Roy of the Rovers, Battle, Misty and Buster back on shelves

[colcool007]

Will have to have words with the eldest to get her to pick the first two up as we won't be back in the UK for a while.

Looking at the Egmont pdf, it looks like they have already prepped up the covers for the first two issues and from the Guardian article, it certainly appears that the Summer Special format is the one being used. And 64 pages is not to be sniffed at either. You can get a lot of goodness into 64 pages as the Red Daggers showed. And it might even nudge DCT into having a go as well. Which would be extremely nice!

[Spencer]

Can't wait for all of these! I hope Chris' information about Egmont considering new material also comes to pass.

Thinking of which, there's currently a great weekly comic (The DFC) with all-new material looking for a new owner.....

Egmont chaps.. whaddya think? <Come on, they must read these forums>

[STARBOY]

Good to read that the books planned all have release dates (see Egmont link below) Roy of the Rovers 1st April, Battle 24th June, Buster 16th September and Misty on 9th December -there's not been a lot of good news re the traditional UK comic in a long time and hopefully this could see something happening either on throuhg some regular reprint titles (with Egmont and DCT) or better still for the industries future, for new readers and it's creators with some new adventure/humour titles/stories (or of course it could sound the death knell if they don't sell


http://www.egmont.co.uk/common/upload/p ... comics.pdf

[stevezodiac]

There was an article on the Roy of the Rovers special in today's Daily Mail. Here it is!




Never seen the phrase "tactile paper" before. Can guess what it means though.

[Lew Stringer]

Thinking of which, there's currently a great weekly comic (The DFC) with all-new material looking for a new owner.....

Egmont chaps.. whaddya think? <Come on, they must read these forums>

I think it's unlikely anyone will take on The DFC as it was, as it was hardly a success story. (Creatively yes, financially no.) What I think is more likely is that, once any rights issues have been resolved, the individual strips might be picked up by various publishers. Either that or the creators might perhaps self publish their own books hopefully and build on that. (I should emphasize that this is purely my opinion.)

Lew

[Muffy]

Buster 16th September 2009 (have marked it on the calendar) - it will be great to see all the old favourites - I'd like to see: Mummy's Boy; Cheeky; Gums; Creepy Comix; Family Trees; Bill & Coo; It's a Nice Life; Teachers Pet's; Calculator Kid; Star Tour.

Perhaps a short adventure type story too would be good.

[bustercomic]

You can now have your say as to what goes into the Buster Special in a poll created by Bustercomic.co.uk

The results will be passed onto Egmont UK to help them put together this edition!

Full details on the site at www.bustercomic.co.uk

Get voting people

[Digifiend]

Why don't they do a monthly Classics From The Fleetway Comics? Identical format to Thomson's reprint mag, but with Fleetway/IPC stories.

[Raven]

Why don't they do a monthly Classics From The Fleetway Comics? Identical format to Thomson's reprint mag, but with Fleetway/IPC stories.

Perhaps we should look at these titles as a potential try out to see how well such mags would sell.

Not sure how much Classics sells though as very few shops seem to stock it. Or is distribution getting better now?

[Lew Stringer]

Why don't they do a monthly Classics From The Fleetway Comics? Identical format to Thomson's reprint mag, but with Fleetway/IPC stories.

Egmont don't own the earlier Fleetway material. That's IPC's property. However there were a number of reprint comics out several years ago: Best of Buster, Best of Misty, Funny Fortnightly etc. They seemed to flood the market with them. Eventually their sales dropped and they were cancelled so Egmont assumed there was no further market for those titles.

However, a generation on it seems they're now pitching these 4 "Souvenir Specials" at the nostalgia market, knowing those 1980s kids are now 30 somethings with spare cash. I suppose it depends how these four sell before they commit to launching anything regular.

As ever in UK comics; interesting times.

Lew

[Spencer]

Well, I just picked up the Roy Of The Rovers special in WHSmith Liverpool Street station. I haven't read it yet but can't help feeling it's a bit of a disappointment as it has 1 or 2 'episodes' of a number of strips from the weekly comic which, although WE on this board will enjoy it, I think will leave more 'casual' readers a bit in the lurch.

I guess I would have gone for some of the one-off strips from the summer specials of old or the annuals.

Still worth a buy but I'd only probably give it a 6 out of 10 - and thats from someone who had Roy Of The Rovers weekly 'put by' at the newsagent for 5 years back in the day...

[steelclaw]

I picked up the Roy of The Rovers Souvenir Special, The cover made me laugh with it's "Genuine 1980's Comic Strips" on it. Only "Roy of the Rovers" is in colour. Over all I like it, and was good to see one of the old style comic characters back in WH Smiths, it wasn't in the comics section though it was on the stand near the till.

I like the fact it also contains strips of.

"Billy's Boots"
"Goalkeeper"
"The Hard Man"
"You are the Ref"
"Mighty Mouse"
"City"
"Tommy's Troubles"

I would buy it every month if it came out, just for the nostalgia as I do "Classics from the comics"

[Spencer]

Don't get me wrong comic-fans, if it was published monthly I would buy every single issue (same with Buster and Battle and possibly even Misty ). Also, it would then make more sense to include episodes of the weekly strips with their "Next:" taglines at the end.

What I would like to see changed if they DO publish more regularly:

a) Some editorial of some description. Seeing as this was the first ROTR comic on the shelves for some years I would have liked to have seen at least a "welcome back" page at the beginning of the comic. Also, maybe some brief information on the selection of strips and/or history of the regularly-published comic. I think this kind of introduction would make this feel a more professionally-produced comic, instead it feels kind of 'empty' and, sadly, cobbled together.

b) A less 'random' pick of strips. We had a few episodes of 'late' ROTR at the beginning of the comic then a couple of early-80s stuff at the end. I'm not sure what the criteria was for the choice of the rest of the strips..(2 episodes of 'City' anyone?) but maybe they could have a page on their website where we could vote for potential strips if they publish regularly (as per the vote on http://www.bustercomic.co.uk ). Alternatively, they could run the vote on http://www.royoftherovers.com.

c) Ultimately, wouldn't it be great to have at least ONE new strip in each issue?


I guess we'd better see how sales of the one-off go before I get carried away!

[Raven]

Could you tell what period the Billy's Boots strips were from?

[Spencer]

The Billy's Boots strips also 'felt' like late 80's. Remember... Billy's Boots only joined ROTR after Tiger merged with Eagle in 1985 (?) so I think these episodes were from after that time...