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Post by wildfire2099 on Sept 28, 2021 9:24:35 GMT -5
I just wanted to share a few things I thought of while doing some organizing this week.
I noticed while filing my Iron Man comics that in the next 2 years or so, there will have been more Iron Man comics (in the main series) in Subsequent volumes than in the original book, which ran 332 issues. I suspect most of the other original Marvel titles are in the same boat. Yet it took 9 'volumes' of the series to make that 2nd 332 (assuming it gets there with the current series... not at all a sure thing, since I strongly suspect a new #1 after Cantwell finishes the current story). It's funny, I know #1's sell when the come up slightly better, but they certainly don't retain value anymore... it's now all about first appearances.
I wonder if that will change 5,10, 20 years down the road? Will the first issue of x volume (say, the first Iron Man issue by Bendis, or Busiek) reach an exulted status, as #1s were before publishers started with rebootapolooza?
It's actually kinda tricky to follow a character chronologically these days... I'm able to do it with Iron Man no trouble because I've been following it closely, but how difficult will that be later? Sure, there's the internet, but how easy will it be for people in 20 years to place Superior Iron Man (between vol. 7 and 8) Or Infernal Iron Man (a bit after, but really sort of adjecent to vol 8). Will the single issues be valuable for the stuff that's not in the trade, to tell you about 'family' books? Or will people just read trades in whatever order they are numbered as?
When will they give up on numbering all together, and just do things by story?(Ala Ablaze with the Cimmerian Books, among others). Or perhaps the market will shift to eliminate monthlies before then?
The other thing I notice while putting stuff away.. there are ALOT of one shot type books out there that relate to specific events and story lines, that I suspect have shorter print runs than the main books... will those have additional value someday for people looking for a complete story? Or are the trades enough to cover those people? Perhaps they will just sort of fade out of memory and be $1 bin fodder?
Anyone have similar thoughts? (I know we all have alot of opinion on what SHOULD happen, that's not what I'm talking about.. just wondering about the future)
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Post by brutalis on Sept 28, 2021 10:03:38 GMT -5
Once we oldsters die off, will there really be anyone collecting and seeking out single issues? More and more readers of today are desirous of having the story complete and collected into a singular experience. With most series lucky to last a year it is all so much easier creating a "complete" trade of a writer/artist to fulfill that need. In the world today and tomorrow, will owning the original run mean anything or be worth the selling price?
I can tell you as an old time lover and reader and collector of comics that I will gladly spend $20 for a "complete" run of a series Electronically versus the high end sales currently on display. While I prefer my comics in print, held in my hands, it is
amazing for having them ALL a click away. I can skip, jump, ignoring or read what I choose. I spent my youth and adulthood wishing that I could find or even afford to purchase ANY Gold Key Star Trek only to NEVER find any. Then one day for $20 I have those much sought after issues, plus Marvel, DC and Malibu as e-comics in that purchase. Win!!!
Instant gratification at an affordable price wins Every time. Soaring prices wis killing comic book collecting along with the lack of new readers. $5 and up for any new issue isn't going to inspire buys if there are better alternatives out there. I and others have stopped buying Modern and focus on filling holes in collections or to finding e-comics as a viable alternative.
And the legal versus illegal aspect of the internet scanning, viewing and selling is NOT going to deter most people from buying for reading purposes.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 28, 2021 10:45:16 GMT -5
Marvel (and DC. . but seems to be way more Marvel). . restarting over and over with issue 1 is really what drove me away from ever picking up their books again.
I mean, the main reason I stopped buying Marvel in the 80's-90s was their anti-gay attitude. . but when I was willing to give them a chance again? (many years later) so many reboots didn't even know where to start.
As noted, DC does it too. . but way more rampant in Marvel.
so . . yeah. . .I just don't collect the individual books anymore, since no idea what order to read them in. . and if I do get a Marvel title, I pick it up in trade. So at least it's kind of self contained.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 28, 2021 10:46:10 GMT -5
and tacking on to what Brutalis said above. . . new issues of some Batman books (with Cardstock cover) are $6 ?
NOPE.
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Post by profh0011 on Sept 28, 2021 13:14:27 GMT -5
Once we oldsters die off, will there really be anyone collecting and seeking out single issues? More and more readers of today are desirous of having the story complete and collected into a singular experience. With most series lucky to last a year it is all so much easier creating a "complete" trade of a writer/artist to fulfill that need. In the world today and tomorrow, will owning the original run mean anything or be worth the selling price? This is why, when they started Masterworks and Archives, my feeling was not, "What a great idea!" as much as, "What the HELL took them so long?"
My late best friend once said in the 60s he preferred DCs to Marvels because with most DCs you got 2 complete stories, but with Marvels, you got the middle of a long serial.
