British Comics, Today?

I have recently rediscovered my love for comics and in particular the comics I read when I was a kid. I used to read comics from Fleetway during the 70's and used to enjoy Shiver and Shake, Whoopee, Whizzer and Chips, Jackpot, etc, as well as the classic DC Thomson's Beano, Dandy, Beezer, Sparky, etc and Odhams Wham!, Smash! and Pow! I wasn't so interested in the war, sports or action comics back then but now also love to see the beautiful artwork of Battle, Action, Hotspur, Lion, Tiger, Tornado, etc. I have been collecting all these sorts of comics and mainly annuals for some years, slowly filling in the gaps to quite a sizeable collection today. I also subscribed to the first 6 issues of Crikey!, before circumstances forced a break, but an excellent publication it was too. However, I have fallen very much out of touch with today's British comic scene - if there is one.

All this has lead me on to ask the question; Are there any British Comics being produced today? I am particularly interested in the sorts of comics I have mentioned above, rather than the more American influenced super-hero genre.  Thanks.

2000 AD, Commando and The Phoenix spring to mind. And Doctor Who. The industry has shrunk, but it's not dead yet.

Thanks for that Tony

And I forgot to mention the Judge Dredd Megazine!

Since this topic first came up, Titan have successfully launched quite a sizeable range of new UK originated titles, but with the exception of one Doctor Who title, none of them are available outside comic shops. Sad...

what is a good British comic for a yank that has not read many british comics?

indybrand13 wrote:what is a good British comic  for a yank that has not read many british comics?

2000 AD. No question. Best entry point there is.

Especially if you find one of their not-too-infrequent 'jumping on' issues. Plus they've released a series of YouTube videos to help get new readers up to date on all their characters.

tony ingram wrote:Since this topic first came up, Titan have successfully launched quite a sizeable range of new UK originated titles, but with the exception of one Doctor Who title, none of them are available outside comic shops. Sad...

Are there a good number of places (other than in comic book shops) to buy physical single issues of comic books these days in Great Britain?
It seems like here in the U.S., major publishers like Marvel (and I guess now DC) avoid "newsstand distribution" because they don't make enough money from that for individual issues since unsold copies are returnable.

Most high street newsagents and supermarkets carry a fair number of comics, but with the exception of 2000 AD and the Beano, most seem to be licensed titles for the younger end of the market based on toys or cartoons. The exception to that is the licensed Marvel and DC reprint titles from Panini and Titan respectively, though they have more limited distribution.

MajorHoy wrote:It seems like here in the U.S., major publishers like Marvel (and I guess now DC) avoid "newsstand distribution" because they don't make enough money from that for individual issues since unsold copies are returnable.  

Just on this point, from years of reading and talking to shop owners, this isn't true. It's something I see people talk about a lot but it's backwards. Newstands (and grocery stores) decided to stop selling comics and not the other way around. They weren't making THEM enough money.

Mbast1 wrote:

MajorHoy wrote:It seems like here in the U.S., major publishers like Marvel (and I guess now DC) avoid "newsstand distribution" because they don't make enough money from that for individual issues since unsold copies are returnable.  

Just on this point, from years of reading and talking to shop owners, this isn't true. It's something I see people talk about a lot but it's backwards. Newstands (and grocery stores) decided to stop selling comics and not the other way around. They weren't making THEM enough money.

True. But sadly, an unpopular truth with many comics fans. The fact is, the direct market didn't damage the US comics industry as many insist, it actually saved it from extinction.

tony ingram wrote:

Mbast1 wrote:

MajorHoy wrote:It seems like here in the U.S., major publishers like Marvel (and I guess now DC) avoid "newsstand distribution" because they don't make enough money from that for individual issues since unsold copies are returnable.  

Just on this point, from years of reading and talking to shop owners, this isn't true. It's something I see people talk about a lot but it's backwards. Newstands (and grocery stores) decided to stop selling comics and not the other way around. They weren't making THEM enough money.

True. But sadly, an unpopular truth with many comics fans. The fact is, the direct market didn't damage the US comics industry as many insist, it actually saved it from extinction.

While that may be true for many grocery and convenience store chains, there were other (limited) outlets still selling single-issue comic books, places like Barnes & Noble bookstores for one.
Then Marvel (later DC) started raising the printed cover price on single issues by a $1.00 (at least for main universe/non-kids titles) for newsstand copies, but even that didn't seem to do enough for those companies to keep making them available. There are still a few single-issue comic books sold at some locations of Barnes & Noble book stores, but very limited to things like maybe Archie and The Simpsons these days.

