.Are you tired of reading comics in short, monthly instalments?
Do you yearn for nice, smart books with spines, dustjackets and no ads?
Are you willing to pay ridiculously inflated prices for hardcover reprints of comics you already own in three different editions, just because the page size in the new version is ½” bigger?
Then this is the thread for you!
I have enjoyed some Vampirella comics in the past. But, mostly because she seems to attract some great creators. Moore, Millar, Morrison, Robinson, Sale, Frank, Priest, Connor, Ellis, etc., etc.
The Morrison run was fun, for example, although the collection of that is really weird. It was a 12 issue series, but only the first 6 issues (and a few short stories) have ever been reprinted. #7-9 included a crossover with Shi, that is a sequel to an Ellis comic; and #10-12 were written by Steven Grant. The trade, therefore, is a weirdly incomplete experience.
It is literally impossible to overlook the ridiculous cheesecake, but it’s not usually the focus of the stories. To such an extent that you often ask “why doesn’t she just put some clothes on”?
There are some entertaining books in that bundle. Mostly the Masters Series. But, I can’t wholeheartedly recommend it unless you’ve got time and money to burn.
Thank you! Pre-ordered on Amazon.ca, but very little info
Ascender: The Deluxe Edition, Volume 1 Hardcover – Aug. 23 2022 – (448 pages)
Monstress Book Two Hardcover – July 26 2022 – (528 pages)
I don’t see a Pulp OHC, but there is a softcover.
Oh, it does say “oversized hardback” in the description
Pulp: The Process Edition Paperback – July 19 2022 – (184 pages) – EDIT (now says 256 pages – Feb. 14th)
The ultimate behind-the-scenes art book for all Brubaker and Phillips fans is finally here.
See how the multiple award-winning creative team makes a graphic novel, from start to finish. Reproducing everything from Ed Brubaker’s notebook entries about the Eisner Winning Best Graphic Novel PULP, to the script and Phillips breakdowns and pencils, to the final edited and polished book itself, in full color. See what the book started out as, what was changed in the final version before print, and go deep into Brubaker and Phillips’s process.
A beautifully designed oversized hardback, the PULP Process edition has everything a collector will want, including the full graphic novel itself, reproduced for the first time larger than comic size. A must-have for any hardcore Brubaker and Phillips fan.
If anyone wants a copy of the limited edition Hero Initiative reprint of JLA/ Avengers, Forbidden Planet have pre-orders up now. Diamond exclusive edition unlikely to make the usual book sellers.
https://forbiddenplanet.com/351086-jlaavengers-the-hero-initiative-variant/
I already have the Absolute edition of this, but am buying another copy for my son, in George Perez’ honour.
Edit: it’s no longer available, so FP are sold out. Hopefully I’ll still get the copy I ordered. Fingers crossed!
DC Comics – you sneaky bastards.
They up the price for Batman: The Imposter, then put it out as a standard size hardback, not OHC
They’re infamous for inconsistency and here’s a new case of it.
Passed on the Vamparela humble bundle but I’m all over this Rebellion one. A metric fucktonne of books jncluding heaps that ive had my eye on for a while (Trigan Empire, Charleys War to name a couple).
Get comics, support charity – Rebellion & Humble Bundle team up for ‘Masters of British Comics’
Dealer Alert
It’s taken a while but the first hardback trade for Tom Taylor’s Nightwing run is now going for £11.00 at BooksEtc.
On a different note, spotted in a catalogue with dates but not yet solicited:
Batman: No Man’s Land Omnibus Volume 2 – August 2022
American Vampire Omnibus Volume 2 – October 2022
On a more ominous note, the reprint of the New 52 Omnibus set for July now has a price point of $175!
Does encourage me to hop off of the Marvel and DC omnibuses, but it’ll take a bit of time to disentangle from them. That said a good few gaps are getting filled over the next six months.
Edit – Books Etc also have The Nice House by the Lake Volume 1 for £10.37
I missed until I just saw it on Amazon that there’s finally a third Luther Arkwright book coming out this year from Bryan Talbot, The Legend of Luther Arkwright: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1787332322
Love the other two, so definitely there for this.
Justin Jordan posted this on his Facebook page. I thought this would be of interest to the trade buyers here.
https://www.facebook.com/508468642/posts/10160428282078643/?d=n
Comicbook Economics: Hardcovers
The problem with hardcovers is that the upfront expense is pretty huge.
