How about 3000AD, a kids comic

[paulvonscott]

There have been some good posts this evening so i thought I'd chuck this suspicious looking lobster in the pot.

Basically 2000AD has an aging demographic, I guess on average we are 30.  This is great for rebellion to flog their games to, but lets face it, unless there are new readers coming from somewhere, in a few years it'll just be people buying 2000AD out of their pension money.

How about a 2000AD comic (3000AD, 3K, 5000AD, whatever) that really just goes back to the basics and tries to work for kids.  Factors for and against are the lack of any comics for that age group.  But then again, Harry Potter was good enough to get kids reading books.

2000AD is probably never going to really appeal to kids anymore, but a comic that covers the gap would be good.  You could even have a few of the old school style stories in there (pretty simple, fun, imaginative and action-packed) and it would rag the more mature ones (cull them when the time is right!) into 2000AD.

I appreciate JD Lawman of the future failed, but I think that was going to happen anyway!

Anyway, just an idea, no axe to grind, just wondering what anyone else thought.

Cheers

PVS

p.s. kids buy computer games too I hear.  Hmmm....

[2000AD Online]

What with 2000 AD being so obsessed with the past, I don't think there's much point in the title changing its name. That would be far too innovative, methinks. As for getting kids reading comics again, I think the main problem lies in the public perception of a what a comic is. 'Harry Potter' will always win out on respectability because it's a book, not some dopey picture rag that only illiterate juveniles read.

[paulvonscott]

Sorry Mr Whit but you have me wrong sah!

What I eaactuaallly intended was a seperate comic that didn't give a toss about us but instead was designed and marketed for a new generation, while at the same time possibly being a bridge to 2000AD at some point.  Also a pretty good marketting opportunity.

Still doesn't mean i isn't an awful idea though.

[Rex Gambill]

Personally, I think this is a fine idea, so long as it's sold in a place young potential readers frequent. In the States, comics are sold almost exclusively at specialty comics dealers. A few bookstores stock them, but that's it. That's quite a contrast to when I was young, and comics were sold at every grocery, convenience store (do they have those in the UK?) and department store around.
Such a comic might make a hit with parents if it adapted literary stories for young people...for example, a comics adaptation of Harry Potter, or I, Robot, or some such.

[paulvonscott]

It sounds like the states is in the exact same position as the UK.  

They really should just produce comics cheaply for kids and sell them in all the places you mentioned.  Print it on bog paper, sell it cheap.  I think it could work, especially as such comics would have their own market with no competition.

[Rex Gambill]

The silent killer in all this is aliteracy. That's when people who can read choose not to. That's what happens when a young person chooses to play a video game rather than read a comic, or a book. I know grown people (Americans, mind you) who NEVER READ ANYTHING. They get their news from the TV (or the grapevine), they rarely vote, and they don't know a damn thing. And our culture nurtures that behavior. Other than their general availability problem, I'm convinced this is the reason comics have fewer and fewer readers. Even if we got the comics into the stores they shop and the places they hang out, what's to make them want to read it?

Rex Gambill

[paulvonscott]

Too true!  I wasn;t saying it was going to be an easy thing, just make up a comic, stick it in the newsagents and rake in the cash.

As stangely enough AD is owned by a computer games company, I think it makes a kind of perveretd sense to do this comic.  You could definitely weight it towards computer games, even if it doesn't really make that much it could be worth it just to program their little minds with Rebellion computer games.  Sorry, I guess that sounds immoral.

I think my secret motive could be that i want to read some really fun stuff, that isn't that complicated and doesn't have any pretnesions.

I think that making the leap from computer games to comics isn't very far though, certainyl not as afr for the computer boggle-eyed kid to leap than from a playstation 2 to a harry Potter book.

[Rex Gambill]

The Potter books are quite a phenomenon over here. My mother is a reading specialist in our public schools, and she says kids who otherwise would not read have fallen hard for the Potter series. They can't get enough!
How about a junior 2000AD anchored by Harry Potter comics, but also featuring other, original series. Other features you might include would be Rebellion game strategy articles, contests (kids love them), etc.
And include a three-month subscription to 2000AD (or junior 2000AD) inside every Rebellion game. After three months of free comics, they'd be hooked!

[paulvonscott]

Is there a Harry Potter comic?  Probably, but if not what a fantastic opportunity!  If you could persuade JK Rowling to say yes and contribute storylines to that then you could really make it work!  Complete fantasy territory know, but there are a lot of disposable film tie ins now and you could have things like Shrek comic strips and the rest in about half the comic.

"Dear Tharg, what will 3000AD be called in the year 3000?"

[Rex Gambill]

I think Marvel's Joe Quesada visited Rowling last year, presumably to score a licensed comic. I've never seen one, though, and Marvel hasn't announced anything.
Might create problems for Rebellion, though, as they don't make the Harry Potter computer games do they?
Still, I don't see how such a publication could fail. It would have to have wide distribution in both our countries, but with Potter as the anchor story, no retailer would turn it away.
Perhaps Tharg's younger, less menacing nephew might be the editor?
One original storyline might follow a teenage girl or boy being trained to be a judge...someone the younger readers might identify with. In 2000AD, there's no character that I think appeals to younger readers (which is fine, it's not written for them). Perhaps Judge Dredd could make occasional appearances as an instructor, and serve as a mentor to this judge-in-waiting.
By the way, I'm an editor by trade. If Rebellion would start such a magazine, I'd be happy to edit it. How could it fail?

[paulvonscott]

Hi Rex

You get my vote!  

A story of a young kid being trained as a judge would be bloody great!  This kid entering this harsh world and all the trials and tribulations of growing up in the worlds harshest police force, ahving to make friends in a strange environemnt no parents... oh I think i may have a little sob.

I think JK could probably be persuaded by a British based effort that was going to be faithtful, nicely written and drawn, I think rebellion could do that.  

Even if they don't have Potter computer games, they'd get a hell of a lot of advertising from it!  basically the comic equivelant of a brown paper bag full of cash.

As for Tharg's nephew, well he has three, and quite a troublesome lot there are.  They would be perfect editors.  Anarchic, unruly, funny and a bit naughy.

Story's telling whta it is like to be a mutant in the world of Strontium Dog, or a kids perspective of Zenith as a not very good hero once they get to know him.

The possibilities are endless.

[2000AD Online]

Is it really necessary to have a child character with which a younger reader can identify? I never needed anything of the sort when I was a sprog, it was always the imagination and sense of fun that went into the stories themselves that got me hooked.

Also, allow me to clarify my earlier statement. I was refering to the respectability of kids' comics in general rather than a reinenvtion of 2000 AD as such. I'm all for a new kid's comic that has little or nothing to do with 2000 AD itself. But one of the reasons that 'Harry Potter' has been so successful is that adults enjoy reading the books as well. And that's the thing: it's a book, not a comic. There seems to be a certain snobbery by comics reading and non-comics reading adults alike. Non-comics reading adults think that not only are comics kids stuff, but illiterate kids stuff; whereas comics reading adults, so desperate to be accepted for what is perceived to be a childish habit, are constantly wittering on about 'maturity' and 'adult themes', and using terms such 'graphic novel' and 'trade paperback', which probably do more than anything else to alienate children from reading in the first place.

Okay, rant over. Let's all be nice to each other.

Or I'll come over and rip up your 'The Dark Night Returns' mint condition first printings.

[Mudcrab]

I for one, would cancel my subscription to 2000ad and the Megazine if they had anything to do with Harry F**kin Potter. We're all sick to bloody death of hearing about him. Besides, Dredd's already thrown him in the cubes a while back.

Harry Snotter, in Prog ****