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Weekend new purchases: Beginnings and Endings

Posted on September 11, 2011 by Walt

weekendbuysGenerally speaking, I’m not much for “recent back issues.” Obviously I’m all about mid-90s back issues, and other such–but with “new” stuff (from the last few years) I have pretty much picked up what I intend to as stuff’s come out. And when I miss something and decide to go back–that’s where I’m highly likely to snag a collected volume.

This weekend, though, I wound up tracking down 10 very recent back issues. Uncanny X-Force #4, Mighty Samson #2, Ruse #3, and Walking Dead #85 I’d somehow missed when they first came out, and with the exception of the X-FOrce issue (marked up $1.01 above cover price) I got these for cover price.

weekendbuysThen with the recent hype over the DC stuff, I wound up deciding I wanted the Stormwatch issue, so finally tracked that down (4th and final comic shop visited for the week/weekend). Since I’d bought Flashpoint #1 when it came out, and #5, and have been rather impatient, I decided to snag the other 3 issues since they were all in stock at one shop. That shop had Batman: Knight of Vengeance #s 1 & 3. Another shop had #2. Final shop had 1-3, so I snagged those. (See, folks? Have an ENTIRE mini-series in stock, and I’ll buy it! Have even just 1 issue missing, and I will leave it on the shelf. EVEN IF I am going to another shop that may well have that missing issue.)

While there, I wound up snagging that Apocalypse figure–hate paying the premium/marked up price in a comic shop, but it’s one I’ll be SHOCKED to ever actually see on the pegs at walmart. And I bought the WARMACHINE templates for the next time I get to play the game; slowly geared up.

finalbordersI also visited Borders for the final time. Thursday went to the local Borders near my apartment, where I snagged a handful of books for ridiculously cheap prices. While in Ann Arbor over the weekend, ducked into the one there but walked out a couple minutes later. Too little selection and far, FAR too many people…and I’d just bought a bunch of comics (see above) so was no need to spend extra time in the bookstore.

Sad to see the chain go, but I still have a couple of Barnes & Nobles relatively nearby, as well as a couple Half-Price Books and a third used-books store, so I’ll get by. But that’s for some other post.

And if you’re wondering at me covering the DC New 52 books? I’m still determining if or how I’m doing that–but I don’t feel like being “just” another review in the sea of HIGH-PROFILE reviews of the stuff.

Here’s to a new week, though. Hopefully much smaller on the wallet, too!

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Make a Run for the Border(s)

Posted on August 20, 2011 by Walt

Though I’ll take advantage of clearance and going-out-of-business sales…I take no pleasure in seeing a store go out of business. I was shocked last month when I got the email announcement THAT the entire [Borders] chain was closing. And I’ve stoutly refused to go to one after my experience with one that went out last December.

At that time, they were not accepting coupons, the selection was highly picked-over, and the remaining books not in good condition overall. The one I wound up buying–Blackest Night: Green Lantern–wound up costing me a bit more with the “going out of business clearance” than if I’d simply been able to use my coupon. But, driving the distance I had, I wasn’t walking out empty-handed. (Yeah, yeah…cutting off a nose to spite the face, and all that).

Plus, I’ve had a lot of good memories associated with Borders, and wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of seeing the place look gutted and picked-over, as that one in December did.

Thursday, though, I wound up deciding to pay what will likely be my last-ever visit to the closest Borders to me–the one that was one of the first places I sought out back in 2004 when I first moved to Kent for grad school. For nearly three-quarters of a decade, it’s been my “home” bookstore, the store I’d go to when I wanted to at least look at books, browse books, see what I’d discover. And–while this is likely part of the business model that may’ve brought ’em down–it’s the store I’d most often visit with the weekly emailed coupons when they were offering 30-45 or occasionally 50 percent off one item.

Looking around my room it’s pretty easy to spot many of the books I’ve bought over the years, just from this one specific store.

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The $40 perception of value

Posted on March 12, 2011 by Walt

books for comparison

I posted on this subject a few weeks ago, but have noticed it again a couple times recently.

The pricing—all publishers are guilty, but I’ve mostly noticed it with Marvel books—just seems so out of proportion when books are compared to each other.

Where I’d thought it fairly standard that a six-issue “standard size” TPB would be $14.99 or so…I found that the first volume of Ultimate Comics Avengers, collecting the first six issues of that series, carries a PAPERBACK cover price of $19.99.

As shown to the left of this text, the huge, quasi-omnibus sized Civil War: Spider-Man volume carries a $39.99 cover price. Next to it, the SIGNIFICANTLY smaller in physical dimensions/thickness Deadpool & Cable volume…is also $39.99.

Granted, both volumes contain roughly 18 issues of content, from presumably regularly-sized issues of ongoing series (at the time the series were published). But that hardcover collection is made up of pages enlarged—taller and wider than “standard comic size”…and it’s a hardcover collection. And it’s got the same price as the scrawney-by-comparison paperback.

Really makes the paperback seem like not only an inferior product, but a bad value by comparison, phsyically.

I’ve gotta imagine it’s much cheaper to produce a paperback edition than hardcover. Factor in the extra paper involved by the larger physical dimensions, and honestly…I just don’t “get” it.

$40 is a lotta money…and it’s one thing to drop it on a huge, heavy hardcover. But to see it as the price on a thin little paperback…geez.

Of course, even within the line…the volume containing the only-7-issues Civil War main event itself is also $39.99…and much more comparably sized, at least physically.

These also put the $50 Starman Omnibus volume to shame.

And this is why I buy from Amazon or Half-Price Books, or wait for 33% and 40% coupons from Borders (not even getting into the developing fate of Borders).

books for comparison

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