TMNT #110 Preview and Discussion

[ChosenOne]

Originally Posted by Sophie Campbell

That definitely sucks. Honestly we shouldn't be hanging around here and stifling reader discussion with our presence, anyway.

Allow me to disagree with that sentiment. There's no stifling at all, it's just that same people have no manners and always resort to aggression to voice their opinions. Those should be banned, IMHO, here or anywhere else with or without creators present. In short, hang away!

(This last sentence sounded better in my head...)

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

I don't like the direction TMNT has taken at all (obviously), but I'm glad Sophie's around.

[skylord]

Regardless of your thoughts on the series, I think it takes real humility to be around your audience. For the staff that stick around and don't take criticism too personally, its a treat. At the very least the fans here don't feel entirely ignored I'd hope. even then the writers clearly don't feel beholden to the thoughts of the fans.

I'm behind and can't say much about the current comic but I'm typically a fan of plots slowing down. It's refreshing and makes the later action more exciting. Restarting from the beginning so I'll be caught up just in time for this discourse to be dead in the dirt.

[MikeandRaph87]

Originally Posted by CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy

I don't like the direction TMNT has taken at all (obviously), but I'm glad Sophie's around.

I am like-minded in every word on this.

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

Originally Posted by MikeandRaph87

I am like-minded in every word on this.

High-five, amigo.

[Weapons@theready]

Originally Posted by MikeandRaph87

I am like-minded in every word on this.

I too would like to echo this sentiment.

[TigerClaw]

Originally Posted by Sophie Campbell

Nobody showed me any petition!

Petitions don't even work. Just continue doing what you are doing and ignore the haters. You're doing a fantastic job with the comics. Can't wait for the next issue.

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by TigerClaw

Petitions don't even work.

Zack Snyder says hello.

Granted, that's the One and Only Time it's ever worked in all of human history. Still... just saying. Sometimes they work. "Once Ever" can still technically mean "sometimes". Technically.

Oh, wait, I forgot the Sonic movie redesign. That also worked. Actually now that I'm thinking back, there have been a few others, too. Huh.

Yeah, come to think of it, sometimes they do work. Go figure... once again, TigerClaw gets things All Wrong.

[TigerClaw]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Zack Snyder says hello.

Granted, that's the One and Only Time it's ever worked in all of human history. Still... just saying. Sometimes they work. "Once Ever" can still technically mean "sometimes". Technically.

Oh, wait, I forgot the Sonic movie redesign. That also worked. Actually now that I'm thinking back, there have been a few others, too. Huh.

Yeah, come to think of it, sometimes they do work. Go figure... once again, TigerClaw gets things All Wrong.

Some Petitions do if they make sense. But for stuff like this its a complete waste of time and never going to amount to anything. Especially when you have Petitions for some of the most ridiculous things.

[MikeandRaph87]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Zack Snyder says hello.

Granted, that's the One and Only Time it's ever worked in all of human history. Still... just saying. Sometimes they work. "Once Ever" can still technically mean "sometimes". Technically.

Oh, wait, I forgot the Sonic movie redesign. That also worked. Actually now that I'm thinking back, there have been a few others, too. Huh.

Yeah, come to think of it, sometimes they do work. Go figure... once again, TigerClaw gets things All Wrong.

It also contributed to how James Gunn got his place back as the director of the Guardians of The Galaxy franchise.

Yes, there are multiple plots within Mutant Town,however it is the core of everything right now and I need more plot diversity. There is the Foot Clan situation, the political situation with Baxter and Madame Null's connection, what Fugitiod saw that shocked him, other characters that could use expansion outside of Mutant Town, among other things.

Like I said I have much respect for the creative team so I am not taking to a message board to vent, I just simply recognize that I liked the overall direction for over 90 issues, but the overall tonal shift degraded by enthusiasm for a product that I invest in. I hope that my preferences can be seen in the near future and I continue to see creators presence no matter my enthusiasm level for the product they are producing.

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by TigerClaw

Some Petitions do if they make sense. But for stuff like this its a complete waste of time and never going to amount to anything. Especially when you have Petitions for some of the most ridiculous things.

Buuuuuut that's not what you saaaaaaaid, you said they don't work and I got ya to admit that sometimes they do. Pppbbbbbbbth! Score is 15-Love, Roxx.

