IDW New Transformers #1 Sneak Peak

Discussion in 'Transformers Comics Discussion' started by Black Convoy, Mar 9, 2019.

  1. agp

    agp Well-Known Member

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    You're right on. New products need to do at least one of four things to succeed: fill a void (i.e. create a new market), be better than what's existing, be different than what's existing, be cheaper than what's existing. A new TF comic needs to be better and different to succeed. If the comic is not those things it can't compete against the discounted material that is easily available on comixology. You're also right about average joe, he told you with his wallet that he wasn't interested and you're not going to get him with more of the same. You want average joe you need a fresh hook.

    You have a point about realistic expectations and constraints. You're right that the majority of the paying audience is going to need to see some robots fighting. Autobots and Decepticons still needs to be a thing. I don't think something as radical as Beast Wars is a reality right now. The recognizable faces need to be there: Optimus, Bumblebee, Megatron, Soundwave, and Starscream. They also need to have the recognizable character traits, even though I think Megatron has more flexibility than the others. These are my opionions, but regardless some constraints that form the core identity of your franchise need to be established.

    Once the constraints are understood you can go wild trying to accomplish what focks and I said about about marketing. You have a huge list of characters to tinker with. The setting can change. I think the franchise could start easing in some more smaller factions. Your fresh takes also makes your familiar stuff you need to keep not seem played out.
     
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  2. RodimusRex

    RodimusRex Well-Known Member

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    You're going to be limited in terms of HOW MUCH you can have Batman take a backseat. Both by editorial/corporate (who may have different POVs from one another) and by sales.

    Most comics based on iconic brands have a sales floor that will hold largely intact PROVIDED you focus on the main character or characters.

    Haven't looked at figures in awhile but at one point it was around 25k units for Superman and 40k units for Batman. You have runs that dipped lower when the main character wasn't featured.

    The reverse is ALSO true that some new/novel characters may have a higher CEILING if the book or character has buzz. But it's a gamble.

    So when Wolverine was guest starring a lot in the 90s or Deadpool was in the 2000s, they were more CEILING lifting characters in supporting roles. Which means a book could do the same as it would otherwise (a higher ceiling doesn't mean you'll touch the ceiling) or a strong performing book could hit a higher sales ceiling.

    Honestly, most of the new characters we're seeing here strike me as serving a literary rather than a sales boosting purpose. Rubble is clearly here to serve a role. He gets murdered. He gets affected by the war. He becomes Rumble. He turns out to be a murderer. Whatever he's here for serves the plot. He's obviously not somebody we can reasonably be expected to be a fan of immediately.

    Looking back at comics, you have some characters who serve both the buzz and the plot. Grant Morrison's Xorn springs to mind. People became FANS of Xorn. He looked cool/different. He was a visual ambassador of a new era. Annnnnd.... he ended up being a big plot service character. In hindsight, Morrison is big on that. Damian Wayne Robin. A character with buzz, marketability and (in Morrison's eyes) a plot serving role that had an endgame until people brought him back.

    The new characters here strike me as, by design, being ones that won't grab us at first but who serve roles and undergo changes.

    but this strikes me as a very conservative reboot in some ways. Nobody's laying out much of a grand vision in interviews. The interviews IDW has allowed for all seem like puff pieces.

    By and large, the new and different hook here is that Cybertron is interesting and a bit boring (with a few cracks showing) until ONE MURDER acts as a powderkeg. So by design, you can't make lots of new and interesting and badass stuff if the SINGLE MURDER which HASN'T HAPPENED YET is the source of everything interesting.

    And so I'll stick up for the creative team a bit (even though I've said it's not what I'd do; I don't know the preconditions in place). It may be that Hasbro said they'd only renew the license if IDW did a reboot and focused on selling the toys better and that it had to offer the Siege characters most of the spotlight for 20 issues and avoid advancing the plot beyond the toyline while also avoiding anything too far BEFORE the toyline. We know that several later issues focus on Prowl and Chromia. From a pacing standpoint, I'm guessing the murder is the issue one cliffhanger.
     
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  3. RodimusRex

    RodimusRex Well-Known Member

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    Whoa.

    So much to digest and respond to here.

    I’m just going to say what you’re saying is out of touch with the market as a whole, where retailers are gatekeepers and are allowed to be because they absorb risk.

