TMNT 125 preview and discussion

[lonewarrior20]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

The artists art style is going to take some getting used to, especially for the humans. Baxter's face looks distorted on the TV. But overall seems interesting.

Also I don't like the idea of April and Mona sleeping together.

They're in the turtles living room, i'd say they're just trying to stay warm. I wonder if Mona's cold blooded or not.

[TigerClaw]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

The artists art style is going to take some getting used to, especially for the humans. Baxter's face looks distorted on the TV. But overall seems interesting.

Also I don't like the idea of April and Mona sleeping together.

Maybe the two get along because they both are into science, April used to work in a lab.

Originally Posted by lonewarrior20

They're in the turtles living room, i'd say they're just trying to stay warm. I wonder if Mona's cold blooded or not.

That's an interesting question when you have to consider other reptile mutants out there, But I would have to assume they are warm blooded because of there half human side.

[Utrommaniac]

1. Embryos form before an eggshell (but where did that ultrasound come from?)
2. What were Utroms doing....before this???

Also, we have to remember that Zog was born "naturally", so it makes sense that he'd be able to do the same. Zom probably just has the same mutation that Zog and his parents had.

[ChosenOne]

Tom left, Bobby left, the writing has been sh*t, and now the art is going down the same path...

Look at the flowers, IDW TMNT. Just look at the flowers.

[Sumac]

Smile and wave, boys. Smile and wave.

[hypered1]

Originally Posted by ChosenOne

Tom left, Bobby left, the writing has been sh*t, and now the art is going down the same path...

Look at the flowers, IDW TMNT. Just look at the flowers.

Tom was promoted to IDW's Group Editor and Creative Development lead a couple of weeks ago and Pablo Tunica has been doing art for series for years now.

Oh and sales are still steady and still higher than pre-#100:

https://www.comichron.com/monthlycom...07Diamond.html
https://www.comichron.com/monthlycom...08Diamond.html
https://www.comichron.com/monthlycom...09Diamond.html

One day you might be right but today is not that day.

[ChosenOne]

There he goes again with the sales.

[staypuftweepel]

Originally Posted by hypered1

Tom was promoted to IDW's Group Editor and Creative Development lead a couple of weeks ago and Pablo Tunica has been doing art for series for years now.

Oh and sales are still steady and still higher than pre-#100:

https://www.comichron.com/monthlycom...07Diamond.html
https://www.comichron.com/monthlycom...08Diamond.html
https://www.comichron.com/monthlycom...09Diamond.html

One day you might be right but today is not that day.

The Book dropped like 1,455 subscribers in 3 months. To go from 19, 384 to 17,929 is a good chunk of the audience.

[neatoman]

Yes, the book is indeed losing readers. The problem is just that it has allegedly been selling between 10.000 and 20.000 copies monthly since issue 101, which did seem a bit odd to me, which is why I went ahead and checked the data for every issue since 2011. To be fair, issue 100 sold over 50.000 copies, so the book still hit it's peak right before 101 and Sophie becoming the main writer. And 98, 97, 52, 50, 48, 45, 22, 21, 4, 3 and 1 have sold better than almost any Sophie issue we have a clear number for on Comichron. The exception is 101 but plenty of the previously mentioned Tom issue sold better. I don't think I need to tell you that any issue of Last Ronin, which has been running in parallel with Sophie's run, has come out on a far less regular schedule and has only about a fifth as many issues, has actually sold two to five times as many copies as any given issue in Sophie's run.

In general though, while there are Tom issues that run circles around Sophie issues, most of Tom run has sold similarly to what Sophie's allegedly has and given that Tom's run is close to four times longer it's not surprising that it has a few higher peaks. But if are honestly going to judge the Sophie's run to Tom's in a commercial sense, then the mere fact that the first 24 Tom issues sold better than the first 24 Sophie issues, and even had a peaks over 20.000 after issue 20, then you might need to reconsider who is buying this book and why. As for selling better now than before 100, technically yes, there are points in Tom's run where it sold well below than what any issue of Sophie's have done so far but that was in the issue between 75 and 95, very far in and it started get more peaks after that in the final five issues.

If we are to apply this fan reaction, it does seem to line up more than I previously believed, I just needed to take a look at the sales data of the book from the start. Almost any book will have a loyal core following, these are the roughly 10.000 people who bought the book during Tom's biggest slope and the bulk of the people still buying the book under Sophie. Almost every major event will have some major spike in readership, causing book to temporarily gain more readers, this is likely what lead to the initial higher sales numbers for Sophie. The big difference here is that Tom has had more spikes and was thus capable of bringing in more new readers more frequently. Sophie's run on the other hand has not appeared to be able get more readers than what it had at the first issue, which could imply that it isn't new readers coming in but rather the people who picked up 101 in the first place buying the book irregularly. The highest numbers from Sophie's run also don't compare to the spikes of Tom's run, meaning many of the people who bought the issue during those aren't interested in picking up the book during Sophie's run.

