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RoboPimp
PIMPY SUPREME
 
Joined: 10 Mar 2007
Post Count: 3124
Comment: "You dead wrong if ya think that pimpin' gon' die" - Snoop Dogg, P.I.M.P. (Remix)
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  Posted: Sat Feb 20, 2021 11:21 pm |
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And they never responded.  Seriously though, a week ago I sent an email to BOOM!, which I believe still has the license to produce RoboCop comics, or at least they were the last ones to publish any. I have been thinking about this for a while so I simply requested that they start making more RoboCop comics. Then I suggested that who would be better than myself to write those comics, after all I have a degree in creative writing, am a published author, and a Level 3 RoboCop fan. Who could be better qualified. As per their regulations, I did not submit any story ideas but rather the idea for me to make the stories. But I have been thinking for a while about how I would really approach and pitch a RoboCop comic or series. And I have come up with three distinct ideas, depending on the target audience (the general public, average RoboCop fans, and megabrained RoboCop patricians) and length (one shot, mini series, ongoing). I am still holding out hope that they will respond, begging me to revitalize the RoboCop comics world as only I can. So I won't post any of my story ideas yet, but may reveal all when things seem hopeless. Anyway I figured you guys would appreciate it. Keep me in your prayers.
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RoboJOF
Sgt-L4
Joined: 17 May 2015
Post Count: 306
Comment: Bitches, leave!
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| Posted: Sun Feb 21, 2021 12:56 am |
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Sorry to hear that, RoboPimp! They would do well to hire someone with the Level 3 Fan status. I thought that Dynamite Comics was the last to license RoboCop. I believe they had a series in 2015? I could be wrong. The world of comics is a place that RoboCop can thrive, but I haven't read anything since the Frank Miller stuff. Could the RoboCop Archive publish it's own RoboCop stories? They would be within the world of fan fiction, but it's a place to start. I bet there are some great illustrators out there that could put some images to your words.
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RoboPimp
PIMPY SUPREME
Joined: 10 Mar 2007
Post Count: 3124
Comment: "You dead wrong if ya think that pimpin' gon' die" - Snoop Dogg, P.I.M.P. (Remix)
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| Posted: Sun Feb 21, 2021 2:06 am |
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| RoboJOF : | | I thought that Dynamite Comics was the last to license RoboCop. I believe they had a series in 2015? I could be wrong. The world of comics is a place that RoboCop can thrive, but I haven't read anything since the Frank Miller stuff. Could the RoboCop Archive publish it's own RoboCop stories? They would be within the world of fan fiction, but it's a place to start. I bet there are some great illustrators out there that could put some images to your words. |
No, BOOM! has had the license since 2013 and have published a few various Robo things. My favorite would be the 12 issue series, the longest Robo run since the original Marvel comics 23 issue run. They did a comic adaption of Frank Miller's RoboCop 3 script, much like Avatar did for RoboCop 2. They also reprinted that Avatar run, and did the tie in comics for the reboot movie. The last thing they did was a short series in 2018. It was originally announced as an ongoing series but only five issues were released so it was a disappointing note to end on.
As for doing some RoboCop comics or fan fiction, I remember there were some attempts on here back in the day. However, I remember those attempts were never fully realized, with some controversy surrounding the production of a couple of them. So I would be wary to dip my toes in. From my end, I am a writer and not an artist. I would love to write RoboCop comics with any artist that would work on them, but the reality is that writing is always the easy part of making comics, from amateur efforts to the pros. So while I think I could come up with a near endless supply of good-if-not-great RoboCop stories, finding someone to draw, ink, and color them is much great effort. So while I am open to all offers of collaboration, I don't expect it to be realistically feasible.
At least with BOOM! they could theoretically pay everyone involved AND make money off of it, though the last part is very up in the air as their last series seemed rather unsuccessful. The problem as I see it is that these publishers struggle to find people to write interesting RoboCop stories that can attract the general public. Much like Avatar, BOOM!'s original series have been fine, passable, mostly tradional RoboCop stories. They do the job and RoboCop fans will buy them, but nothing that would make a normal comic fan pick them up and then tell their friends "you gotta check this out". I have the answer, but will BOOM! open their ears to hear it? Find out next month on RoboCopArchive.com/board!