    SCUD or Johnny the Homocidal Maniac were probably among the last lucrative indie books that didn’t rely on a creator having mainstream cred at Marvel or DC to get retail support for their “lucrative” indie books, which are only lucrative in today’s climate because of media.

    Beyond that, there’s a line forming out the door to produce comics which is part of WHY salaries are so low. Joss Whedon, Stephen King, and George R.R. Martin have agreed and volunteered to do monthly comics at fairly low rates and were turned down because the publishers had and have agendas other than monthly sales, which hinge on editorial and publisher creative control.

    So the salaries are depressed but it’s because people who are financially set and well known are willing to work for relatively low rates and there’s a line of talent out the door who could produce comics.

    And the people who do produce comics produce WHAT they produce because it’s more or less what publishers want, not because their paygrade only attracts lesser talents. Tom King, Brad Meltzer, Greg Rucka, etc. have literary credibility but they temper that skillset to serve kill lists and rebranding initiatives from publishers.

    You wouldn’t get better talent by waving money in their faces. I’d really like to know where people get that idea from and who they think that better talent would be. Unless you think the world is full of Paypal systems engineers and java programmers whose upper middle class lifestyle or student loans are forcing them not to write comics because of the prospective paycut.
     
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  4. raindance773

    raindance773 Well-Known Member

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    This looks like it could be excellent. The art is clean, and the dialogue is excellent!

    Plus OP and Megs as Senators!

    If they keep this up this is a continuity I can get behind!

    This is SO exciting!
     
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  5. Megastar

    Megastar Well-Known Member

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    Fine whatever works for you.
     
  6. Rob

    Rob Prowl Fan

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    The Optimus and Ironhide relationship welcome back we miss you.
     
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  7. G1Prowl

    G1Prowl Prick, apparently

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    They have a point.


    I'm not sure if you are old enough to remember Malibu Comics, but they were occasionally cracking the top 40 sales in a time when DC and Marvel had it locked up aside from a few Image titles. You know WHY titles like Prime or Firearm managed to sell that well? Talent. James Robinson had license to create, AND he was emotionally invested in the characters he created. It showed. Same with Prime. Hell, same for the ENTIRE Ultraverse run until Marvel derailed it.


    If someone wants to hammer out some garbage story that barely keeps to the characters' archetypal behavior if at ALL, then I'm not going to support it. Let it fail. I don't rush out and buy substandard stuff simply because it's from a franchise that I support.
     
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  8. Heliblade

    Heliblade Autobot Vigilante of Kaon

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    Poor Rubble and that big red target on their back...
     
  9. agp

    agp Well-Known Member

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    How the does retail gate keep? I’d really like to know your perspective on that.

    I said the FIRST step is better pay not the only step. Anyways let me lay it out in detail.

    Salaries have been low for majority of the life of the industry. A few big names willing to work for next to nothing aren’t much of a downward pressure on salaries when marvel/image/dc collectively puts out 150+ books a month. I do agree there is and always will be a surplus of labor. The allure of fame and big money in any industry will always attract a mass of people that are lacking in talent but willing to work for minimal pay because there is a chance they could make it big. So you have to increase the quality of the labor pool to get better writers for the middle of the pack books. There are lots of people with the talent to write acceptable quality comics but it isn’t worth the risk to them. For most in comics there is no employer sponsored health insurance, dental, 401k, vacation, sick time, disability etc. Now take those expenses out of that page rate that was low to begin with for those out of the top 25% of writers. Read this article:

    Charity Shouldn't Have To Be Comics Creators' Only Option

    There’s more stories like this out there. How many people do you think want to end up begging for money because their career only allowed them to afford crappy health insurance which couldn’t cover enough of the expenses?

    Up the pay for middle of the road books. Figure out a way for people to get reasonable health insurance. Basically reduce the gigantic financial risk of not being at the top and you’ll retain and attract more talent.

    With a bigger and higher quality labor pool corporate comics would now need to figure a better way to scout talent. They would also have to actually try to develop some of this talent. The thing is we the readers would have to force they’re hand. We have to stop buying crap just because it ties into an event or has our favorite characters. Let them know you love x character but have stopped buying because of y creator. Actually corporate comics should be soliciting more feedback themselves.

    I never said people make it big in creator owned titles without some mainstream success. I never even implied it. The only thing I implied was many writers stay at corporate comics because they aren’t good enough to make it on their own.

