June 2021 Solicitations

[Powder]

Originally Posted by superstaff

I have to agree with everyone else who says this is boring or the wrong approach to the next arc.

I've been waiting to see what happens after Mutant Town, and I just... I feel like I don't care about the IDW Comics as much anymore. I felt like Mutant Town was an interesting concept that got bogged down with a glacial pace, and events that didn't really excite me much either (mostly due to the way they were written even if they were interesting concepts).

I'm also tired of Jennika and the overt focus on her. People always gasp and act shocked because I'm a female fan, and they're like, "But Jennika's a girl turtle! She was created FOR YOU!" I never needed a fifth turtle, male or female, especially one that detracts from the team's dynamic, doesn't really fit in very well (she just keeps feeling like a Mary Sue-ish version of Raphael, to me, thus redundant), and also gets way too much focus in comparison to the actual lead characters.

Also, as Wentos wrote:



And one more thing, I guess. I'm extremely iffy about 'Good Guy Shredder'. That's some sticky territory to go into. I have my doubts it can be done well without it coming off as saccharine or poorly done.

I'll probably take Waltz's advice, and just not read or buy this...

I'll echo this entire sentiment.

[ChosenOne]

Y'all are hard people to please. I for one couldn't be more excited.

[CyberCubed]

"Good guy" Shredder has a lot of potential if written well. I figure there has to be SOME reason they decided to bring him back, because if not, it really is going to be unfortunate.

For now I'll give the IDW team the benefit of the doubt to make it work, if not, then oh well.

[Zog The Magnificent]

Mutant Town was an interesting premise. I think the main problem, beyond the slow pace, was that they consistently focused on the least interesting parts of that premise. You have this whole situation regarding a new suddenly created terriory, what is essentially a terrorist cell, how the rest of the city reacts to it, how Stockman deals with it, how the people inside deal with it and how it affects their relationships, how the turtles deal with it, etc. Instead, we focus on a battle of the bands for over 10 issues and the turtles fixing up an apartment. I also agree about Jennika. She is not nearly as importat as the narrative suddenly wants to make her, and elements of her character reek of blatent shilling. I'm actually excited because we're finally moving away from it. At this point I just want to see anything else. I'm just a bit cautious about it since the Pantheon plot didn't really amount to much last time, and because of the potential meta consequences of resolving the story too soon or being forced to amount to nothing so that the story can continue.

[mrmaczaps]

Originally Posted by TomWaltz

It's definitely going to be boring. You shouldn't buy it.

Talk soon...

Tom W.

I mean, I don't need your permission or anything... I just find that the last 15 issues have sucked enough life out of the Ongoing that everything new is DOA. Typically, I like your work, Pantheon aside but again, 15 or so issues feeling like someone sh!t in my mouth & now you're gonna give me a pizza but its still gonna taste like sh!t....

Campbell did great work in the past. The Raph mini for Mirage during vol 4. Great stuff. This run, not even close. I even defended the creation of Jennika as a Turtle and that went nowhere for 5 issues to 100 and then has sucked every drop of fun & life out of the book. A giant turd nugget.

Make comics FUN again...

[80gmrp]

....while I do have my own worries that I’m tired of repeating, I feel like this is becoming a problem thread as a whole when it shouldn’t be, judging from what I’m seeing. Waltz, as much as I’m sure you know how worried I’ve felt over a certain plot development, I realize that in the end, we’re talking about work that is yours and the rest of IDW’s, not my own, and I’ve gotten to a point where I respect and accept that.

