A quick look at the comics published by Panini UK this week and available in WH Smith and newsagents now...
MIGHTY WORLD OF MARVEL #12. On sale 24th August!
76 pages of Marvel Universe adventure! Three awesome stories! £3.99!
The Guardians of the Galaxy face a chilling opponent in a new story: ‘Mother Entropy’ is by Jim Starlin and Alan Davis!
A Civil War II chapter! Ms Marvel fights Becky as Bruno clings to life! By G Willow Wilson and Adrian Alphona!
A Civil War II chapter! Nick Fury tracks down the man behind the SHIELD mutiny! By Declan Shalvey!
Featuring material first printed in GOTG: Mother Entropy #1-2, Ms Marvel #10 and Civil War II: Choosing Sides #3.
DEADPOOL UNLEASHED #5. On sale 24th August!
100-page special! Three new stories begin! £3.99!
Deadpool and Hawkeye face a deadly threat on Halloween! By Gerry Duggan and Matteo Lolli!
Deadpool and the Mercs battle Negasonic Teenage Warhead! By Cullen Bunn and Iban Coello!
Deadpool meets Howard the Duck – and gets a total species makeover!!! By Stuart Moore and Jacopo Camagni!
Featuring material first printed in Deadpool: Mercs for Money #1-2, Deadpool the Duck #1 and Hawkeye vs Deadpool #0.
ESSENTIAL X-MEN #14. On sale 24th August!
76 pages of Mutant Mayhem! £3.99!
Mutants and aliens are one thing, but demons?! The Goblin Queen hits Miami, and the X-Men can't stop her! By Dennis Hopeless and Mark Bagley!
Monet's condition worsens as her brother Emplate gains in strength! By Cullen Bunn and Greg Land!
Featuring material first printed in Uncanny X-Men #11-13 and All-New X-Men #15.
...and a reminder again that DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE No.516 is on sale now too!
For more details, see here:
nowt to do with the post although panini does fantastic jobs on their ces as usual but titan just quietly cancelled wonder woman or thats my impression from flicking through it on the shelf today.
ReplyDeleteso harley gone, ww gone justice league 2 nonexistant shall we call time on the patients death yet?
It turns out that Wonder Woman was only intended as a three issue series, like the previous run. (At least it completed the story arc.) Perhaps mini-series like those are the best way to sell DC characters to the general public; publish while the character is in the news, then end it before sales decline too badly.
ReplyDeleteDavid, Titan's problem is down to a lack of communication. They are absolutely clueless with the DC licence - and making me pine for the days when London Editions Magazines/Fleetway had the licence.
ReplyDeleteThey rarely update their website; they rarely update their Facebook page; and although I can't prove it, I feel they've lied, too.
Example: Supergirl, released in late 2015. NOWHERE was it advertised as a mini-series. They even talked about plans they had for the title in the third issue's letters page. Then it disappeared. No updates on their site, social media sites, etc. And then one day they said it had been cancelled. And then LIED and claimed it had only been a mini-series. In other words, their lack of communication was at fault here.
I did question them about it on Facebook. A Titan employee told me that they'd notified subscribers, but couldn't communicate to all readers. Couldn't communicate? Have they not heard of the worldwide web, Twitter, etc? If a Panini title was cancelled suddenly, you can bet editors Scott Gray and Brady Webb would inform readers via another magazine (i.e. if Essential X-Men got cancelled, Scott would no doubt announce it via the intros in other CEs).
But all Titan do are make excuses. Or claim that a series was a mini-series (why would the third issue of Supergirl's letters page be talking about future plans? Why invite readers to e-mail comments in? Would a mini-series do that?).
It's clear to me that the Titan DC titles are a mere afterthought. If the above isn't bad enough, there have been numerous printing errors, next issue on sale errors, etc. The errors are getting embarrassing now.
This may sound like a bitter person's rantings, but Bleeding Cool even reported on Titan's woes. And the visitor posts on Facebook are usually questions such as "Has your title been cancelled?" or "Why didn't you announce a title had gone bi-monthly?"
Titan seems like a mess. There were no issues of Star Trek Magazine between late 2015 and around mid-2016 (it's supposed to be bi-monthly). I e-mailed them. No response. Nothing on the Titan Star Trek page. I don't know why they don't get basics such as communication right, but for me, they've gone from being an organization I get angry with to an organization I feel pity for.
Until they give their readers and the DC licence the respect it deserves, I have been boycotting them.
Parry, it's best not to accuse them of lying when, as you said, you can't prove it. Publishing is a volatile business these days more than it's ever been. A decision made one day can be changed the week after due to all kinds of reasons; if sales aren't as expected, or distribution is cocked up, or there's internal restructuring or whatever. Titan aren't a big international company like Panini, so some comparisons are unfair. Everyone's trying to do the best they can.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate what you say, Lew.
ReplyDeleteI think the one thing Titan could do, with little effort, is just update their social media pages. I drove into WHSmith (so petrol and parking) to find a fourth Supergirl comic that never even got published despite promises to do so. A tweet or FB post announcing its cancellation is fine - they obviously can't publish if the title isn't doing well, but it does erode goodwill.
A Twitter friend of mine can't drive and he has had to pay bus fares to get to WHSmith (he lives in a small town) and he told me he got fed up of paying fares only to find out an issue wasn't out - or there'd been a mistake with a next issue on sale date.
At least timely and accurate updates would perhaps restore the goodwill.