.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!
Ah, well, I did get a good amount of use out of that one!
Thanks for the tip off Dave.
Monstress Book 2?
Sorry, forgot to say something. I spotted that back in February.
Releases on Dec. 13th (from Amazon, so a week earlier in comic shops).
Contains Monstress #19 – 35, and Monstress: Talk Stories #1 – 2
_______________________________________________________________
Edit:
Monstress Book Two Hardcover – Dec 13 2022 – Amazon.ca
War between humans and the hybrid Arcanics is poised to explode across the Known World, but the wounds of the last war have yet to heal. Maika Halfwolf, a hardened Arcanic survivor, is on a mission to discover the secrets of her past — and to understand Zinn, the eldritch monster that lives beneath her skin. But to find those answers, she’ll have to figure out who she can trust — and who is poised to betray her.
Collecting volumes 4-6 of the Eisner, Hugo, Harvey & British Fantasy Award-winning series by MARJORIE LIU and SANA TAKEDA, MONSTRESS, BOOK TWO is a deluxe, oversized hardcover brimming with more than 500 pages of art deco beauty and steampunk horror that will make an elegant addition to any fan’s shelf.
Collects MONSTRESS #19-35 and MONSTRESS: TALK-STORIES #1-2.
Publisher : Image Comics (Dec 13 2022)
Language : English
Hardcover : 528 pages
ISBN-10 : 1534323147
ISBN-13 : 978-1534323148
Item weight : 788 g
No worries Sean, Amazon UK has the same listing but it’s not Image yet. Think I’ll be using that to check on stuff now.
Recent reads
The Bone Orchard: The Passageway
I can agree with the criticism that the resolution but, at the same time, I’m also content to go along on the ride that Lemire-Sorrentino have created.
The one thing that would have been good to have bundled with this is the Mythos prelude.
Next are a pair of Black Label OHCs that really demonstrate the worth of the line and why it’s the strand of DC I’m most interested in. Both are stories that could not be told in the way they are elsewhere.
Suicide Squad: Get Joker
This is a brilliantly bleak tale but also a very entertaining one as the squad are sent after Joker, with a couple of them having very personal reasons to off him.
Azzarello is hit and miss for me, but here he’s in good form. Maleev’s art is superb too.
Joker / Harley: Criminal Sanity
For anyone who liked Gotham Central, this is a must. Rendering the Joker-Harley relationship as cat and mouse, criminal versus cop, is a very smart move.
Add in a trio of artists with complimentary styles and a smart use of both black and white monochrome and full colour and it’s a both unique and great looking book.
For all I can see why some found it inconclusive, I wouldn’t say it is. There’s certainly enough fuel here for a second series but this one concludes well enough.
Suicide Squad: Get Joker This is a brilliantly bleak tale but also a very entertaining one as the squad are sent after Joker, with a couple of them having very personal reasons to off him. Azzarello is hit and miss for me, but here he’s in good form. Maleev’s art is superb too.
Maleev? Sold!
There’s some new advance Marvel listings up on Amazon. Rich Rider: Nova omnibus, an omnibus of their old Planet of the Apes comics, a Carnage Epic Collection, a paperback edition of Donny Cates’s GotG run, Millar and Hitch FF omnibus (reprint?), Planet Hulk Omnibus, T-Bolts omnibus v3, various Epic Collection reprints, a omnibus of Spider-Man Beyond. But most importantly, Namor Epic Collection v3(?) featuring the first appearance of Stingray. Get your orders in now, lads.
Millar and Hitch FF omnibus (reprint?)
It was up on Amazon for pre-order in 2009, but never made it to solicitations.
This is an interesting one. It’s another of these gigantic Gallery Edition HCs, and I picked it up because (despite not being a huge X-Men fan in general) I’ve always quite liked GLMK as a quintessential mutant story that sort of sums up the whole franchise.
And it still holds up well (albeit feeling a bit stiff and dated in places – mostly just because it’s of its time). The art in particular looks really good at this size.