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Archive
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Joined: 17 Nov 2001
Post Count: 6533
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| Posted: Sun Feb 21, 2021 1:39 pm |
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| RoboJOF : | | They would do well to hire someone with the Level 3 Fan status. |
Ha-Ha absolutely! 
I have tried to contact BOOM a few times but i never got any reply either. Most recently i tried to inquire if they had plans to do some kind of Robo dark horse collection. Dynamite comics was supposed to release such a thing in 2010 but of course nothing happened.
There's been at least two or three attempts at fan Robo comics on the board if i recall. Sean_001 started making the art for one but then things got ugly behind the scenes. ChAnOoD also started one where i did the coloring. It lasted about 4-5 pages i think.
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RoboPimp
PIMPY SUPREME
Joined: 10 Mar 2007
Post Count: 3124
Comment: "You dead wrong if ya think that pimpin' gon' die" - Snoop Dogg, P.I.M.P. (Remix)
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| Posted: Sun Feb 21, 2021 9:24 pm |
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| Archive : | | RoboJOF : | | They would do well to hire someone with the Level 3 Fan status. |
Ha-Ha absolutely!
I have tried to contact BOOM a few times but i never got any reply either. Most recently i tried to inquire if they had plans to do some kind of Robo dark horse collection. Dynamite comics was supposed to release such a thing in 2010 but of course nothing happened.
There's been at least two or three attempts at fan Robo comics on the board if i recall. Sean_001 started making the art for one but then things got ugly behind the scenes. ChAnOoD also started one where i did the coloring. It lasted about 4-5 pages i think. |
Ah well I am glad that I am not the only one who did not hear back from them, though that just makes it seem less likely. My next step when I get some free time is to try to figure out how to contact the editors of some of their books and email them directly. And yeah it would be great to see a reprint of the Dark Horse stuff. The Marvel series could really use a reprint too, but with Dark Horse it is maybe even more dire. Part of the problem is they had lead in stories for their mini series that were published in Dark Horse Comics, an anthology series, so it can be confusing to collect everything. RvT and their RoboCop 3 adaptions are separate things, but the other three miniseries are in a shared continuity and would be great to have them all collected in one place with the lead in stories too.
And yeah, those were the fan comic projects I was referring to. A shame that they never came to fruition but that is just the reality of the situation. Seems the biggest Robo fan projects that were started around here always ended with controversy and disappointment. So I would not be eager to continue that tradition. I still would take a shot at it is anyone had the passion and time to try, but until then (or BOOM! gives me the keys to an ongoing series) some of the best RoboCop stories ever thought up will have to remain untold.
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ChAnOoD
DC-L4
Joined: 29 Dec 2008
Post Count: 2763
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| Posted: Mon Feb 22, 2021 5:32 pm |
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| Archive : | | ChAnOoD also started one where i did the coloring. It lasted about 4-5 pages i think. |
I still remember that. "First Game" was it´s name, if not mistaken. Solid coloring, but the artwork wasn´t too nice (I was a kid back then). But I think the splash page in the begining turned out pretty cute!
| RoboPimp : | | And they never responded. Seriously though, a week ago I sent an email to BOOM!, which I believe still has the license to produce RoboCop comics, or at least they were the last ones to publish any. I have been thinking about this for a while so I simply requested that they start making more RoboCop comics. Then I suggested that who would be better than myself to write those comics, after all I have a degree in creative writing, am a published author, and a Level 3 RoboCop fan. |
I feel you, man. I was tempted to write to them in the past, for the same reasons you did. After all, we´re in a RoboForum and I think we know what would people like to see in a comic book title. Plus, they have RoboCop´s corpse rotting himself instead of doing anything with him (I start to think they´re just being silent and let the license expire. Or worse, it was expired and they didn´t say anything.) Anyway, in my case, I´m a nobody, so I´m not an ideal model to them. They´d like to get the hottest writer name in Comicland to try to sell the title without caring about the content they´re selling. When "Citizens Arrest" we have the same reaction every incarnation has: FROM THE WRITER OF ACCLAIMED... ART BY THE AWARD WINNER... and things like that, and then the plot is just a bad fan-mix between PD and RebootCop and the artwork is cartoonish. I don´t have anything against cartoonish artwork (I prefer something with style instead of hyper-realism) but it felt boring and uninspired.