[lonewarrior20]

it's funny i explained mutant town and campbells run to a friend of mine and he's not a big fan of tmnt like me but it felt refreshing to hear a non turtle fan say "so some people are angry that the narrative turned slice of life?" so here's something, if it was one of you writing what would you do. seriously, what would be your storyline from this issue on? going from that, how long would your story last, 5 issues, ten? then what? that's one of the main reasons why i've loved campbells run so far, it might be a slow burn but there's clues and theories on whats to come and i love the emotion that's being portrayed on the pages.

your mad that its been about jennika right now? thats happened with all the turtles but it's normally been told only a few pages each issue over the last 100+ issues and the micros, spinoffs, and crossovers. this is her time.

your mad that alopex is happy. she's been manipulated/controlled most of her life. right now, she has a home, someone to love, and a bit of peace in a painful life.

and thats my final point, you seem to demand that the turtles have to be miserable and isolated from society, full of rage and loneliness of being the only ones of their kind. their only suppose to fight, keep fighting, why are you still not fighting? there is more to them than just the leader, the tech guy, the bruiser, and the party dude. they may just be characters in a comic book but their more than just their stereotypes. let them live their lives and grow up past being teenagers.

[hypered1]

I find it little bit ironic that the people saying that there's currently too much Jennika are the same people who were complaining that she didn't have enough development when she was mutated.
They literally got what they were asking for and they're still whining like children.

[Leo656]

Counter-point:

- The Turtles are often crowded out of their own story, in order to give more storyline real estate to characters like Jennika and Lita who were "made up" for no reason than to draw more women into reading the book.

There's like 80 million supporting cast members now and sometimes the Turtles themselves come off like "guest stars" in their own book. This was something the Superman books had a bit of a problem with in the late-90s, as well. It happens. But it usually starts to lose people after a while. For example, as someone who only dips in and out, I can't help but notice how this book is sometimes drowning in female supporting cast members, now. It's like someone heard all the age-old criticism about the Turtles mythos not having enough female characters, and decided to try and "fix" the last 30 years of that all at once. And sometimes it feels like all of a sudden the book is "about" them, when it's not their name on the "marquee". And it feels a little forced. Others have said more than a little, but I'm just trying to be nice.

I'm not sure "slice of life" is the problem in and of itself. I think it has more to do with the fact that most people would rather read about... y'know... the Ninja Turtles. A slower pace combined with tons of supporting cast and very little of the Ninja Turtles getting to do Ninja Turtles Stuff at times is probably more the problem than any one of those things in and of itself.

[frank_one]

Originally Posted by lonewarrior20

your mad that alopex is happy. she's been manipulated/controlled most of her life. right now, she has a home, someone to love, and a bit of peace in a painful life.

In real life every man and woman should be happy and deserves to be loved, sure. But don't forget we are talking about comics characters here. Happy characters are boring after a while.

[ChosenOne]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

I wonder if the others will ever find out Kitsune killed Aka. Seems a pretty big thing that Patheon members are now "mortal' and can be killed off, and not just immortal gods.

They're magical beings, I just figured one of them could kill another. And the Dragon was dead, wasn't he? So we/they already knew that.

[superstaff]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Counter-point:

- The Turtles are often crowded out of their own story, in order to give more storyline real estate to characters like Jennika and Lita who were "made up" for no reason than to draw more women into reading the book.

There's like 80 million supporting cast members now and sometimes the Turtles themselves come off like "guest stars" in their own book. This was something the Superman books had a bit of a problem with in the late-90s, as well. It happens. But it usually starts to lose people after a while. For example, as someone who only dips in and out, I can't help but notice how this book is sometimes drowning in female supporting cast members, now. It's like someone heard all the age-old criticism about the Turtles mythos not having enough female characters, and decided to try and "fix" the last 30 years of that all at once. And sometimes it feels like all of a sudden the book is "about" them, when it's not their name on the "marquee". And it feels a little forced. Others have said more than a little, but I'm just trying to be nice.

I'm not sure "slice of life" is the problem in and of itself. I think it has more to do with the fact that most people would rather read about... y'know... the Ninja Turtles. A slower pace combined with tons of supporting cast and very little of the Ninja Turtles getting to do Ninja Turtles Stuff at times is probably more the problem than any one of those things in and of itself.

Yes, very well said, Leo. This sums up much of my issues with the recent run. I don't have a problem with 'slice of life', but there's many problems plaguing the book right now, like the TMNT feeling like guest stars in their own series.