What I didn’t know, though, is that this edition – which is billed as an “extended cut” has new bookend scenes by the same creative team (which are pretty weak and don’t really add anything) but also features a couple of edits in light of modern sensibilities.
Most notably, the redaction of this racial slur.
And I can understand why – I doubt Marvel would ever dare publish a story like this with the word in today (and they made similar edits in the Miracleman reprints) – but it does kind of make that scene feel a bit toothless.
There’s also a foreword by John Jennings which contains a fairly lengthy dissection of that scene and an explanation of why (despite the black character in that scene seeing Kitty’s point in the original story and saying she was right) Kitty was wrong to draw that comparison.
(Which maybe kind of ignores Kitty’s Jewish heritage, but that’s something else altogether – albeit something that is addressed in GMLK via Magneto.)
There’s also another small edit to language that Claremont highlights in his afterword – changing “chica” to “lady” in this scene.
I didn’t realise that was offensive – to be honest it just registered as slightly clunky Claremont verbal characterisation. (I dread to think how much of his historical X-Men output might need to be similarly revised if there are these concerns about it!)
Claremont talks about the edit in his afterword to this edition.
Anyway, these oddities aside it’s a decent edition that also features a nice big interview with Claremont putting the book in historical perspective, as well as some nice art extras.
But part of me does feel that it’s odd to reproduce a classic like this and then be apologetic that elements of it haven’t aged well.
It feels a little bit George Lucas to me: I know that the recent omnibus reprints of this era of X-Men have reproduced the story intact as originally printed, so I assume this is a case of Claremont choosing to make the changes rather than having them pushed on him.
I also wonder whether it’s a case of taking different approaches to books aimed at different audiences. This book is big but not hugely expensive and is the kind of thing that could probably find its way into the hands of more casual fans fairly easily. Whereas the omnibuses and masterworks HCs (that keep the scenes intact) are much more explicitly archival books for collectors, where there’s probably a bit more weight placed on reproducing the original comics as accurately as possible – and the audience for those expensive collections will likely already be aware of stuff like this and the historical context.
It appears in a couple of other Claremont stories. Uncanny X-Men #196 and New Mutants #45, He uses the n-word with all the right intentions ( and every time from Kitty’s mouth, a different minority). It’s meant each time to hammer home a message of equality but I think sensibilities have changed and nobody will touch that word written or spoken from anyone not of colour.
Alan Moore used it in Marvelman, again with a clear context of condemning it, but Marvel removed it in reprints.
Personally I prefer the approach of giving the context of the time but I am not really anyone to make that call.
In the Mark Twain novel THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN, the character Jim, the black slave that Huckleberry Finn traveled with in the book of the same name, is frequently referred to as “N***er Jim”. The book was published in 1884/85, when that word was in common usage, not just in the Southern US where much of the story place but (to a lesser but still large degree) throughout the rest of the country. Which creates the dilemma of whether contemporary re-issues of this historically significant book should keep the word intact, to maintain historic authenticity, or should it undergo editing/censoring to remove the offensive word.
It’s a tough call; Charles Dickens wrote Fagin The Jew in OLIVER TWIST using anti-Semitic physical and moral/ethical stereotypes. Where do we draw the line?
It’s a tough call; Charles Dickens wrote Fagin The Jew in OLIVER TWIST using anti-Semitic physical and moral/ethical stereotypes. Where do we draw the line?
l’d draw a clear distinction between books that are written from a racist point of view themselves – books that perpetuate those attitudes and stereotypes through the way that they’re written – and books like God Loves, Man Kills, which is about as clear and bold a statement against racism as superhero comics have ever made, but which (as part of that) depicts people voicing racist language to make a point about prejudice.
(along with various other racial epitaphs and stereotyping)
Not to be that guy, but you mean epithets. An epitaph is what’s inscribed on a tombstone.
(along with various other racial epitaphs and stereotyping)
Not to be that guy, but you mean epithets. An epitaph is what’s inscribed on a tombstone.
You’re quite right. Although he is quite often talking about people who have just died horribly, so it almost works.
