (and jusifiably so).

D'israeli made a point at Bristol that you can't make a living just working for Rebellion. I don't think a cover price increase would help. Unless it was a drastic rise, its not going to increase the size of the prog to accomodate an extra weekly thrill.

But the news about the changing meg might allow some more space, which can only be a good thing.