How Do Comics Stay Afloat?
- Thread starter Python Trek
- Start date
They did that with Roger Thorpe when Zaslow got ill. It was fucking lame.
Cicero said the average potential reader. The readership that fuels the direct market and the potential wider readership that could perhaps be reached if digital comics are properly leveraged would be interested in different types of storytelling.
Justice League gets trades all the time. As has been pointed out, DC collects pretty much everything in trade these days. I presume the same is true of Marvel. You could collect trades exclusively and you'd be able to read almost everything that DC publishes.
darkwing_duck1
Vice Admiral
Nope. You get quite a few trades if you're Ultimates, or Avengers, or one of the core X books, but if you're the obscure books like the X "Forever" titles, or Spider-Girl, or Black Panther, et al, you don't get trades, or very very few trades.
Marvel once upon a time promised "universal trades" (all issues of all titles), but that went the way of the dodo...
Well, I can't speak to what Marvel publishes, but, as I said, DC collects pretty much everything in trade paperback.
The "pretty much" part is one of the things that keeps me buying the monthly issues. I don't trust the publishers to collect everything that I want collected.
Ummm...all the time? Tunderbolts has been Traded since Warren Ellis' run on the book. The most recent trade came out in May. Justice League was one of the first series that Traded pretty much everything. You JLA all the way back through Morrison's run in the 90's (some might be out of print). The most recent JLA trade also came out in May.
Maybe your LCS isn't on the ball with ordering?
DC even publishes low-selling, short-lived series as trade paperbacks. The 12-issue run of The Mighty, for example, has been collected into two trade paperbacks.
That seems to be the case. A search on Amazon shows several trades in the last year or so.
DC do seem to collect the majority of series being published currently - I just wish they'd put a little more effort into series and character runs from the past. The Archives/Showcase collections are fine for short-lived series from earlier decades, put the pace is far too slow for more prominant characters with long histories, like Batman and Superman.
Yep. Plus not only is the current Justice League of America series being printed in trade paperbacks, but each volume first comes out in hardcover. Morrison's JLA run is also being reprinted in new oversized hardcover collections, and Justice League International is being collected in a series of fairly hefty new trade paperbacks.
Yeah, it's their collection of current comics into trade paperbacks that I was talking about. Their publishing program of older material is sometimes very good (such as the Justice League International trade paperbacks, as well as the trades collecting Grant Morrison's full run on The Doom Patrol and Denny O'Neil's The Question) while at other times the pace is too slow. I'd like them to pick up the pace of their Chronicles collections in particular.
Last edited:
To be fair there has been some improvement in recent years - I just think there's room for more. I remember a few years back, Morrison's Doom Patrol got a trade paperback (before the current series of reprints began) and there were complaints that some stories, and bizarrely, parts of stories were cut because DC considered them "unimportant", or whatever.
One recent addition I'm really pleased about is Peter Milligan's Shade: The Changing Man, one of the series that played a role in the foundation of Vertigo (along with Sandman, Doom Patrol etc.) - I really hope DC completes the series.
I'm old enough that I collected JLI when it first came out, too. By "older material" I just meant a series from the past that isn't currently being published.Calling JLI "older material" makes me feel ancient.
The first adventure of the Justice League of America came out the year I was born.I'm old enough that I collected JLI when it first came out, too. By "older material" I just meant a series from the past that isn't currently being published.Calling JLI "older material" makes me feel ancient.
It came out 14 years before I was born.The first adventure of the Justice League of America came out the year I was born.
I wish that Marvel would hurry up and get rolling with its Essentials books. At the rate they're going, it'll be years before some of their key titles reach the 1980's. It's nice that Nova and Moon Knight and Spider-Woman, etc. get the Essential treatment, but I'd prefer more emphasis on the big titles, like the Avengers, Thor, Hulk, etc.
It came out 14 years before I was born.The first adventure of the Justice League of America came out the year I was born.
Way to make Nerys feel younger!!
^ We reach.