I’m slightly losing faith in BooksEtc after I ordered the recent Brubaker Catwoman omnibus at a cheap price, then they hung around for two weeks before telling me they actually didn’t have any stock after all.
With the way things are with the supply chain at the moment, I think I’d rather pay an extra couple of quid and know I’ll get what I ordered.
Recent reads:
We Only Find Them When They’re Dead Volume 2
Strange as it sounds, the recent news that this series concludes with #15 gives my confidence in it a boost. As to this volume? It’s a very smart continuation.
It also sticks with the very bold colour aesthetic of the opening volume and looks excellent.
Nocterra Volume 2
This is another good arc that builds neatly on the opener. The concepts the story is built around work and it all looks good.
Judge Dredd: The Citadel
This suffers from a hyperbole loaded book blurb that the stories can’t deliver – and the book is better for it as you can appreciate the trio of stories for what they are.
Which is a set of well-told tales of Mega-City One, past and present.
Superman Vs Lobo OHC
A nice, surprise OHC, this is a smart story with a subversive sense of humour. Why hasn’t Lex Luthor been ragging on Superman via social media and Lex News? Seeley uses this to skewer social media’s tendency to render the perfect the enemy of the good enough.
From there it only gets more absurd but in a very fun way. Art is good too.
____________
Away from reading, noticed this:
New 52 Omnibus 2022 edition – RRP $175 / £140. Best UK online price I’ve seen £70.56!
Meanwhile the upcoming King in Black Omnibus from Marvel? RRP $150. Now due April 2023 – Spiderman 2099 Omnibus 1 has gone up to RRP $150 too.
What does this add up to for me? A very clear message of: Stop buying DC / Marvel Omnibuses.
And I am getting through an exit strategy. There’s currently only two on the hit list for the first quarter of 2023.
Future ones expected are X-Factor Omnibus 3 – could go up to 4 or 5 in total, Devil’s Reign, A.X E.
Marvel OHCs tend to be easier but seem to be lessening. Might get Slott FF OHC4-5. Maybe Zdarsky-Checchetto’s second Daredevil volume.
They’re doing far more Omnibus editions than OHC. In business terms I suppose it might add up, small increase in print costs versus able to charge 2-3 times more combined with a limited print run.
Definitely. I’m buying far fewer of these big books, not just because the publishers have got through most of their best material by now but also because the cost jumping from £45-ish to £65-ish over the last couple of years is a significant rise that makes them pretty unattractive to me. So it’ll just be the best stuff that I grab in omnibus now.
Having said that, DC have put out a couple of recent volumes that I was keen to pick up so they are still out there.
I think having access to DC Infinite and Marvel Unlimited has broken the Omnibus habit for me too. It’s hard to justify spending that much money on a book with content that I already have at my fingertips. There are still a few that I’ll pick up, I’m sure. But I’m going to be far more selective going forwards.
They’re doing far more Omnibus editions than OHC. In business terms I suppose it might add up, small increase in print costs versus able to charge 2-3 times more combined with a limited print run.
I heard a retailer talking about it this week in response to a customer who said he hated 600+ page volumes because they were expensive and hard to read. (It was in reference to Sandman: Mystery Theatre being collected again in that format).
He said the trend will probably continue because the major issue with smaller series of trades is the sales drop off with each volume. Lower print runs of bigger volumes are more likely to sell out and not leave unsold inventory.
I have a little insight into this because Malaysia has a huge market in remainder books. We have one in Penang called BookXcess which takes up almost two entire floors of a shopping mall. I’ll add a picture to show I’m not exaggerating:
They have one in Kuala Lumpur even bigger boasting a million books for sale:
I know these exist to a smaller degree in places like the UK but asking around I was told the publishers prefer to send remaindered books (definition: books returned by bookshops because they didn’t sell) to Malaysia because it doesn’t cannibalise the full price market in the countries they are published – primarily the UK and USA – and the prices suit the overall lower income.
Their graphic novel section is vast and it is rammed with primarily later volumes of Marvel, DC and Image softcover and OHC trades. There’s a shitload of this stuff that doesn’t sell and offloading it to somewhere like BookXcess to sell at 60% off cover price is a loss for the publisher but returns some of the outlay compared to pulping them.