[TigerClaw]

Well as Tom Waltz has said. You shouldn't buy it.

While the rest of us will, and enjoy all the slice of life they been giving us.

[superstaff]

Originally Posted by TigerClaw

Well as Tom Waltz has said. You shouldn't buy it.

While the rest of us will, and enjoy all the slice of life they been giving us.

I won't.

Doesn't mean I can't share my opinion on what I didn't like previously.

[Leo656]

I've learned that most of the time when TigerClaw gives something a ringing endorsement, the wise thing to do is run as far as you can in the opposite direction.

Originally Posted by superstaff

Yes, very well said, Leo. This sums up much of my issues with the recent run. I don't have a problem with 'slice of life', but there's many problems plaguing the book right now, like the TMNT feeling like guest stars in their own series.

Yeah, like I said it's a thing that happened a lot with the Superman books somewhere around 1996-1998-ish. They had a GREAT supporting cast and lots of great characters and subplots going on at once, BUT... I was struck upon re-reading those books at just how little Superman - you know, the title character? - actually appeared in some of them. Sometimes he'd be on 5 or 6 pages of a 22-page comic. Inexcusable, no matter how much you like the supporting cast (and to be clear, I LOVED the supporting cast and their individual storylines).

This was made worse by the fact that there were FOUR monthly books going on at that time and they ALL had the exact same problem, since the books were serialized weekly as one ongoing storyline spread across four titles. It was a great way to do the books, BUT the problem was that the good AND the bad got spread around through all of them. It wasn't like if you thought Action Comics was "too slow", you could pick up "Adventures of Superman" and it would be much different, because it was just continuing the story from the previous week. There were just plain Too Many Supporting Cast Members and Not Enough Superman at one point, and the books (and their sales) really suffered for it.

It got to the point where DC was seriously considering a Hard Reboot, throwing the entire Superman canon out the window and "starting over" again because things had become so unwieldy. But when plans for that leaked out, the fans kind of pitched a fit, so as a compromise, DC left the canon intact BUT they eliminated the ENTIRE supporting cast they'd spent ten years building up (some of whom never got their storylines resolved, and most of whom were never, ever seen again) and refocused the books just around Superman, Lois, and the core villains and Daily Planet staff. Sales went up immediately, and stayed strong, once word got out that "The Superman books are actually about SUPERMAN again!"

I personally feel that getting rid of the ENTIRE supporting cast was overkill. A lot of those characters had a lot of fans, and we'd spent a lot of time getting to know them. But the fact remains, the books had become unwieldy (and a little boring) and SOMETHING had to be done, and it was either that or Hard Reboot. DC chose to make a dramatic statement with their "back to basics" approach, and it did indeed pay dividends. So even though it's not the choice I would have made, it's hard to say it was the wrong decision.

Originally Posted by TigerClaw

Well as Tom Waltz has said. You shouldn't buy it.

While the rest of us will, and enjoy all the slice of life they been giving us.

Yes, in numbers that would get most comic books nowadays cancelled. They say that "Don't like it, don't buy it" stuff NOW, while ignoring or deflecting from the fact that they lost tens of thousands of readers since issue #100 hit an unprecedented high.

I already broke down the sales numbers months ago in another thread. They gained a ton of new readers in the build to issue #100, with every issue seemingly gaining more and #100 being the Big Huge Climax. And then immediately after that, they lost ALL of those people and sales plummeted to some of their lowest ever.

A business is not a charity. I'm all for Creative People having the freedom to do Creative Things, but the fact is that those things only survive so long if they're not making money. And again, the numbers that the TMNT book sells would get any other book cancelled. It survives on goodwill and a brand name, nothing more. IDW as whole probably makes enough money from other projects to sustain the loss, but not indefinitely.

So unless you, personally, are prepared to pick up the slack and buy an extra 10,000 copies per month to keep your favorite book afloat when others are jumping off it like rats on a sinking ship, it's probably best to can that "Don't like it, don't read it" crap. And somehow, I don't think you're going to buy the extra 10,000 copies per month to make up for all the people they've lost.