In this case I agreed with the spirit of said petition but since I wasn't paying for the book in a very long time even beforehand, it seemed disingenuous to attach my name to something like that. It seemed very specifically about people who stopped buying the book semi-recently because it turned into Furry Fanfic Shipper Showcase, and while I do find some cause to their grievance, I already wasn't buying the book. So it just didn't feel right. I only sign my name on Big Important Things.

Y'know, like putting the Rocky statue back where it belongs or making Jenna Jameson's Birthday a national holiday with paid leave. That kinda sh*t. Float me some'a that and I'm all over it.

Anyway. Personally, I feel like when a Whole Lotta People who've been buying a product for ten years all suddenly stop at once, and they say "Here's Why" in detail... it's definitely worth keeping an open ear at the very least. It's easy to say, "Those people can just come on back for the next round" when a new team takes over, but that historically isn't how most things work, especially in comics. When your audience leaves, they're gone. They don't come back for "the next creative team", they just find other things to do. Which is why the entire comic book industry has been in a downward spiral for going on 30 years after the last boom period went bust. Nobody in the business has any idea how to keep the readers that they already have, and are absolutely sure that right around the corner is the next big thing that's gonna bring everybody rushing back. But that simply never happens. Once someone who's in the habit of buying a book breaks that habit, regardless of the reason Why, it is almost impossible to ever get them back. Thus... it's always good to keep an open ear and mind when your customers say, "Here's What I Don't Like, and Here's Why I Left." IF you ever want them to come back at all.

Food For Thought.

Originally Posted by MikeandRaph87

Like I said I have much respect for the creative team so I am not taking to a message board to vent, I just simply recognize that I liked the overall direction for over 90 issues, but the overall tonal shift degraded by enthusiasm for a product that I invest in. I hope that my preferences can be seen in the near future and I continue to see creators presence no matter my enthusiasm level for the product they are producing.

I mean, I only dip in and out. But when people tell me (and they have), "This feels like it came off of some teenage girl's Tumblr", I absolutely see what they mean without having to dig very deeply at all. And I just kinda don't think that's the stuff most people who call themselves TMNT fans really care to see take center stage for $4 a month.

It can completely nail what it tries to do while still not being what most of that specific audience wants to read, and that's where the problem sets in. Vol. 4 was the exact same way from a completely different direction. It succeeded in telling the kind of story that it wanted to tell but absolutely failed at being worth its cover price insofar as entertainment value. It wasn't what a book called "TMNT" should be, which is why it was objectively a failure. I'm not trying to be mean, I'm just saying, by any objective standard, it was a bust.

Perhaps if Laird treated that book as a piece of commercial entertainment and not his own soapbox, and wrote it to amuse the audience rather than amuse himself, people might have bought it and he might not have had to sell everything to Viacom. Again, Food For Thought.

The people who've posted in this thread saying they dropped the book months ago and don't plan on coming back anytime soon were devout followers of the book for the longest time. Those aren't the kind of people any publisher should ever risk alienating. They at least ought to keep an open ear about what they say they don't like. That's just common sense.

[TomWaltz]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Frankly, having occasionally written things of a similar bent (like, suspiciously similar... in fact so many elements of my ideas have turned up in IDW's books over the years that I'm beginning to wonder if someone's hacked my hard drive), I can see why this style would appeal to some folks.

BUT. I'm also pretty sure - and I've said this with regard to why nobody but my wife and a very small number of people have or will ever read my stuff - it simply isn't what most people want from a commercial product that says "TMNT" on the cover. Like what might make an amusing fanfic read to pass a quiet afternoon isn't what someone wants to pay $4 to read monthly. Even if it's a well-written and well-executed exploration of concept it's not necessarily what the audience at large wants.

Pretty sure that most people putting their money down want something with a little bit more testosterone and a little less "meet-cute" stuff. That's just the temperature I'm getting from people.

Sorry, but the hacking part was too easy. Your password was L656. Thanks for all the story ideas!



Talk soon...

Tom W.

[Leo656]

If anyone ever did truly borrow the fanfic ideas of someone who was 19 and fairly drunk when they first wrote it, then that hypothetical person doing the borrowing likely has much bigger problems than I'd have with securing my inbox.

Then again, they were "award-winning" fanfics... so maybe there actually are more sinister forces at work here...

For now, we'll call it "serendipity". But I've got my eye on you cats....

...And everybody knows the password was "80085". Y'know, like the calculator thing. HAH, it says "boobs". That's awesome.

