ABCs for Jan-Jun 2011 - disappointing results...

[Digifiend]

Surely if the figures are wrong due to the frequency change, it should've doubled, not halved? If every Xtreme reader still buys the Dandy, they're buying two copies in the same time they used to buy one!

[Little Squelchy Thing]

As I've said before, most things that are really huge with kids are fairly traditional: Harry Potter, High School Musical, Pixar's stuff etc. and rely on a traditional - even "old-fashioned" - kind of craftsmanship. I'd put Ben 10 in there, too, which I think is a perfectly decent timeless concept for kids and would have been as popular as a strip in Valiant in the early 70s as it is in its various incarnations now.

Whether many of the Dandy strips - the most iconic ones like Desperate Dan or Korky the Cat, say, have a strong enough concept to spread over a wide range of media, with animated series, etc. I'm not so sure.

I reckon they would. I think that, for example Pre-Skool Prime Minister would slot into a Cartoon Network schedule without any problem. For some reason I keep getting asked whether Dragon will be made into a plushie! I think the characters are there, they just need a bit of welly behind them. And in this internet age, you don't need to spend millions to get something to screen. You could do a fairly cheap web-toon on The Dandy's site, share it around and redirect that audience back to The Dandy comic itself. Even getting t-shirts and toys made needn't be that costly in this day and age, and are great for promotion.

I think what happened there is much, much more complex than just "their popularity diminished" and involves many factors.

And I think many factors explain The Dandy's problems, it's much more complex than a change of style.

(Sorry if it seems like I'm just arguing with you, Raven - I'm just really saddened by the whole situation, especially knowing how much work everyone involved put into it).

[Raven]

I reckon they would. I think that, for example Pre-Skool Prime Minister would slot into a Cartoon Network schedule without any problem.

Jamie's stuff is my favourite, but I don't know if I'd see such a concept stretching to several series of twenty-two episodes ...

And I think many factors explain The Dandy's problems, it's much more complex than a change of style.

Nobody's said it's just that, though: factors like script and storytelling qualities, concepts, the fixation with tabloid celebrity/reality TV stuff, focusing on TV personalities the readers may not even be familiar with, adult-y kind of things like Facebook and blackberries, the front covers, etc. have all been discussed as potential factors.

And in this internet age, you don't need to spend millions to get something to screen. You could do a fairly cheap web-toon on The Dandy's site, share it around and redirect that audience back to The Dandy comic itself.

But even the basic Dandy website is only minimally updated, so you can only assume there isn't the staff or the funding.

Why do you think the comic is losing over a thousand of its existing readers each month, Andy? Do you think it's factors like price, competing mags - or what?

I think we're all rather saddened by the situation - there's certainly some good stuff in The Dandy. Of course, when you do take risks, there's always the chance they won't work out. It's better than being staid, though. You have to take chances.

[blaing]

Talking about the Dandy website, they haven't updated their website for two weeks (at the time this was posted (24/8/11), they were still promoting issue 3547.)

[Raven]

Talking about the Dandy website, they haven't updated their website for two weeks (at the time this was posted (24/8/11), they were still promoting issue 3547.)

There's no reason for kids to revisit if there isn't constant new material - but, of course, that requires a budget and someone (or more) hired to do it. And unfortunately that backing probably isn't there.

[Little Squelchy Thing]

I think we're all rather saddened by the situation - there's certainly some good stuff in The Dandy. Of course, when you do take risks, there's always the chance they won't work out. It's better than being staid, though. You have to take chances.

That's exactly the point I've been saying over and over - remaining static really wasn't an option, and I think The Dandy made the right choice.

As to why the figures are now so low - I don't know. I don't think any of us really know, else we'd all be running our own million-selling titles if we did

Like I said earlier, I'm sure the changes did put some people off, but I still really believe that there are more that 7,000+ people in this country who would like the new Dandy. I mean really? Does anyone think that it is getting its maximum readership?

One of the more worrying things I heard over and over was that people couldn't even find the comic in their towns. How are people supposed to discover it if they can't even get hold of it?

I also think it is having a tough time competing with the licensed product, especially in economically tough times where parents might be buying their kids just one title instead of two or three. They're bound to go with something their kid instantly recognises and plucks from the shelves.

We can't rely on 'parent power' to make them plump for The Dandy or The Beano instead, because with each successive generation we're getting less parents who would have read either comic in their youth. Sure, they may be aware of it, but between something they sort-of-remember-hearing-about and something their kid has seen on TV yesterday, the latter will win out.

I think even The Beano has kept more respectable figures as its cover star had an animated show fairly recently, so it has a bit of that TV pulling power.

Harry Hill - as much as I do love him and his strip - hasn't. Sure, he's been on telly, but not in a way that is specifically aimed at kids. They might recognise him as that funny man off the telly, but I think he might lose out to a boy who can transform into monsters, in a kid's mind.

Those are just my meandering thoughts :s

[Jonny Whizz]

I'm not sure that the Dennis TV series was a great success. I know this has been discussed many times before, and I can understand why his menacing was toned down so that he could appear on the BBC but in my opinion the changes made to the characters resulted in the comic strip becoming dull, in terms of visuals and storytelling. It's only since Barrie Appleby's reinvigorated Dennis the Menace started that I really noticed how lifeless the comic strip had become. I think the mistake was that the comic strip started to adopt features of the TV series such as the faded backgrounds which were OK on TV but I found looked odd in the comic.

