I understand...but I wish they'd show a preview that prompts me to want to read more...

 

Sorry...should have been more clear. I wasn't referring to myself, I was referring to most of the women I know.

 

I dunno how that changes anything. People who share some common traits still aren't a homogeneous bloc regardless of what those common traits are.

So what if it doesn't? If you're not interested in this particular piece of Transformers media does it change anything about parts of the franchise you do enjoy?

 

Oddly enough, the only anti-women comments have been those directed at @Novaburnhilde . Everyone else has been discussing the merits, or lack thereof, of the book. I, in particular, have been especially polite, compared to the things I say about Bendis and Waid.

 

Main issue I have is that most of these previews don't seem all that exciting. And this is marketed to girls so that doesn't bode well.

 

Did fschuler ever imply anything but?

Yeah, I think the fact that it looks completely unengaging is the bigger issue.

Comics today are a tough sell as it is, and you need to have a good hook. Something that garners interest, not just attention.

 

What the fuck did those dipshits do to Stormer and Pizzazz? This isn't JatH anymore then the freshly shat interpretation Chu presented to audiences either and the artwork is bland as hell.     



This is Stormer and Pizzazz, not whatever the fuck those two are. If you are going to reboot something take more then a moment to actually learn what the characters look and act like.   I'm tired of JatH getting bad treatment by a pack of greedy idiots who wanna make easy nostalgia money, but can't be bothered to do the property right.

 

It's a reboot, of course they're gonna look different. IDWs Jem comic has been around for awhile too, clearly you're not a big enough fan of Jem to notice these things.

 

Also the Jem comic was pretty good.

Admittedly I came at it from the POV of someone who didn’t watch the original, but that just means it was able to stand on its own merits.

 

Then go watch the original. Its pretty damn good.

 

The Jem reboot has been out for years and is as far as I’m aware very popular among the Jem fandom, nothing either party said has anything to do with anyone’s gender.

 

I'm confused as to who the target audience is for this. The cover seems like it's meant to introduce young girls to the Hasbro brand, but the previews pages make it seem like it aimed at millennials with things they might relate to (hardship in buying a house, psuedo-philosophy, sitcom-like Tumblr webcomic).

To be honest, the previews (aside from the Transformers Arcee one) don't really gain my attention, which is what a preview is supposed to do. The Transformers one is interesting because it has a hint of history and action coupled with my familiarity of the brand and its characters along with the curiosity of their lives apart from the war. Although the oppression angle (depending on what kind of oppression their going for and how they handle it) may ruin the story. Again, I don't know what they're going to do with it. It could be good if it's written well, who knows.

I'm all for works being marketed towards women and promoting the work that they do based on their merit and encouraging others to fulfill their dreams, but I have a problem when a woman and her work are being lifted up as something to admire simply because she is a woman (the same can go for men). (on a side note for stuff like this in general, it's kind of insulting to women when you say "We're marketing toward you and showcasing what you can do because we want you to like us and buy our products, but instead of hiring women that we know can create a good product, we're going to just use whatever our women make even if it's substandard ,in this showcase of women's work, because we don't think you're worth the effort.") One just says "we have women, and we want to showcase them because they are women." The other says "We have women who are capable of producing great stories and great art, and if you love your craft and work really hard at it, you could be just as great too, if not better."

 

Excellently said.

 

So, not taking aim at you exactly, but i've seen these arguments enough to address them at length. Incoming high-density info-dump.

So A of all) while I certainly haven't seen the rest of the issue, if all we got from this thing so far is what's been posted I would think the target audience is clear: culturally savvy and technologically adept late teens who are also into reading and probably making comics, the kind who watch Riverdale and don't care and in fact enjoy how laughably bad it is for instance. I don't know if you use instagram very much or at all, but there is a wealth of junior talent out producing scads of good work, or work that could be honed into something good at least. I'm talking here about the people who make art on the back of your Voltron's and your She-Ra's and what have you (sidebar, I've no interest in validating those communities for the shit things that they do, but rather pointing out that in spite of that, there's still a lot of young people super interested in making art off the back of it to hone their game). All that said my addendum here is that I don't really see the jump in artist quality as so severe as to need justification or constant vilification. People keep bandying around "webcomic" as a pejorative but look to John Allison's work from a couple of years ago, or Ryan North's actual clip-art comics, or Tom Siddell, or more lately Noelle Stevenson.

B of all) this kind of collection, showcasing varying levels of talent, is super aspirational to young folk.. Discussions about "quality" and so forth aren't actually that useful in terms of community building as anyone who has set foot in the radicons section can attest to. Some ideas are worth exploring, even if your skills aren't up to snuff, because those things go on to inspire others to have a crack also. In a much more historical sense look back to Weird Tales Magazine in the 20s and 30s; they knew that fostering links in the community was the best way to keep up subscriptions AND submissions. This is true of almost any fan community build up of note in the 20th century. Arsène Lupin was a low rent fan-fiction of Sherlock Holmes until it took over France! The idea that quality is in and of itself a useful barometer for aspiration of young people is incorrect. Moreover it can waver into outright elititism in which "amateurs" and "professionals" are siloed off from one another, as opposed to seeing them as part of a publishing continuum. Look to Lightspeed publishing for another great example of this; Hugo winners sit side by side with first timers and the community responds super positively!

C of all) You'd be kidding yourself to think Hasbro doesn't knows this. As so many of the previous iteration of talent at IDW were involved in fan communities like TFUK or even here! You may choose to see this point as cynical corporate exploitation and you're free to do so. So many Hasbro properties have fallen through because they couldn't mobilise a large enough fanbase to go out and buy toys. the "crown jewel" Gi Joe lost its global audience after even ironic jingoistic Americana fell out of favour. Hasbro is definitely trying to foster those broad communities in target audience as per 1).

TLDR
1 aspiration is better served by tangible pathways than "quality," whatever that means
2 community is a wonderful resource to draw from and build on
3 Hasbro needs the above to make its products successful

 

Wait... we're not allowed to discuss quality because it hurts community building... somehow? I'm sorry, but if I am going to spend time or money on something, it has to be of a certain level of quality. Saying that people shouldn't discuss the quality of something is really silly.

 

If your first and only takeaway from all that is how i am limiting your fReE sPeEcH then my impression is that you werent likely to spend money on this more than you were using it to be mock offended anyway.

One’s personal judgement of quality doesnt particularly matter in the scheme of things, especially when the gradient of “quality” could just as easily be confused with “style.” There’s plenty of examples i used of comparable “quality” to the Gem pages, scary-go-round being the main one. Personally, i’d be damned if i ever made that aesthetic judgement call on early john allison work for instance (...again for the peanut gallery...). But just as much the jokes and voice seem fine and topical for the demographic i assumed (and again outlined above?). So its not for me, y’know, but i guess i’m lucky enough to be able to still appreciate things that dont target me and my interests specifically.