As for originals... the problem-- more with Marvel than DC-- is QUALITY. Marvel had this infamous stat machine that was referred to by the staff as a "blunt instrument". Line reproduction was always either too thick or too thin. The original comics, shocking though it may seem, NEVER looked as good as they should have. And ALL reprints looked like C*** compared to those! So, if you cared about how the art looked, getting THE ORIGINALS was always far, far better than any reprints, even going back to reprints done in the 60s.
Some years back I heard on the "Marvel Masterworks" message board that the quality of Marvel's reprints had improved tremendously... both with line reproduction, and fidelity to original coloring. But unless you have original and reprint side-by-side to compare, who can say for sure? It was in the 90s when I began slowly getting originals that I'd bought reprints of back in the 70s that I was able to start coparing, and the comparisons were SHOCKING.
I think that's why, at least as far as 60s Marvels go, the prices may NEVER come down. I wish I'd bought more when they were a lot cheaper.
Of course, lately, I've begun thinking of GETTING RID of huge chunks of my collection, and in the case of long-running books, it comes down to, which ones might I EVER want to read again? Some of them from the early 70s might be purely for "nostalgia", as that was "my" era, when I was still in high school. But the 60s stuff was almost always better. I can't imagine ever getting rid of my original printings of TALES OF SUSPENSE (Iron Man, Captain America) or STRANGE TALES (Dr. Strange, Nick Fury).
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Post by wildfire2099 on Sept 28, 2021 21:00:01 GMT -5
Interesting... so I totally agree with you guys with more current stuff... but the silver and bronze age stuff I like to have comics when I can afford them.. I think it adds to the experience.
I think Brutalis is right about people wanted the whole story, but people also love to own collectible stuff, so I can definitely see future fans buys trades to read and cgc'ed books to collect (I'm sure many people already do)
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Post by profh0011 on Sept 28, 2021 21:28:58 GMT -5
I like to have comics when I can afford them.. I think it adds to the experience. people also love to own collectible stuff This is kind of hilarious, I think. While doing my Poe project, several of the stories from the 1940s initially came from the Comic Book Plus site, which posts mountains of PUBLIC DOMAIN comics.
Problem is... many (most?) of the scans are MISERABLE. (But, when it's free... you know.)
There were a few I thought, IF I could afford the originals, I could do my own HIGH-RES scans of. But books that old-- even 5th-rate ones-- tend to be pricey.
I saw someone at Heritage Auctions had already sold a copy of this one Charlton for around $40.00. I thought, if I could have gotten that, I wouldn't have minded... even if it was JUST for 6 pages.
And then I began seeing it elsewhere for like $80, $85, $90, or lots more. Forget that.
But then somebody posted a COVERLESS copy for $12.00. GOT IT!! I already had a very nice scan of the cover... from that earlier Heritage Auctions sale. Heh.
That became the single OLDEST comic-book in my entire humongous collection... and without a cover, I felt very comfortable MASHING it down flat on my scanner to get those 6 pages. I spent WEEKS cleaning them up, until the finished results looked WAY better than when they came off Charlton's printing press.
I suspect most publishers who reprint Golden Age material don't put this much effort into making them look good.
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Post by Icctrombone on Sept 29, 2021 7:20:16 GMT -5
Many years ago ( 30? ) , I wondered to myself why Marvel doesn't collect their books in a yearly format.
EX: Avengers 1990, 1991 . Not storylines, just a year at a time. Then they started collecting stories in trades. Same difference I guess. I don't have a great love for collected editions. I feel like I never finish them, I read a few stories and put it on the shelf.