I know why fans can complain if a series is never fully collected etc but it’s visually very striking when you see 5,000 copies of unsold trades lined up on shelves. You will never see Watchmen, Saga or Sandman on those shelves. You’ll see a hell of a lot of things like volume 4 of Aquaman: Rebirth or some iteration of Venom or Runaways. Next time I’m there I’ll take a couple of photos to share the ‘hall of shame’ of books nobody bought.
I know these exist to a smaller degree in places like the UK
I still miss the one that was in Cheltenham for a while. Glorious shopping experience. That whole chain’s gone now, I think.
Yeah the thing you can see with them is maybe 80% that these are books that just weren’t very popular. However the other 20% points more to shops in the UK and US that were shitty at ordering.
There are some very popular authors and books that show up (including the likes of JK Rowling and Stephen King or Nelson Mandela’s autobiography) where you can see the reason they got returned was not nobody liked them but some bookshops thought they could sell 300 copies but the demand was more around 200.
There are a few UK remainder sellers on Ebay. I’ve found a few x-men OHCs on them (and some Y Last Man / Scalped HC). Good reminder that I need to take a look for any Hickman era OHC I don’t have.
As for Sandman Mystery Theatre – anything that would get the series printed would be good. I’d like the same format as the Starman / Y / ex-machina / Scalped Oversized HCs – but I’ll take what I can get :)
Reading the the Alan Moore Lovecraft books – Courtyard, Neonomicon, Providence. It’s been good stuff. Providence is taking a bit of time to read as there is a lot of text at the end of each chapter but it feels worthwhile reading it.
Reading the the Alan Moore Lovecraft books – Courtyard, Neonomicon, Providence. It’s been good stuff. Providence is taking a bit of time to read as there is a lot of text at the end of each chapter but it feels worthwhile reading it.
Definitely. The commonplace book entries initially seem like they overlap a lot with the comic sections but they end up providing a lot of important material that isn’t shown in the comic story, not only connective tissue between chapters but also background information and insights into Robert’s frame of mind (which changes as the book goes on).
Really I think Providence is a masterpiece and one of Moore’s best books, but it is incredibly dense and so is worth taking at a slow pace to get the most out of it.
Also Bruce, I don’t know how much of a Lovecraft fan you are but my knowledge was fairly patchy, so I greatly appreciated the notes for each issue at the Facts In the Case blog, which explained a lot of the allusions and connections for me and really enriched the reading experience.
It starts from issue #1 here:
I’ve read quite a bit of Lovecraft over the years so have a half decent knowledge of the mythos. I definitely feel it’s helped. I searched for annotations to clear a couple of things up so that website will be useful. I’m going to read through without and, on a future reading, I’ll go through it reading the annotations simultaneously. I’ve done that in the past with League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and From Hell and while it both were rewarding endeavours it did have an impact on the pace and flow of the books.
That’s true – maybe the kind of thing that is best suited to a reread rather than a first read.
I’ll agree Providence is a masterpiece, and I think it’s important to acknowledge Jacen Burrows’ work on it. Crucial to making it work was getting the look of things just enough “off” that you could see things were wrong but could also see why the protagonist would overlook it, at least in the early chapters. A very fine line, that I think a lot of lesser artists would have stepped over. I don’t really know Burrows’ work other than this project, but he impressed me immensely. I think he was as important to this book as, e.g., Gibbons was to Watchmen.
Definitely, Burrows’ work is great and a big part of why the book works. (I especially like some of the creepy stuff he does with repeated/resized panels in The Courtyard, which is quite subtle but unsettling.)
Some of the dream stuff in Providence really got under my skin to the extent I had disturbed dreams about it myself – a sure sign that a book has got under your skin!
Some of the dream stuff in Providence really got under my skin to the extent I had disturbed dreams about it myself
That’s very interesting, because so did I. I was reading it in bed each night, and I think it was a bad idea. Books almost never affect me in that way, though.
