Dandy on the brink?

[CraveNoir]

Pat Mills just tweeted about this terrific recent Guardian article about girls' comics.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/aug/18/jinty-misty-girls-comics-dandy

[Trout]

Kev Sutherland's sneaky 2000ad references

I'm not sure if he would have needed to sneak anything in. They'd have known exactly what he was doing. Each time it's just a question of what works in the strip. 

[Mardroid]

Pat Mills just tweeted about this terrific recent Guardian article about girls' comics.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/aug/18/jinty-misty-girls-comics-dandy

I never read any Girls' comics but the stuff described concerning Misty sounds right up my street.

And there was me back in the day thinking girls' comics were all about soppy stuff. (Mind you, considering the names I think that's understandable.)

[James Stacey]

Misty is a quality read.

[Satanist]

As an adult comic fan I have the option of both but would always choose paper.

The target audience of the Dandy clearly feels differently, otherwise it would have sold better.

Cheers

Jim

I dont think the target audience of the Dandy are flocking to Web comics though. I think they are buying comics with characters they actually recognise. Stuff like Scooby Doo, Ben 10 and Batman.

I would liken the Dandy trying to reinvent itself as to dads dancing at a wedding. Not cool.

[Frank]

Pat Mills just tweeted about this terrific recent Guardian article about girls' comics.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/aug/18/jinty-misty-girls-comics-dandy

In the comment section of that article, Sean Phillips- the Sean Phillips- recalls getting his break in comics illustrating Bunty. The compound interest on the debt owed to DCT by 2000ad readers could subsidise The Dandy for decades to come.

[CYCLOPZ]

Pat Mills just tweeted about this terrific recent Guardian article about girls' comics.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/aug/18/jinty-misty-girls-comics-dandy

In the comment section of that article, Sean Phillips- the Sean Phillips- recalls getting his break in comics illustrating Bunty. The compound interest on the debt owed to DCT by 2000ad readers could subsidise The Dandy for decades to come.

Nice work for a 15 year old.

[Frank]

Cheers, CYCLOPZ. You can see where Danzig's Inferno came from, can't you?

[Patrick]

Late to this conversation, but I think it's a shame the latest revamp of the Dandy didn't take. It was at least an attempt to make something new and contemporary rather than try to slavishly reproduce what made it successful 75 years ago. Jamie Smart, who is the best kids' cartoonist in the world, actually made Desperate Dan funny again! Poor Dan hadn't been funny for decades, and he was only there because he'd always been there. I hope at the very least they can keep Jamie's Desperate Dan going in some way.

I believe there is a demand for good kids' comics out there. I bought my niece and nephew a subscription to The Phoenix, and they love it, and they tell me their friends love it too - but you can't get it anywhere. It's only available by subscription, because the terms demanded by the newsstand distributors are apparently outrageous. I dunno, there's magazines on the racks about soap opera characters' hairstyles, and a while back I was in a newsagent in a wee country town and there were NINE magazines about tractors - how do they get distribution and The Phoenix doesn't?

[starscape]

A few years ago, I tried to get news-stand distribution with a company that distributes comic magazines to newsagents.  They just weren't interested in comics.  They didn't want to see samples, marketing strategies or budgets.  It just wasn't a medium that they could get newsagents interested in, despite the other niche titles they carried.

[Professor Bear]

The chain stores charge protection sorting fees to ensure your magazine doesn't "accidentally" end up getting put behind something else by "browsing customers".  I think the price quoted was 5-8 grand per issue just to get it on the shelves, the protection sorting fee being something they discuss with you personally.

Smaller newsies don't work like that, but you'd need to get in your car and drive around the country selling your book on an individual basis to each one, which I can't see as being very cost-effective given the low price of the average magazine - though many products are still shifted like this, and I've worked in some industries that still rely heavily on some bloke in a Ford Cortina with a packed lunch to make sure there's something to do next week.

[Frank]

I was thinking of the problem of dragging old titles, strips, and their creators into the modern age, and this affectionate parody of DC Thomson titles and their authors came to mind. I imagine Diggle era 2000ad was a lot like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=hh5tyWmFoIU#t=560

[HdE]

I think a big problem with all-ages comics is, there seems to be a lot of people out there trying to create them who are churning out patronising, poorly conceived stuff, unfortunately.

I debate whether something like The Dandy is going to appeal to kids these days, really. Kids who are going to be fussed about having a comic on a regular basis seem to want something a bit more sophisticated in terms of story, these days.

That said: I actually lettered a few things that got submitted to The Phoenix, and I thought they were spot on! No idea if they actually got accepted or not.