| Archive : | | I have tried to contact BOOM a few times but i never got any reply either. Most recently i tried to inquire if they had plans to do some kind of Robo dark horse collection. Dynamite comics was supposed to release such a thing in 2010 but of course nothing happened. |
Funny thing, it still appears on Amazon from time to time. "Not available", but showing the black background "RoboCop Omnibus" that would include that. It´s a shame no one would make an effort to put these old comics again. If they can reprint RoboCop Vs. Terminator, in which they have to deal with Dark Horse and Miller, I think they could do something for the other titles where the team behind them aren´t big celebrities. They could even do something between both companies to share credits and the money. Imagine the possibilities: A RoboCop movie adaptation hardcover edition, with R1, R2 and R3; The Marvel one Omnibus and a Dark Horse one. I´m sure a bunch of people would get these.
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RoboPimp
PIMPY SUPREME
Joined: 10 Mar 2007
Post Count: 3124
Comment: "You dead wrong if ya think that pimpin' gon' die" - Snoop Dogg, P.I.M.P. (Remix)
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| Posted: Mon Feb 22, 2021 10:18 pm |
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| ChAnOoD : | | Plus, they have RoboCop´s corpse rotting himself instead of doing anything with him (I start to think they´re just being silent and let the license expire. Or worse, it was expired and they didn´t say anything.) Anyway, in my case, I´m a nobody, so I´m not an ideal model to them. They´d like to get the hottest writer name in Comicland to try to sell the title without caring about the content they´re selling. When "Citizens Arrest" we have the same reaction every incarnation has: FROM THE WRITER OF ACCLAIMED... ART BY THE AWARD WINNER... and things like that, and then the plot is just a bad fan-mix between PD and RebootCop and the artwork is cartoonish. |
Now that I have been thinking about it, I am starting to fear they might have just let that Robo licensee lapse... heck, nobody might officially own the rights to make Robo comics for all we know. And I can't entirely blame them. They got the license for two reasons: to adapt Frank Miller's RoboCop 3 and to make tie-in comics for the reboot. Both came and went without much impact. Since then they have not had any success with Robo. Citizen's Arrest was originally announced as an ongoing series and then was supposed to be 6 issues before getting cut down to 5. And there is no need to pretend that series ever had the potential to be truly great. I was in college when the series started to come out, when I went home and hit up my LCS they still had one copy of each issue. They had only ordered one copy of each issue. I was the only person to buy them.
BOOM!'s reprint of Avatar's RoboCop 2 series was packaged with their RoboCop 3 adaption as Frank Miller's RoboCop Omnbibus. I did not pick that book up myself since I have all the original comics, but it seems to have been their most successful product. If you try to buy it now you will see the book sold out long ago and people are asking much more than cover price on the secondary market. So that seems to have been worth the effort for them. However, there is no doubt that there are more Frank Miller fans than RoboCop fans browsing the comic shops. So taking the effort to reprint the other Dark Horse stuff would probably not be as safe a bet for them. And safe bets seem to be what BOOM! is all about, not just with RoboCop but with their other licensed properties. Do safe stories that appeal to fans and nobody else, that is their approach. My approach would be to try to a somewhat fresher approach, not just a story that lives in the shadows of older RoboCop projects but one that pushes him in a new direction that could attract the attention of the average comic fan, not just RoboCop fans. And I think that would be much more successful than just getting a dude who wrote an issue of X-Men or drew some pages of Batman.
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RoboJOF
Sgt-L4
Joined: 17 May 2015
Post Count: 306
Comment: Bitches, leave!
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| Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2021 3:25 am |
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This conversation has had me thinking about RoboCop stories, and I am intrigued by the directions that they might go for the a writer. I think that a RoboCop story that changed things for the character, maybe even in a drastic way, would be interesting to read.
