If I were a kid I'd love Dandy Xtreme

[intune]

Just bought Dandy Xtreme for the first time since launch.. I think I'd love that comic if I were a kid. Its style reminds me a little of Oink!

I suspect people would be unhappy with the `fart` and `bogy` jokes... but I was suprised.

I know people don't like it, but the new Desperate Dan is a breath of fresh air - and actually funny. Love the artwork.

Marvo the Wonder Chicken was good too.

It's the Dandy I would have longed for as a kid. Has the relaunch been successful? What's happened to Korky the Cat and Bannaman, have they been dropped?

[Raven]

I agree about Jamie Smart's Desperate Dan, but not about much else of what I've seen. I think i'd have found the fart and bogey stuff as weak, repetitive and even as hugely patronising as a kid.

But the new Desperate Dan is very interesting.

The relaunch reportedly hasn't been successful. From what we hear, sales have apparently plummeted much lower than before.

[intune]

I suppose it comes down to advertising and letting kids know its available.

I don't think I've ever seen a TV ad for a comic...

[Lew Stringer]

I suppose it comes down to advertising and letting kids know its available.

I don't think I've ever seen a TV ad for a comic...

Ah, back when I were a lad in the 1960s / 70s comics ALWAYS used to be advertised on tv. Nice short ten second commercials promoting any new comic that came out, or every time they had a free gift (much rarer in those days).

I'm sure itv must have those ads in their archives but here's the only one I could find online, but it gives you an idea of the cheap and cheesy way comics were advertised on tv. Great!:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cheg-rT4 ... re=related

Update: Here's a series of ads for Look-In from the seventies:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aG3wYI9Qus&NR=1

Publishers don't advertise on tv now because with declining sales and rising advertising costs it just wouldn't be feasible.

By the way, if you liked Dandy Xtreme you might enjoy Toxic (which Xtreme was, er, "inspired" by). The issue on sale April 1st will have a free 16 page comic full of brand new strips.

Lew

[Steve Henderson]

[quote="intune"]Marvo the Wonder Chicken was good too.
quote]

Soon to be an animated series last time I heard!

[AndyB]

All three of DCT's comic titles are falling off, but the last figures I heard of on this forum showed that Dandy Xtreme was doing least badly in those terms.

The other side of that is that the Beano is selling around twice as many as Beano Max, and Beano Max is selling around twice as many as Dandy Xtreme, although this is going towards the 1.5 times mark.

[Lew Stringer]

All three of DCT's comic titles are falling off, but the last figures I heard of on this forum showed that Dandy Xtreme was doing least badly in those terms.

The other side of that is that the Beano is selling around twice as many as Beano Max, and Beano Max is selling around twice as many as Dandy Xtreme, although this is going towards the 1.5 times mark.

I don't know if they do this already but I really feel that comics sales reps need to "get out in the field" and see how badly their titles are being displayed in shops. I've said this before but British comics are suffering from crowded shelves, untidy displays, upside down comics, and, recently, narrower displays which put the Thomson titles and Toxic up on the top shelf WAY out of a child's eyeline and reach.

Bulky free gifts obscuring the titles of the comics they're bagged with isn't helping either. And with more "gifts" being added (sometimes as many as 5 per issue) the situation is getting worse. It's getting to be a chore to rummage through the display to find the comic you're looking for, so there's little chance of new readers being attracted as passing trade or raising "brand awareness" if they can't even see the cover of the comic.

I try to have an optimistic view of our industry but it doesn't bode well because of the points above. But what to do? If a comic stops running free gifts it'll still get lost in the crowd behind a bagged rival, and this generation has now come to expect comics to come with a free toy! There's little chance of returning to the days of flat comics neatly displayed overlapped in shops with bright clear logos easily visible. I predict that in a few years the bagged comic/toy will be "displayed" willy nilly in a big bin for kids to rummage through, like those cheapo CD bins, and fate dooming the ones that slip to the bottom never to be sold.


Lew

[Conor B]

New sales figures from ABC:

Dandy Xtreme: 26,664 (+3,000)
The Beano: 61,890 (-40)
BeanoMAX: 41,476 (-7,000

[Raven]

My Dandy sales comment was based on the figures quoted here in August last year when it was said to have gone down 16%. Interesting it's gone up a little again.

[Earl]

The good news for me here is that Beano sales have almost stopped falling.

Earl.

[Lew Stringer]

The good news for me here is that Beano sales have almost stopped falling.

Earl.

Yes I'm pleased to hear that too.

Shame about Max's sales falling. I reckon it's improved a great deal since the early issues, and there's no reprint in it now.

Lew

[AndyB]

Wasn't the Three Bears this issue a reprint? I think Euan's got it down to max 3 pages reprint per issue, plus Wallace and Gromit which may or may not be reprinted from that comic (I haven't asked!)

[mr ed]

Wallace and Gromit stories all brand, spanking new, Andy. Jim Hansen is drawing them as he did for the Titan Wallace and Gromit Comic.

[Digifiend]

Sounds like they asked Nick Park about putting W&G in Max when he guest-edited The Beano last year. The artist was already drawing Dennis for the weekly Beano, so the only likely snag would have been Titan - surely the strip in BeanoMAX would give the impression that the Wallace & Gromit Comic was no more?