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DC comics

Started by Smith, 20 April, 2017, 07:25:15 PM

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positronic

Quote from: The Adventurer on 22 April, 2017, 07:41:23 PM
Quote from: Arkwright99 on 22 April, 2017, 05:55:19 PM
I've got no investment in the original Authority/Stormwatch history so that's the hill something like 'The Wild Storm' has to climb when I'm already buying 30-40 titles a month.

Well good news, you don't need any investment it what came before, as ive found this a very accessible stand alone series. A multi-pronged conspiracy thriller with superhumans and alien dangers. That just happens to take a few names and concepts from previous Wildstorm titles to give it a base to start from.

And 24 issues is a plus for me, as a set two year run is exactly the space a series like this needs to breath, but not overstay it's welcome.

I gotta wonder what 30-40 titles you're reading to make this one a hard sell.

I doesn't surprise me that someone could find 30-40 titles that they're interested in spending their comic budget on. All of those things are predicated on the characters involved as well as the creators of the comics.

To someone who has no prior awareness of the Wildstorm universe characters, The Wild Storm may be viewed no differently than a completely new creation, and might well be approached without any predisposition. The key deciding factors are easily known to a potential consumer before deciding to try it - the writer & artist, the characters involved, and the fact that the series is the basis of a reboot of that universe. To someone with a pre-awareness of the published history of the Wildstorm characters, there may be a standing apathy associated with those characters that needs to be overcome before giving the comic a trial read is even considered.

Arkwright99

Quote from: The Adventurer on 22 April, 2017, 07:41:23 PM
I gotta wonder what 30-40 titles you're reading to make this one a hard sell.
Bear in mind 'buying' isn't the same as 'reading' so discounting the comics I buy just for my daughter my current - or future - pull list at the moment looks something like...

2000AD, Megazine, Mega Collection, Batwoman, Cave Carson Has A Cybernetic Eye, Doom Patrol, Harley Quinn, Shade the Changing Girl, Black Magick, The Discipline, The Divided States of Hysteria, Loose Ends, Monstress, The Old Guard, Paper Girls, The Fix, The Wicked + The Divine, All-New Wolverine, Champions, Doctor Strange, Doctor Strange and the Sorcerers Supreme, Gamora, Gwenpool, Invincible Iron Man, Mighty Thor, Moon Knight, Ms. Marvel, Ultimates2, Unstoppable Wasp, American Gods, Betty & Veronica, Britannia, Cerebus in Hell?, Cinema Purgatorio, Dead Inside, Mercury Heat, Predator vs Judge Dredd vs Aliens, Ragnarok, Red Sonja, Skybourne, World War Tank Girl and Vampirella.

Accepting that I don't have an unlimited budget to buy comics every month taking on a two year commitment on a largely unknown product (barring the calibre of the creative team - and the last Ellis title I bought into, Karnak, had an appalling schedule) is a big ask.
'Life isn't divided into genres. It's a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel ... with a bit of pornography if you're lucky.' - Alan Moore

The Adventurer

Fair enough with having a hard cap on your spending, and not having a good impression on the writer. I will only say this, if you're enjoying Doom Patrol/Shade the Changing Girl/Cave Carson you'll probably enjoy The Wild Storm for similar reasons. Honestly I'm not actually sure why it isn't under the Young Animal imprint to begin with, as it's right in that wheel house of reimagining DC properties with wild new ideas. If a slot opens up in your budget in 6 months, or a year. I'd recommend just taking a flip through what's come out by then.


And since you did take the trouble of typing up your pulls, I'll leave mine for fairness's and comparison's sake. Our tastes don't seem that far appart IMO.

2000AD, Megazine, The Wild Storm, Everafter, Doom Patrol, Astro City, Savage Dragon, Invincible, Paper Girls, Saga, East of West, Copperhead, Autumnlands. Monstress, Extremity, Dark Horse Presents, Usagi Yojimbo, The Visitor: How And Why He Stayed, Weekly Shonen Jump, APOSIMZ, Platinum End, and Jojo's Bizarre Adventure.

I just dropped Superwoman, because Phil Jimenez dropped off the book. And to be honest, I'd probably read more Marvel if they weren't so expensive compared to everything else.

THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK

positronic

#48
Quote from: The Adventurer on 23 April, 2017, 04:28:35 AM
Fair enough with having a hard cap on your spending, and not having a good impression on the writer. I will only say this, if you're enjoying Doom Patrol/Shade the Changing Girl/Cave Carson you'll probably enjoy The Wild Storm for similar reasons. Honestly I'm not actually sure why it isn't under the Young Animal imprint to begin with, as it's right in that wheel house of reimagining DC properties with wild new ideas. If a slot opens up in your budget in 6 months, or a year. I'd recommend just taking a flip through what's come out by then.

That's an interesting take that I wouldn't have come up with. As I understand it, the Young Animal imprint is largely sort of a modern take on what Vertigo started out as, taking less popular DC universe properties and putting a whole new spin on them (in the sense of Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol for Vertigo), and was largely created as a playpen for Gerard Way to "have his Way" with some otherwise-fallow DC characters and concepts.