The Luther Strode HC was about ten bucks a copy to print. To get that price per copy, we had to print 3000 copies.
So Image’s upfront expense was 30 grand. Which was fine, because we were pretty sure we’d make it back (we did).
Diamond paid out 38.5 percent of cover price which was 50 bucks. So they paid twenty bucks for every copy sold.
Which means, obviously, that we had to sell 1500 to pay for the book at all. And we did.But this is why there hasn’t been a reprint – Image is not confident that they can sell enough copies to justify a print run that makes the reprint viable*.
And that’s the trick – all books get cheaper as they go up in print run. In hardcovers this is magnified. So you need to know the books will sell enough copies to make the print run affordable, and the size of the print run defines enough copies.
If you think that a book is only going to sell, say, 500 HC’s, then the cost to print per copy is going to be huge, so much so that you won’t even break even from selling out the printing UNLESS you can charge a whole lot more than typical market prices for the book.
However, yes, creators CAN make a lot of money on HC’s. But there’s a threshold you need to hit.
The other part is that if you’re going through, say, Image Central, then all your residuals is in one bucket – so you won’t get paid for anything until the HC is paid off.
If you’re selling a lot of trades this isn’t a problem, but otherwise it can be a cashflow issue. Can you afford to not get residuals for a couple years even if the longer term payoff is greater?
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk on Comicbook Economics.
*I think Image underprinted the first time, and I think they’re wrong about the reprint sales, but it’s not my call.
Brian Hibbs posted this reply:
(This doesnt contradict anything you are saying, per se) From a retailer POV: the HC is the SECOND grab at the ring. The proper process is SC first, HC 2nd, and “deluxe hc” (extras, slipcase, whatever) third.
If you HC first then you are eliminating chances for folks double dipping. The person who buys SC might upgrade to HC. The person who buys HC is highly unlikely to ever buy SC.
Serial->SC->HC–>”fancy HC”->”Absolute Edition”->Ltd signed is the path to maximize revenue
MOST books can not support multiple formats, though. Probably you need to be at SC #10+ to get to “fancy HC #1”
Jordan replied to that with this:
“Serial->SC->HC–>”fancy HC”->”Absolute Edition”->Ltd signed is the path to maximize revenue”
For sure.
(For the creator, you can extend that revenue on both ends a bit to a lot with a couple extra steps)
Jamie McKelvie added this:
Yeah, we get people asking us to reprint the WicDiv HCs quite a lot, and. I have to tell them it won’t happen. You need that initial first month burst of sales to cover it – if it’s already been out before, you won’t get that with a new printing.
Yeah having some small experience in publishing I’ve said this for ages on things like Absolutes and other deluxe editions. They are risky things to release unless you have a pretty guaranteed sell out. The chance to lose a lot of money if you miscalculate is high and I think fans kind of have to live with that as frustrating as it can be if you personally want a copy.
My mother used to work as an agent for Thames and Hudson publishers and they specialise in big coffee table type books that don’t come cheap and they never reprinted anything. Paperbacks with a lower cost base are often perpetually in print.
I asked SpeedyHen if they’d re-apply the 10% off from the previous order for Once and Future OHC1 – and they did!
They’ve gotten hold of so many hard to get hardbacks over the last two years, but these two were harder due to the under-printing.
Grandville: L’intégrale
So why did none of you mention this before?
I joke, as I know Grandville has been a regular presence in the trades thread over the years, with glowing reviews. But somehow, it took this complete collection to convince me to finally give it a shot. And I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Somehow Talbot manages to make something work that, on paper, feels like it really shouldn’t: a mix of cartoon animal heroes with pulpy noir crime/mystery plots, set in an alternate steampunk world ruled by the French.
It’s just tons of fun, and full of clever allusions to – and influences from – all sorts of stories across various media (I was reminded of LOEG in places in terms of just how dense these stories are).
Most of all though, there’s just a sense of pure entertainment and great storytelling throughout – you know you’re in good hands here and the stories never let you down.
And there are also tons of interesting, detailed notes at the end of this edition that really enhanced the reading experience for me.
I wish I hadn’t slept on this for so long (I was slightly put off by the animal characters) as it’s a real gem and not what I imagined at all.
