Is this book real? I no longer see listings for it on Amazon or IDW's website, and it's long past the time it should have been released.
IDW's Movie Omnibus
- Thread starter Stevil2001
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^Chris Ryall noted that its release would be delayed, so that they could finish work on it properly - but that was back in November, and nothing's been heard since.
They may have changed their minds, given that there's a Star Trek Motion Picture Trilogy paperback collection due out in May, with TWOK, TSFS, and TVH. Though it looks like they're planning omnibus editions of their own material that's already been released in trade paperback, so maybe they'll still do both eventually.
The "Best of Klingons" Trade that was originally scheduled for October or November also never came out, as far as I can tell. The "Best of Spock" trade is due out this month; I wonder if it will appear on schedule?
It looks like IDW is doing a bit of a re-think of their program reprinting pre-IDW Trek comics.
It looks like IDW is doing a bit of a re-think of their program reprinting pre-IDW Trek comics.
^Yeah, Best of Klingons was cancelled. No idea of the status of the Spock one.
Contractually, they didn't have to pay the original contributors to those pre-IDW stories any kind of royalty, and IDW seemingly chose not to offer royalties for the reprints - and I think that has caused a bit of a buyer backlash. Also, a few of their collections have had very similar content to previous omnibuses offered by the original companies.
Best of Spock has been canceled.
Thanks for the information, all. I wonder what's going on at IDW Reprints HQ.
Yeah, and I think that was a huge mistake for them, like essentially reissuing the DC's "Mirror Universe" trade with lower-quality reproduction than the original trade. My local comic shop still has a copy of the DC edition on the shelf -- which was replaced last year when it was sold, so it's still available -- at a lower price point than IDW's lower-quality edition. That's a bad business decision all around.
I'd much rather see IDW complete the trade reissues of the Gold Key comics that Checker abandoned some years ago. We're 2 trades away from completing that series. Instead, they did new (or slightly revised) editions of stuff that was already published in trade once or even twice. I don't understand the thinking behind a decision like that.
You know what else I missed? The celebrity forewords in the DC reprint omnibuses! I really would not have bothered collecting reprint collections at all, except that DC tempted me with new forwards by people like George Takei, David Gerrold, Ann Crispin, Walter Koenig, etc.
Then the Malibu DS9 stuff started being collected by a UK publisher - but not introductions - and I kept buying them to keep my "set" complete.
I did get the Checker TOS stuff and - sucker that I am - all the new IDW collections, but if IDW had added a few pages, placing the selected "Best of..." issues into a context, or with a new celebrity foreword, these books would have been so much more interesting. As it is, they have a "just churned out another one" feel to them - and whatever computereized "blur" effect they are using on the older issues' traditional, screened (dotted) artwork shading just isn't very attractive.
I've been impressed with the Omnibus collections of the Marvel stuff and the complete Early Voyagers work... I'd like more reprints like this, collecting a large consecutive run, rather than "Best Ofs". I am desperately hoping they begin a complete reprint of DC's TNG line. 15/16 issues a book would suit me fine! 
Probably didn't help. Neither did reprinting stuff that Titan reprinted just four or five years ago.
It certainly did with this buyer. A shame--there are several of their omnibi (is that right, omnibi?), either already released or simply announced, that I would love to have bought, but they're not getting a dime from me unless I know the original creators are getting royalties.
^No. Omnibuses. Omnibus in Latin is the dative plural form of omnis; it's an adjective meaning "of all of them." So you can't make it any more plural than it already is. It's only in English that it becomes a singular noun, so it's pluralized by English rules.
Christopher, do you have a macro that posts that automatically whenever some asks about "omnibi"?
Well, he asked if that was right, and I answered. If someone asks a question and I have the answer, wouldn't it be rude not to provide it?
I'm not saying you shouldn't answer-- I was just registering my amusement at the fact that whenever someone asks that question, you answer it in a shot. Plainly you should have a macro.
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This is something I've never quite understood. IDW did pay royalties for these books--it just paid them to whoever actually owns the work, which is CBS/Paramount. IDW is just a licensee, and is already paying out for the privilege to print them--it's CBS/Paramount that makes "money for nothing" (not meant to be negative, just lacking a better term) when these get published, and is choosing not to forward a piece of that to the original creators.
And again, not criticizing, but CBS/Paramount has never paid Trek comics creators any royalties--not when the license was at Gold Key, at Marvel (twice), at DC (twice), at Wildstorm and at IDW. Not then, and not now.
Or, put another way, the reason that Marvel sometimes pays royalties for its top-selling characters is not because it's the publisher, but because it's the owner. For Trek, IDW is just a publisher, but CBS/Paramount is the owner.
And I wonder if, realizing that, Trek fans who boycotted the IDW books will suddenly instead boycott CBS/Paramount (i.e., Trek.) My guess is: Probably not.
Andrew, there's clearly some expectation on the part of several creators that they should be receiving royalties, which leads me to believe that reprint royalties were part of their original contracts with DC and Malibu that IDW, for whatever reason, has chosen not to honor.
Now, you could make the point that IDW doesn't have to honor someone else's contracts. It's still a dick move. IDW is profiting on the back of someone else's work.
Of course, now I'm wondering if Dave Gibbons, Grant Morrison, Steve Parkhouse, and the other Doctor Who creators are receiving royalties for their work in Doctor Who Classics, where the creators (because work-for-hire is non-existent in the UK) have ownership in the work.
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