UK TFA Comic Cancelled

Jack Cade · Post by **Jack Cade** » Tue Jan 06, 2009 5:35 pm

Look, I'm nicking threads from the other forum! Bwa ha ha.

I picked up an issue of this because I like TFA, and it served to remind me of how much the comics market has changed since I were a lad. The comic is pretty much the same as loads of other kiddy comics on the shelves - one or two short, mediocre strips, competitions to win FAB! prizes, easy puzzles vaguely tied in with the characters and a letters paged filled with manic scrawlings and pictures of children in branded pyjamas. Oh, and a dodgy plastic free gift on the front.

Whereas in the old days I remember going to the newsagent to pick up Transformers or Streetfighter II, Mortal Kombat (terrible though it was), X-Men etc, and them being top value-for-money balls to the wall action comics three times the length of US imports, something you don't see hide nor hair of these days. Someone explain to me what happened.

Post by **Denyer** » Tue Jan 06, 2009 6:39 pm

I'm amazed the Movie comic's still going. That's not a knock on its quality for the age it's aimed at, just that the newsagent comics market in this country isn't in great shape.

Animated's had even less exposure over here, so no surprises.

Post by **Best First** » Tue Jan 06, 2009 8:04 pm

yep, plus sincerely doubt TFs is popular enough at this demographic level to carry two monthly titles anyway in the UK.

I keep meaning to cancel my subscription to the movie one - i kind of felt a sense of loyalty to any UK TF comic but its clearly not for me.

Mr_Tigg · Post by **Mr_Tigg** » Tue Jan 06, 2009 11:12 pm

Jack Cade Wrote:
Whereas in the old days I remember going to the newsagent to pick up Transformers or Streetfighter II, Mortal Kombat (terrible though it was), X-Men etc, and them being top value-for-money balls to the wall action comics three times the length of US imports, something you don't see hide nor hair of these days. Someone explain to me what happened

I liked mortal kombat. It was no worse than the Street Fighter Comics (although both had pretty dire plots). Sonic the Comic was also one from ym youth I use to enjoy, it's stopped now though. Crazy when you consider the Beano and Dandy are still going...kids these days...

NeoSpringer · Post by **NeoSpringer** » Wed Jan 07, 2009 8:43 am

I don't mind the movie comic – it is harmless fun – though I'm not surprised to hear the Animated comic has folded.

Magazine publishing is really in decline at the moment. The movie comic had a blockbuster film to support it, Animated has a little seen cartoon. I've not even seen it yet.

Last sales figures I heard for the movie comic were 45k; that was about a year ago I think. That's reasonably healthy for a UK magazine, though it depends what their break-even point is, given the cost of the Transformers license. I'm guessing that the licensing costs are quite steep given there are only a few pages of original material. I'm just speculating now, but if they'd combined the Animated and movie comics in the first place, editorial costs for two original strips on top of the licenses might have been too much. Maybe they will now combine them, and reprint IDW's Animated stories rather than that godawful Megatron Origin. I thought that was a weird choice of back-up strip.

Its a sign of the times that comics today are plastered in free gifts on the cover, competing to be noticed on the newsstands. Its not just comics, loads of magazines have free gifts now. And they're competing with the internet and computer games, so the comics are filled with lots and lots of features all aimed at short attention spans. The latest story about Unicron taking over Cybertron would have been a saga running a year or two in the old days. Now it ends up as a rush. I guess kids today would have found our old comics fairly slow and boring.

I'd be fairly sad if the movie comic folded too, though with the second movie coming out that will probably give it a boost to keep going. I'm impressed it has lasted this long.

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Wed Jan 07, 2009 10:48 am

NeoSpringer wrote:Maybe they will now combine them, and reprint IDW's Animated stories rather than that godawful Megatron Origin. I thought that was a weird choice of back-up strip.

That's what I thought they should have done in the first place. And spinning the movie continuity off into an alt. universe was another tired decision IMO.

Jack Cade · Post by **Jack Cade** » Wed Jan 07, 2009 11:24 am

Mr Tigg wrote:I liked mortal kombat. It was no worse than the Street Fighter Comics (although both had pretty dire plots).

Nuts to that! MK gave almost every character a thinly conceived sidekick, so that they could get offed and the major character could swear revenge. Also, everyone spoke about themselves in the third person, even when defeated: "Bah. This dungeon will not hold Lui Kang for long, for he is destined to win Mortal Kombat!"

Streetfighter was a quality manga, I thought. Better interpretation of the characters than the subsequent movies, with Ryu a travelling hobo who loves to eat and fight, E. Honda a bit of a perv et cetera.

Mr_Tigg · Post by **Mr_Tigg** » Wed Jan 07, 2009 12:25 pm

Jack Cade Wrote:
Nuts to that! MK gave almost every character a thinly conceived sidekick, so that they could get offed and the major character could swear revenge. Also, everyone spoke about themselves in the third person, even when defeated: "Bah. This dungeon will not hold Lui Kang for long, for he is destined to win Mortal Kombat!"