I had disturbed dreams about it
so did I
It’s genuinely a very disturbing book, I can be third to say it carried over into dreams.
Normally I don’t like Jacen Burrows much, he’s the best of the Avatar house style artists but I find his work stiff and undynamic. However for Providence that works out to be pretty much a perfect match. That eerie atmosphere is a lot about everything being slow and still and the horror is just to the side of everything.
I really wish someone other than Avatar has published it, I think far too few people have read this book because of their amateurish setup and yeah it is a bit of a masterpiece.
Ok then, sold.
SpeedyHen still have copies and when this one is gone, it’s really gone.
Been a while since the Trades thread sold me a book.
The funny thing is Moore said he took the gig to get some cashflow to pay off a tax bill (because he was writing his epic Jerusalem novel at the time, writing over 1000 page novels for several years is not good for cashflow).
I mean he could have written 6 issues of Batman and trousered a fortune but his ‘cash grab’ work was writing one of the best comics of his career.
The World of Black Hammer Library Edition Volume 5 Hardcover – April 25 2023
Collecting Black Hammer: Visions #1-8
The Sandman Universe: Nightmare Country Vol. 1 Hardcover – April 4 2023
collects The Sandman Universe: Nightmare Country #1-6.
The Sandman Mystery Theatre Compendium One Paperback – March 21 2023
not to much info, says print length is ‘1000 pages’
I missed these the first time around. looking forward to it (never read)
Avengers By Jonathan Hickman Omnibus Vol. 2 Hardcover – Feb. 21 2023
first one comes Dec. 27th
Oh, Nightmare Country has become hardback, thought it was paperback.
It’s a DC trade, you won’t know for sure until you hold it in your hands.
I’ve decided to do a big reread of the Giffen/Abnett/Lanning Marvel cosmic cycle, but expand it a bit and read some more recent GotG runs too.
So I’ve started with the Star Lord: Guardian of the Galaxy trade, which has been an education. First off, I could have sworn I’d read (well, skimmed) Star Lord’s origin story before. 70s, Claremont and Byrne, full colour, heavy on Spartax stuff. But nope, first issue and first appearance of Star Lord is some astrology heavy bit of junk by Steve Englehart. Very firmly outside the main MU too, set in the future.
Claremont and Byrne do the next story though, which has a remarkable editorial thing at the head of it, that essentially says “Englehart’s the only one who understood the astrology stuff and he’s gone, so we’ve junked it, also we thought we might have Peter be likeable”. Which he really wasn’t in the first story. Just an absolute asshat.
This second story is the one I vaguely recall, though where I saw it and (and why/how it was coloured) I don’t know. It’s better, but it has some of Claremont’s less palatable quirks, with the slightly icky relationship between Peter and “Ship” as well as Ship’s vaguely Irish accent. Also, Ship appears with no explanation and I don’t get why she doesn’t have a name.
For all the lovely peak-Byrne art, it’s only ok. Claremont does a couple more stories with Carmine Infantino, which are also ok before the character gets kicked around and ends up with Doug Monech. He doesn’t tell particularly interesting stories and (rather pettily) goes out of his way to belittle Quill’s desire not to kill, which I’m sure made him feel like a real galaxy brain, but just reads as juvenile and cynical, to be honest.
The volume is rounded out with the Timothy Zahn mini from the 90s, which has someone else become Star Lord.
Overall, it’s all kind of underwhelming. Most of these stories come from Marvel’s “premium” b&e genre mags of the 70s, which I find tend to be pretentious more than anything. That they’re all so pleased with themselves for making “art” that they lose any sense of fun, which Star Lord is desperately in need of.
It’s surprising how disconnected all this is from what I know of the character (which is his appearances in Annihilation onwards). None of this is in continuity, it turns out and has been recently retconned (except it’s not really retcons when they’re replacing non-con) seemingly only when someone realised most of this doesn’t work in the MU and they could just shove all the MCU ideas in there instead. And it’s hard to be down on that because so much of this is clunky. Peter dedicating his life to becoming a NASA astronaut to get revenge on the aliens that killed his mum isn’t as punchy as him just quickly getting into space. The whole Master of the Sun thing is pretty limp (and then furthered ruined by Moench retconning it). None of the stories are particularly amazing, so no great losses to the character’s history. And “Ship” is just a bit weird (she was a sentient sun, apparently). Next to fuck all is done with Peter’s Spartax heritage, which really makes you wonder what the point was of it.
