Quote Originally Posted by Sky Shadow View Post
That's absolutely not true, STL. Again, maybe it's a you-had-to-be-there thing, but if you hadn't been (necessarily) preoccupied with sucking dummies, soiling nappies and learning to walk during those years you'd probably have noticed the overexposure and be as tired of those characters as I am and many others are.
It’s all good to sit on the rocking chair as a so-called favourite tanks to 10K. I think what you’ve missed is that AHM is offering us, hopefully (as I haven’t read beyond issue #3 yet, a different model I think that it was wrong to try and link it to “-tion” series as that meant people, especially the old timers, couldn’t look past that and it was poor choice on IDW’s behalf because they’ve been on the back foot ever since.

The assessment that this is G1 all over is a misrepresentation.

When in G1 did the Autobots become so fragile and without purpose? I don’t think that’s an angle that’s ever been explored. When did the Decepticons ever actually go about methodically dismantling the Earth?

And overexposure of ’84-’86 characters does not ever meant they were developed with much depth. I’ve read or watched very few stories about Prowl or Mirage that were more than generic cartoon characterisations. I think those characters deserve as much as a chance to be developed in a meaningful fashion as Sixshot or Hardhead. I really like Hardhead (the futuristic tank and all) and absolutely agree it was great seeing Nightbeat, him and the Technobots working with the classic characters. But it’s awfully naïve to only want older characters developed. The big names, the ones that have recognition deserve a chance to be developed too. They never were and I long for more stories of Gears, Prowl and co.

And the other thing that’s been lost with the AHM formula is it is trying the “Big Gun” approach. A lot of other comics do it like the Avengers and JLA which bring together the biggest most iconic names in the comic fandom together. AHM was trying this approach in my estimation. Big first and second season characters with high recognition factor. New Avengers, a comic I didn’t like, did it very successfully with the strangest mismatch of characters. They brought Wolverine and Spider-Man, two longtime non-Avenger characters, into the fold and it sold like hotcakes. It had top artists and top writers too. And that worked wonders. So like it or not IDW tried AHM b/c it needed to revitalize a very poor selling comic book. The numbers were pitiful – especially given the brand’s success. AHM doesn’t seem to have worked though and I just wonder where to from here.

Not to mention that just b/c one group was overexposed to something (apparently the '84 to '85 cast), the rest of the fandom has to be deprived that? The ones who want to see that?

Comics have downward momentum and you need to try new things to arrest the inevitable decline. It’s one of the principal reasons why most creative teams stay on a title for 12 or less issues these days. I’m not sure what IDW can do though. Furman is one of the big names in TFs and even he doesn’t have staying power as evidenced by the empirical data. And, like Sky Shadow, I’m not sure how much I’d care even if we got a big name like Mark Millar or Brian Bendis on Transformers. Its about TFs first and foremost for me and I don’t care who but I fear there aren’t many avenues for improvement.

Quote Originally Posted by Paulbot View Post
I'm a little over sales figures continutally being pulled out

Thank Primus there aren't similar figures for Hasbro and Takara sales!

I think it would be great if we were privy to Hasbro and Takara’s numbers, it would give us empirical data to base our comments based on rather than a lot of conjecture we work on.

That’s neither here nor there though. As far as sales numbers go, what else would anyone suggest instead?

I’m open to suggestions but I can’t find one.

Sales numbers are the only objective criteria that exist yet there are so often claims, such as was made here, about how “successful” Simon Furman’s series was and that it didn’t deserve the axe or a revamp, claims that are absolutely empirically not possible to support.

Or alternatively, we can believe the spin that IDW puts out there as to their success. It’s just the same as Marvel or DC though, really.

The TF comic reading public I feel is perhaps the least progressive part of the fandom from my experiences in my short 3 years of collecting. It seems to be so absorbed about how right it is, how successful what it loves is that it can’t see failure in front of its eyes. It doesn’t like numbers because they convey the truth. The Transformer faithful, of which I count myself as one, is reduced down to a pathetically paltry 10,000 readers from 100,000.

I’m as loyal and passionate about TFs as the rest of you. I ride the highs of alacrity and disappointment. I fret and grumble at glaring lows but I am under no illusions about where TF comics have gone. I don’t like the fact that its flopping. Its very concerning but at least I’m prepared to accept that. We can hold onto what we like but the reality is the sales number tell another tale, a cold hard truth. There aren’t many of us who are the faithful and there’s got to be a good reason for that.
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Otherwise, we’re living with a whole of denial and that ain’t the pretty river in Eqypt.