You have to look at the objective facts, not just what you want. If they'd have kept even half (or a third) of the new readers they gained in the build to #100, I'd feel differently. The fact is, they lost every single one of those people AND a bunch who were already reading the book beforehand. Most of them have moved on to other things and are never coming back.

Don't presume that "TMNT" as a brand name is so popular that the book can weather that kind of storm indefinitely. It's not. The economy is in the toilet and nobody's buying comics right now anyway. They're playing a very dangerous game by 1. Force-feeding readers a product that most of them don't like, and 2. Openly telling them to take their money elsewhere.

Show me a list of companies that stayed in business with that attitude. I'll wait. Even if you can find any, I promise you that the list of companies that went under is ten times as long.

After two years of record-low sales, my opinion is: If someone wants "Zootopia, Guest Starring the TMNT" fanfiction, they should start a blog and give it away for free. Not charge four bucks an issue for it and tell people to get f*cked if they don't like it. That is the very height of hubris, and - Spoiler Alert - it never ends well.

[TigerClaw]

Originally Posted by Leo656

I've learned that most of the time when TigerClaw gives something a ringing endorsement, the wise thing to do is run as far as you can in the opposite direction.



Yeah, like I said it's a thing that happened a lot with the Superman books somewhere around 1996-1998-ish. They had a GREAT supporting cast and lots of great characters and subplots going on at once, BUT... I was struck upon re-reading those books at just how little Superman - you know, the title character? - actually appeared in some of them. Sometimes he'd be on 5 or 6 pages of a 22-page comic. Inexcusable, no matter how much you like the supporting cast (and to be clear, I LOVED the supporting cast and their individual storylines).

This was made worse by the fact that there were FOUR monthly books going on at that time and they ALL had the exact same problem, since the books were serialized weekly as one ongoing storyline spread across four titles. It was a great way to do the books, BUT the problem was that the good AND the bad got spread around through all of them. It wasn't like if you thought Action Comics was "too slow", you could pick up "Adventures of Superman" and it would be much different, because it was just continuing the story from the previous week. There were just plain Too Many Supporting Cast Members and Not Enough Superman at one point, and the books (and their sales) really suffered for it.

It got to the point where DC was seriously considering a Hard Reboot, throwing the entire Superman canon out the window and "starting over" again because things had become so unwieldy. But when plans for that leaked out, the fans kind of pitched a fit, so as a compromise, DC left the canon intact BUT they eliminated the ENTIRE supporting cast they'd spent ten years building up (some of whom never got their storylines resolved, and most of whom were never, ever seen again) and refocused the books just around Superman, Lois, and the core villains and Daily Planet staff. Sales went up immediately, and stayed strong, once word got out that "The Superman books are actually about SUPERMAN again!"

I personally feel that getting rid of the ENTIRE supporting cast was overkill. A lot of those characters had a lot of fans, and we'd spent a lot of time getting to know them. But the fact remains, the books had become unwieldy (and a little boring) and SOMETHING had to be done, and it was either that or Hard Reboot. DC chose to make a dramatic statement with their "back to basics" approach, and it did indeed pay dividends. So even though it's not the choice I would have made, it's hard to say it was the wrong decision.



Yes, in numbers that would get most comic books nowadays cancelled. They say that "Don't like it, don't buy it" stuff NOW, while ignoring or deflecting from the fact that they lost tens of thousands of readers since issue #100 hit an unprecedented high.

I already broke down the sales numbers months ago in another thread. They gained a ton of new readers in the build to issue #100, with every issue seemingly gaining more and #100 being the Big Huge Climax. And then immediately after that, they lost ALL of those people and sales plummeted to some of their lowest ever.

A business is not a charity. I'm all for Creative People having the freedom to do Creative Things, but the fact is that those things only survive so long if they're not making money. And again, the numbers that the TMNT book sells would get any other book cancelled. It survives on goodwill and a brand name, nothing more. IDW as whole probably makes enough money from other projects to sustain the loss, but not indefinitely.