The Wild Storm, on the other hand, is a 2017 iteration of the same thing Warren Ellis was doing when he revamped the moribund superhero team Stormwatch (eventually evolving into The Authority), updating the same sensibility to the present. Stormwatch/The Authority was the forerunner of many other superhero modernized spins in its wake: The Ultimates, Wanted, even things like Ellis' later Marvel Universe Thunderbolts -- proactive, take-no-prisoners, widescreen-epic action, but Warren Ellis felt even those takes were no longer modern or relevant, and so The Wild Storm is a re-think of his older re-think of the superhero in the modern world concept to bring it up to 2017. With the addition of political angles, black ops, and conspiracies as something he sees as relevant to the modern audience. At least, as I understood it.

Smith

There is the problem positronic,your not talking to people;your talking at them.You just wrote a whole page of text to reiterate something everyone here probably knows and on top of that you already said it 5 times before in this very thread.

positronic

Quote from: Smith on 23 April, 2017, 07:03:45 AM
There is the problem positronic,your not talking to people;your talking at them.You just wrote a whole page of text to reiterate something everyone here probably knows and on top of that you already said it 5 times before in this very thread.

Maybe I should ask what you want me to say, because I'm not clear on what it is.

Smith

Just spare me the wall-of-text history lectures and direct market explanations and I would be very grateful.

positronic

Okay, I just summarize. I didn't think The Wild Storm was a bad comic. I actually liked it. I don't think it will succeed because I think most people are more interested in what's going on in other comics than in a reboot of the Wildstorm universe, which they haven't cared about in years, so whether it's good or not is irrelevant to most of them.

Smith

See,you can keep it short and precise.I disagree 100% and the sales are proving you wrong,but at least I can read your post in one go.

positronic

Can you show me the number of readers who bought it? I think that's probably the major source of contention. By success I mean does it become the basis for a series of comics that is profitable for retailers because the copies they bought are being sold to customers. I don't think there are any statistics for that, just for what the retailers may have bought from Diamond. I don't think anyone can verify that they sold what they bought, or close to it.

Smith

Which ultimately means its profitable for the company/publisher,and like you yourself pointed out,that's the important thing for the direct market.As for the readers,at least a few on this board so far.  :)
And bear in mind Diamond doesn't even count the sales in the UK.
And this is really the last Im going to say on this subject.Anything else might motivate you for further discussion,and I really don't have time for it.

My current pull-list would be something like:Superman,Action Comics,Flash,Wild Storm,Hook Jaw,Forever War,TMNT,TMNT Universe,X-O Manowar,Amazing Spider-man(not sure if that will last),Spider-man/Deadpool(except the fillers),God Country,Invincible and ofc 2000ad and Meg.I might have forgotten something,so lets say between 15 and 20 titles.

Magnetica

Just out of interest, how do people find the time to read so many comics each month?

I ask as someone who only gets 2000AD and the Megazine plus a few Mega Collection issues, the odd Rebellion trade and the IDW Dredd stuff.

And the thing is, I generally only keep up to date on reading the Prog and the Meg. The Meg takes me all month. The Mega Collection, the trades and the IDW stuff is generally sitting there for ages before I get round to it. And I only occasionally read the floppy.

( I take the point that "buying" and "reading" aren't the same, but presumably you do eventually read the stuff that you buy for yourself?).

I guess you don't watch much TV?

Smith

Best I can say,Im a fast reader?  :)
But I also have a backlog of things to read and an even bigger To-Read-List.
Tv as TV,not at all.I do follow a few stuff online and on DVD.

positronic

Quote from: Smith on 23 April, 2017, 07:48:20 AM
Which ultimately means its profitable for the company/publisher,and like you yourself pointed out,that's the important thing for the direct market.

I'd be happy to let you have the last word, as this discussion seems to have put you out. It was never my intent to irk you, but I must take exception to your paraphrasing my comments about retailer preorders as anything like what's "the important thing for the direct market."

My definition of "the important thing for the direct market" is not what makes publishers happy, it's what keeps retailers profitable and in business by actually being able to resell the comics they preordered from Diamond. Staying in business in turn keeps their customers happy because those customers will continue to have a LCS from which they can buy their preferred comics  --even if what those customers choose to buy may not always agree with their retailers' blind guesses 2 months earlier of how many copies they could reasonably hope to sell of any new comic which neither they nor their customers had seen yet. I can't "prove" they guessed wrong on The Wild Storm #1 & 2, but neither can you "prove" they guessed right and were able to sell all the copies they initially ordered. The sales numbers that I think are "the important thing for the direct market" are the retail sales that a comic shop made to customers, and only the retailers know how many they sold compared to how many they ordered from Diamond. Once they actually have some idea of what that number is, only then can they begin adjusting their preorder numbers for later issues to reflect actual customer demand.

positronic

Quote from: Magnetica on 23 April, 2017, 08:12:00 AM
Just out of interest, how do people find the time to read so many comics each month?

I guess you don't watch much TV?

It would cut into the time I have available (never enough) for reading comics. It comes down to a choice between different forms of entertainment. I just like comics better than TV, plus I'd rather spend money on comics than Netflix or a cable TV bill.

For the first few months after I gave up on TV I was a little anxious about shows I might have been missing, but soon stopped worrying about it and now find I don't really miss it at all. I have plenty enough to read to fill up all my spare time, plus the internet and maybe about 1000 DVDs if I feel like I need a break from reading once in a while. Plus I'll never have to experience the feeling of getting through six seasons of LOST and then seeing how the end turned out.  >:(