Comic Collecting (1 Viewer)

[The Drifter]

Availability of material in Omnibuses or Epic format (500 page color softcover TPBs usually made using the files that were restored for the Masterworks) generally does not make the corresponding Masterworks come down in price.

Hell, OOP Epics can go for $100+ for a single volume that cost no more than $40 new full retail. Try finding Thor: Fall of Asgard (Thor Epic volume 5, reprinting issues 175-194, IIRC). They regularly go for $150 or more.

Availability in one format just does not seem to make an OOP book in a different format cheaper. I don't expect the HC EC Archives to go down in price as Dark Horse completes the line in TPB.

This all makes perfect sense, and I do understand why OOP CE's (especially HC's) would be desired by collectors. And, these are an example of CE's going up in value - despite being collections of previously released material. That being said, one of my personal comic book collecting "rules" is to never pay over retail for a CE (I stopped collecting singles years ago).

So, if I miss a CE & it goes OOP - and ends up becoming expensive on the secondary market - I will typically just wait to see if it's reprinted. I know that Marvel does sometimes reprint their more popular Omnibuses. And, as was said the HC MMW's will sometimes later be reprinted as TPB's. Ditto with the EC Archives & the Creepy/Eerie magazine collections (previously discussed on this thread).

 

[Desslar]

Great discussion/comments here, everyone. To follow-up on some recent comments/posts:

-Re: The Walking Dead Trades/singles, I'm a huge fan of that b&w series. I read the entire series over the years via the Trades/Omnis, but have never owned any CE's or singles. I do have a strong interest in collecting TWD at some point - however, the CE's I've seen have not included the color covers. So, this is an example of why singles may be preferable to CE's.

-I am interested in paper CE's (i.e. physical copies) first and foremost. That being said - having comics available on CD ROMS/DVD's/Blu-ray's (or something equivalent) would be something I may be interested in - if the quality were decent & if they were affordable. The ones I've seen are basically scans/PDF's of the comics. I do regret not buying a reasonably priced CD ROM/Digital collection of Classic Ghost Rider comics from a used book store some years ago (it was later sold out).

That being said, I don't like reading comics on a small device (phone, I-pad) due to not being able to see details/eye-strain. So, the above mentioned CD-ROM/DVD/Blu would be as far as I am willing to go re: digital comics - i.e., so I could read the comics on a large computer monitor.

Right, trying to read digital comics on a phone is a real pain. But it's not bad if you have a large monitor.

As you said, I think the comics collections Marvel released on disc in the 2000s were PDFs of scanned comics. I never got around to buying them unfortunately (hello eBay), but I understand they include the complete comics, ads and all. That is a major appeal to me, since online versions today tend to cut out all the ads.

It seems like Marvel is fixated on the online subscription model these days, so it is unlikely they would release comics on disc again.

 

[The Obsolete Man]

This all makes perfect sense, and I do understand why OOP CE's (especially HC's) would be desired by collectors. And, these are an example of CE's going up in value - despite being collections of previously released material. That being said, one of my personal comic book collecting "rules" is to never pay over retail for a CE (I stopped collecting singles years ago).

So, if I miss a CE & it goes OOP - and ends up becoming expensive on the secondary market - I will typically just wait to see if it's reprinted. I know that Marvel does sometimes reprint their more popular Omnibuses. And, as was said the HC MMW's will sometimes later be reprinted as TPB's. Ditto with the EC Archives & the Creepy/Eerie magazine collections (previously discussed on this thread).

Marvel has actually begun reprinting the hardcover versions of the Masterworks again, in order, from the beginning, using the latest restoration files. These are supposed to be the final word on them. So it'll take a decade or so, but those OOP and expensive MMWs are coming.

And, of course, all their stuff is slowly but surely being reprinted and rereprinted in Epic format. If an Epic is OOP now, wait a while, it'll come back. And they've made strides, too. Thor, for example, will have everything from the 1962-1996 series but Walt Simonson's run reprinted in Epic format by Christmas. Walt's run is just starting to be Masterworked and having the original colors restored, so it'll probably be a while before that. They'll probably move onto the Jurgens run before Walt gets Epiced.

So it is a great time for reprints. Hell, even ROM and the Micronauts will be fully omnibused and reprinted by early 2025.

 

[The Drifter]

Marvel has actually begun reprinting the hardcover versions of the Masterworks again, in order, from the beginning, using the latest restoration files. These are supposed to be the final word on them. So it'll take a decade or so, but those OOP and expensive MMWs are coming.

And, of course, all their stuff is slowly but surely being reprinted and rereprinted in Epic format. If an Epic is OOP now, wait a while, it'll come back. And they've made strides, too. Thor, for example, will have everything from the 1962-1996 series but Walt Simonson's run reprinted in Epic format by Christmas. Walt's run is just starting to be Masterworked and having the original colors restored, so it'll probably be a while before that. They'll probably move onto the Jurgens run before Walt gets Epiced.

