• April 2013
    S M T W T F S
     123456
    78910111213
    14151617181920
    21222324252627
    282930  

  • On Facebook

    On Facebook

  • Archives

  • Categories

  • Comic Blog Elite

    Comic Blogs - BlogCatalog Blog Directory

Mid-April Acquisitions

Posted on April 16, 2013 by Walt

mid-april-acquisitionsThough I shared about the Death and Return of Superman Omnibus a couple weeks ago, I lumped it in as part of April’s acquisitions.

This stack is much taller than last month’s, though not nearly as much more expensive as one might think.

The Evolutionary War Omnibus was 60% off cover price, so it was like buying 7-8 Marvel single issues (and contains 11 or so Annuals).

The Atlantis Attacks Omnibus, Wolverine by Jason Aaron Omnibus, X-Men: X-Tinction Agenda, March on Ultimatum, Ultimate Human, Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane, and Brand New Day volumes combined cost the same as buying 15 Marvel single issues.

And the Spider-Man: The Real Clone Saga cost about the same as buying 2 single issues.

Which continues to beat the idea into me that idea that I could give up buying any/all new comics, and still have plenty to read–and for far cheaper than keeping up with new comics.

mid-april-acquisitions

Filed under: NON-REVIEW CONTENT | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Ruining a couple comics and falling victim to a Valiant variant

Posted on April 15, 2013 by Walt

ImageSaturday night, I had an experience I hadn’t had in quite awhile: I managed to spill something on a comic.

I honestly can’t remember the last time that happened–I’m not OVERLY “careful” anymore about comics–but I’m not going to intentionally set one in standing liquid, or use ’em as a coaster or anything like that. But I knocked a (virtually empty) pop can off its perch and it landed upside-down on my copy of Archer & Armstrong #9. I quickly grabbed the can off, and attempted to gather up the comics to get them away–which resulted in my (stupidly) stacking X #0 on top of A&A, and not realizing it until the damage to both issues had been done.

While I don’t “collect” for profit/”value” I do like my comics to be in good condition–and I’m certainly not gonna want damp/formerly-damp paper to be stacked in with other (dry) paper–so I determined I was going to consider this a costly lesson, and replace the two issues. When I went to the closest comic shop (Comic Heaven in Willoughby, OH), they had several copies of the A&A issue left and one copy of X, so I grabbed one of each, grabbed a another “sale” hardcover (see post later this week on sale acquisitions), paid, and walked out.

When I got home, I realized to my great dismay, that I’d grabbed the VARIANT cover for A&A…which honestly just totally ticks me off. I’m NOT used to grabbing the singles “off the shelf,” and my standard “pull list” includes a request for the “standard/regular” covers of everything, so I thought nothing of just grabbing a copy of the issue, having identified the series from the logo–which was the main part of the cover that was visible. Functionally this was to be a simple replacement of something I’d already bought a copy of the other day, already read, so there was no “need” to examine the cover.

I am so incredibly sick and tired of variant covers, though. And now, even the “equal ratio” variants–50/50–have become troublesome because they’re not separated out (no reason to, it’s the same issue, no “special version” of a cover, etc) so nothing calls attention to it being a variant without looking at the UPC box to find its designation.

So at this point, to get the cover that I actually want–the REGULAR cover!!!–I’m going to have paid $11.97 for ONE COMIC that stays in my collection. I can accept the $7.98 because I’m the clumsy guy that knocked a can of pop onto my original copy. But to pay that $7.98 ON TOP OF the copy I ruined just bugs the crap outta me.

Perhaps “making a mountain of a molehill” or some such, but this has me once more/yet AGAIN contemplating a radical shift to collected volumes. At least then I’m (so far/to my knowledge) not going to be dealing with near-constant variants for each volume. And the collected volumes often have the art from the variants included anyway, so I can still see the art in-person.

Typically, I quite enjoy Valiant, and have been sticking with ’em in part BECAUSE they’re Valiant. But between their ridiculous “clustering” of titles and so many variants…it’s enough to leave me contemplating dropping the line and waiting just for the collected volumes, despite the otherwise quality stories/art.

Image

Filed under: NON-REVIEW CONTENT, Valiant | Tagged: , , , | 3 Comments »

The Death and Return of Superman Omnibus

Posted on April 4, 2013 by Walt

The ultimate comics story of my childhood is now the ultimate single volume in my entire collection.

deathandreturnofsupermanomnibus

I “passed” on the original “omnibus” released back in 2007 or so. It seemed expensive, and as I hadn’t pre-ordered it, I had time to learn that it wasn’t a “true” omnibus–the heart of the story (Funeral for a Friend) was gutted, and a number of other stuff was left out.

When I found out about this edition (I believe from Michael Bailey), it had my interest. Yet, the solicitation text seemed similar to the previous edition, listing material from the various issues, but not specifying if the issues were collected in their entirety, or just a handful of pages.

When this arrived in the mail this week and I opened it yesterday…I was quite impressed on a number of things. Firstly, in Amazon‘s “bargain” shipping. I’ve at least twice in the past half-year had to return stuff I deemed too damaged to keep, due to the way they packaged/shipped ’em. But this arrived in good shape, no random dings or dents in the covers or spine. The dustjacket has a little piece bent on the back, but that was UNDER the shrink wrap of the book itself–factory issue, and straightened right out enough that I’m not concerned.

Secondly, the weight and physical size of this thing. This is absolutely THE largest single comic volume of any sort that I have ever bought. I’ve posted in the past about how close some of Marvel‘s omnibus editions are to otherwise “regular”-ish hardbacks…but this one easily dwarfs the largest Captain America omnibus I own.

Thirdly, I paged through the volume last night, and it indeed seems to have the entirety of what I’d expect; each issue’s cover is also included at the start of each chapter, making this essentially a bound-without-the-ads sort of thing…you know exactly where the issue breaks are, and which issue you’re reading.

Fourthly, the Justice League tie-in issue to Doomsday is included in full, as is the Green Lantern tie-in issue to Reign of the Supermen; this also includes the entirety of the Legacy of Superman special. And rather than “short” us with a few pages of “immediately relevant” stuff from Adventures of Superman #505 and Action Comics #692, the entirety of both of those issues is reproduced here.

Finally, the extras–though not entirely impressive in and of themselves–proved a real treat to read through. I don’t tend to care for random sketch pages, but this volume is a certain exception given the subject matter. And while not quite annotations, the text comments from the various creators were enjoyable to read–confirming stuff I (mostly) already knew, and I also enjoyed seeing some of the promo artwork and such that I’d forgotten about or in the case of art for a couple t-shirts don’t think I ever knew existed.

I don’t think I’d consider this “worth” its full cover price at the moment–I have the original issues several times over; I have the original editions of the individual paperbacks, I have several of the issues digitally in my ComiXology account–but I snagged this for 45% off and free shipping from Amazon, and for that price, I am presently very happy with what I got.

I don’t know how well the binding will or won’t hold up–I flipped through carefully, but didn’t try to lay this out flat or actually READ any of the issues in this edition yet, and it was sorta awkward holding it to read the “extras” material without putting this out flat.

But overall, in the present moment…I’m loving this thing.

Filed under: QUASI-REVIEW CONTENT | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

« Previous Page