[ChosenOne]

Originally Posted by skylord

even then the writers clearly don't feel beholden to the thoughts of the fans.

History shows that having writers beholden to the thoughts of fans is always an amazingly bad idea. We can provide feedback, sure, and it's not every creator who will put themselves out there like the IDW crew have on this forum, but other than that fans should really abstain from trying to influence the course of a story. It's not something we really want despite how much we think we do, and we wouldn't realize that until it would be too late. Not to mention the fact that there's always the odd weirdo who will take things a wee bit too far. Better to wait and see. Unpopular opinion (probably?), but other than #5 and the Raph micro, I was pretty damn bored during almost the entire first year of the comic. I still to this day really dislike the very first arc. And look where that got us.

Have faith, everyone!

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Perhaps if Laird treated that book as a piece of commercial entertainment and not his own soapbox, and wrote it to amuse the audience rather than amuse himself, people might have bought it and he might not have had to sell everything to Viacom. Again, Food For Thought.

I don't think that's quite right. It wasn't that (more) people might have bought the book... nobody even knew it existed. There wasn't any marketing. It was barely even in any comic stores and if it was, it would be 3 copies and be behind everything else. And the sales of Vol. 4 were hardly the make or break factor in taking the Viacom deal. Peter has said the amount of money Viacom offered (63 million, was it?) was so generous that he was, #1, shocked, and #2, basically said that he would have taken them up on that offer even if it came a decade before (though going any earlier than that Kevin would have to chime in... though since Kevin cashed in all of his TMNT rights in 2000 it's hard to believe he'd urge Peter not to).

Though had Peter endeavored to make his lettercol less... divisive, might it have improved the fandom's general sentiment toward the book (and Peter himself), perhaps even improved Peter's general sentiment toward the franchise and the fandom as a side effect (which in turn might have lessened the chances of him selling the whole kit and kaboodle)? Probably. We'll never know, but what's done is done. Personally, I never minded his conduct in the lettercol. I thought it was kind of cool to have such a discourse with a comic creator, especially when we're talking early 2000s when that wasn't really a thing. Though I do understand the people upset, and why. I kind of don't understand people putting their ire of the man over their love of the book, and the continued Mirage TMNT legacy.

Anyway, congratulations... the human heart of the TMNT was successfully driven out... now it's just a room full of executives with flow charts and toy sales reports and restrictions on what the TMNT can and can't do left to determine the direction and fate of the TMNT forevermore. I mean something like IDW undoubtedly gets a little bit of leeway (just a little) in that a comic book in today's market isn't really something anybody at the top is too worried about, but everything else? Eh...

[CyberCubed]

Vol. 4 was also a bi-monthly comic, it's very weird for a comic to only come out every 2 months and I think that's why a lot of people fell out of it as it went on, besides the writing or Jim Lawsons art. I mean I was only 15 when Vol. 4 started...by the time we got to the last issue I was done with college and in my late 20's.

[Leo656]

Well, I did say "perhaps".

I've spoken anecdotally on this before, and it is purely my own experience, but the shop owners I knew would have loved to pushed more copies of the book, and gave it prominent positioning in their stores to try and move more copies. It just didn't take. The first issue of Vol. 4, my main shop bought, I think, about a dozen issues expecting a big return, but a year later they still had a couple of unsold copies on the rack. Every issue they gradually ordered fewer and fewer copies, until for most of the run they ended up only ordering the one copy for me since it was on my pull list. They even gave it a "Recommended" spot up front near the register, early on, which they'd do sometimes to push "hot" new books and make sure people saw it (or move copies of unsold books featuring popular characters that just wouldn't move, like "The Dark Knight Strikes Again", which they couldn't give away). There wasn't a huge push in Wizard or anything, no - that definitely would have helped, as in the early-2000s people were mostly buying whatever Wizard told them to buy - but I knew a few people who were doing their best inside their own store to move copies, and it just never clicked.

What I was told from multiple shop owners was simple and direct: People would pick it up, flip through it, and put it back down. They'd get excited to see a Ninja Turtles comic - some of the cover art was very eye-catching - but they absolutely hated the artwork and plot-wise, nothing ever seemed to happen. Pages and pages of static shots and talking heads. So people would skim it and put it back down. It's not that they were altogether unaware, it's that when they would become aware, they simply did not like what they saw. In the opinion of the guys trying to sell it, based on customer feedback inside their own stores, "It needs to be in color, it needs to look better, and it needs more action like in the cartoons." Even the short-lived and abysmal Dreamwave comic got a much better reaction overall, because it simply skewed more in line with what people expected a TMNT comic to look like.

