1) Wizard sucks and the signal to noise ratio has gotten particularly bad recently
2) Speaking as an adult male, I care very deeply about a nearly naked Megan Fox. It might not be enough make me buy the magazine, but I would certainly stop and gaze upon the cover for a moment before I shuffle off to buy Fables or Nova
I can totally see the sentiment, Chuck. There certainly are males who don't care. But I would hazard a guess that there many more for whom Megan is a marketing attraction. I respect your opinion that "real men" should not be so easily distracted, but that doesn't change the reality. So to answer your questions, yes, adult fathers of little girls also find Megan attractive, even some women although definitely a much smaller percentage. One can admit that Ms. Fox is an attractive woman that is nice to look at without being an evil leg-humping spaz.
However... Wizards does not need to be "like Maxim". A magazine with broader gender appeal would be one of the first of its kind in the game space. I've often thought that capturing the young and adult women market would be a great boost to the industry. Wizards is definitely missing the mark and leaving cash on the counter by focusing so heavily on the male-only market of Maxim.
The Maxim bar is so low due the extremely poor journalism of the writers. I've never read an article in one that I thought was even a little bit useful or even cheeky. It's crap.
Right, I'm not really debating the appeal of Megan Fox, though I really don't see what's so great about her.
And I guess I see why she's "on topic" for Wizard, being in Transformers.
But at some point I realized Wizard had been ABOUT Megan Fox, and Evangeline Lily, and She-Hulk's tits for some time, more than general, in-depth comic book coverage.
Basically, the magazine realized at some point that they couldn't compete with the web for comics news.
And rather than focus on more in-depth coverage, decided that T&A plus frat boy humor was the way to go.
Wizards might be right. They really can't compete with CBR or (yeck) Newsarama or bleedingcool.com.
As Warren Ellis recently asked:" Does anyone still read magazines about comics?" http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=6510&page=1#Item_6
Let's look at Marvel acquiring Marvelman, as an example.
It's probably at least two weeks between that announcement and the next issue hitting the stands.
Your hardcore fans already know, that read it on the Bendis Board or on Marvel.com or Newsarama.
The casual fans frankly, probably don't really care. Neil Gaiman might be returning to some old character they never heard of?
Cool, Neil is an awesome writer, I'm sure they'll glance over it and then page through the book when it's released to see if it's any good.
There's a big leap between that though (deciding you can't really be a news magazine for comics in the internet age) and saying "let's load the issue with locker room humor and half naked babes! everyone likes that!"
And frankly, it's a problem I have with comics as well.
I think it was Brad Meltzer who said he sent Justice League art back during his run because the fight scene panel he described as "Hawkgirl hits bad guy with mace" was a close-up of her ass in a thong in the foreground, and in the background you could sort of see the mace-hit landing.
He then said "I apologize to everyone who buys comics just to masturbate to them".
Or Marvel's "tentacle porn" cover to Heroes for Hire.
This is not the direction comics, or magazines that cover them, should be going.
Pandering to fanboy hormones is losing game in the long run. It is almost as demeaning to the young male as it is to females. I think there is plenty of room to allow boys to love pretty girls without a camel-toe in every frame.
Now the future of media is a hot topic. The telecommunications industry is thriving on the recent trends toward all digital all the time. High-speed mobile devices, Kindles, Web 2.0, twitpic and even blogs are squeezing out traditional media. Even the skin mags are losing out and if you can't sell porn in print, then print is in serious trouble. Of course print will never "die", but your grandkids may have to go to the library to read a real book. Magazines will be printed from download--if at all.
9 comments:
Sure... but... You can't deny that nearly naked Megan Fox is powerful marketing!
However, I could stand a few readable articles in a magazine.
Cool to whom?
Fathers of little girls? Married women who read comics?
Adults do not give a shit about Meagan Fox, nearly-naked or otherwise.
I will agree on both counts
1) Wizard sucks and the signal to noise ratio has gotten particularly bad recently
2) Speaking as an adult male, I care very deeply about a nearly naked Megan Fox. It might not be enough make me buy the magazine, but I would certainly stop and gaze upon the cover for a moment before I shuffle off to buy Fables or Nova
I can totally see the sentiment, Chuck. There certainly are males who don't care. But I would hazard a guess that there many more for whom Megan is a marketing attraction. I respect your opinion that "real men" should not be so easily distracted, but that doesn't change the reality. So to answer your questions, yes, adult fathers of little girls also find Megan attractive, even some women although definitely a much smaller percentage. One can admit that Ms. Fox is an attractive woman that is nice to look at without being an evil leg-humping spaz.
However... Wizards does not need to be "like Maxim". A magazine with broader gender appeal would be one of the first of its kind in the game space. I've often thought that capturing the young and adult women market would be a great boost to the industry. Wizards is definitely missing the mark and leaving cash on the counter by focusing so heavily on the male-only market of Maxim.
The Maxim bar is so low due the extremely poor journalism of the writers. I've never read an article in one that I thought was even a little bit useful or even cheeky. It's crap.
Right, I'm not really debating the appeal of Megan Fox, though I really don't see what's so great about her.
And I guess I see why she's "on topic" for Wizard, being in Transformers.
But at some point I realized Wizard had been ABOUT Megan Fox, and Evangeline Lily, and She-Hulk's tits for some time, more than general, in-depth comic book coverage.
Basically, the magazine realized at some point that they couldn't compete with the web for comics news.
And rather than focus on more in-depth coverage, decided that T&A plus frat boy humor was the way to go.
Wizards might be right.
They really can't compete with CBR or (yeck) Newsarama or bleedingcool.com.
As Warren Ellis recently asked:" Does anyone still read magazines about comics?"
http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=6510&page=1#Item_6
I think they are definitely right about that.
Let's look at Marvel acquiring Marvelman, as an example.
It's probably at least two weeks between that announcement and the next issue hitting the stands.
Your hardcore fans already know, that read it on the Bendis Board or on Marvel.com or Newsarama.
The casual fans frankly, probably don't really care. Neil Gaiman might be returning to some old character they never heard of?
Cool, Neil is an awesome writer, I'm sure they'll glance over it and then page through the book when it's released to see if it's any good.
There's a big leap between that though (deciding you can't really be a news magazine for comics in the internet age) and saying "let's load the issue with locker room humor and half naked babes! everyone likes that!"
And frankly, it's a problem I have with comics as well.
I think it was Brad Meltzer who said he sent Justice League art back during his run because the fight scene panel he described as "Hawkgirl hits bad guy with mace" was a close-up of her ass in a thong in the foreground, and in the background you could sort of see the mace-hit landing.
He then said "I apologize to everyone who buys comics just to masturbate to them".
Or Marvel's "tentacle porn" cover to Heroes for Hire.
This is not the direction comics, or magazines that cover them, should be going.
I agree with all that, Chuck.
Pandering to fanboy hormones is losing game in the long run. It is almost as demeaning to the young male as it is to females. I think there is plenty of room to allow boys to love pretty girls without a camel-toe in every frame.
Now the future of media is a hot topic. The telecommunications industry is thriving on the recent trends toward all digital all the time. High-speed mobile devices, Kindles, Web 2.0, twitpic and even blogs are squeezing out traditional media. Even the skin mags are losing out and if you can't sell porn in print, then print is in serious trouble. Of course print will never "die", but your grandkids may have to go to the library to read a real book. Magazines will be printed from download--if at all.
Yep, which I suspect is exactly how we ended up here in the first place.
Wizard's sales started dropping fast and they said "our target advertising market is men 18-30, what's the top magazine for that age bracket".
When the answer came back maxim, they decided to try and be the "maxim of comics news".
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