MajorHoy wrote:

tony ingram wrote:

Mbast1 wrote:

MajorHoy wrote:It seems like here in the U.S., major publishers like Marvel (and I guess now DC) avoid "newsstand distribution" because they don't make enough money from that for individual issues since unsold copies are returnable.  

Just on this point, from years of reading and talking to shop owners, this isn't true. It's something I see people talk about a lot but it's backwards. Newstands (and grocery stores) decided to stop selling comics and not the other way around. They weren't making THEM enough money.

True. But sadly, an unpopular truth with many comics fans. The fact is, the direct market didn't damage the US comics industry as many insist, it actually saved it from extinction.

While that may be true for many grocery and convenience store chains, there were other (limited) outlets still selling single-issue comic books, places like Barnes & Noble bookstores for one.
Then Marvel (later DC) started raising the printed cover price on single issues by a $1.00 (at least for main universe/non-kids titles) for newsstand copies, but even that didn't seem to do enough for those companies to keep making them available. There are still a few single-issue comic books sold at some locations of Barnes & Noble book stores, but very limited to things like maybe Archie and The Simpsons these days.

Doesn't that kind of prove the point?

tony ingram wrote:

MajorHoy wrote:

tony ingram wrote:

Mbast1 wrote:

MajorHoy wrote:It seems like here in the U.S., major publishers like Marvel (and I guess now DC) avoid "newsstand distribution" because they don't make enough money from that for individual issues since unsold copies are returnable.  

Just on this point, from years of reading and talking to shop owners, this isn't true. It's something I see people talk about a lot but it's backwards. Newstands (and grocery stores) decided to stop selling comics and not the other way around. They weren't making THEM enough money.

True. But sadly, an unpopular truth with many comics fans. The fact is, the direct market didn't damage the US comics industry as many insist, it actually saved it from extinction.

While that may be true for many grocery and convenience store chains, there were other (limited) outlets still selling single-issue comic books, places like Barnes & Noble bookstores for one.
Then Marvel (later DC) started raising the printed cover price on single issues by a $1.00 (at least for main universe/non-kids titles) for newsstand copies, but even that didn't seem to do enough for those companies to keep making them available. There are still a few single-issue comic books sold at some locations of Barnes & Noble book stores, but very limited to things like maybe Archie and The Simpsons these days.

Doesn't that kind of prove the point?

Well, the thing is that it was both the lack of places willing to sell newsstand comic books AND the fact that Marvel (and, apparently, later DC) weren't making enough money from newsstand distribution that resulted in the change.
As I said, some companies still do seem to offer comic books for sales outside of just comic book stores.

I think most publishing companies are pretty much desperate to sell through any outlet. And I say that having worked in publishing.

tony ingram wrote:True. But sadly, an unpopular truth with many comics fans. The fact is, the direct market didn't damage the US comics industry as many insist, it actually saved it from extinction.

Right, and mostly I have heard/read this from fans who complain that comics publishers stopped selling comics in groceries and at newstands and therefore kids can't get into them. It's just not true. I've seen articles from before many direct sales stores existed talking about the newstands dropping comics.

MajorHoy wrote:
While that may be true for many grocery and convenience store chains, there were other (limited) outlets still selling single-issue comic books, places like Barnes & Noble bookstores for one.
Then Marvel (later DC) started raising the printed cover price on single issues by a $1.00 (at least for main universe/non-kids titles) for newsstand copies, but even that didn't seem to do enough for those companies to keep making them available. There are still a few single-issue comic books sold at some locations of Barnes & Noble book stores, but very limited to things like maybe Archie and The Simpsons these days.

In the end, it's the sellers and not the publishers deciding. It comes down to what sells enough to be worth the space. I'm a geek enough that I've actually had discussions with comic shops about this, and read things online they've pointed me towards.
And I still think the reason major bookstore chains did so poorly selling comics may have been related to how they sold them. Putting some single issues in with the magazines made sense, that's where people might think to look, and they might even stumble across them. But the graphic novels were ghetto-ized, not by genre (although I'm thinking sellers may have thought they were all superheroes) but by format. Which is odd. I think they might have done better by putting them in similar subject areas. People who didn't read comics weren't likely to go into "that" section (the stigma still existed even a few years ago), but they might have looked if they found something interesting in a section where they already were looking. Just a guess, though.