Admittedly a most of that is speculative but it does line up with the data. If I am correct, if Sophie keeps writing the book the way she does and this loss in readership is actually significant, I wouldn't be shocked if the book eventually got canned around 150.

I hope you can appreciate me looking through 10 years of sales data to spot this pattern.

[hypered1]

Originally Posted by staypuftweepel

The Book dropped like 1,455 subscribers in 3 months. To go from 19, 384 to 17,929 is a good chunk of the audience.

It's still way above the 8 - 9k it was getting around issue 90.

[hypered1]

Originally Posted by neatoman

Yes, the book is indeed losing readers. The problem is just that it has allegedly been selling between 10.000 and 20.000 copies monthly since issue 101, which did seem a bit odd to me, which is why I went ahead and checked the data for every issue since 2011. To be fair, issue 100 sold over 50.000 copies, so the book still hit it's peak right before 101 and Sophie becoming the main writer. And 98, 97, 52, 50, 48, 45, 22, 21, 4, 3 and 1 have sold better than almost any Sophie issue we have a clear number for on Comichron. The exception is 101 but plenty of the previously mentioned Tom issue sold better. I don't think I need to tell you that any issue of Last Ronin, which has been running in parallel with Sophie's run, has come out on a far less regular schedule and has only about a fifth as many issues, has actually sold two to five times as many copies as any given issue in Sophie's run.

In general though, while there are Tom issues that run circles around Sophie issues, most of Tom run has sold similarly to what Sophie's allegedly has and given that Tom's run is close to four times longer it's not surprising that it has a few higher peaks. But if are honestly going to judge the Sophie's run to Tom's in a commercial sense, then the mere fact that the first 24 Tom issues sold better than the first 24 Sophie issues, and even had a peaks over 20.000 after issue 20, then you might need to reconsider who is buying this book and why. As for selling better now than before 100, technically yes, there are points in Tom's run where it sold well below than what any issue of Sophie's have done so far but that was in the issue between 75 and 95, very far in and it started get more peaks after that in the final five issues.

If we are to apply this fan reaction, it does seem to line up more than I previously believed, I just needed to take a look at the sales data of the book from the start. Almost any book will have a loyal core following, these are the roughly 10.000 people who bought the book during Tom's biggest slope and the bulk of the people still buying the book under Sophie. Almost every major event will have some major spike in readership, causing book to temporarily gain more readers, this is likely what lead to the initial higher sales numbers for Sophie. The big difference here is that Tom has had more spikes and was thus capable of bringing in more new readers more frequently. Sophie's run on the other hand has not appeared to be able get more readers than what it had at the first issue, which could imply that it isn't new readers coming in but rather the people who picked up 101 in the first place buying the book irregularly. The highest numbers from Sophie's run also don't compare to the spikes of Tom's run, meaning many of the people who bought the issue during those aren't interested in picking up the book during Sophie's run.

Admittedly a most of that is speculative but it does line up with the data. If I am correct, if Sophie keeps writing the book the way she does and this loss in readership is actually significant, I wouldn't be shocked if the book eventually got canned around 150.

I hope you can appreciate me looking through 10 years of sales data to spot this pattern.

The point is that the sales were in steady decline and then bounced back when the new writer brought in a new audience.

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by hypered1

It's still way above the 8 - 9k it was getting around issue 90.

That is indeed the low point of Waltz run. It is also the point the plot was the most complicated, having just gone through a minor war between the US Government and an island populated by two alien races in conflict, with the looming threat of a Dragon god on the Horizon and demonic businesswoman pulling some strings. It would be understandable if it's difficult to entice casual readers during something like that. But keep in mind here, 90 issues in? If your readership manages to stay above 9000 for around 90 issues on an IDW book, that is a bit of an achievement.

And as I already pointed out here, Waltz didn't have a problem writing issues that could cause the readership to about 30.000, sometimes closer to 50.000. There doesn't seem to be anything about Sophie's run that has done so, it's never been more than barely 20.000 after almost 25 issues.

The basic difference between them is that Waltz can bring in new readers beyond the 10.000 hardcore readers and the additional 10.000 who read it semi-regularily, Sophie seems to struggle with appealing to anyone who wasn't reading the book before.

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by hypered1

The point is that the sales were in steady decline and then bounced back when the new writer brought in a new audience.