Plus at £25 for a (signed!) OHC omnibus of five full-length OGNs this is fantastic value.
A friend of mine said that he hadn’t read as much Batman as he would have liked to (not a comic book kinda guy) so somehow a copy of The Dark Knight Returns showed up in his mailbox this morning. At the same time, my copy has vanished. So mysterious. I’m always very eager to give comics recommendations to people who don’t usually reads comics, it’ll be very interesting to see what he thinks.
I missed until I just saw it on Amazon that there’s finally a third Luther Arkwright book coming out this year from Bryan Talbot, The Legend of Luther Arkwright: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1787332322
Love the other two, so definitely there for this.
The thing that’s got me really excited about this is that it’s going back to black and white. I love Bryan Talbot’s b/w work even more than his coloured work, but he very rarely works like that now.
He’s been posting some work in progress from this over the last year or so. It looks stunning.
https://www.bryan-talbot.com/legendoflutherarkwright/index.php
And there are also tons of interesting, detailed notes at the end of this edition that really enhanced the reading experience for me. I wish I hadn’t slept on this for so long (I was slightly put off by the animal characters) as it’s a real gem and not what I imagined at all.
It was worth waiting so you got the notes. I have the individual editions, without notes 
I think Talbot is an underacknowledged genius of the comics world.
Outside of drawing a few Vertigo books his stuff is very much on the fringes of the industry, he’s been mainly working for book publishers the last couple of decades, but he’s often broken ground. Original Luther Arkwright and his Nemesis work was steampunk before the term as even invented, Alice in Sunderland is comics documentary in a way I’d never seen before and even if he’s not innovating it’s always just bloody good storytelling.
He’s on a fairly short list of creators where I will buy absolutely anything he does.
I’ll be honest and say I’ve tried Luther Arkwright twice in the past and struggled with it both times, and as a result I’ve stayed away from Talbot’s work more than I should have.
I do get that, the first volume of Arkwright has great ideas but it it presented in a 1970s ‘alternative comix’ style which doesn’t age that well and also it had a very patchy publishing history which doesn’t help the cohesion. The 1999 sequel Heart of Empire is a much smoother read.
The Me You Love In The Dark TPB
I enjoyed this – a decent haunted house story with some unexpected depths to it, and the art is very nice.
Although it’s quite a simple story to stretch out over five issues, the gradual pacing drew me in and made for a nice slow-burn that serves the story well.
Probably not something I’ll ever return to, but I’m glad I read it.
I only read the first installment of Cinema Purgatorio when it was published in… whatever that anthology was called… and wasn’t that enthused by it.
But now I’m reading the collected edition and…
Good grief, this is genius.
Nobody does comics like Alan Moore. Even Alan Moore doesn’t do comics like Alan Moore, and that’s why he’s so good 
Working through my digital backlog. Recently read Millar’s Prodigal. That left me cold. Should have just called it Smart Arse: The Comic and been done with it.
Millar’s Reborn was marginally better. Interesting concept, nice art, occasional emotional beats. Still felt very “fast food” though – enjoyable at the time but ultimately left feeling empty afterwards.
Jaradowsky and Moebius’s The Incal is a total change in pace after those.
You know, you’re onto something there Bruce, fast food comics. A lot Millar’s stuff definitely qualifies.
Something is Killing the Children OHC1
Wow. This was excellent.
I had wondered if I’d see that transition from limited to ongoing that was mentioned but read as a 15-issue block? No, I didn’t. There is a slowing down in the middle phase but it neither felt needless nor wheel spinning. Read as month to month? Perhaps it could but this be the trades thread.
Art took a little getting used to but was also very effective, with some really smart double page panel combinations.
The OHC is a total bargain – 3 trades, 15 issues – and you can get it for under £25. The quality is excellent. All Boom have to do next time is not underprint.
Dealer Alert
The Complete Scarlet Traces Volume 3 is going for £10.16 at BooksEtc
Blackwell Fishing
November sees Taylor’s Volume 2 Superman trade out, as hardback, which suggests the Volume 1, due end of May, will be too.
October sees a hardback trade for Chiang’s Catwoman: Lonely City. Hopefully OHC but you never know with DC.