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Sean_001
Vault Dweller
Joined: 20 Mar 2003
Post Count: 2192
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| Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2021 12:23 pm |
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I seem to remember my own fiasco with Avatar Press about 2 decades ago, went pretty badly as well.
With the eventual death of Comic stores all over the nation, it seems as though the market for comics is migrating to online sales. Which culminates in lower sales figures, and cancellation of whole series. I'm sure they are doing the numbers. Hopefully, something good will come of it.
Or they let it lapse. Then You can buy the publishing rights, then I'm on board.
But for now, I'm happy with the comics we have for now.
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RoboPimp
PIMPY SUPREME
Joined: 10 Mar 2007
Post Count: 3124
Comment: "You dead wrong if ya think that pimpin' gon' die" - Snoop Dogg, P.I.M.P. (Remix)
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| Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2021 5:57 pm |
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| Sean_001 : | | But for now, I'm happy with the comics we have for now. |
I must strongly disagree. Maybe it is because I am more a comic fan at heart than a fan of movies or sci-fi specifically, but more Robo comics will always be at the top of my list, even above another movie or TV series. But the reason is not just because I love comics more than movies or TV, it is because I think the comics have the most potential to expand on the story, world, and character of RoboCop. And I certainly was never one of those defeatist fans who said his story ended with the first film and never needed to continue. To me the story had just began, and in many ways is still at the 'beginning'... after all, most comics are quick to ignore the sequels and everything else that came before it to cling closer to the setting and tone of the original film.
The most ambitious RoboCop story in any medium would have to be Terminator/RoboCop: Kill Human. That series is far from flawless, but it is one of few times anyone tried to bring Robo's story to a definitive end. And doing something outside of the box makes it stand out amongst the many other bland offerings we have received before and since. On paper, there are a lot of RoboCop comics, many different series and publishers offering their take on the character. But the problem is they do not add up to much, many of those stories tread the same ground and tell the same kind of uninspired stories. There is no better example of this than the two adaptions of Frank Miller's scripts for RoboCop 2 and 3. Not one but two different series by two different publishers attempted, and they are probably the best known RoboCop comics of the 21st century. But they are just rehashing of stories we have had kicking around for decades.
There may be enough RoboCop comics to fill up a box, but there are not enough significant RoboCop comic stories for me and there may never be. That is because if you are doing RoboCop comics I will view him as a comic book character. Does anybody say there have been enough Spider-Man or Batman comics? Maybe, but they are wrong because they keep making more and people keep enjoying them. The same could be said for RoboCop, but the character would have to evolve past the basic concept sketched out in 1987. And growth is good for comic book characters, I don't think anybody would like Batman very much if he was still the same character with the same costume and tone as back in 1939. And some will say that RoboCop is not a comic character, but why not? The majority of RoboCop's stories are told in comic book form. And that is how it should be going forward imo.
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RoboJOF
Sgt-L4
Joined: 17 May 2015
Post Count: 306
Comment: Bitches, leave!
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| Posted: Wed Feb 24, 2021 12:23 am |
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You have a good point when you compare RoboCop comics and comics written about other heroes like Spider-Man and Batman even though comics don't sell like they always have. The fact is, people are interested in those characters even if they favor the movies and TV. They still want to know about their adventures and have them continue. As for the comic readers, Marvel and DC continue to reissue series with new #1 issues to draw in collectors and it works every time! Sure, these new series don't always last long, and they drive collectors crazy as they try to get their hands on them (even in the case of limited print runs), but one good thing about them is that the new writing team can take a stab at the character and tell new stories. That being said, every comic writer who is given a chance to write Spider-Man is going to want to do a Green Goblin story, or a Venom story, etc. The same is true with all the well-known heroes. While I welcome the diversity of new directions, I admit sometimes they hit and sometimes they miss. I do agree that continuing the narrative is what gives a character life, and restores the fans interest in that character. RoboCop needs this desperately because aside from KFC commercials and Mortal Kombat 11, the character is not getting exposed to new potential comic/TV/movie fans! And he should! He has a great background story and the themes of his story: justice, redemption, suffering, identity, apathy/disillusionment, materialism/corporate America, etc. are very relevant now, just as they were when the first story was written.
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I demanded BOOM! let me write RoboCop comics
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