Cliffjumper wrote:Existing fandom has never had 130,000 comic buyers. Commercially the first DW series was massive, in terms of profile, sales, the lot, end of. The chart position figures are an absolute - it outsold X-Men.
I think we're talking at cross-purposes here in terms of how each of us is defining "Fan".
The DW comic was indeed a huge success and that shouldn't be taken away from... but it was a massive success with guys in their 20's who bought comics and had at some point been big Transformers fans (and of course, considering the pop culture phenomenon it was, there's more than enough such people to create sales that big if you catch them at the right time, something similar happened with the Devil's Due G.I. Comic didn't it?).
And of course, that's exactly the audience Dreamwave were aiming for, Prime Directive is unabashedly a nostalgia piece designed to push the buttons of people who already liked Transformers in some form or another, the equivalent of the Five Doctors. If you wanted to be cynical you could argue it was more down to the luck of timing to coincide with the peak of the 80's nostalgia boom, but then MTMTE has benefited from a similarly coincidental shift in how comic buying works as well.
The success of MTMTE, and what it is doing better than any previous modern era Transformers comic, is its bringing a sizeable number of people on board who had no interest in Transformers whatsoever before hand.
What are you actually basing that on? Anecdotal evidence? TBH as long as I can remember female fans have been a serious percentage of fandom, and the same with younger fans (though weirdly most outright fans seem more likely to latch onto G1 than whatever was aimed at them).
A combination of a few things. Ten years of convention going, the shift towards lots more women and younger people has been massive over the last few years (as has the increase in actual children, though obviously in their case it's likely to be more down to the films), a genuine noticeable change that doesn't seem to be limited to the UK as similar changes are often commented upon when things like Botcon come up in interviews (and it's clear from their TV shirts, plushies, Rodmius Stars and cosplays what is bringing them to conventions as well).
Plus twitter, tumblr and those other strange and scary places I don't completely understand are full of these new fans.
Over the New Year period MTMTE also made several more websites "Best of..." lists (including, unsurprisingly, Comixology itself). That's a Transformers comic getting genuine critical praise from non-fan sources. As far as I'm aware that has never happened before, even when the '80's UK and US titles (which are presumably still the most successful TF comics in terms of regular sales?) were at their pomp, that's an extraordinary thing and something I think we can be proud of as fans of the franchise even if the book isn't our particular cup of tea.
Really? Because to me it would seem to be the absolute opposite. MTMTE is the big social title no-one can wait for. RID is the one people pick up out of obligation. TBH, considering the amount of MTMTE praise which includes drive-by slagging of RID I'd say a fair percentage by both but people are happy to wait for RID. I'd be amazed if less than about 80% of the readership buy both.
Physical sales for the "Lead" books have basically not shifted noticeably since All Hail Megatron (a couple of hundred up or down being the main variation), it's fair to say it's the hardcore We Will Buy Everything fans which make up the bulk of that audience, that's not a mentality that would lead you to only buy the one twice if you were going to do that sort of thing.
Plus, as Warcry says, the non-conventional nature (in terms of how "Traditional" superhero comics are seen by those who haven't previously partaken) of the book means something like MTMTE is going to appeal a lot to people who'd never have thought of going in a comic shop five years ago. That's where the digital boost comes from, not us old farts (presumably that's why-- as the same person who gave me a rough idea of digital sales also mentioned--it's trade sales IDW are really spectacularly happy with. Things that can be picked up from Amazon easily).
I dunno. While MTMTE has made a bit of a splash outside the fandom, the splash it made was mostly restricted to a fairly small niche. I don't want to come off as dismissive of the new readers, but most of them aren't coming for the sci-fi or the robots, and fans of gay relationship drama comics and/or robot-shipping aren't a huge demographic. It's nice that Transformers is getting some positive exposure in some communities that probably never gave it a second thought before now, and hopefully that'll lead to the creation of some more long-term fans as some of the readers explore the universe outside of MTMTE, but it's not as if the book has become a smash hit across a wide cross-section of society.
Oh sure, we're talking in terms of the American comics industry which is by definition a small and shrinking market (though embracing the potential new digital fans is a step in the direction of reversing that. Though with idiocy like Gamergate running about how welcome they'll be made to feel long term is another thing entirely), but a cult success is still a cult success.
Yeah, that's probably true. I remember reading an interview either from around the time of LSOTW or when MTMTE first started, and he certainly made it sound like he hadn't kept up with Transformers, comics or sci-fi in general since the Eugenesis days. I certainly got the impression that he'd taken the gig more for the chance to live out a childhood dream than because of any actual ambitions to have a career as a comic writer. And who can blame him? Comics aren't exactly a growth industry these days. Anyone with any talent is going to try and get their foot in the door with TV or movie jobs purely for the sake of job security.
Yeah, that's the thing that does make me worry that he'll stay on past the Claremont Despair Horizon (and in relation to Cliffy's clarification: Guy who finished on the series at the peak of his popularity, came back years later and was a bit of a washout just redoing the same ideas over and over? Remind us of anyone?), if it's a just for fun thing aside from his day job and not directly related to his writing ambitions, what motive is there to move on as long as IDW are happy to let him carry on?
And of course, the book's lasting legacy will depend on how we can look back on it when its done. If Roberts manages 100 issues and the next 50 of them are terrible that will certainly affect things (though the fact he's able to poke fun at himself over things that haven't gone down well--his jokes at the reaction to the Personality Ticks two parter being a fine example--suggests he's still got more than enough self awareness to last a while longer). But, for the moment at least, it has actually managed to make itself the benchmark for the franchise.
Interesting to see something positive being said about Slott's Spider-Man, so many people (at least on the forums I frequent) seem down on both it and his writing these days I've actively been put off from giving it a go.
[If none of the above makes any sense, I am ill at the moment]