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Post by legios on Apr 27, 2009 19:55:36 GMT
Presumably it will end whenever IDW become dissatisfied with the number of people buying it, or they lose the license.....
Which actually suits my wallet fine at the moment. Whilst they continue in their current vein they are saving me money.
Karl
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Post by grahamthomson on Apr 28, 2009 7:46:11 GMT
Maybe this time they mean it when they say it never ends.
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Post by grahamthomson on Apr 30, 2009 9:01:18 GMT
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Post by Shockprowl on Apr 30, 2009 9:23:12 GMT
Tell ya sumat, for me it's ending with issue 12 and that's it. This story has decemated my Transformers comic reading, er, ness.
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Post by The Doctor on Apr 30, 2009 9:54:53 GMT
Not buying it.
-Ralph
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Post by Deleted on Apr 30, 2009 11:34:49 GMT
No-one should be surprised that it's carrying on. IDW announced the four part AHM Coda mini-series a while ago and the only change here is that it's continuing the AHM numbering. I like the idea of two 11-page stories per issue. Marvel UK proved it's perfectly possible to tell a lot of story in those 11 pages and hopefully the creative teams at IDW are up to the task.
I see Nick even has a sequel to Spotlight Kup as one of the upcoming stories. I'm a surprised there's not a little more enthusiasm.
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Post by blueshift on Apr 30, 2009 12:03:12 GMT
I see Nick even has a sequel to Spotlight Kup as one of the upcoming stories. I'm a surprised there's not a little more enthusiasm. The 1-2 punch of trunctuating Revealation and the rather dire AHM has pretty much crushed the huge enthusiasm I had for the line. But I am always willing to be brought round. |
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Post by grahamthomson on Apr 30, 2009 12:15:50 GMT
I think Nick is very, very talented. Really, I do. But I also think his talent might be wasted on "having" to write a story that forces an explanation on the about-turn characterisation of Kup. Saying that, I am sure Nick will still do something awesome, regardless.
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Post by Bogatan on Apr 30, 2009 14:34:05 GMT
As I only read thetrades Im going to havew to decide if its worth reading this or not whenever its released. Curiosity will probably win out.
Andy
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Post by The Doctor on Apr 30, 2009 17:20:20 GMT
AHM is a toxic brand for me. Killed my interest in the line stone dead. I don't care who is on it (not even the genuinely talented Mr Roche), I'm not wasting my money on AHM tie-ins. I don't like the current direction of IDW TF, therefore I vote with my wallet. I don't believe in moaning but still buying it anyway. When the line gets to the point it's asking for my money to 'explain' continuity issues, it's been flushed down the toilet in my opinion. A storyline about continuity is a broken storyline, plain and simple. I'm not paying at least £4 a pop inc postage for the pleasure.
There are so many new TF comics from various publishers plus reprints I'm long since past the point where I buy a comic because it says Transformers on the cover. Especially now they are so expensive.
I'll stick with the Titan comics for now. I'll pay attention to IDW again when they start doing content-rich exciting new stories once more.
-Ralph
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Post by charlesrocketboy on May 4, 2009 15:38:14 GMT
I'm a traitor, cos I'm thinking of getting that sequel-to-Kup one...
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nick
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Chris Ryall's Butt-boy
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Post by nick on May 4, 2009 16:01:31 GMT
Yes! You MUST, Charles! If only to give #15 an inexplicable sales spike! I hear, understand and appreciate all your concerns. I don't think my story seems as forced as some might fear, and I'm honoured to be asked to be the one that shepherds Kup through his rehab. I think I've added another twist to the tale, but that remains to be seen at a later stage. Anyway, I'll have the pages with me at AA, so you can judge for yourself there.  Nick |
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Post by Benn on May 4, 2009 18:26:16 GMT
Just a thought but, (strictly off the record of course) what does the person above me think of AHM in general?
Hmm? Or is that breaking the unwritten rules?
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Post by blueshift on May 4, 2009 21:20:16 GMT
Ah you will never get a professional saying a bad word against another professional. That comes year later
I am still waiting for DC to start really spilling the beans about Countdown, for example! (Though a recent interview with Mark Waid indicates that Dan Didio did think it was the best thing since sliced bread, which baffles me)
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Post by charlesrocketboy on May 5, 2009 9:45:18 GMT
I'm honoured to be asked to be the one that shepherds Kup through his rehab. But would Kup go, go go? |
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Post by grahamthomson on May 7, 2009 14:27:59 GMT
From AHM #13 solicts... The 12-part story was so popular we had to keep it rolling out for four more special issues! The two stories here set the stage for the next Transformers mega-saga (stay tuned, folks!). This is the ground floor! IRONHIDE and OPTIMUS PRIME deal with the fallout of last issue! Meanwhile, the DECEPTICONS begin to probe the mysteries of the AUTOBOT Matrix of leadership—that can’t be good… Who on Earth is writing these? |
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Post by Fortmax2020 on May 7, 2009 15:00:24 GMT
So the Decepticon's get the Matrix (which we have no idea what it does in IDWverse) by AHM #12? Doesn't that sorta spoil its ending?
