Collected editions thread

[The Doctor]

Nothing new in The Works except that the £3 Onslaught Reborn HC's are joined by identical £5 Onslaught Reborn HC's. Er.

Pleasingly, the only volumes that do not appear to have shifted much are the Orson Scott Card ones.

-Ralph

[Philip Ayres]

Today, with the arrival of Marvel Masterworks X-Men 4, I finally have colour tpb reprints of all of Byrne's X-Men issues. The quest that started in a Westminster Central Hall comic mart in the late 80s is over. I npw have, colour traded, every issue from GS1 to 143.

[legios]

Impressive Phil. A mighty quest that you have concluded there.

Karl

[Philip Ayres]

It amazes me that there hasn't been colour TPBs of all of Byrne's X-Men until now.

[The Doctor]

Meanwhile, the newsstand Marvel HC series is dying on its ass round here. #1 was hard to find, #2 was easier, only saw #3 in 2 places (couple of copies each), #4 nowhere to be found.

I wonder if the £10 price-point is just too high. While perfectly reasonable for a HC (compared to direct market prices for HC's) it does put it above impulse buys or 'I'll give that a go'.

-Ralph

[Philip Ayres]

That's pretty typical partwork behaviour though: put the first few issues out, hook the readers and get them to subscribe/order through newsagent.

[legios]

Partworks usually tend to last longer on the shelves before retreating to the land of "subscription only" though.

I had noticed a distinct lack of part four surfacing anywhere as yet myself.

Karl

[Fortmax2020]

I saw Part 4 in Forbidden Planet in Edinburgh yesterday, but passed on the £10 price tag.

[The Doctor]

I think the big mistake is that you don't save any money from subscribing, thus breaking the one big benefit of subscribing to anything. This will die. Holding at the £7 price-point would have been ideal.

-Ralph

[Jim]

Feb 8, 2012 21:34:40 GMT Philip Ayres said:

It amazes me that there hasn't been colour TPBs of all of Byrne's X-Men until now.

This is a big part of what made the Panini pocket book collections so much like little miracles to me! I'd only ever read it in Essentials until they came out. It would be nice to own the run in a proper sized format though.

[Philip Ayres]

It's available over 6 trades: Marvel Masterworks X-Men 1-4, Dark Phoenix (which is about tpo get a reprint with a shed load of back up material) and Days of Future Past (the proper trade, not the squarebound floppy of the same name)

[Jim]

Greenwich Book Time have expanded their Marvel stock, slightly more tempting stuff with some Essentials and Premiere Classic HCs mixed in with recent-ish trades. Picked up the Marvels HC for £6.

Tempted to go back for the Spider-Man Original Clone Saga collection. Worth a read or just a historical foot note?

Jim

[The Doctor]

It's actually not bad initially. It just makes the mistake of going on far, far too long with increasingly ludicrous plot twists to keep the conceit going. I actually liked Ben Reilly though.

Mmmm. I must check The Works again.

-Ralph

[Andy Turnbull]

Yup. It was good stuff at the start but the sales and marketing folks wanted it to go longer and longer. I too wish they'd stuck with Ben Reilly.

Andy

[Philip Ayres]

Original Clone Saga is the original ASM issues from the 70s and not the 90s nonsense that I think Ralph is recalling......

Checks Amazon date, find Marvel Solicitations on Newsrama.....

www.newsarama.com/comics/marvel-june-2011-solicitations-110322.html

SPIDER-MAN: THE ORIGINAL CLONE SAGA TPB
Written by GERRY CONWAY, ARCHIE GOODWIN & BILL MANTLO
Penciled by ROSS ANDRU, GIL KANE, JIM MOONEY, FRANK MILLER, FRANK SPRINGER, SAL BUSCEMA & MARK BAGLEY
Cover by GIL KANE
Remember the good old days when Spidey’s life wasn’t very complicated? When evil scientists like the Jackal sought to destroy him? When Gwen Stacy showed up on his doorstep, suddenly alive? When a morning spin in the Spider-Mobile was interrupted by an attack from Mysterio? When Carrion sought to strangle the life out of him time and again? See the original clone saga unravel as Spider-Man tries to keep up! Collecting AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #139-150; and PETER PARKER, THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN (1976) #25-31, #149, #162-163 & ANNUAL #8
480 PGS./Rated A ...$39.99
ISBN: 978-0-7851-5523-2

Yeah that's worth having. How much?