So unless you, personally, are prepared to pick up the slack and buy an extra 10,000 copies per month to keep your favorite book afloat when others are jumping off it like rats on a sinking ship, it's probably best to can that "Don't like it, don't read it" crap. And somehow, I don't think you're going to buy the extra 10,000 copies per month to make up for all the people they've lose.

You have to look at the objective facts, not just what you want. If they'd have kept even half (or a third) of the new readers they gained in the build to #100, I'd feel differently. The fact is, they lost every single one of those people AND a bunch who were already reading the book beforehand. Most of them have moved on to other things and are never coming back.

Don't presume that "TMNT" as a brand name is so popular that the book can weather that kind of storm indefinitely. It's not. The economy is in the toilet and nobody's buying comics right now anyway. They're playing a very dangerous game by 1. Force-feeding readers a product that most of them don't like, and 2. Openly telling them to take their money elsewhere.

Show me a list of companies that stayed in business with that attitude. I'll wait. Even if you can find any, I promise you that the list of companies that went under is ten times as long.

Those sales numbers don't mean anything when they still have a lot of followers who will continue to support and read the comics. You may not like it, But there are other people who do and will continue buying and reading the comics.

[Leo656]

So they're running a charity? No, they're not. They need consistent steady readership in order to survive. People saying on FB and Twitter how much they love the direction isn't worth squat. They have to MAKE MONEY or the book is going to go away sooner than you want it to. It's that simple.

"Followers" means nothing. CUSTOMERS. Actual, paying customers. You know... the people they're telling "We don't actually want your money."

Once more, since you didn't hear me the first time: Any other comic that didn't have "TMNT" on the cover would have already been cancelled for having sales numbers that low.

"The Last Ronin" numbers smoked what the monthly book sells. People, by and large, want more of That. They don't want This. YOU want This. That's Fine. You are One Person and your contemporaries are a dwindling minority.

Don't cry to me if the book doesn't make it to #150. I don't make the rules, guy, I just Observe and Report. Money talks, bullsh*t walks. Turns out, MOST people would rather see the Ninja Turtles doing Ninja Turtle Things, and not Zootopia Fanfic. Go figure! What a shocking development. I never would have guessed that 30,000 people would all jump off the comic once it became a longform plot about a bunch of furries sitting around talking instead of actually doing much of anything.

Again, when it gets cancelled, don't cry to me. You've all been warned. Goodwill doesn't keep the lights on. They need money. Paying customers. That's the end of it.

[TigerClaw]

Originally Posted by Leo656

So they're running a charity? No, they're not. They need consistent steady readership in order to survive. People saying on FB and Twitter how much they love the direction isn't worth squat. They have to MAKE MONEY or the book is going to go away sooner than you want it to. It's that simple.

"Followers" means nothing. CUSTOMERS. Actual, paying customers. You know... the people they're telling "We don't actually want your money."

Once more, since you didn't hear me the first time: Any other comic that didn't have "TMNT" on the cover would have already been cancelled for having sales numbers that low.

"The Last Ronin" numbers smoked what the monthly book sells. People, by and large, want more of That. They don't want This. YOU want This. That's Fine. You are One Person and your contemporaries are a dwindling minority.

Don't cry to me if the book doesn't make it to #150. I don't make the rules, guy, I just Observe and Report. Money talks, bullsh*t walks. Turns out, MOST people would rather see the Ninja Turtles doing Ninja Turtle Things, and not Zootopia Fanfic. Go figure! What a shocking development. I never would have guessed that 30,000 people would all jump off the comic once it became a longform plot about a bunch of furries sitting around talking instead of actually doing much of anything.

Again, when it gets cancelled, don't cry to me. You've all been warned. Goodwill doesn't keep the lights on. They need money. Paying customers. That's the end of it.

The comics will be fine, People do read it. So its not about whether they will continue to make the money, They most certainly are. Since when did you become an expert on sales number? Most of the writers and artist tend to avoid the forum because of people like you.