And isn't the ground floor where most people exit??
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Post by charlesrocketboy on May 7, 2009 15:05:07 GMT
They already have the Matrix and it takes them until #13 to look into it?!
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Post by blueshift on May 7, 2009 15:16:18 GMT
From AHM #13 solicts... The 12-part story was so popular we had to keep it rolling out for four more special issues! The two stories here set the stage for the next Transformers mega-saga (stay tuned, folks!). This is the ground floor! IRONHIDE and OPTIMUS PRIME deal with the fallout of last issue! Meanwhile, the DECEPTICONS begin to probe the mysteries of the AUTOBOT Matrix of leadership�that can�t be good� Who on Earth is writing these? Well they're hardly going to say 'Because of extremely negative reaction we didn't think anyone would want a spin-off series so we are hoping to just extend people's pull lists rather than risk them not making the conscious effort to order a new title'. Thing is, sales aren't good. They are by no means good, but the downwards spiral has been going for a long while. I can quite understand why they'd want to experiment rather than keep dropping. The Beat does rather good analyses of sales, though usually takes them a while to compile: pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2009/03/27/indie-comics-month-to-month-sales-february-2009/Spin-off series tend to do worth than main titles anyway, and with a lot of people seemingly saying they will get to the end of AHM and then drop, it seems sensible to try to put different writers and directions in at the end to attempt to coax those readers back. Whatever you may think, the AHM numbers for the second half have been steady. Not good by any means, but steady and IDW are right for wanting to hold onto that. Personally I believe that the Transformers brand needs a rest and then a proper relaunch. It needs to capture people's imaginations again - it used to, it used to do amazingly well, even past the 80's nostalgia boom. However with the cost of the license and the low sales, I can't see IDW risking that. Which again, is fair enough. If I were IDW, I'd concentrate July+ on the movie property and really push that. The film is going to be huge, and in 2007 the first film caused a massive spike in their overall TF sales. I imagine they'd be wanting to ensnare casual comic readers as well as get their trades into as many places as possible (HMV carried the movie ones in 07 I remember). It is odd that there seems to be no entry-level title in July/August, but then I don't think we've seen all their plans |
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Post by The Doctor on May 7, 2009 17:09:43 GMT
They already have the Matrix and it takes them until #13 to look into it?! This is the series with, er, pacing problems, remember. 16 issues plus 2 Spotlight tie-ins (Blurr and Drift). That's 6 issues more than Watchmen! -Ralph |
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Post by grahamthomson on May 7, 2009 20:36:04 GMT
It's what we call Commercial Pacing... one marketable idea per issue. Little though, maximum return.
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Post by Deleted on May 7, 2009 21:50:49 GMT
I wonder if AHM will ever be resolved by issue 16?
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Post by andrewbcalculating on May 8, 2009 8:29:26 GMT
They surely cannot be using the word "popular" in a positive way in that statement. The only way that AHM is popular is that a lot of people are talking about how much they hate it.
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Post by blueshift on May 8, 2009 8:37:35 GMT
They surely cannot be using the word "popular" in a positive way in that statement. The only way that AHM is popular is that a lot of people are talking about how much they hate it. |<o>| Well again, its marketing talk. They want people to check it out, so obviously they'll upsell it. Numbers wise, it is probably the least popular 'main' series IDW has done so far, however the entire comics industry is in a terrifying slump right now so that is probably an unfair comparitor. |
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Post by The Doctor on May 8, 2009 10:51:01 GMT
They surely cannot be using the word "popular" in a positive way in that statement. The only way that AHM is popular is that a lot of people are talking about how much they hate it. |<o>| But they're still buying it though. Sales are rock solid. And browse comments on-line and most of the folk screaming about how shit it is are still buying it. If people enjoy it (and lots of people do) then fair enough. I just don't understand people saying: "This is shit! I'm buying the next issue!". -Ralph |
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Post by Andy Turnbull on May 8, 2009 11:15:07 GMT
Those people forfeit their right to criticise the material in my opinion. They are continuing to buy it thus helping to perpetuate the nonsense.