Well, that seems to be an incorrect assumption as well. There isn't a new audience, it just seems to be the same audience. The only difference is that the semi-regulars may have started to read the book more frequently now than during that relatively brief period when it did sell worse than 15.000 copies, but the numbers are still about the same as they were during the vast majority of Tom's run, the only significant difference is that Sophie has never written an issue that has managed to sell more than 21.000, which Tom managed to do several times over.

So ironically, you might have this reversed. If I had to guess, whenever Tom managed to get over 30.000 copies sold, he did get some new audience members every time. And since Sophie has never managed to even get close to 30.000, I'm willing to bet at least 80% of everyone reading her run had already been introduced to the book though a Waltz issue.

Oh and in case you forgot how numbers work, if issue 100 sold 50.000 and issue 101 sold 20.000, that is actually a loss in readership by 60%. And if the 5 issues before 100 had been going up since 94, then the readership was actually starting to increase well before the new writer came in.

[Mayhem]

Originally Posted by neatoman

Oh and in case you forgot how numbers work, if issue 100 sold 50.000 and issue 101 sold 20.000, that is actually a loss in readership by 60%. And if the 5 issues before 100 had been going up since 94, then the readership was actually starting to increase well before the new writer came in.

The figures for #100 were due to, being #100 (duh) and the 80 odd variants that were sold on top, especially for some of us who collect every single issue (yes I've got every single #100 cover).

[hypered1]

Originally Posted by Mayhem

The figures for #100 were due to, being #100 (duh) and the 80 odd variants that were sold on top, especially for some of us who collect every single issue (yes I've got every single #100 cover).

Exactly, you can't use 'event' issues as a baseline as they will almost always have higher figures. The current run is at the very least comparable to where is was before the numbers started slumping towards the end.
At any rate it wasn't the point of my original response which was that the art style isn't new and Tom's been promoted and still oversees the series clearly IDW are still happy with the way things are going.

[ChosenOne]

Plants love fertilizer. Nothing new there.

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by Mayhem

The figures for #100 were due to, being #100 (duh) and the 80 odd variants that were sold on top, especially for some of us who collect every single issue (yes I've got every single #100 cover).

Originally Posted by hypered1

Exactly, you can't use 'event' issues as a baseline as they will almost always have higher figures. The current run is at the very least comparable to where is was before the numbers started slumping towards the end.
At any rate it wasn't the point of my original response which was that the art style isn't new and Tom's been promoted and still oversees the series clearly IDW are still happy with the way things are going.

What we also need to remember here is that Comichron offers us no real data on how well 105-108, 111-116 and 122-124 did. That's about 50% of the run's sales unaccounted for here, so we can't even say for certain that the book has consistently managed to stay above the 10.000 sales mark. It's arguing from ignorance to say it has, it's a reasonable assumption but it is dishonest to say it's certain the book has managed to retain readership of over 10.000 every month.

And "event" issue as you put are relevant data. The mere fact that Tom's run had spikes in the sales exceeding 30.000 and Sophie's doesn't after two years, does imply Tom's run had an easier time finding additional readers from time to time, than what Sophie's run has. And as I pointed out earlier, the true last stretch of Tom's run which is 95-100, still sold better than any issue of Sophie's run. The sales did in fact start to go back up before 100, the narrative that the book sold really poorly right before 100 and that 101 sold better than the last few issue before 100 is incorrect.

What is also curious is that throughout Tom's run, there was almost always complementary side-book coming out monthly as well. Even up until the end we got Shredder in hell. But during Sophie's, this practice has been scarce, only 9 issues of Jennika Spin-offs and the unrelated Last Ronin. If we are to believe Sophie's run is doing just as well and the editors have full faith in it, why aren't they bothering with the minis anymore? Oh, and in case you're wondering, the sales for the Jennika minis are mostly missing data as well, we only know what the first issue of the first one sold.

[MikeandRaph87]

So Bobby Curnow quit citing burnout and needing a change. Pablo Tunica is now the editor. I don't know a thing about Tunica, what is his resume or background? Also, Tom was promoted to editor. It read like the job that Bobby left behind, however is it higher up over the whole line?

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by MikeandRaph87

Pablo Tunica is now the editor.

He is? I guess I was assuming Tom would take over from Bobby. All I see about Pablo is that he's an artist out of Argentina.

[MikeandRaph87]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

He is? I guess I was assuming Tom would take over from Bobby. All I see about Pablo is that he's an artist out of Argentina.

I would have thought that too if the letter column of #124 did not state that Bobby and Pablo were co-editing #125 and Pablo will take it from there after the final issue of The Last Ronin is out. Perhaps Tom is the one all editors report to, I suppose like IDW's equivalent of vice-president editorial?