April 2023 Solicitations

[IMJ]

Nothing that was said changes my point about variant covers and artificially inflated book sales. Nothing. The point still stands and is an industry-wide mathematical truth.
And if TMNT readership is truly over 6,000 unique sets of eyes, I'd love to see evidence of that.

Also - Industry Trouble: IDW Reports Major Losses

Look, I don't wish any harm on IDW at all. I don't wish for their failure, and it's enough for me to not buy liberal-agenda books or order them for my own sales endeavors (I order ZERO IDW titles monthly, ZERO). But to draw the battle lines over consumer exploitation practices like "Variant covers" is nonsense. Of course they are going to come here and say they are doing great - it's the best business model to look like that's where the party is at. Also to deny what I've said about vertical integration and targeting the wallets of the existing readership is nonsense as well. Denying that as a publishing model is 100% disingenuous spin. I am sure though that IDW does appreciate every reader who buys a TMNT book - a concept I understand 100% and I would never deny them that.

Here is the IDW Quaterly and Fiscal Year Report. It's simple - in an environment of declining readership you focus on extracting more dollars from the people he have continued buying. It's nonsense and pure bull$#!( to deny that practice amongst comic publishers - especially IDW which I'd call a small-publisher variant-factory second only maybe to Titan Publishing. IDW has a year-over-year loss from declining sales and also some extrinsic factors like materials price increases. Editor-guy wants to do damage control here, that's fine but it's simple - variant covers artificially inflate sales and make the readership appear much larger than it is. Bare minimum it creates a cloud of occlusion of the real data. There is no denying this statement in truth.

As for AquaParade? Go easy on him, he needs a "win" by any means, he needs a Dad, and needs to project that he's an industry expert because he reads 12 comic books a year, plays with Turtle toys and once read half of a Swamp Thing TPB that he couldn't finish and decided that he liked Alan Moore. Aqua, I love you man. It's true - I do.

[AquaParade]

Don’t mind, IMJ. He is having a moment. See the DC Slate thread for an epic meltdown.

Btw, I’m salivating at whatever secret TMNT projects Tom knows about. Video games? An animated adaption in the works? Fuuuugg. Probably something good. The franchise really has been in great shape lately, for the most part.
It’s awesome.

I’ll bet Tom knows about whatever AAA game is in development, and I bet it’s legit. That’s my wild guess, not that I expect any type of confirmation.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by AquaParade

Don’t mind, IMJ. He is having a moment. See the DC Slate thread for an epic meltdown.

That you see it as a meltdown is you pretty much outing yourself. He played you like a fiddle.

[AquaParade]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

That you see it as a meltdown is you pretty much outing yourself. He played you like a fiddle.

Nah, you’re upset because you did the same thing - had a meltdown literally before you know what you were even discussing. That’s weird.

You were having a fit about there not being a Batman movie. There is a Batman movie.
And when you get corrected, you just drop it and move onto the next super petty criticism. The criticism would be fine, it it were based in reality. You guys want to act like correcting you on factual information is some kind of fanboy behavior. It’s just bizarre.
You’re also having a moment in that thread, honestly.

Calling this…

Spoiler:

Originally Posted by IMJ

NOOooohohoho....I don't actually care about Swamp Thing... you do. Besides after your implied talk that you are expert, it looks like you are tourist, instead! At least I grew up seeing the Swamp Thing movies. At least I watched that character whose avatar you are pimping there now.... you didn't! HAHAHAHHAHA It's even better now!!! Aqua gettin' fresh with a little moist piece of moss he keeps next to his Turtles and film collection... mwa mwa mossmanny I love youuuuuu.....







Dude, stop Aqua-Parading around the room and clean it. That moss in your room that's so warm and soft? It's not supposed to be there - if you clean the room and remove the sticky old action figures the moss will go away.

Because your Daddy never told, I will.... I love you, son.

“playing me like a fiddle” says a lot about you. But now you’re also cranky with me, so I can see where you’re coming from.

Sorry to everyone else that this thread got mucked up. I shouldn’t have responded when IMJ started dragging this into other threads.

Glad the sales are healthy here though. The Lost Years is already off to a great start.

[ProphetofGanja]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Someone needs to get DC animation/Nick to make a sequel to the Batman/TMNT crossover movie. It ended on a cliffhanger of Shredder falling into Joker venom and becoming a Shredder Joker hybrid and we never got a sequel after like 5 years.

Man, let's hope that's one of the secret things he talked about, that was a good-ass movie

[hypered1]

Originally Posted by ProphetofGanja

Man, let's hope that's one of the secret things he talked about, that was a good-ass movie

We've got Mutant Mayhem coming up. And the Netflix stuff after that.