[Jim]

I really should have looked more closely at the list of creators, I'd have snapped it up. Now I'm sweating in anticipation that they still have one tomorrow. £6 I think it was.

[Jim]

£10 it turns out. Not quite as tempted now and they have a few, so might be worth waiting.

They did however have new stock out! Got:

Captain America: Operation Rebirth premier classics HC £7
Daredevil: Born Again TPB £4
Chaos War TPB £4

Had a look at Tales of Asgard, but didn't care for the modern colouring. I shall be keeping an eye on this shop.

[Philip Ayres]

If you've never read Born Again it's worth it for that price.

[Jim]

I haven't and have been meaning to for a while, ever since tearing through the Omnibus.

It's funny, just this morning I saw the news that IDW were doing an "artists edition" and it reminded me I meant to read it. Synchronicity once again!

[Jim]

Well, it seems to expand every time I go in. At this rate it will be a comic store in a week or two.

Picked up Generation X: Classic vol 1 for a fiver. Always had a weak spot for Bachalo, even in his less lucid moments, and I'm led to believe it is not Lobdell's worst work.

They also had the X-Force Premier Classic HC for £9. It amuses me that it exists at all! Louise Simonson's name almost drew me in, but surely her writing can't overcome Liefeld's art.

[Philip Ayres]

I was there. That X-Force was a huge improvement on what came before and was the hotest thing around. Won't have a word said against it.

[Jim]

So genuinely worth a look? The only 90s X-Force I've read was some Nicieza stuff from the late #20s.

[Philip Ayres]

The first volume is the best and worth a look. But you will need to have been there and seen the dross that came before to truely appreciate it.

[Jim]

By which you mean New Mutants somewhere prior to #86 or so? Have to admit I wasn't much into X-Men around that time, I was mostly reading Avengers-related titles. In fact, that might have just predated my buying US comics at all! I came in around the time Byrne and Romita Jr were on Iron Man (now that's a run that deserves a HC).

[The Doctor]

Nothing new in The Works. It would seem the graphic novel storm has passed through it for now. There was a lass in today buying up all the Anita Blake volumes.

-Ralph

[Philip Ayres]

Yeah, the blevins/simonson New Mutants run was pants, especially at the end

[Andy Turnbull]

New Mutants was a title that floundered along for too many years with little point to it's existence. The injection of Cable and Liefeld definitely lifted it out of the doldrums.

Andy

[Philip Ayres]

I'm not sure Louise Simonson ever quite got it in the way Claremont did.... which is odd since she was it's first editor and wrote Power Pack really well.

I'm also not sure that Brett Blevins art ever quite suited the title. Hated it at the time though 25 years later I'm starting to see that actually it might be good in certain places (Fall of the Mutants springs to mind)

Liefeld provides a spark and an energy to the title that's been missing.

[The Doctor]

I need to bring this to your attention from May's IDW Solicits:


Comic Book History of Comics
Fred Van Lente (w) • Ryan Dunlavey (a & c)
For the first time ever, the inspiring, infuriating, and utterly insane story of comics, graphic novels, and manga is presented in comic book form! The award-winning Action Philosophers team of Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey turn their irreverent-but-accurate eye to the stories of Jack Kirby, R. Crumb, Harvey Kurtzman, Alan Moore, Stan Lee, Will Eisner, Fredric Wertham, Roy Lichtenstein, Art Spiegelman, Hergé, Osamu Tezuka -- and more! Collects Comic Book Comics #1-6.
TPB • FC • $21.99 • 224 pages • ISBN 978-1-61377-197-6

-Ralph

[Jim]

Comic Book Comics somehow passed me by completely. Is it good?