Working through my digital backlog. Recently read Millar’s Prodigal. That left me cold. Should have just called it Smart Arse: The Comic and been done with it.
I honestly didn’t get it. A story where the lead character is perfect at everything really lacked any sense of jeopardy.
I know that argument can be made against something like Superman but that’s why they added magic or kryptonite as weaknesses. It just felt like repeated sequences of the lead showing off.
At the very least Millar is usually great at the high concept ideas for his books but I didn’t know what he was trying with Prodigy.
It has been said over the years that Miller’s books are really disguised Hollywood pitches. I think that became more true as his career went on. He has great concepts and pitches but many times, the execution left me feeling empty afterwards.
As an example, the four-issue Chrononauts was for me a very hollow experience. It was like cotton candy, in that it looked pretty but as soon as it hits your mouth, it disappears into practically nothing.
I do wonder if Millar has lost his touch. I vaguely remember seeing some sales figures a bit ago and they definitely weren’t what they used to be. He used to be ahead of practically every curve but now, it seems like he is lost in the noise. The last time he seemed to be in the news was with the rapid rise and fall of the Jupiter’Legacy tv series for Netflix.
I fully admit this all could be me as I’m not as plugged into comic book news as I used to be. Though I do wonder if I’ve simply outgrown his work. A lot of it seems like it would appeal to a younger reader. I’m probably just old. 
To be honest I believed Millar’s point that he wrote multiple mini series as he did because that’s how his storytelling works best. He launched all his initial MW books long before much was being picked up for TV.
Since he has been at Netflix though the work has seemed quite slight and more ‘pitchy’ and I think he does a lot less promo. It’s generally still fun enough (and Prodigy is the only one I’d say I didn’t like) but seems a lot more inconsequential. The pre-Netflix run of stuff like Huck and Starlight had a lot more to say.
I think there has been some of that half-baked quality to some of the Netflix era stuff – the Sharkey and Space Bandits books were fairly weak – but at the same time I think Magic Order was a really decent series and I think his latest, King of Spies, is some of his best work in ages – a really tightly written story with a great concept that’s one of my favourite books of the moment.
I think the truth is that there has always been a bit of a hit and miss quality to the MW books – for every Starlight or Kick Ass there’s a Nemesis or an Unfunnies – but largely I think the strengths of the good stuff outweigh the bad overall, and still make it worth checking out his work. But as always this is all subjective of course.
Yeah I think I’m probably in the same space as you thinking more about it. It always has been a bit hit and miss and most of the ‘miss’ stuff is at least fairly enjoyable. I suppose it will be a consequence of putting out more new concepts than probably anyone else in comics.
I only read the first free issue of King of Spied but that was very good. I’ll be reading the rest when it gets put on Scribd.
I agree with Todd about Chrononauts. That was the last Millar thing I read, after it got a largely positive reception, and it was just so slight. The Time Tunnel with a paint by numbers emotional chucked in, as I recall.
I liked Chrononauts quite a bit but a lot of that was the great Sean Murphy art. The sequel series (without Murphy) didn’t grab me in the same way.
One Bad Rat is as powerful a work as there is in comics
After loving Grandville I’ve picked up some more Talbot stuff. I read this tonight and really enjoyed it – a powerful story, well written and drawn, that balances some pretty heavy subject matter about abuse and homelessness with some lighter and more optimistic moments. A really good read.
Absolute Swamp Thing volume 3 arrived yesterday and it’s lovely to now have the set. Read the first few issues last night and it really is excellent stuff. Moore writes with an intelligence and imagination that few other writers can even get near. He manages to deal with the topic of an interspecies sexual relationship in a sensitive and thought provoking manner that is never played for cheap laughs and avoids feeling sleazy in any way.
I know the new colouring has upset some people but I rather like it.
Just saw this was announced for September. I don’t buy many of these original art books any more but I’ll be picking this up:
Todd McFarlanes Venom is superior to other artists Venom, and it’s the teeth and jawline that settles it for me. He looks jokeresque, like he’s actually enjoying himself. And the teeth are gloriously horrifying, like a cross between a baleen whale, a horse and a lion.
The later vibes looks more like a cross between a shark, a wolf and a crocodile. It’s so chaotic, especially with the writhing tounge added at every possible angle and moment. Big fan of McFarlanes design.
