Monster Fun Issue 1 (Easter Special)

[user2000]

It does seem that I just delurk to come on here and moan, but hey-ho...

Anyway, subbed immediately to Monster Fun when it was announced that it would be an ongoing thing last year - for me natch, but my middle son is a BIG old IPC/Fleetway fan, having devoured all my old comics and annuals in rapid fashion.

Big Tom Paterson fans as well, who wouldn't be, so surprised to see in the Issue 1 (or Easter Special as it appears to be) there was no sign of his work.

So getting the Thrill Mail this week I can say we are slightly put out to see there is a "webshop exclusive edition" with a lovely Tom Paterson cover and a Sweeny Toddler story!

https://shop.treasuryofbritishcomics.com/catalogue/MFU0013

Surely as subscribers we should have received this issue instead of the standard newsstand copy?

I've subbed to a lot of comics and mags in my time and subscribers always used to get special covers etc.

It's the same price as well so I don't feel I'd be asking for anything out of the ordinary.

Hopefully this is just an oversight and in the future loyal subscribers who've taken a chance paying upfront months ago aren't overlooked for these "exclusives".

Leaves a little sour taste in the mouth, esp seeing my sons face drop when his fave story is only available if we pay again for another copy!

Rant over, maybe I'll delurk to post something happy next time



"This limited Webshop edition of Monster Fun Issue 1 has an exclusive cover and a never before seen Sweeny Toddler comic strip written and drawn by Tom Paterson."

[M.I.K.]

Does seem a bit odd. I wonder if there was a change of plan late on for some reason.

There definitely appears to be another teething issue with the comic - the barcode's apparently scanning in shops as £4.99 instead of £3.99.

[user2000]

I can honestly say that if I knew this was going to be the case I wouldn't have bothered subbing and would have bought the webshop copy to get the Sweeny story (and the nice cover).

I know there are other things to be getting upset about in this Krazy world (see what I did there), but I cannot get the image of my son's fallen face out of my mind.

Instead of what I imagine would have been an elated feeling from both of us had we got our sub copy through and it had turned out to be this webshop "exclusive" - though subbing in itself seems pretty exclusive if you ask me.

[broodblik]

Maybe there was a limited number of webshop exclusives

[IndigoPrime]

I can’t even subscribe. There’s some webshop weirdness where it clashes with my existing 2000 AD sub. Mini-IP won’t be happy…

[M.I.K.]

Just got one of the subscriber gifts through the post - sheet of stickers and multi-colour pen.

Pen is fine but the sticker sheet is crumpled to hell with one of the stickers already peeling off. I'm not particularly bothered, but I'd imagine quite a few kids/parents wouldn't be happy to receive them in this state.

Rebellion might want to consider sending such things in future with either a thin bit of card or bundled along with one of the actual comics. Also, the Royal Mail are bad enough when it says "DO NOT BEND" on the package - leave those words off and they apparently think it gives them license to practise their advanced origami skills on the thing.

[IndigoPrime]

We just bought a copy in our local WHSmith. Unsurprisingly, it’s faced with the teen comics rather than near The Beano, which isn’t ideal. There were four copies in. Flicking through, it seems colourful and interesting. Closer in nature to The Phoenix than The Beano.

The absence of Sweeny Toddler is not going to go down well with the nipper, but I guess she’ll have to deal with that. As for the subs stuff, that is I imagine a learning experience for Rebellion. I’d hope in the future, the company would: 1) ensure existing subscribers to other publications can subscribe to new ones (that really is a doozy of a cock-up); 2) give the subs the ‘extra’ version if one exists, and; 3) ensure free gifts reach kids in good condition.

On #2, I will say this isn’t always a given though. The Beano has a habit of boosting Christmas edition sales with extra bits and bobs that you only get in-store and don’t get through the post. (Although DCT has previously been great on that. One year, when I was chatting about this online, I got a DM about an hour later, asking if I’d like the extras sent to my daughter.)

Still, whatever teething problems exist, I hope Monster Fun is here for the long term. We need more comics, not fewer, for kids. Looking around WHSmith earlier, the landscape is dire. My local doesn’t stock The Phoenix. If you combined the teen and children’s sections, removed Lego magazines, 2000 AD, The Beano and a slew of Marvel bookazines, you’d have naff-all left, bar mags for very young kids with cover mount plastic tat.

[IndigoPrime]

Having flicked through it now, I’d have one other hope for the future: rebalancing the comic in terms of gender. I’ll likely still subscribe (if the kid wants me to) but it’d be nice if my daughter and other girls could read something that wasn’t so focused on male leads, not least given the back catalogue of what Rebellion now owns being so rich in spooky female characters.

In this special, I counted nine strips, only three of which had female leads. And of those, two were single-pagers (one being about make up…) and one was a DPS. No three-pagers. The 7yo hasn’t read it yet, so I’ll report back when she does.

[IndigoPrime]

Well, the kid read it this morning. She’s coming up 8, is very comics literate, and frequently has her head stuck in a book.

The verdict is… she quite liked it. She wasn’t bowled over. But she had fun. It’ll be interesting to see how often she re-reads it. (Beanos come out regularly; Phoenix issues too, but a bit less often.)

Kid Kong was the strip she was most excited about: “It’s funny and it’s full of puns. It’s funny because the cats are trying to take over the world. They built an entire walking machine!” Maisie’s Make-up went down well, due to it “being so creative”. Basically everything else was talked about in generic terms (“I liked it”).

On the flip side, she didn’t understand the storytelling on the last Steel Commando DPS (“I don’t get it”) and struggled with Lime St. Again, it seemed like a visual sequence that confused her on that (“I can’t tell what’s going on”), which is very rare in the broadly similar Phoenix. Other negative comments were the look of the Easter bunny and the drawing tips steps, where she had a very good point: “These first few are good and then suddenly you’re expected to do ALL OF THIS AT ONCE”.

As someone in editorial, I’m impressed by Rebellion’s achievement here, in getting out a comic on to the newsstands at all. I’m glad this is a regular thing. As a parent of a girl, I’m less impressed by the gender balance, as I noted above – probably more so after doing a page count. Four in 28 pages have female leads. That’s dismal in 2022, and Rebellion should do better in this area. The nature of the page counts did feel very “Phew: at least we got SOME girls in there, eh, chaps?”

That might come across as unfair, but I can only comment on what I see on the printed page. (And if there’s a strategic “but boys don’t read about girls argument”, I get that too, but that’s the problem. Note that I hold The Phoenix to this as well, and was pretty angry with the way gender was dealt with in I Hate Pixies, which desperately needed some editorial pushback – and never got it.)

[Robin Low]

Just wanted to do a shout-out for Simon Furman and Laurent Lefeuvre on The Leopard from Lime Str. Both are capturing the feel of the original, even with the introduction of a supernatural element.

Really hope this gets to continue.

Regards,

Robin

[SmallBlueThing(Reborn)]

The second episode in #2 is very good as well. I confess I bought both issues for Leopard alone.

SBT

[IndigoPrime]

The child got hers today. Getting feedback is like blood/stone, but she says she enjoyed most of it, but has really taken a dislike to Steel Commando. She suggested the storytelling in Lime St was “confusing”. She figured it out, but, again, this suggests something might be amiss because it’s never a criticism she levels at The Phoenix.

[broodblik]

Just wanted to do a shout-out for Simon Furman and Laurent Lefeuvre on The Leopard from Lime Str. Both are capturing the feel of the original, even with the introduction of a supernatural element.

Really hope this gets to continue.

Regards,

Robin

I agree I am enjoying this