The main thing I was expecting was something that would explain what happened between Peter and “Ship” that they split up and he’s avoiding her in Annihilation. I assumed it was some decades long dangling plot thread or somesuch. Turns out that’s actually stuff in Giffen’s Thanos series from just before Annihilation, so I guess that’s next on my list.
Lot of other DC stuff:
Feb 2023
The Joker HC3
Batman: One Bad Day – Riddler HC
Aquaman: Andromeda HC
March 2023
Superman / Batman: World’s Finest HC1
Batman Zdarsky HC1
Naomi Season Two HC
Batman: One Bad Day – Two-Face HC
April 2023
Nightwing HC3
Batman Who Laughs Deluxe
Detective Comics HC4 Tamaki
Batman: One Bad Day – Penguin HC
Who Is Wonder Woman Deluxe – Maybe it’ll come out this time.
Annoying that DC have chosen to do individual hardcover for all the One Bad Day books, instead of a single collection. I could have been tempted by an omnibus where I have little interest in some chapters. Oh well. This is why I have DC Infinite.
!? My copy of the Pulp OHC is on its way – all hail SpeedyHen!
Same. Looking forward to this one.
Hopefully this means they’ve got their stock in of Echolands Volume 1.
Ditto!
While you could read it as a marketing move, I think it’s more than just that.
It’s known OHCs aren’t cheap to print and this is more of a niche item. Add in the last couple of years of Covid causing merry hell for retailers and everyone else….
I think that’s partly just a way of getting people to buy the book rather than wait on the decision. But yes, good to have it in hand either way.
Midtown Comics confirmed I’ll be getting mine on Wednesday. 
Just received my copy of the Pulp Process Edition.
Looks like a fantastic book, particularly for any fans of Brubaker & Phillips. Lovingly designed and full of great behind-the-scenes information and process stuff, which is the kind of thing I love.
Looking forward to getting the chance to pore over the details at length.
Yep, happy I bought this now. It’s a good looking volume.
Shaolin Cowboy: Cruel to Be Kin Hardcover – April 25 2023
Amazon.com, Amazon.ca
Don’t see at Australia or the UK, yet
In order to keep a newborn Komodo dragon from joining the endangered species list, the Shaolin Cowboy must first make him an orphan and then adopt him into the ways of the “Intercepting fist” to keep their road trip from turning into roadkill.
When social distancing isn’t enough, the Cowboy has plenty of booster shots and jabs to keep a new army of foes, both new and old, from turning the situation from ugly, to bad, and no good.
“If Sergio Leone, Tsui Hark, Stephen Chow, and Sam Raimi could somehow have a child together and then disavow it, this book would be it…maybe.”—Geof Darrow
Collects Shaolin Cowboy: Cruel to be Kin #1–#7.
Print length 224 pages
Language English
Publisher Dark Horse Books
Publication date April 25 2023
ISBN-10 1506729207
ISBN-13 978-1506729206
I’m reading that one in singles and it’s as batshit insane as ever, with artwork that’s as crazily detailed as you’d expect.
Oh yes! Good spot Sean.
I loved the art and it’s worth getting for that alone. The story is ambitious and its reach sometimes exceeds its grasp, but it’s a very fun mix of styles and ideas that ties into a central adventure story that really gives JHW3 the chance to show off what he’s best at.
Sounds cool.
weirdly has different RRPs between the new and old versions of the site
BooksEtc’s move to a new site does not seem to have been a roaring success. Keeping both versions running simultaneously with different prices and stock is especially baffling.
I’m still using the old BooksEtc site because the new one is an image-heavy, pain in the arse to even try to use.
Hadn’t realised there was a difference in price and stock too. Will try booting up the new site vis Edge on the XBX as that might be able to handle it. My other devices it overloads.