Todd McFarlanes Venom is superior to other artists Venom, and it’s the teeth and jawline that settles it for me. He looks jokeresque, like he’s actually enjoying himself. And the teeth are gloriously horrifying, like a cross between a baleen whale, a horse and a lion.
The later vibes looks more like a cross between a shark, a wolf and a crocodile. It’s so chaotic, especially with the writhing tounge added at every possible angle and moment. Big fan of McFarlanes design.
Definitely. As McFarlane’s run goes on, the design gets a bit more exaggerated – and then Larsen later on takes it to new levels of cartoonishness with the outsize proportions of the jaw. But that initial McFarlane design in #299/#300 is just perfect, and makes Venom feel menacing and scary as well as just a big hulking brute.
As McFarlane’s run goes on, the design gets a bit more exaggerated – and then Larsen later on takes it to new levels of cartoonishness with the outsize proportions of the jaw.
Yeah, Erik went crazy with the design in part because he notoriously disliked the concept of Venom, rather he disliked characters whose sole motivation was revenge.
Mirackeman Omnibus is currently due Sept-Oct.
Shitpost detected, shitcan the shitposter.
Shitpost detected, shitcan the shitposter.
Hey! I have a license!
Shut up everyone, shut up! Big news!
Not only are DC actually finishing off an archival trade series for once, it’s only bloody Young Justice they’re seeing through to its end.
It’s the grand finale of the iconic Young Justice run from Peter David and Todd Nauck! Those closest to the team will be threatened, universes will collide, and the team will face their most devastating adversary: reality television!?
The legendary run by Peter David and Todd Nauck comes to a close in Book Six of Young Justice. An old adversary going by Bedlam has a vendetta against the Justice League! To make things worse, he’s messing with the timeline to turn the Young Justice lives upside down. The team will have to band together to rewrite their own histories and decide who will lead the team moving forward!
Blackwell-fishing:
October 2022
– Farmhand Volume 4 – it’s coming back!
– Usagi Yojimbo: Crossroads – the fourth trade for the new series.
– Transformers Phase Three Volume 3 – Didn’t expect to see this, wondering if an arrangement has been made to allow IDW to finish this phase over the next two years. I doubt it but you never know.
November 2022
– Reckless: Follow Me Down – volume 5!
– Gideon Falls OHC2 – Good to see this turn up.
– Time Before Time Volume 3
Back to trade reviews:
Marjorie Finnegan Time Travelling Criminal
This was an OK, fun enough read but I am starting to wonder if Ennis is running out of ideas. Ennis on empty is still good but that’s about it.
Not All Robots
Mark Russell deploys an excellent satire of today’s US society, projected into the near future and recast into a world of robots.
Deodato’s art is superb, especially in how he renders the robot characters.
It’s a superb bit of work.
They didn’t even finish JLA (10 volumes, stopped at 1973), which you’d think would have been a popular one. Or Legion of Super-Heroes (13 volumes, stopped at 1977, bizarrely just before it got to its most popular era).
Weirdly, they did finish The Spirit with a massive 26 volumes, and he’s not even a DC character!
Sad about Sandman Mystery Theatre – its the kinda thing I’d love to see in an omnibus or Deluxe editions – I assume the audience is too small – even with Sandman in the name
Not only are DC actually finishing off an archival trade series for once, it’s only bloody Young Justice they’re seeing through to its end.
They did finish Mark Waid’s Flash too, but I have so many series that DC started but never finished:
- Sandman Mystery Theatre
- Superboy
- Green Lantern – Kyle Rayner
- The Spectre
- Martian Manhunter
- Legionnaires
Very frustrating.
PaD’s Supergirl too, I think. Plus Birds of Prey, Nightwing, Robin. Sleeper and that only needed two volumes! Same with Resurrection Man (although the first was really poorly put together).
Sandman Mystery Theatre was especially annoying because a) they didn’t even get as far as the previous attempt at trades and b) they advanced solicited both v3 and v4 only to cancel them, which felt like even more than a bait and switch than the usual “publish three and give up” plan.
Yeah, but that’s vastly more expensive. They did a 12 issue trade, solicited a second and cancelled it. Everyone always talks about how good DC is with evergreens, but they shoot themselves in the foot so often with potential evergreens. How well would Sandman have done in trades if they’d only bothered with three?