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Post by MDG on Sept 29, 2021 8:28:26 GMT -5
Many years ago ( 30? ) , I wondered to myself why Marvel doesn't collect their books in a yearly format. EX: Avengers 1990, 1991 . Not storylines, just a year at a time. Then they started collecting stories in trades. Same difference I guess. I don't have a great love for collected editions. I feel like I never finish them, I read a few stories and put it on the shelf. I'd love to see silver age collections by month, e.g.: all the Marvels (or DCs) for June 1966 (including Millie or other non-superhero books). For me, that would be a lot more enjoyable experience than trying to plow through a year's worth of Iron Man stories. |
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Post by Icctrombone on Sept 29, 2021 8:58:35 GMT -5
Many years ago ( 30? ) , I wondered to myself why Marvel doesn't collect their books in a yearly format. EX: Avengers 1990, 1991 . Not storylines, just a year at a time. Then they started collecting stories in trades. Same difference I guess. I don't have a great love for collected editions. I feel like I never finish them, I read a few stories and put it on the shelf. I'd love to see silver age collections by month, e.g.: all the Marvels (or DCs) for June 1966 (including Millie or other non-superhero books). For me, that would be a lot more enjoyable experience than trying to plow through a year's worth of Iron Man stories. I think they did release a omnibus of Marvels first month in that format. And with every book published, companies have to project how many units will sell in order to make money. Maybe us old fogies are the only customers for something like that. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 29, 2021 9:06:46 GMT -5
Many years ago ( 30? ) , I wondered to myself why Marvel doesn't collect their books in a yearly format. EX: Avengers 1990, 1991 . Not storylines, just a year at a time. Then they started collecting stories in trades. Same difference I guess. I don't have a great love for collected editions. I feel like I never finish them, I read a few stories and put it on the shelf. I'd love to see silver age collections by month, e.g.: all the Marvels (or DCs) for June 1966 (including Millie or other non-superhero books). For me, that would be a lot more enjoyable experience than trying to plow through a year's worth of Iron Man stories. CrossGen did that with their Forge and Edge trade paperbacks (each collecting 2 issues per month of 6 titles with the trades being released monthly). The problem-the material is all serialized and incomplete so its like reading 6 books 2 chapters at a time all at once. Stories and characters jumble together and it creates a very poor reading experience. That said, if it were collecting material from the eras where comics were telling self-contained stories, I would be all for it, as it would make for a great sampler anthology. For a serialized story to work in that format, it needs to be structured so that the chapters needs to be structured to work in that format and not as part of a standalone serialized feature. I am not sure Marvel stuff after '65 or so would work well in that format. DC stuff would work until a little later (sometime in the 70s), but again the changes to the way serialized stories were told in big 2 comics (and later indies) would limit the readability and enjoyability of such a formatted book. -M |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Sept 29, 2021 9:33:22 GMT -5
Many years ago ( 30? ) , I wondered to myself why Marvel doesn't collect their books in a yearly format. EX: Avengers 1990, 1991 . Not storylines, just a year at a time. Then they started collecting stories in trades. Same difference I guess. I don't have a great love for collected editions. I feel like I never finish them, I read a few stories and put it on the shelf. I'd love to see silver age collections by month, e.g.: all the Marvels (or DCs) for June 1966 (including Millie or other non-superhero books). For me, that would be a lot more enjoyable experience than trying to plow through a year's worth of Iron Man stories. As a kid, I was treated to something very similar (and it WAS immensely enjoyable, as you suggest). In Quebec, many American Comics were translated in French by Éditions Héritage; unsold copies, instead of being pulped immediately, were bound together and sold as books that contained nine issues of different titles. It was a great sampling of what was available!!! (It was also much cheaper than buying individual copies). So in one of those books (under the bombastic title of Jumbo Comicorama!), we could get Conan, Hulk, Jungle Action, Iron Man, Dracula, Archie and Charlton's Ghostly Tales, Sweethearts and Cheyenne Kid. Each Jumbo book would vary its contents, so it wasn't that great from a continuity point of view... But as a way to pass the time during a rainy day, it was brilliant! |
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Post by tonebone on Sept 29, 2021 15:54:59 GMT -5
I only buy collected editions. I haven't bought a new floppy in 20 years. The price, the storage, the inconvenience for rereading... I would rather have a book on a shelf.
EDIT: However, looking through books is boring, and looking through longboxes of comics is mesmerizing. I can't resist a $1 backissue sale, and will always buy something, just for fun. R3ading through an old comic is like stepping on board a time machine.
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Post by SJNeal on Sept 29, 2021 16:06:20 GMT -5
Many years ago ( 30? ) , I wondered to myself why Marvel doesn't collect their books in a yearly format. EX: Avengers 1990, 1991 . Not storylines, just a year at a time. Then they started collecting stories in trades. Same difference I guess. I don't have a great love for collected editions. I feel like I never finish them, I read a few stories and put it on the shelf. While not branded as such, the Epic Collections kinda do that, as the back covers all state the years contained within. They're pretty thick, so most cover a two year span. |
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Post by tonebone on Sept 29, 2021 16:08:36 GMT -5
Many years ago ( 30? ) , I wondered to myself why Marvel doesn't collect their books in a yearly format. EX: Avengers 1990, 1991 . Not storylines, just a year at a time. Then they started collecting stories in trades. Same difference I guess. I don't have a great love for collected editions. I feel like I never finish them, I read a few stories and put it on the shelf. While not branded as such, the Epic Collections kinda do that, as the back covers all state the years contained within. They're pretty thick, so most cover a two year span. And I really appreciate that they are numbered (on the back) even if the earlier volumes have not yet been published. It's not unusual for them to start with volume 7, with the knowledge that they will someday fill in the previous volumes, but that this one is probably the favorite era. |
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