So it is a great time for reprints. Hell, even ROM and the Micronauts will be fully omnibused and reprinted by early 2025.

Yes, it's fantastic that we're getting all of these reprints. Walt Simonson's iconic run on Thor is one of my top ten favorite runs by an artist on a comic series - excellent. I got the Simonson Thor Omni years ago & it's great. However, that's such a huge volume & while I definitely want to keep this - I may still double-dip and get the smaller volumes at some point.

Yes, great news on ROM Spaceknight & Micronauts! These are finally getting reprinted starting this year - that was a long time in coming.

Also, it's fantastic that the excellent Godzilla 1970's comic series (Marvel) is also getting reprinted later this year:

Marvel Comics Godzilla Omnibus Releasing in 2024 - Toho Kingdom

Originally released in the 1970's, this classic take of Godzilla by Marvel Comics will see a reissue in the form of an omnibus.

www.tohokingdom.com

 

[jayembee]

So it is a great time for reprints. Hell, even ROM and the Micronauts will be fully omnibused and reprinted by early 2025.

Well, the Micronauts might not be fully omnibused. From what I've seen of the contents of the planned three omnibuses, they won't be including the X-Men/Micronauts mini-series, which would be unfortunate, as it hasn't been included in any of the extant X-Men CEs (no doubt due to them not having the rights to the Micronauts for the last 40 or so years).

 

[The Drifter]

Well, the Micronauts might not be fully omnibused. From what I've seen of the contents of the planned three omnibuses, they won't be including the X-Men/Micronauts mini-series, which would be unfortunate, as it hasn't been included in any of the extant X-Men CEs (no doubt due to them not having the rights to the Micronauts for the last 40 or so years).

Correct. I remember reading this on other comic book websites as well. Though, if you want to get technical - the X-men/Micronauts mini-series is not actually part of the regular Micronauts series - but is more of an off-shoot.

I am a big fan of both Micronauts & X-men & know that there are also a lot of other fans out there as well. So, I strongly suspect that Marvel will reprint this 1980's X-men/Micronauts mini-series in another format - possibly a stand-alone CE?! I.e., now that Marvel has the rights to Micronauts, I don't know why they wouldn't reprint this somewhere:

X-amining X-Men and the Micronauts #1-4

www.therealgentlemenofleisure.com

 

[The Obsolete Man]

Correct. I remember reading this on other comic book websites as well. Though, if you want to get technical - the X-men/Micronauts mini-series is not actually part of the regular Micronauts series - but is more of an off-shoot.

I am a big fan of both Micronauts & X-men & know that there are also a lot of other fans out there as well. So, I strongly suspect that Marvel will reprint this 1980's X-men/Micronauts mini-series in another format - possibly a stand-alone CE?! I.e., now that Marvel has the rights to Micronauts, I don't know why they wouldn't reprint this somewhere:

X-amining X-Men and the Micronauts #1-4

www.therealgentlemenofleisure.com

The folks elsewhere figure it's content issues either Disney or Hasbro had. There were some scenes with evil Charlie X giving a young Dani Moonstar an... erotic experience... someone may have had issues with. The mini disappearing soon after the upcoming Amalgam Omni being incomplete because writer Gerard Jones's work is pretty much unreprintable due to his circumstances has left people guessing that WB and Disney are not wanting to deal with a possible backlash over questionable creators or material, and Hasbro is a kiddie company anyway.

This is all guesswork, of course. However, early mockups of the cover did include Claremont's name, which would lead everyone to believe that the mini was originally slated to be included in the third omni, IIRC, then dropped before the announcement. So in the end, who knows. If it resolves itself before release, great. We've seen books announced with missing issues only to have a Christmas miracle happen and we got them. For example, Marvel Team Up 74 was left out of the Masterworks solicits and the first inkling we got of the SNL rights issues being resolved and the issue getting included was when copies of the book made their way into the wild in December. So it's a possibility. If the issues don't make it into the omni for one reason or another and don't get reprinted elsewhere, well, the floppies are cheap at least.

 

[jayembee]

Correct. I remember reading this on other comic book websites as well. Though, if you want to get technical - the X-men/Micronauts mini-series is not actually part of the regular Micronauts series - but is more of an off-shoot.

For regular CEs, that would be expected. The thing about the omnibuses, though, is that they usually collect all appearances of the character(s) in question, not just the titles of that character. So, for example, the recent Daredevil Omnibus v.3 includes Amazing Adventures #1-8 (which co-starred Black Widow), and DD appearances in The Avengers #111 and Marvel Two-in-One #3.