Meanwhile, at my main store, when back issues of Archie TMNT or even earlier Mirage would turn up, they'd vanish inside of a few days until I politely asked to get "first look" at all TMNT back issues that came in. Niche stuff like "Hepcats" would disappear quickly, too. And it's not like they'd hang up a sign that said "New back issues of _____ in stock"; the place just had a ton of foot traffic as it was in a really prominent position right off the highway, so they did awesome business for many, many years until the 2007-8 recession forced them under. They were the most prominent comics shop in the county, so basically, if they were having a hard time moving a book, you could estimate exponentially that said book was not doing well elsewhere, either. Especially because a lot of the owners were friends or at least acquaintances, and this state isn't that big, so if you asked a shopkeeper "What's the temperature on ____?" and they said "No heat, doesn't move", you knew it wasn't just a problem in that store, but everywhere.

As for lack of advertising... I'm sure that was a factor, because it always is, but I doubt it was the be-all and end-all. My main shop was one of the ones that got "everything" including Adult comics, and those comics would also move despite getting zero advertising and being relegated to their own small rack at the very back of the store. If they bough five copies of TMNT Vol. 4 and five copies of Genus, and put them each on the wall in their respective sections, Genus would sell those five copies in a week or two while the five TMNT issues would sit there. "Hot Moms", "Housewives At Play", "Bondage Fairies", I remember all of those books and a few others being on the back wall and selling out their three-to-five copies VERY fast, and I cannot imagine for the life of me that they were getting a ton of advertising and it's not like the store had a giant red arrow pointing people towards them, either.

My secondary shop was a big, giant place inside a shopping mall that got hundreds and hundreds of people a day inside. They took an even bigger bath on the early issues of Vol. 4, ordering like 15-20 copies of the first couple issues, but almost a year later they still had copies of Issue 1 floating on the wall. They quickly just gave up and dropped the book entirely. I mean COME ON, you can't get a comic that says "TMNT #1" to move off your shelves after a YEAR when you have about a thousand daily customers and you're doing everything you can on your end to make people buy it? That overrides any lack of advertising, in my mind. That tells me, quite bluntly, that people don't like that particular product.

I have to believe that ultimately, it's a case of in the free market, people will gravitate towards products they like and ignore the ones they don't. Advertising is a factor, sure, but so is word-of-mouth. And I know that things can still move copies solely on word-of-mouth IF people like what they see and in turn they each tell two friends.

If a book with "TMNT" on the cover can't sell five copies in a store that gets tons of traffic, at the same time a new TMNT cartoon is on the air and toys are on the shelves, and people are literally picking it up and then putting it back without buying it... that means someone on the creative end f*cked up.

All anecdotal, sure, but if you take what happened at these three or four shops I used to visit frequently and multiply it exponentially across the entire United States and allow for the fact that these things do usually roll in waves, you HAVE to reason that even if the book did a little bit better in certain areas, that on the whole it did bad business, at a time when the brand itself was doing really, really well otherwise. Laird can say "I never expected or cared if the book made money", but that's part cop-out, part sour grapes, and part flat-out lie. Anyone who sells a product wants to make money if they can. And they definitely COULD have. With a few tweaks, it could definitely have sold at least five copies per store multiplied by however many stores there are nationwide. That's a pittance of a return to expect for a book called "TMNT" released during a boom period for both comics and the brand. But in most stores they weren't even selling five copies. And that, quite frankly, is inexcusable.

Word-of-mouth could have gotten them there, but the word-of-mouth was bad. At the end of the day, I paid my money towards the book even though I didn't like it (although I did like Tales Vol. 2 quite a bit more). Other people, not so much. And it's not like those other people didn't know it existed. They knew; plenty of people knew. They just didn't care.

People in 2003-ish definitely wanted a TMNT comic book. But they definitely didn't want THAT one. The rest is history.

The moral of the story becomes, "Sometimes you really should listen to what your audience wants you to improve on." And if they get tired of waiting, well... there's no guarantee that they'll ever come back.