Streetfighter was a quality manga, I thought. Better interpretation of the characters than the subsequent movies, with Ryu a travelling hobo who loves to eat and fight, E. Honda a bit of a perv et cetera.

“Hah! shyeh right! Whilst I will admit MKs plot was not anything to write home about, Street Fighter had bits of dialogue that had no source of origin. Someone would say something and you wouldn’t actually know where it was coming from, nor whom had said it – to my mind that is not quality writing! Also the art was pretty incoherent at times – some frames just had dialogue and some really scratchy scribbles, as if the artist didn’t actually know what to draw so just scribbled in the frame.

Talking of SF movies – has anyone else seen this?
http://uk.media.movies.ign.com/media/86 ... ids_1.html

New Street Fighter movie – M.Bison in white! Looks slightly better than the last effort, I dare say.

Jack Cade · Post by **Jack Cade** » Wed Jan 07, 2009 2:17 pm

Bah. Looks to me like the crew behind the last movie watched X-Men and thought: "That's where we went wrong - not enough black."

Anyone know if you can still buy 2000AD in newsagents? Forbidden Planet doesn't seem to be able to keep up to date with the latest issues.

der2 · Post by **der2** » Fri Jan 16, 2009 5:47 pm

I'm pretty sure I saw 2000AD in my newsagents/Tesco not so long ago(within a few weeks), I'd be upset to see that kind of comic go out

Street Fighter I think was a better comic and with better art, Mortal Kombat never wowed me. Street Fighter had funny moments and cool little features, like the profiles at the bottom of the pages I think. But they did one original manga run reprint, the animated repaint and it died on it's arse doing the live action movie adaptation. I think, I may have been 12(or less) when this was out, so I could have well made it all up. Mortal Kombat was starting a new story and dissappeared. Ah life before the interwebs, it was either there in the shop or it wasn't and no need to go trolling, stuff just stopped coming in.

and the size of comics now too, I remember seeing an American comic and having to squint, now the format is everywhere, guess thats progress

and I never even saw the Animated comic on the shelves.

Metal Vendetta · Post by **Metal Vendetta** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 4:24 pm

Jack Cade wrote:Anyone know if you can still buy 2000AD in newsagents? Forbidden Planet doesn't seem to be able to keep up to date with the latest issues.

I've seen it in the better newsagents in North London. Unsurprisingly, Mega City Comics in Camden keeps a good stock in as well.

KJ · Post by KJ » Mon Jan 19, 2009 1:46 am

NeoSpringer wrote:I don't mind the movie comic – it is harmless fun – though I'm not surprised to hear the Animated comic has folded.

Magazine publishing is really in decline at the moment. The movie comic had a blockbuster film to support it, Animated has a little seen cartoon. I've not even seen it yet.

Last sales figures I heard for the movie comic were 45k; that was about a year ago I think. That's reasonably healthy for a UK magazine, though it depends what their break-even point is, given the cost of the Transformers license. I'm guessing that the licensing costs are quite steep given there are only a few pages of original material. I'm just speculating now, but if they'd combined the Animated and movie comics in the first place, editorial costs for two original strips on top of the licenses might have been too much. Maybe they will now combine them, and reprint IDW's Animated stories rather than that godawful Megatron Origin. I thought that was a weird choice of back-up strip.

Its a sign of the times that comics today are plastered in free gifts on the cover, competing to be noticed on the newsstands. Its not just comics, loads of magazines have free gifts now. And they're competing with the internet and computer games, so the comics are filled with lots and lots of features all aimed at short attention spans. The latest story about Unicron taking over Cybertron would have been a saga running a year or two in the old days. Now it ends up as a rush. I guess kids today would have found our old comics fairly slow and boring.

I'd be fairly sad if the movie comic folded too, though with the second movie coming out that will probably give it a boost to keep going. I'm impressed it has lasted this long.

I remember seeing more sales figures for the movie comic somewhere, can't recall where. They started off huge, but dropped rather dramatically, I think it was linked to whatever was offered with them? (free gift or something?)

But yeah, figures were above the IDW comic, but were dropping at a fairly rapid pace, that didn't seem to be slowing down.

inflatable dalek · Post by **inflatable dalek** » Thu Jan 22, 2009 8:14 am

The most recent average sales figures for the film comic (for Jan-June of 2008) was 38733 per issue.

KJ · Post by KJ » Fri Jan 23, 2009 8:47 am

inflatable dalek wrote:The most recent average sales figures for the film comic (for Jan-June of 2008) was 38733 per issue.

Do we know how those are calculated though?

Are they returnable to the distributor/company?

NeoSpringer · Post by **NeoSpringer** » Fri Jan 23, 2009 9:06 am

KJ wrote:
inflatable dalek wrote:The most recent average sales figures for the film comic (for Jan-June of 2008) was 38733 per issue.
Do we know how those are calculated though?

Are they returnable to the distributor/company?

They're ABC audited. Here: http://www.abc.org.uk/ Just type in Transformers in the search bar.

According to that info they have surprisingly few subscriptions – just over a thousand. To compare, Titan's Simpsons Comic has an average circulation of 112,067, but just 2,274 subscribers.