    Great you listed a few of the names that are talented. I never said the entire industry was garbage, just 75% of writers are substandard.
     
  10. Ramberk Magnus

    Ramberk Magnus Well-Known Member

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    You are seriously undervaluing comics and have a really distorted view of fiction in general.

    First of all there has and is and will always be great comic books out there. Just because you haven't run into any of them, don't mean they don't exist. Marvel, DC and the independents all publish them-- now and in the past. You might not care for them, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.

    Secondly, no one makes comics to get rich. It's a labor of love and its because you love the medium. Comics will NEVER sell in high numbers ever again. Not even with Stephen King on the cover as a writer. Not gonna happen.

    Thirdly, every medium-- TV, movies, books, music, comics, etc has 90% mediocre content and 10% AAA quality. That's just the nature of things. Ranting that comics suck is just pointless. Most TV is just "ok" and most comics are just "ok."

    You complain about price but there is no way for publishers to lower that. It's just not gonna happen.

    You'd rather IDW not make TF comics. Well, that's your opinion but we haven't even 4 issues worth to really determine if they are any good or not. Lastly, no publisher, IDW or Marvel or whomever, sets out to make crappy comics. Maybe these books don't grab your attention, but they aren't crappy.
     
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  11. agp

    agp Well-Known Member

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    Did you even read my comment?

    Once again, I never once said the industry was entirely garbage. Merely 75% percent was somewhere below mediocre. I never said there aren’t great books. Your rant against me would be more effective if you didn’t put words in my mouth.

    To say everyone in comics is in it as a labor of love is ridiculous and naive. There is a fame element to the industry since the late 80’s early 90’s. The possibility of merchandising your own IP is very lucrative. These are motivating factors for some people. The other thing is how long do you think the love lasts before it becomes just a job for a lot of these people? You don’t think people are putting out stuff they know is sub standard but they need the paycheck? It happens in every business and it’s certainly happening in comics.

    Publishers can’t lower prices? Did the world run out of newsprint?
     
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  12. justiceg

    justiceg Well-Known Member

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    There’s a lot here that gets vastly oversimplified, I think...”find a way to get them health care, etc”, calling on the ever dwindling comic readers to simply boycott until the industry shifts.

    I think if people did the boycott you describe the industry would not change so much as it would cease to exist. There’s not enough money to be made here. Recommendations to dump comics back to newsprint aren’t gonna do that either.

    The ship sailed on a lot of this many years ago, my friend.
     
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  13. agp

    agp Well-Known Member

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    Comics as medium and industry will not cease to exist. The book market supports publishers that aren't tied to the direct market; like Scholastic, Random house, and the manga publishers. There will be people crowdfunding and independent publishing things.

    The direct market isn't healthy. Can the direct market be saved? Can it grow it's readership? The outlook isn't good. But then I see US manga sales rebound and grow from that's market collapse. I see the book channel capturing a young audience. I see Alterna Comics growing on cheap prices and newsprint. I see successful crowd funded projects. I just can't advocate riding the decline without trying to turn things around.

    You're right the problems facing corporate comics are nuanced and complicated. I'm just advocating one freaking change, not saying it will fix everything. The line of thinking is happier workers, better workers, better comics. There is still a shit ton of problems that exist after that. If you want change you have to start somewhere. Maybe someone else has a different starting point, this is just mine. Again until it's dead I can't advocating doing nothing.

    Sorry to derail the thread folks.

    I do hope the new Transformers comic is good. I'm giving the book the first story arc at least.
     
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  14. raindance773

    raindance773 Well-Known Member

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    I think it deserves a fair shot, and to have everything from the past IDW blasted away to make room for it to be judged by its own merits.
     
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  15. angelic

    angelic Well-Known Member

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    As someone who knows nothing about TF comics since the g1 days, is this coming to actual newsagents and shops in the uk?
     
  16. Prime time 101

    Prime time 101 Well-Known Member

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    Yeah but it has a lot to live up to
     
  17. raindance773

    raindance773 Well-Known Member

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    See, I don’t think so. Was MTMtE good? Absolutely, but so were other stories that came before it and we had people screaming to not compare them.
     
  18. Prime time 101

    Prime time 101 Well-Known Member

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    But People are going to compare them wether it’s fair or not mtmte has been going strong for years now and a lot of people feels like it’s the best of the whole brand story and character wise so people are going to have a higher standard