I read all the Kick Ass books over the past couple of days. The original Dave Lewsinski run was ok. It’s horribly nihilistic in places and I genuinely don’t give a shit about any of the extended cast. It feels like any moments of violence are there to shock rather than serve the plot. I’d forgotten Dave gets a happy ending and becomes a cop. While it was a plesant surprise it doesn’t really feel all that deserved.
The Hit Girl mini series were mostly fine. The art was inconsistent – some good and some that didn’t do a good job of telling the story. In terms of writing Kevin Smith’s Hollywood chapter was by far the weakest and Peter Milligan’s India actually felt like it had something to say.
The Millar scripted “new girl” Kick Ass book bored the piss out of me (though that could be down to me being burned out). The Steve Niles follow up volumes were marginally better though quite repetitive. Don’t have the Kick Ass vs Hit Girl volume and given the lukewarm feeling the whole experience has left me I don’t think I’ll spend cash money on it.
happy ending
becomes a cop
So he kept on being violent and murderous while operating outside the law?
happy ending
becomes a cop
So he kept on being violent and murderous while operating outside the law?
Maybe, if Millar had anything interesting to say in the book. As it is…
I’m reading Garth Ennis’s Red Team now which does the whole “cops as killers” thing a whole lot better than Millar would.
I thought the Millar/ Romita Jr “New Girl” arc was pretty awesome. The Niles/ Frusin follow up run pissed me off so much. Total dreck that I bought in ComiXology 99c sales and still felt ripped off by. Hated it.
Strikeforce Morituri v1
I picked this up cheap online recently. It’s something I’ve wanted to read for ages but the original release of this tpb passed me by. It’s a series I’ve heard passing mention of over the years – often kind of sneerily, IIRC (though I might be confusing that with Atari Force) – but the concept always seemed pretty interesting to me.
It’s a science-fiction series set in the late 21st century or so. Earth has been invaded by an alien species called the Horde. They haven’t conquered Earth, but they’ve got it under their heel, as they carry out scavenging raids on their resources (although not so much useful resources, like minerals and materials, but rather stuff like pop culture ephemera and tat, which is an interesting idea). This has been going on for 4 years, so to combat it, Earth scientists have come up with the Morituri process, which can give enhanced strength, durability etc (base level super-powers, essentially, as was in vogue at the time of publication, with things like the UWF and Power Broker in Mark Gruenwald comics) along with other random powers that have to be stress-tested to come out. The catch is that the process is ultimately fatal, with the recruits, who all have to be about 18, only getting a year or so to live.
It’s quite a fatalistic concept, which I find interesting. It’s also somewhat similar to one of my other favourite series, The Nam, which came out around the same time in ’87. Here, the Morituri all know they’re dead men walking, wanting to make the best use of their time, however much that is, before they burn up and die. In the Nam you’ve got young men who know death is waiting for them at any moment, as they hope to survive their tour. In practice, this means a series with a high cast turn-over, which is a nice contrast to super-hero comics that fall back into the same old routines and line-ups.
Fortunately, Strikeforce Morituri is more than just a good concept. It’s an excellent read. Ok, it suffers a bit from some weak colouring (too much detail is lost to block colouring) and highly expository dialogue (even while simultaneously mocking that in an in-universe propaganda comic based on the team). Honestly, if I had a time machine, I’d go back to the early 80s and just tell comics people to start doing recap pages or have omniscient narrative captions naming characters and briefly explaining powers. It’s a small change that would make so many improvements.
Those minor issues aside though, Morituri is brilliant. It’s some of the best work I’ve read by Peter B Gillis. The characters are varied and interesting, the stories are inventive and don’t fall into the usual alien invasion tropes. The art by Brent Anderson is fantastic, especially when Scott Williams settles into his style for inking. Even Whilce Portacio’s contributions (the aforementioned propaganda comics, a fill-in) is better than I’ve seen from him elsewhere. I can see why that future Image house style gained popularity from Portacio’s art here.
This was a really pleasant surprise and, much like the Nam, I honestly don’t get why this series isn’t more highly regarded. I’m definitely going to try and get hold of the next two volumes (although their price and availability online suggests that they maybe didn’t actually come out).
I have all three Morituri trades, so they definitely came out – took me a little while to find them at reasonable prices though.
