Regened is returning – to the Judge Dredd Megazine

[Barrington Boots]

As a not-regular Meg reader, I think this makes the Meg a much more attractive prospect than bogus IDW Dredd or a horrible Hookjaw reprint.

[O Lucky Stevie!]

Serious question, and I know you probably know better than me, but why would it be more expensive to go straight for a TPB, than to print it in the Prog or Meg and then put it in a TPB?
[/quote]

Because someone has to write, draw, colour & letter that exclusive graohic novel material in addition to the strips running in the Prog & the Meg.

[Tomwe]

Is it possible these strips were already commissioned and/or complete in the can before the decision to cease the Regened prog takeover issues happened? The Meg is a hungry beast after all. I'm happy with this decision.

[broodblik]

I think maybe it is to do that in the meg you can measure its popularity and know if it is going to worthwhile releasing it as a TPB. Going straight to TPB you might not be sure how well it will sell

[Tomwe]

The Hawk The Slayer series ran in the meg before going to US size issues and then collected.

[Jim_Campbell]

Because someone has to write, draw, colour & letter that exclusive graohic novel material in addition to the strips running in the Prog & the Meg.

My post near the bottom of the previous page has a link breaking down the maths on that, in case anyone misses it now that we're onto page two of this thread...

[Le Fink]

Because someone has to write, draw, colour & letter that exclusive graohic novel material in addition to the strips running in the Prog & the Meg.

My post near the bottom of the previous page has a link breaking down the maths on that, in case anyone misses it now that we're onto page two of this thread...

That was a helpful informative post Jim. Whatever happened to Drowntown?

[AlexF]

I feel it's important also to acknowledge that running NEW Regened strips in the Meg, means more possibilites for NEW creators to get an outlet for their work - and a chance to hone their talents - in a regular comic. This was a VITAL part of the early years of the Megazine and even though it meant for some uneven reading expereinces - e.g. the hyper-professional likes of Return of the Taxidermist and Anderson Psi alongside the sub-professional early work of Calhab Justice, Pan-African Judges and Harmony.
I want there to be space for new comics people to learn how to do comics good, and the Megazine has been that for so long, glad to see it can still be that! (Even if the reason then as now might be as much to do with cost-saving as anything more noble)

I ssupexct it comes up on the Thread Mr Campbell jhas linked to but the Phoenix's business model very much seems to be: keep the weekly comic going even at a loss, but reap mega-profits from trade reprints down the line. As long as you can bankroll a comic for 3-5 years at the start, it seems ot work. If, you know, there are enough good comics coming out of it!

[O Lucky Stevie!]

Excellent point, Alex. The Meg in its current format certainly has the page count to carry the ratio between top tier thrills & new creators learning the ropes. Would we have had Nikolai Dante & Shakara without Shimura, Brit Cit Brute, Lawman of the Future & Sumos and Sporrans first?

Because someone has to write, draw, colour & letter that exclusive graohic novel material in

Because someone has to write, draw, colour & letter that exclusive graohic novel material in addition to the strips running in the Prog & the Meg.

My post near the bottom of the previous page has a link breaking down the maths on that, in case anyone misses it now that we're onto page two of this thread...

My post near the bottom of the previous page has a link breaking down the maths on that, in case anyone misses it now that we're onto page two of this thread...

Cheers Jim!

[IndigoPrime]

Indeed to the above posts. Seeing people lose their minds over this on Facebook is astonishing. It's all comics. Are people really that put out by reading strips intended for a YA audience that they'd cancel their subscriptions for everything else? Good grief. (And with Full Tilt Boogie, to take one example – or even, frankly, Pandora – if it had debuted in 2000 AD as-is, no-one would have been any the wiser about the target audience. They'd have just been seen as pleasant and low-violence 2000 AD strips. And it's not like we haven't had a bunch of those in the past.)

As for The Phoenix, I'm not sure how that works as a business, but I'm glad it exists. But Jamie Smart did recently reveal he's now sold over a million books on that imprint (which I'm glad to hear – his work is ace). And I did some swift mental maths at one of their recent video events and figured out those have to be pulling in a chunk of change. So they have an interesting cross-media thing going, which I do hope continues. (The one downside for me remains the weird distribution of the weekly. But that special offer at least sometimes works. I've converted a couple of parents to the comic through that.)

[Jim_Campbell]

It's all comics. Are people really that put out by reading strips intended for a YA audience that they'd cancel their subscriptions for everything else? Good grief.

Some people seem to have pinned their online fan 'identity' to a visceral, knee-jerk hatred of anything branded 'Regened'. Doesn't make a lick of sense to me, either.

Probably worth bearing in mind that I strongly suspect a non-trivial percentage of the "I'm cancelling my subscription" brigade haven't bought either 2000AD or the Meg for decades.

[broodblik]

For the brigade which do not read (hate) the regen stuff quite easily DO NOT READ IT, skip it - that is what I have done with any of the floppies/reprint strips off the past if it did not fancy me.

I like the idea now it is going to be released every month and it will not break-up the prog run.

[IndigoPrime]

Well, quite (to both of the above). I wonder also if the Venn diagram of "people whining about Regened in the Meg" and "the only proper 2000 AD is the 2000 AD of my own childhood" and "comics for children would be better and a huge success if they were only like they were when I was growing up" is basically a circle.

[Funt Solo]

Probably worth pointing out at this stage that it's perfectly reasonable to not like some of the proposed content ideas for your favorite (or second favorite) publication. You know, without that being "whining" or "bitching".

I was a big cheerleader for Regened for a good chunk of the run but, in all honesty, the significant lack of quality in some strips and then character missteps (with Dredd & Chopper) in others wore me down over time.

Folk have valid complaints. Even folk from the 90s.

[Jim_Campbell]

Probably worth pointing out at this stage that it's perfectly reasonable to not like some of the proposed content ideas for your favorite (or second favorite) publication. You know, without that being "whining" or "bitching".

Ahem. I've said, right the way through these endless debates, that people are absolutely entitled dislike any strip for any reason — they pays their money, that's absolutely fair.

However, the people I'm talking about are whining and bitching. If they don't like "kids' stuff" then they're almost certainly not reading a big chunk of the reprint already so they're going to get exactly the same amount of 'worthwhile' pages as before and be not reading pages that they already weren't reading — this is hardly "I'm cancelling my sub"-worthy. They are literally no worse off than they were with the previous line-up.

That's before we go anywhere near the people who simply won't countenance that anything from the all-ages experiments has merit — they just dismiss it all as "Regened crap". (And, yes, that's a direct quote that I've seen several times today.)