Andy
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Post by blueshift on May 8, 2009 12:32:47 GMT
Well lets be blunt. The numbers aren't good numbers. They're solid yes, but the brand should be doing much better. Transformers managed to ride the nostalgia high in '02, and is a brand supported by huge blockbuster movies in '07 and '09 Let's have a look at some numbers, courtesy of tfarchive. www.tfarchive.com/comics/idw/sales.phpwww.tfarchive.com/comics/dreamwave/guide/sales.phpThe first Dreamwave mini. Crazy numbers. Insane numbers. The industry as a whole wasn't a whole lot different back then. The surprise is that they kept those crazy numbers up. The amount vol 2 and 3 shedded readers afterwards was very depressing, and either indicated that it was mostly the novelty factor, or people actually started reading the things! That said, I personally think Dreamwave made a huge mistake. They should have spun an ongoing directly after their initial mini in the hope of keeping those crazy, stable numbers. For the record, here are the numbers for the other two volumes: It pretty much continues in freefall until it finds its level at around 30k issues. That is about the average for a DC Universe book, so whilst not great, isn't awful. It is interesting to note that the gambit of starting vol 3 with another #1 didn't gain more readers this time, just knocked another 10k off the readership. I'm a huge fan of Mr Furman but I can't help but think that the launch of the IDW line was fumbled. Issue 0 was a free / 99c issue which reached a huge audience and was the perfect springboard. The series launched at a respectable level, and then haemmoraged readers heavily. The slow burn approach definately didn't work for IDW here. Escalation and Devastation both find their level in rather decently stable numbers, but not amazing ones. There's no huge reader falloffs but no real gains either save the lure of the #1 on Devastation. It is easy to see why IDW decided they wanted a new start. The Spotlights always had far smaller distribution figures than the minis. I can't fathom why they did Revelation in this way. It doesn't help that the publicity push at the time was concentrating on All Hail Megatron. And here we come to AHM. A small drop each issue mostly from the usual issue 1 dropoff, but the numbers are solid. They are pretty poor numbers though, over 10% less than the original sustained Dreamwave sales. I can't believe IDW are happy with this direction either to be honest. The comics industry as a whole is in a rut, but it hasn't changed that dramatically since 2002. |
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Post by The Doctor on May 8, 2009 15:15:14 GMT
I think they'll be happy in that AHM has finally stablised the bleeding. They now have a baseline on which to, er, base their line. So in that respect it has been a success. It may not have brought in new readers but is has stopped the main line from sliding under 10K - which it was in real danger of doing. So a partial win.
They are never going to get Dreamwave numbers though. Licensed books just don't sell like that currently, other than Buffy and Angel (and only after they had wisely been rested for a while and given a big push for the relaunches). Even Star Wars only sells circa 20-25K.
The licensed titles to watch in the direct market are the upcoming relaunches of Predator and Aliens at Dark Horse, both previously big winners for them (especially Aliens) and both supported by a FCBD 'trailer'.
AHM was unlikely to post any big increase in TF numbers, like the reboots of Angel or Buffy, because it had no 'big names' attached to it that retailers would latch on to and so order more copies of. None of the creators have any draw outside of the TF comic fanbase. No disrespect to creators currently doing TF comics (I really rate Guido, personally) but they need a name writer and/or artist on interiors or covers for the general comics market to take much notice.
Or get their books on to newsstands/places where kids go.
-Ralph
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Post by blueshift on May 8, 2009 15:49:55 GMT
The comics industry as a whole is so insular it will just swallow itself up.
That said, Escalation / Devastation did show steady numbers too. I have a feeling any next release may steady at even lower numbers than AHM, that seems to be the trend.
I do think that Transformers is underperforming. It should be clocking at least 20k an issue. Given past performance, that isn't too unrealistic.
The brand does have a lot of power. The numbers it did clock were insane even by the standards of normal comics, and it is depressing that we are seeing just 10% of that. With the movie round the corner there needs to be a fresh push.
The Direct Market is one of the most horrid things ever and is slowly choking the industry to death. There needs to be more ways of getting product out there and that honestly needs to be a publisher's top concern because the comic floppy ain't doing too well.
Doesn't excuse the Transformers numbers though. It reeks of brand fatigue.
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Post by The Doctor on May 8, 2009 16:04:29 GMT
The Direct Market is going to take a tremendous shock when publishers figure out a viable, profitiable way to do digital comics, and when digital readers become cheap and easy enough to use that folk don't mind using them.
-Ralph
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