[AquaParade]

I’m still not exactly sure if the Paramount+ stuff (I think that’s what you mean, hypered1) is connected to the movie. Isn’t that centered around villains? Sounds odd.

[CyberCubed]

Originally Posted by hypered1

We've got Mutant Mayhem coming up. And the Netflix stuff after that.

I mean, the Mutant Mayhem movie is the exact opposite of what people here would get excited about, given the leaked storyboards already make it look like nothing TMNT should be.

I doubt any of those other netflix projects are still coming. Only reason the Rise of the TMNT movie came out is because the movie was in production before they knew the show would be canceled. Had they had known, they would have stopped the movie before it ever got into development.

[hypered1]

Originally Posted by AquaParade

I’m still not exactly sure if the Paramount+ stuff (I think that’s what you mean, hypered1) is connected to the movie. Isn’t that centered around villains? Sounds odd.

Yeah that was it. Haven't really been following it myself.

[hypered1]

RE: variant covers:- if they weren't popular then I doubt IDW would be putting this out in June:



https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/b...isaac-escorza/

[AquaParade]

The variants are popular but that’s not how IDW got TMNT on The NY Times Best Seller list. It’s not how they got the ongoing hardcovers to become top-sellers every time they release.

[beardcore84]

Originally Posted by TomWaltz

I'm sure I'll still be called a liar (wouldn't be the first time on this forum).

See, Tom knows this forums is a cesspool of negativity.

[AquaParade]

Originally Posted by beardcore84

See, Tom knows this forums is a cesspool of negativity.

Yeah, I'm fine with fair negativity and dissenting opinions, but when we have people spouting off with negativity, when they simply aren't informed on what their speaking on, it gets pretty ugly.

[Cowabung-Gal]

Originally Posted by beardcore84

See, Tom knows this forums is a cesspool of negativity.

Don’t forget, he’s on Twitter too, which is just as bad if not worse.

Welcome to the Internet, hon.

[frank_one]

Originally Posted by hypered1

RE: variant covers:- if they weren't popular then I doubt IDW would be putting this out in June:

https://images1.penguinrandomhouse.c.../9781684059973

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/b...isaac-escorza/

I can't see any logic in what you're implying. I'm interested in buying a book that contains every variant covers but I would never buy variants themselves.

[hypered1]

Originally Posted by frank_one

I can't see any logic in what you're implying. I'm interested in buying a book that contains every variant covers but I would never buy variants themselves.

There are people who want the variants but can't afford all of them as individual copies of the issues so this is the ideal alternative for them.

[Bahamut810]

This is a lot of only kind of talking about the same thing if you squint. I am just popping in to add a bit of perspective to this.

Tom's Point...TMNT is doing great! We have comics coming out, its the biggest success that IDW has that I am aware off. I love that TMNT is doing great and that people want merch! I want more TMNT comic merch now that it seems like he is having more to do with things again and the story has come back to being (several) TMNT stories.

IMJ's point...IDW is not doing great. If he is correct (Its been a while since I looked at financials) then the financial indicators show that. I had a few extra bucks so I purchased as few shares of IDW and over the past year it has lost more then 50% of its value and is hovering around $1. Licenses that weren't making enough money were cancelled. The board game division closed down.

Both of these can be and probably are simultaneously true.

You are also both talking in different numbers. Tom is talking in total sales (24k issues sold) vs IMJ talking in the number of people purchasing the issues. This *is* an important number that Tom I am sure has very limited access to unless they poll each store they send product to. That number is so important because you can only expect people to purchase the same the or ever expanding groupings of things for so long before they get burnt out (I remember stories of event burn out from commenters on DC and MArvel).

This makes me afraid that the story that I have been spending money to buy into for the past few years will come to an end because of things *mostly* outside the scope of this evergreen cyclically popular franchise.

We should also be fair about some of this. Regardless on how well the company is doing or any future projects that may be coming up what he says may hurt the company or open him up to litigation. So being optimistic is the path forward. People can look at the financials and the released news and come to their own conclusion.

At the same time...I don't think that its too far to ask for being a little more straightforward that printing 40+ covers on a single comic is trying to make the multiple bucks on the same product as many times as possible. There is nothing wrong with that if that's how whales want to spend their money. More expensive specialty products exist because there is demand (aka what people call the pink tax).

[CyberCubed]

The only thing that matters is whenever the IDW run ends, that they know ahead of time to give it a proper ending. This series has been running since 2011, so after 12 years of investment from fans I'm sure they'll know ahead of time to give it proper closure when the time comes.