[Andrew NDB]

Nah, Vol. 4 never really had a chance at achieving "big numbers." And Peter didn't care about that, and I respect that. Maybe with a little tweaking it would have done a bit better, but no more than that.

I think most people of sound mind can imagine what a real TMNT Mirage comic would have looked like that might have had a chance at "breaking big," and maybe this example is closer to what you're talking about. You know, cutting edge art, vivacious digital coloring, and edgy stuff with heart. Taking big chances. Comics made into actual story arcs (I'm not saying "written for trade" which has been the thing in the industry for too long now, but just 3-4 issue story arcs with the occasional one off issue that just is) and not some free-flowing thing that never ends and isn't clearly defined. It could have worked around 2003, that was about the "last chance" for such a thing to put in its hooks in the comic industry. But it was never wanted to be that by TPTB (Peter), but that's fine. He made exactly the comic he wanted to and I absolutely respect that. And I supremely enjoy what was given. I hope he comes back and wraps it up... or finally capitalizes on his 18 issues a year clause indefinitely.

[Leo656]

Five measly issues per store is far from "Big Numbers" though, bruh. If your book can't even sell that many issues in a densely-populated area in a store with tons of foot traffic then it simply isn't that good at capturing its audience.

Explain to me how a book like "Housewives At Play" or "Bondage Fairies" can sell more copies than a book featuring one of the most popular pop culture brands of the 20th century in TMNT, when the latter got way more advertising than the former ones ever did.

Once people pick a thing up, then put it back down, the "nobody knew about it" defense just doesn't fly anymore. If people liked what they saw, they would have taken it home.

People didn't purchase the books because they didn't like what was in them. No other reason than that. We're not even talking "big numbers" or even "respectable numbers". Five issues per. That's all. I can't find the number of comic book stores in North America in 2004-ish, but frankly, if ANY store couldn't even move five lousy copies of a book with that big a brand name on it I'd say that's indicative of a huge problem. And a lot of people DID at least see it, were aware of it, and flipped through it. They just didn't think it was worth their money.

TMNT fans, not buying a TMNT comic book because it "Wasn't their flavor of TMNT". That's... that's a problem. In any time, place, era or climate... that's not something that should be handwaved and shrugged off. That's what's called a "Teachable Moment". Something to be learned from, not dismissed and ignored.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Five measly issues per store is far from "Big Numbers" though, bruh. If your book can't even sell that many issues in a densely-populated area in a store with tons of foot traffic then it simply isn't that good at capturing its audience.

He was never concerned about that. At any point. Unabashedly. Though this has far more to do with what individual comic book stores order vs. what "Mirage Publishing" is actually able or has on hand to sell out. I was going between two comic stores in my area at the time... one flat out didn't carry it because it didn't sell (but you could add it to your "list" and you'd get it), the other one was the aforementioned 3 issues on the rack behind all of the indy stuff. Which isn't to say that it was the comic stores' fault. They know what sells and what doesn't, and have some idea of what people want vs. what they don't.

People didn't purchase the books because they didn't like what was in them. No other reason than that. We're not even talking "big numbers" or even "respectable numbers". Five issues per. That's all. I can't find the number of comic book stores in North America in 2004-ish, but frankly, if ANY store couldn't even move five lousy copies of a book with that big a brand name on it I'd say that's indicative of a huge problem. And a lot of people DID at least see it, were aware of it, and flipped through it. They just didn't think it was worth their money.

I don't disagree with you. But again... he didn't care. He gets to do that and admitted he was aware of it many times in the lettercol.

SHOULD he have? Well, that's separate discussion. But the guy in charge owning the rights and calling the shots and knowing which way the wind was blowing and still keeping the course... you kind of have to respect that. And I don't think Vol. 4's lack of sales really effected anything in the grand scheme of things (the sale, etc.). I mean, I don't. For all we know he wanted to sell the whole time and was just biding his time -- his blog suggested this was the case. The point is, he did exactly what he wanted to do with TMNT at every turn, particularly when the ball was entirely in his court (i.e., when Kevin sold him his half of the rights in 2000). I don't understand this crusade to undermine Peter when it was totally under his control. You know me. You know what I would want to see. But I didn't co-create TMNT. This is half of the equation putting out stuff... even if I don't like it, it's the real deal, from the source. Would I rather that be filtered through... I don't know... Viacom? No, not really at all. Though we all had separate ideas of what shape that would take in 2009, or at least hopes.