Speedyhen have redeemed themselves by responding to my email querying their refusal to honour the original price, and sending me another £5-off voucher. So they’re back in my good books again.
weirdly has different RRPs between the new and old versions of the site
BooksEtc’s move to a new site does not seem to have been a roaring success. Keeping both versions running simultaneously with different prices and stock is especially baffling.
Yeah, I didn’t see anything wrong with their old site really and the new one still doesn’t seem to work properly. I did a search for something else while checking it earlier and it couldn’t even load up the search results page because it was bogged down by whatever widget they’re using to display images never loading.
I had another look this morning and the new Blacksad was available again for £11.75, so snagged that.
Also, the final volume of Young Justice is only £19 something on Hive at the moment. Out in November.
The thing with the BooksEtc co.uk site is there is a real “right place, right time” aspect to it.
This was delivered today. I ordered the hardcover edition, although there is a cheaper paperback edition available too. It’s a sturdy, well made book, although sadly not in oversized format.
The contents are pretty terrible, by today’s standards. It’s peak 1990’s bollocks. But, Silvestri’s artwork is gorgeous and that’s the main (only?) attraction.
I was going to back this on Kickstarter last year, but the cost plus shipping would have cost me somewhere in the region of £100. I got this for just over £23, from Speedyhen with the recent discount code. I missed out on the exclusive signed dust jacket, but overall I’m definitely glad that I waited.
It’s peak 1990’s bollocks.
Quote for the dustjacket.
There is that nostalgia element with comics where some can take that as an endorsement. Art aside you know it’s pretty awful but there’s also an energy to it I think some people miss.
That’s not me massively I have to say, just a small change in age can make a big difference, I was around 19/20 at the height of the ’90s bollocks’ era rather than 12 and it turned me away from those books. I didn’t buy any of the Image launch books, and picked up Spawn only when McFarlane hired Alan Moore for an issue.
I always liked the artwork though, 80s US comics had some great artists but it was very conservative, most kept to a John Romita Snr template. I was used to reading 2000ad where styles were radically different strip to strip and some of that energy bled through to that era until editor started telling every artist to ape Jim Lee.
But, to be fair, you know exactly what that means, don’t you? 😉
Definitely. I came to a lot of the 90s US stuff almost a decade late, it was in the early 2000s when I was working through a lot of it, but even though I didn’t experience it in real-time I still have a fair amount of nostalgia for some of it, certain artists and characters.
Not this though. 
The Absolute Jim Lee WildC.A.T.s is probably the most Image 90s style book I have.
Even Alan would say that’s far from his best work 😂
They do also have some Claremont, Miller, Gaiman and Morrison issues sprinkled within too. When those Image guys brought in proper writers (rather than siblings, friends, or random homeless persons) for an issue or two, they weren’t exactly shy about calling in the “big guns”.
True, but I reckon Absolute Top Ten would be in with a shot at it.
Not everything published in the 1990’s was shite 👍🏼
and the three Spawn Compendiums.
Now you’re talking my language.
Just noticed this, a Black Hammer OGN – being published in the same size as the Library Editions:
Currently due March 2023.
A big bit of X-Omnibus news just dropped:
Uncanny X-Men Omnibus 5 due June 2023.
The significance of this is that, when placed with the others – and this is the full list:
Uncanny X-Men 1-4
Excalibur 1-2
New Mutants 1-2
Wolverine 1
Murant Massacre
Inferno Prelude + Inferno
X-Men 1-2
This is the last piece of Claremont’s X-epic. In total? 14 Omnibuses!
I’ll be buying less Omnis next year but this will be on the list.
Looking forward to it. Hopefully they’ll update the contents a bit before it comes out, or Uncanny X-Men Annual 10 remains uncollected. I know it’s in one of the New Mutant books, but it seems strange not to have it in the Uncanny omnibus series.
Oh, I got my copy of Blacksad: All Fall Down pt 1 yesterday from Books Etc. No idea when I’m going to read it though, as I’m in a big Cosmic Marvel re-read.