There was supposed to be a Marvo the Wonder Chicken series but I think no one bought the episodes. I think he was a bit of an odd choice for a TV series from a commercial point as he was never an iconic character. Desperate Dan would have been the best choice in my view though they could have done another Bananaman series.

On a brighter note, it makes sense now why the number of people reading each issue of the Dandy has plummeted - because each issue is only on sale for a week. Actually, I might be wrong but if sales only dropped by 48% then does that mean that the number of Dandy readers slightly increased over this time?

[-MikeD-]

(at the moment they buy all rights in your character for the princely sum of...nowt)

Eeple! Is that still the case? That's a good way of ensuring creative people aren't going to hand their best ideas over!

Nobody should ever agree to this - you could lose a potential fortune. Imagine handing Ben 10 over for nowt ...

Amazing that nothing has changed since Siegel and Shuster.

Yeah...

On a brighter note, it makes sense now why the number of people reading each issue of the Dandy has plummeted - because each issue is only on sale for a week. Actually, I might be wrong but if sales only dropped by 48% then does that mean that the number of Dandy readers slightly increased over this time?

Err...no. I assume the same folks, give or take, buy each issue...and given the increased production costs of 4 instead of 2 issues, the financial hit is greater. Or am I missing something..?

[Raven]

There was supposed to be a Marvo the Wonder Chicken series but I think no one bought the episodes. I think he was a bit of an odd choice for a TV series from a commercial point as he was never an iconic character. Desperate Dan would have been the best choice in my view though they could have done another Bananaman series.

But Dan is a parody of a genre that, in the public consciousness, fizzled out many decades ago. I think you'd have great difficulty selling a cowboy parody for a youth audience completely unfamiliar with westerns.

I'm not sure about the new overweight, freaky-looking Bananaman being embraced in a wider way; I think you'd need a stronger, more original concept than an old-fashioned Superman parody too, nowadays, anyway.

And bear in mind how little money there is in UK children's TV presently, and just how difficult it is to get any new project off the ground.

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

The animated TV Bananaman wasn't as well-designed as John Geering's original drawings I thought...and even the original comics character was an example of John's more 'rushed-looking' work, compared to his 70s Puss n Boots-type stuff.

I agree that Barrie Appleby's designs on Dennis would have made for a more effective model in an animation series.

[-MikeD-]

I think we're all rather saddened by the situation - there's certainly some good stuff in The Dandy. Of course, when you do take risks, there's always the chance they won't work out. It's better than being staid, though. You have to take chances.

That's exactly the point I've been saying over and over - remaining static really wasn't an option, and I think The Dandy made the right choice.

Arguing that change is good is a no-brainer. But the nature of the change (down to the actual minutiae...this is a very forensic forum!) is in doubt due to the falling readership (I'm still hoping ABC have got their figures wrong and failed to take into account the new frequency or something...).

A lot of people around here have axes to grind as regard modern comics, and I guess I'm one of them. I recognise the talent of everyone who draws in (what I'll call for the sake of categorisation) the 'Cartoon Network' style but I can't see how infantising the depiction of your main properties can do anything other than alienate older readers. Still, Ben 10 probably has little appeal to anyone over ten and is what marketing people like to call a phenomenon.

So I guess we should stop obsessing about changing art styles, and whether they are good or bad, and concentrate on the one thing that we all agree is lacking - promotion, buzz, market reach - and how this can be achieved cheaply...as Andy said, there's got to be more than 7 thousand kids who would love The Dandy.

But Dan is a parody of a genre that, in the public consciousness, fizzled out decades ago. I think you'd have a lot of difficulty selling a cowboy parody for a youth audience unfamiliar with westerns.

Woody was also a genre throwback, a concept exploited in Toy Story, but he is still loved by my kids. I guess it's how you adapt the concept.

[Peter Gray]

quote from downthetube
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Downthet ... dandy.html

Lew Stringer said...
As someone mentioned to me the other day, it's a bit suspicious that sales of The Dandy appear to have dropped exactly half when it went from fortnightly to weekly.

Is there a expert on statistics around to explain this bizarre coincidence?

I'm sure some readers did hate the changes, but it seems a bit odd that despite The Dandy lowering its cover price from £2.50 to £1.50, filling its pages with new comic strips, and having the best distribution it's had for years, that it'd lose HALF of its readers.

5:01 PM

The Dandy has many good pages including Postman Prat and Kids cop

[Raven]

Woody was also a genre throwback, a concept exploited in Toy Story, but he is still loved by my kids. I guess it's how you adapt the concept.

Toy Story isn't a western genre parody, though, which would be an incredibly difficult sell for today's youth market, even more so following the commercial failure of the Cowboys & Aliens film. The industry considers it a genre that audiences no longer "connect with."

[Raven]

quote from downthetube
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Downthet ... dandy.html

Did you see Digi's comment, though, Peter? The sales would have been expected to double, not halve, with it going from fortnightly to weekly. They would have been expected to halve if it went monthly.

[STARBOY]

Even sadder when the actual newsagent sales of the Dandy are actually only 7.078 (the rest is subs) - How to these figures work, do DCT know on a month by month basis how the sales are doing ? I would imagine if they continue to fall (or even don't increase) in the next few months DCT will have to do something before December (the next set of figures)