MajorHoy wrote:Well, the thing is that it was both the lack of places willing to sell newsstand comic books AND the fact that Marvel (and, apparently, later DC) weren't making enough money from newsstand distribution that resulted in the change.
As I said, some companies still do seem to offer comic books for sales outside of just comic book stores.  

I'm not claiming expertise, so this is just my own synthesis, but I think this is wrong. Publishers will go anywhere they can make money, but they have to be able to generate enough money not only for themselves but the distributers and sellers (and others, I'm sure). And I think the sellers were largely the ones who said they weren't going to carry them. I suspect the few single issues out there in odd places (I have seen them in my local grocery, but not for a while) is either due to "something for the kids" while the parents are busy and/or trying to catch a fad. It's just not worth the investment, I think. And (I just saw this pointed out) casual readers probably think comics are too expensive and won't buy them at grocery stores and newstands, so they don't sell there. Comics fans are niche market buyers. They want the product so they'll pay. But if you look at what the publishers say they're just not making much money at all. So I doubt the price OR the venue is down to greed. More like desperation.
You know, I'd love to know more about this. I've discussed this over the years, and I wish someone would write a book about this. The history of comic sales. Mind you, it would sell about 3 copies, and I'd likely be 2 of them.

Mbast1 wrote:
I'm not claiming expertise, so this is just my own synthesis, but I think this is wrong. Publishers will go anywhere they can make money, but they have to be able to generate enough money not only for themselves but the distributers and sellers (and others, I'm sure). And I think the sellers were largely the ones who said they weren't going to carry them. I suspect the few single issues out there in odd places (I have seen them in my local grocery, but not for a while) is either due to "something for the kids" while the parents are busy and/or trying to catch a fad. It's just not worth the investment, I think. And (I just saw this pointed out) casual readers probably think comics are too expensive and won't buy them at grocery stores and newstands, so they don't sell there. Comics fans are niche market buyers. They want the product so they'll pay. But if you look at what the publishers say they're just not making much money at all. So I doubt the price OR the venue is down to greed. More like desperation.
You know, I'd love to know more about this. I've discussed this over the years, and I wish someone would write a book about this. The history of comic sales. Mind you, it would sell about 3 copies, and I'd likely be 2 of them.

This is absolutely right. Why would a retailer want to devote space to a product that really doesn't sell that much anymore when they can use that same space for something that does, and that has a higher cover price whic will net them more profit? The only way comics publishers could ever significantly increase sales is by dramatically lowering the cover price, which would a) make the product even less attractive to retailers (and probably kill the direct market completely) and b) not cover the costs of production and distribution, let alone generate any profit. I regularly hear older comics fans on places like Facebook lamenting "comics would sell again if the publishers would stop being greedy and drop the price to a dollar", and it's true, they would sell...but the publishers would lose money with every unit sold, and the retailers wouldn't make anything on them either, so the high street stores wouldn't stock them and all the comic shops would be gone within a year.

tony ingram wrote: . . . The only way comics publishers could ever significantly increase sales is by dramatically lowering the cover price, which would a) make the product even less attractive to retailers (and probably kill the direct market completely) and b) not cover the costs of production and distribution, let alone generate any profit. I regularly hear older comics fans on places like Facebook lamenting "comics would sell again if the publishers would stop being greedy and drop the price to a dollar", and it's true, they would sell...but the publishers would lose money with every unit sold, and the retailers wouldn't make anything on them either, so the high street stores wouldn't stock them and all the comic shops would be gone within a year.

There are ways the publishers could lower costs (not down to a dollar, mind you), but that would involve things like using different/cheaper production methods and not relying as heavily on "big-name" writers and artists. But these days, would consumers really be willing to buy those books? (Hell, how hard does it seem for comics that don't feature a company's A-list heroes to sell?)
The fact that available advertising $'s in general has changed dramatically for printed material (not just comic books) doesn't help.

MajorHoy wrote:

tony ingram wrote: . . . The only way comics publishers could ever significantly increase sales is by dramatically lowering the cover price, which would a) make the product even less attractive to retailers (and probably kill the direct market completely) and b) not cover the costs of production and distribution, let alone generate any profit. I regularly hear older comics fans on places like Facebook lamenting "comics would sell again if the publishers would stop being greedy and drop the price to a dollar", and it's true, they would sell...but the publishers would lose money with every unit sold, and the retailers wouldn't make anything on them either, so the high street stores wouldn't stock them and all the comic shops would be gone within a year.