For all we know we may reach 200 issues in the main series, so we don't have to worry anytime soon. But as long as it gets a proper ending wrapping up most plot threads and villains, either by issue 150 or 200, it's fine by me.

[hypered1]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

The only thing that matters is whenever the IDW run ends, that they know ahead of time to give it a proper ending. This series has been running since 2011, so after 12 years of investment from fans I'm sure they'll know ahead of time to give it proper closure when the time comes.

For all we know we may reach 200 issues in the main series, so we don't have to worry anytime soon. But as long as it gets a proper ending wrapping up most plot threads and villains, either by issue 150 or 200, it's fine by me.

I wholeheartedly agree although #150 would be around March next year which may be too soon after the current arc to wrap things up and #200 theoretically would be about May 2028 which is way too far away to even be thinking about at this point.

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by Bahamut810

This is a lot of only kind of talking about the same thing if you squint. I am just popping in to add a bit of perspective to this.

Tom's Point...TMNT is doing great! We have comics coming out, its the biggest success that IDW has that I am aware off. I love that TMNT is doing great and that people want merch! I want more TMNT comic merch now that it seems like he is having more to do with things again and the story has come back to being (several) TMNT stories.

IMJ's point...IDW is not doing great. If he is correct (Its been a while since I looked at financials) then the financial indicators show that. I had a few extra bucks so I purchased as few shares of IDW and over the past year it has lost more then 50% of its value and is hovering around $1. Licenses that weren't making enough money were cancelled. The board game division closed down.

Both of these can be and probably are simultaneously true.

You are also both talking in different numbers. Tom is talking in total sales (24k issues sold) vs IMJ talking in the number of people purchasing the issues. This *is* an important number that Tom I am sure has very limited access to unless they poll each store they send product to. That number is so important because you can only expect people to purchase the same the or ever expanding groupings of things for so long before they get burnt out (I remember stories of event burn out from commenters on DC and MArvel).

This makes me afraid that the story that I have been spending money to buy into for the past few years will come to an end because of things *mostly* outside the scope of this evergreen cyclically popular franchise.

We should also be fair about some of this. Regardless on how well the company is doing or any future projects that may be coming up what he says may hurt the company or open him up to litigation. So being optimistic is the path forward. People can look at the financials and the released news and come to their own conclusion.

At the same time...I don't think that its too far to ask for being a little more straightforward that printing 40+ covers on a single comic is trying to make the multiple bucks on the same product as many times as possible. There is nothing wrong with that if that's how whales want to spend their money. More expensive specialty products exist because there is demand (aka what people call the pink tax).

This is all exactly true - even your impressively astute observation that:

Originally Posted by Bahamut810

Both of these can be and probably are simultaneously true.

And the information I have been giving in this thread was not "internet negativity", but rather an informative observation of the publishing dynamic and publisher situation. It was turned into conflict by Tom's spin, not mine. And it was weaponized by Aqua who needs a "big dog" win for personal psychology XYZ.

But what you've said here is exactly on the money and contrary to the pushers in the thread (IDW and Aqua), and to the shock of the uninitiated ("All of this negativity!"), I appreciate you taking the information in the spirit that it was intended and also interpreting it with some sense of reality.

It's very simple. Alternate covers are vertical integration in a business, designed to extract money and increase units from existing readers. IDW has been in financial decline now for at least a year-over-year. Denying these two pieces of information, or calling them "internet negativity" instead of using that information to see reality is pure ignorance.

Originally Posted by Bahamut810

Regardless on how well the company is doing or any future projects that may be coming up what he says may hurt the company or open him up to litigation. So being optimistic is the path forward. People can look at the financials and the released news and come to their own conclusion

Yes and this goes back to what I said about "of course he wants to broadcast here that IDW is where the party is at". But I would still guess the nuance of what you are actually saying here will be lost on the thread readership to some extent. There are people who will see "being optimistic is the path forward" and it sounds "nice" and so in "sounding nice" all real meaning behind calling it a "strategy" will be lost to those people.

My point? All you can do is inform the consumer about the realities to affect the consumer behavior. 2 out of ten will get it. 2 out of ten will get it but argue it out of personal agenda. 6 out of ten will simp for it out of social need.

I'll say this very clearly for the information of the regular reader here - When a book ships, for example 24,000 copies; that does not equal 24,000 individual readers, not by a long shot. But IDW and guys like Aqua are counting on your ignorance to not put two and two together whereas I'm counting on your intelligence to put two and two together.