Were they the back up in the UK weekly reprints Secret Wars II? Something like that I’m sure. Maybe Spiderman and Zoids?
Do the three trades collect the entire series?
From Wikipedia:
Strikeforce: Morituri is being reprinted in Trade Paperback Format by Marvel comics during 2012:
Volume 1 Released 25 January 2012 Collects Strikeforce: Morituri issues 1–13 ISBN 978-0-7851-6471-5
Volume 2 Released 22 February 2012 Collects Strikeforce: Morituri issues 14–26 ISBN 978-0-7851-6473-9
Volume 3 Due For Release May 2012 Collects Strikeforce: Morituri issues 27–31 and Strikeforce: Morituri — Electric Undertow 1–5 ISBN 978-0-7851-6474-6
There were 31 issues plus a followup 5-issue mini series.
It’s a series I’ve heard passing mention of over the years – often kind of sneerily, IIRC (though I might be confusing that with Atari Force) – but the concept always seemed pretty interesting to me.
I suspect it is the Atari Force confusion. Strikeforce Morituri was acclaimed when it came out – I bought it because the guy at the comic stall in Cardiff was evangelising about it – and tends to retain a ‘hidden gem’ status nowadays.
Like the ‘Nam (which also got great reviews when it came out) it is a mid 80s Marvel title that is neither in the MU or a licensed title so they have tended to have been forgotten because they don’t fit in very well a historical narrative.
My prediction is that we’re going to see an end to free/cheap delivery too, as carriers face increasing fuel costs.
From Ed Brubaker’s latest email:
While I was all caught up in talking about the new stuff coming out – new Reckless book, new Parker collection, etc – I forgot to mention one other really cool thing.
My old friend Marie Javins is the EIC of DC Comics now, and so when I found out they were doing a new printing of the GOTHAM CENTRAL OMNIBUS, I asked her if we could finally correct the minor errors of the previous reissues. Since Marie is the best, she let me and Greg Rucka and Michael Lark proof the new book, and we now finally have a DEFINITIVE Gotham Central hardback.
Including the missing layers of snow from the first chapter of our big Joker story. This book was done back in the old days, and Michael had made an actual separate layer for the falling snow and while it printed in the single issue, it somehow got left out of all the trades and hardbacks until now. (Also a few lettering mistakes were fixed this time, and a joke that we couldn’t get past the censors back then has been added back in because it’s 20 years later).
Seriously, as a total control freak about my books, it drove me crazy for years that there’s a scene where Driver is commenting on the snow fall and even holding out a hand to feel it, and there was NO SNOW. Now this is fixed and I am a happy camper.
Plus it was fun to read it all again, I think Gotham Central was ahead of its time, really (we started it before The Wire was on TV but we were highly influenced by HOMICIDE, David Simon’s book from the 90s).
I do get that, the first volume of Arkwright has great ideas but it it presented in a 1970s ‘alternative comix’ style which doesn’t age that well and also it had a very patchy publishing history which doesn’t help the cohesion. The 1999 sequel Heart of Empire is a much smoother read.
I’ll second that. I read Heart of Empire first (and it took me decades to get the first Arkwright trade and read it), and it’s absolutely fantastic. And even though it is very much a sequel, it actually stands quite nicely on its own.
I am very happy that there’s another one coming.
(Sidenote: I bought my heart of Empire trade something like twenty years ago in Amsterdam. It was the comic I had with me when I sat next to Neil Gaiman in a café. At the time, I didn’t believe that actually was him because, I mean, why would Neil Gaiman sit next to me in a café in Amsterdam? But I saw later that he’d been to a reading in Amsterdam, and I asked him via his website, and yes he’d been at the film museum café that afternoon, and he’d noticed me because I was reading Heart of Empire.)
(Sidenote: I bought my heart of Empire trade something like twenty years ago in Amsterdam. It was the comic I had with me when I sat next to Neil Gaiman in a café. At the time, I didn’t believe that actually was him because, I mean, why would Neil Gaiman sit next to me in a café in Amsterdam? But I saw later that he’d been to a reading in Amsterdam, and I asked him via his website, and yes he’d been at the film museum café that afternoon, and he’d noticed me because I was reading Heart of Empire.)
I’m tempted to call you bro and compliment your cool story, but I’m not sure how to put it.