There are ways the publishers could lower costs (not down to a dollar, mind you), but that would involve things like using different/cheaper production methods and not relying as heavily on "big-name" writers and artists. But these days, would consumers really be willing to buy those books? (Hell, how hard does it seem for comics that don't feature a company's A-list heroes to sell?)
The fact that available advertising $'s in general has changed dramatically for printed material (not just comic books) doesn't help.

I don't think they could significantly lower costs by making those changes. Actual printing costs are not the major problem, and even the big name creators aren't that highly paid. And they would still be dependent on Diamond for distribution, which is a significant chunk of their outgoings; when one distribution company basically has not just a nationwide but almost a worldwide monopoly, it's hard to negotiate a better deal. It's a combination of factors, and there's really no simple way around them. Besides, as I said, significantly lowering the cover price would impact the retailers (unless the publishers sold more cheaply to them, which would defeat the object of the exercise) and make the product unviable in the marketplace.

tony ingram wrote:I don't think they could significantly lower costs by making those changes.

The timing is interesting, but there's this:

https://www.cbr.com/bendis-batman-debut-walmart-exclusive/

And this:
https://www.cbr.com/dc-comics-100-page-giants-wal-mart/

Weird.

Mbast1 wrote:

tony ingram wrote:I don't think they could significantly lower costs by making those changes.

The timing is interesting, but there's this:

https://www.cbr.com/bendis-batman-debut-walmart-exclusive/

And this:
https://www.cbr.com/dc-comics-100-page-giants-wal-mart/

Weird.

So. Exclusive. So these are books which readers without access to Wal-Mart (by which I mean all those of us not in the USA, which last I heard is abojut 15% of their readership) won't be abe to get hold of? These arseholes really know how to inspire customer loyalty, don't they?

tony ingram wrote:So. Exclusive. So these are books which readers without access to Wal-Mart (by which I mean all those of us not in the USA, which last I heard is abojut 15% of their readership) won't be abe to get hold of? These arseholes really know how to inspire customer loyalty, don't they?

Well, we don't know yet if they will be "exclusive" forever or not (will they be collected elsewhere at some point with more general distribution?), and it is just the cover and one out of the four stories per an issue. (Besides, some of the reprint material is from the . . . New52!)
I also don't know if any of these stories will be "canon"/part of current continuity.
Don't even know if it's been said anywhere as to how many pages long these "new" stories will be or not.

Hmm. Not convinced.

tony ingram wrote:Hmm. Not convinced.

I'm also curious as to what will determine which Walmart locations will carry these and which ones won't (since they said in one article "at more than 3,000 participating Wal-Mart stores across the nation").

MajorHoy wrote:

tony ingram wrote:Hmm. Not convinced.

I'm also curious as to what will determine which Walmart locations will carry these and which ones won't (since they said in one article "at more than 3,000 participating Wal-Mart stores across the nation").

How many of these stores are there?

tony ingram wrote:

MajorHoy wrote:

tony ingram wrote:Hmm. Not convinced.

I'm also curious as to what will determine which Walmart locations will carry these and which ones won't (since they said in one article "at more than 3,000 participating Wal-Mart stores across the nation").

How many of these stores are there?

Well, one site (www.statista.com) has it as "5,358" for 2018, but that's when combining the different types of Walmart locations including things like "Sam's Club", which is a membership-only retail warehouse club that is owned by Walmart and named for Sam Walton, the guy who started the store chain.

Review of the latest collected edition of vintage British comics lunacy from Rebellion.

http://www.brokenfrontier.com/von-hoffmans-invasion-rebellion-treasury-british-comics/

tony ingram wrote:Review of the latest collected edition of vintage British comics lunacy from Rebellion.

http://www.brokenfrontier.com/von-hoffmans-invasion-rebellion-treasury-british-comics/

(He wrote the review...)

Lucy Ingram wrote:(He wrote the review...)

And I read it, it's well done. Now I want to read that very weird sounding thing.

Mbast1 wrote:

Lucy Ingram wrote:(He wrote the review...)

And I read it, it's well done. Now I want to read that very weird sounding thing.

It's worth buying...

It's a hoot