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Subject: 
Re: AFOLs - The comic!
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.lego, lugnet.general, lugnet.org
Date: 
Thu, 26 Feb 2004 21:30:31 GMT
Viewed: 
57 times
  
In lugnet.lego, Dean Husby wrote:
   In lugnet.lego, Jake McKee wrote:
   Wow. It’s been a week and a half since BrickFest PDX, and I’m just now starting to get caught up. I went straight from PDX to Enfield and had some terrific Community Development meetings with the team. Lots of good things happening!

As mentioned in my keynote at BF PDX, Greg Hyland and I have been working for some time on a really cool comic book about you, the AFOL. This was originally meant to be only for internal usage - I’ve been doing a lot of traveling and talking within the LEGO Company lately getting colleagues informed and pumped up about the AFOLs. Some good stuff happening, and you’ll be hearing more soon.

But the comic was such a huge success that I was able to secure a small amount of funding to put it into print!

As I mentioned in my keynote, I’m very interested in “Activating the Sleepers” - those folks who just haven’t realized yet that they are AFOLs and there is an entire community out there waiting for them. From the keynote:

For 2004, I’ve dubbed it the year of activating the sleepers. We all hear stories all the time about LEGO builders who are fans but don’t realize it. People who buy sets, build creations, and even have national cable networks rebuild their LEGO themed rooms. But these folks often haven’t even had the synapses fire that make them wonder if there are others out there like them. I call them the sleepers.

So how do we draw them into the community? How do we pull over these energetic new faces?

One idea is to use this comic as a “recruiting” tool. Imagine you’re out a train show and people are asking about your hobby. Or you may have friends or co-workers that are AFOLs who haven’t realized it yet. Or a local hobby shop has regular customers who you are pretty certain are AFOLs at heart. Perhaps you can get this comic in front of them to show them how much fun the community is.

I’ve posted the draft comic on my personal site (easier that way) for you to review.

http://www.bricksonthebrain.com/comic/AFOLcomic-small.pdf

Disclaimer: This is a first draft of an in-progress work. It will be fully colored, and cleaned up before going to print.

Many many thanks to Greg. He’s an incredible artist and a hilarious writer. Take a minute to tell him how cool he is!

I’ve posted this draft to get your feedback. We’d love to hear your thoughts on the comics, or ideas for strips we may have missed. What other types of information can we put in along with the comics to help pull in the “Sleepers”?

And the idea - is it a good one? Do you see yourself using this?

I’m looking forward to hearing your comments!

I love the comics. I think they are well drawn and cute. They can really help to get the point across about adults and LEGO. The megaBlXXks one was very funny.

I am, however, rather offended that the artist feels it funny to joke about the colour change. That’s a pretty sore spot with most of us and some of the comics just bring back all that anger and frustration that is making some of us rethink out LEGO habit.

But maybe this is just me.

Dean

I was also concerned that the comic might portray our feelings about the color change in an unfavorable light. But after reading it, I was very grateful for the message that it conveyed to TLC employees:
  1. Lots of us are angry about the color change
  2. The color change will have a negative inpact on retail buying for many people.
I imagine that most people inside TLC have no idea that anyone cares about the color change. This comic is a good way to change their minds.

Marc



Message is in Reply To:
  Re: AFOLs - The comic!
 
(...) I love the comics. I think they are well drawn and cute. They can really help to get the point across about adults and LEGO. The megaBlXXks one was very funny. I am, however, rather offended that the artist feels it funny to joke about the (...) (21 years ago, 26-Feb-04, to lugnet.lego, lugnet.general, lugnet.org, FTX)

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