What Comic Would You Like Out There?

[Jonny Whizz]

I do remember some of Mike Pearse's long stories first-hand, but I never saw any of the full-length ones in the comic itself - rather annoyingly, I have the very next issue after Dennis's 50th birthday special (from a pile of 1999-2001 Beanos I once picked up at a fair). I have seen most of the ones swirly mentioned, but only as reprints.

[TwoHeadedBoy]

Ah, forgot about that Nativity special, and the football one too. Just got that 2009 annual the other day as well, nice to have so much Pearse in one book.

Bit of a brain-fart forgetting about them, as I've managed to keep hold of them both, even after the vast majority of my original collection went missing somehow.

[PaulTwist]

I used to daydream about winning the loterry and launching an all-new kids' humour comic, but the relaunched Dandy is basically what I'dve wanted!

I'd like there to be a proper mature readers' UK comic - a bit like the short-lived Blast! from the early 90s, printing adult material that's a bit more cerebral than CLiNT. It could have new material and reprints of stuff like Love & Rockets, Hate, Persepolis etc. And not a superhero in sight. (Though I love superheroes, comics is much more than that.)

[big bad bri]

[quote="PaulTwist"]I used to daydream about winning the loterry and launching an all-new kids' humour comic, /quote]

I still daydream about winning the lottery or euro millions & launching thick japanese telephone directory syle weekly or fortnightly ipc/oddhams/fleetway reprint books featuring every story printed,even if i lost money every week i wouldn't care as long as a few kids enjoy what we used to before internet & games consoles came along.

[colcool007]

I would like something like Crisis before it started to take itself way way too seriously! Dire Streets, Happenstance and Kismet along with Third World War style satire, Rogan Gosh and a bit of retro adventure.

[felneymike]

I used to daydream about winning the loterry and launching an all-new kids' humour comic, /quote]

I still daydream about winning the lottery or euro millions & launching thick japanese telephone directory syle weekly or fortnightly ipc/oddhams/fleetway reprint books featuring every story printed,even if i lost money every week i wouldn't care as long as a few kids enjoy what we used to before internet & games consoles came along.

O_O That's exactly what I'd do too!

Except I'd call mine "Jump UK" and have the most popular Japanese serials in new English adaptions serialised weekly, as well as reprinted classic British/Japanese stories and new ones too!

BUT apparently Germany had it's own weekly version of Shonen Jump called Banzai, and Norway and Sweden both had their own versions called "Jump Norway" and so on, but for some reason Shuesha pulled the plug on them all in 2007.

Another idea would be to do a book like those recent small Commando compliations, but make it an IPC monthly and reprint:
-One adventure comic library (War Picture Library or something)
-One text story library story (Sexton Blake, Boys' Friend Library)
-One funny comic story (Buster Library and so on).

And if it's successful start a "girls" one too, and seperate the humour and adventure.

[TwoHeadedBoy]

Had a great idea yesterday... You know those magazines that are out every year, the ones where you buy the first issue for 99p and all the rest are increasingly expensive so that over a course of time you can build a model of James Bond's car or something?

Well how about one of those called "British Comics" or something, with each issue containing a magazine/booklet talking about a specific comic, and then it includes a fascimile of an example of said comic? A different comic each issue, starting with the obvious ones (Beano, 2000ad, Buster etc), and as the weeks and months go by, they'd naturally get more obscure (It's Wicked, Fizog, Lazy Frog, ToXic! etc).

I'd be all over that one

[Raven]

I suppose annuals would be more likely as you wouldn't get people paying £9.99 for a single facsimile comic.

[TwoHeadedBoy]

True, yes... But with it just being paper and not a plastic spider or whatever, it could stay at £2.99 a week or something, like those comic value packs they used to do in the Nineties.

[Raven]

True, yes... But with it just being paper and not a plastic spider or whatever, it could stay at £2.99 a week or something, like those comic value packs they used to do in the Nineties.

Ideally ... but they probably wouldn't consider it worth doing at £2.99 in 2012.

A facsimile first issues partwork would be good though, with repro free gifts!

[TwoHeadedBoy]

Yeah, I want a Whoopee Mask!

[Lew Stringer]

True, yes... But with it just being paper and not a plastic spider or whatever, it could stay at £2.99 a week or something, like those comic value packs they used to do in the Nineties.

I think this idea cropped up a while ago. It'd be fantastic but unlikely to happen due to the costs involved. I understand that most of those partworks are produced for the international market, with foreign language editions appearing in their various countries. A partwork of British comics wouldn't have the same wide-ranging appeal as one on cake decoration so would be more expensive to produce.

There'd also be the costs of sourcing the material. Most original art is gone (except for DC Thomson's) so you'd have to track down the comics and get decent scans that could be remastered to authentic looking facsimiles. Then there's paying the copyright holders, getting permission to reprint old ads etc.

Even if you only did it for the UK at a higher unit cost there aren't enough fans out there interested enough to support it. And the general public don't give a damn about old comics. Yes, you might sell a decent amount of Beano No.1 reprints, but when it came around to, say, Score 'n' Roar No.1 or Picture Fun No.1 I doubt there'd be enough support to warrant printing it.

This has been tried before, in times when the public was more interested in comics, but it didn't catch on then sadly. http://lewstringer.blogspot.com/2010/02 ... miles.html

[Raven]

There'd also be the costs of sourcing the material. Most original art is gone (except for DC Thomson's) so you'd have to track down the comics and get decent scans that could be remastered to authentic looking facsimiles. Then there's paying the copyright holders, getting permission to reprint old ads etc.

The Guardian managed it for their week of freebies, though, didn't they?

Even if you only did it for the UK at a higher unit cost there aren't enough fans out there interested enough to support it. And the general public don't give a damn about old comics. Yes, you might sell a decent amount of Beano No.1 reprints, but when it came around to, say, Score 'n' Roar No.1 or Picture Fun No.1 I doubt there'd be enough support to warrant printing it.

Thing is, though, you wouldn't really think there was a vast market out there for expensive DC character chess pieces, or repro tiny pocket watches (do these even work?), or tiny bits of a model ship, or overpriced two episode DVDs of Little House on the Prairie (when you can buy entire series sets for about the same price) etc. either, going on for 80+ issues. The trick would be to get people subscribing from early issues, with big titles like Beano and Dandy, then it seems a lot of the partwork collectors feel compelled to collect the whole set!

It's not necessarily entirely uncommercial as a partwork idea; the various newspapers doing those well-received freebie facsimiles show the potential appeal. But I think they'd want a fixed price of £5.99-9.99.

Incidentally, have you the seen the new Russ Cochran Sunday Funnies facsimile sets of high quality reproductions of old US Sunday paper strips in the original format?

[stevezodiac]

Back in the early 70s I was an avid collector of the Great Newspapers Reprinted series. An historic newspaper (or sometimes 2 or three issues) were reprinted in full with a four page wraparound cover complete with readers letters about the series on the back cover. They had the first Wembley Cup Final, Death of Queen Victoria, Stanley and Livingstone etc. My favourite was the Illustrated Police News reporting the Jack The Ripper Murders (four issues I think). They cost around 20-25p and of course there were some special issues including the Six Comics of World War One compiled by Denis Gifford.

[SID]

I always wanted the attached to be a real comic.