[Leo656]

I've been a comic book reader for a long time, pal. I've had plenty of books I liked get cancelled because other people didn't buy them. It is a thing that happens. "The Power Of Love" can't keep a book in print if they're not making any money.

As I said, I already went month-by-month months ago in another thread and illustrated how the book's sales hit unprecedented highs leading up to #100, and then dropped like a stone (some months having some of the lowest sales they ever had). I'm not gonna bother looking it up again, I have sh*t to do.

It's not rocket science, though. They went from like 15,000 readers per month on average, to about 50,000 readers around #100 or whatever the actual sales number was... THEN two months later they were at about 10,000 again.

Which means that almost 40,000 more people than their normal monthly average decided to take a look at the book, and ALL of them immediately said "Nah, I don't like this," and walked away from it. Some months, they got out-sold by He-Man. HE-MAN!!! And look, that's great for ME, I think He-Man is awesome and TMNT is pretty stupid. BUT. Even I know that nobody in 2020/2021 gives a crap about He-Man... yet apparently, at least some months, his comics can sell more copies than TMNT can. That's pitiful.

The monthly TMNT comic moves about 10-15,000 per month, when sales figures are made public (read: "When the numbers aren't so low they're embarrassed to make them public"). Again, MOST books would get cancelled for that. IDW clearly makes enough money from other books to let things slide on the monthly TMNT book, but that won't last forever.

Meanwhile, issue #2 of "The Last Ronin" saw over 130,000 copies printed. 130,000. 13,000, to 130,000.

In WHAT universe do more people want to read something like the monthly comic over something like Last Ronin? Supply and Demand. Supply. And. Demand.

YOU like the book the way it is. You and a very, very small number of other people. But you're outvoted. MOST people want Something Else. Numbers don't lie. You can't spin sh*t like this. Not when a TMNT book that couldn't be more different than this Zootopia sh*t comes out at the exact same time and sets sales records the TMNT brand has never seen in its entire existence. The monthly book would need a rocket up its proverbial ass to sell 130,000 copies. It never has, and it never will.

You have this serious problem, TigerClaw, where you refuse to ever accept that your subjective Opinion has no place in Objective FACT. And this is why nobody ever pays any attention to you. You're nothing but a mark. "Well, *I* like this thing!" You're allowed to like it. But it's driving the book's sales into the ground and it IS going to get cancelled sooner than later if things don't improve. That's REALITY. That's not what I'm HOPING for but it IS what's going to happen if something doesn't change. Denying that isn't going to help anything, it's only going to make it worse.

And like I said, WHEN it gets cancelled, I'm going to laugh my ass off at you sitting there wondering out loud HOW it happened and why.

Just repeat "13,000 versus 130,000", over and over again. Write it on the chalkboard a hundred times, until it finally f*cking sinks in.

When a quick Google search turns up multiple online threads about "How does the IDW TMNT comic stay in print with sales this bad?"... guess what? That means IT AIN'T JUST ME. Plenty of other people notice this stuff. I'm just perhaps one of the loudest guys in the room, but we're all thinking the same thing.

In fact, when I simply Google "IDW TMNT Sales", I get more stuff about "How does this book even stay in print?" than I do actual sales numbers.

Imagine That!

But no, sure, yeah, Everything Is Fine. Whatever you say, Champ.

[hypered1]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Meanwhile, issue #2 of "The Last Ronin" saw over 130,000 copies printed. 130,000. That means Last Ronin sold what an average monthly TMNT comic sells, times a hundred. Times a hundred. 13,000, to 130,000.
A person doesn't have to be "an expert" to figure these things out. They just have to not be a complete f*cking idiot and know how to do math.

Congrats for proving that you're an idiot: 130,000 is TEN times more than 13,000 not 100, even a 5th grader could get that right.

And Tigerclaw is correct when they say the creators avoid this forum because of all the negative commentary from people who are perpetually miserable and can't accept that not everyone agrees with their perspective.