Marvel Collected Editions

[kodave]

My point was that in the "digital era" , ALL physical media is becoming either more expensive and/or scarce, so abusing books whether they be your own, a friend's or borrowed from the library is not just inconsiderate but ridiculously stupid. There are some modern libraries which are shifting to lending digital tablets to borrowers for documents/books over the internet. The irony is that patrons will probably take more care of the $200 tablet than they would some "old book" which has long been OOP. That doesn't make sense but that's the asinine reasoning people accept nowadays.

My examples were from library books I've seen and though I don't own any library overstock books, the ones I've seen for sale were never dog-eared copies they were looking to sell off (those are usually sent to a bindery for repairs). There are many OOP books which most people aren't willing or able to spend hundreds of dollars to buy, so the library is the only option. How would you feel if the only copy of Brubaker Cap omnibus in your town looked like it fell 3 stories down onto a sharp hand rail?

If you are willing to accept the fact that people will 'always abuse library books' than you'll also have to accept the fact that buying an abused rare book either damaged by the owner/retailer or in shipping will increase in frequency as well. For the simple reason that more people just don't give a ****.

You say these things as if it's something new and developing. You're also way overblowing the "scarcity" of physical media. When thousands if not hundreds of thousands of copies of books are printed, they're not "scarce" in the slightest. Even if print runs are declining, there is no shortage on paper product to go around and any OOP books are only OOP because of publisher's not wanting to print more at the time. And there's a reason ex-library books can only be listed as "Good" condition and less on Amazon Marketplace and are prohibited as being counted as "Collectible." Ex-library books have always been in not the best shape. It's not like there's a magical new increase in the frequency of damaged ex-library books.

If the only copy of a Bru Cap Omni at my local library looked like it was dropped off a 20 story building, I wouldn't care. It's not there to be a collectible. It's there to be read by the patrons of the library. As long as the pages were not significantly damaged and reading could be accomplished, then that's fine. Dust jackets and covers can be repaired and reinforced. Same with the bindings. What happens to the book or the condition of it after it's pulled from circulation is not really a concern of mine in the slightest.

And you can boil down uncaring library patrons and poor retailers both as "not giving a ****" but the causes of not giving a **** are not the same.

[kodave]

Tom Brevoort posted the following to his Tumblr page:

"Yo Tom, will Superior Foes of Spider-Man get an Omnibus HC sort of thing?
Anonymous

I believe so, yes."

Thank FSM.

I know from your shelf pics you've got the red spine ones, i'm trying to find the ones on the far left to match my other omnibuses.

Are they older editions or variants? I can't seem to find a proper answer anywhere =/

If they're just variants, that mean the only difference is dust jacket so I could just look into printing a dust jacket instead of paying twice as much.

The ones on the left are the original printing of the Miller DD Omnibus and Companion. Off the top of my head I don't remember if they were the regular or DM covers. I'm sure Krisis' website or perhaps ManWithoutFear.Com could tell you. Either way they're both obviously OOP. I do not know what the hardcovers look like under the dust jacket, but I'm thinking they're probably different than the red/black half-dust jacket alternatives that were originally printed opposite those full DJ editions.

The Companion has not been reprinted and is probably going to be expensive no matter what version of the dust jacket you buy. For the regular Omnibus you could get the recent re-print then print up your own dust jacket to match that style if you really want. In the end, the collected content inside is going to be exactly the same except for maybe the copyright page which might list a different ISBN depending on the version.

[Canucked]

So I'm finally reading all of New X-Men: Academy X, and while I like it, I'm not sure if I'm a fan of the art style. Go Rockslide though, he's my favourite. For this 2000s I only really read a bit of X-Men, I had grown tired of the growing cast.

[Firshizzle]

Do you think that the Iron Fist Omnibus is going to get reprinted with the new series coming out on Netflix?

[Legion564]

Do you think that the Iron Fist Omnibus is going to get reprinted with the new series coming out on Netflix?

I doubt it just because DD still hasn't gotten a companion reprint.

[Canucked]

I doubt it just because DD still hasn't gotten a companion reprint.

Yup exactly.

Few thing make me think no reprinted omnibus. There have been no reprints of omnis that "recent" and also daredevil didn't get one. The Jessica Jones show wasn't very well timed with the alias reprint but that's understandable since linking "alias" to a tv show can get confusing maybe. Daredevil hasn't had an omni solicited at all this year.

We are getting lots of iron fist tpbs so, yay

[krisis]

So I'm finally reading all of New X-Men: Academy X, and while I like it, I'm not sure if I'm a fan of the art style. Go Rockslide though, he's my favourite. For this 2000s I only really read a bit of X-Men, I had grown tired of the growing cast.

I feel similarly. Starting all of their stories from the beginning was actually pretty revelatory, but the art could wear on me. Not just the art style, but the colors - so glossy and bright. Definitely set the tone for a teen series, but my eyes eventually get tired of some colorists' palettes.

[Brewman]

You say these things as if it's something new and developing. You're also way overblowing the "scarcity" of physical media. When thousands if not hundreds of thousands of copies of books are printed, they're not "scarce" in the slightest. Even if print runs are declining, there is no shortage on paper product to go around and any OOP books are only OOP because of publisher's not wanting to print more at the time.

Of course books go oop because publishers stop printing them. The print run is based on how many they believe will be sold. So the point holds that as more people are satisfied with digital media print runs are going to become smaller and more expensive. At this point looking at the numbers that have been posted about how many copies omni's and ohc's are moving the idea that hundreds of thousands and maybe even tens of thousands of these books are being printed is slightly ludicrous. The other thing to look at is the nature of what we are talking about here this is not a new novel by joe blow; the collectibility of comic books has been proven over decades. The rules that might apply to print runs and how many editions are issued for a normal book will never apply to what the collective group here is into.

[CrazyOldHermit]

Do you think that the Iron Fist Omnibus is going to get reprinted with the new series coming out on Netflix?

Slim to none, because it was just reprinted as a TPB not too long ago.

[Brewman]

Yup exactly.

Few thing make me think no reprinted omnibus. There have been no reprints of omnis that "recent" and also daredevil didn't get one. The Jessica Jones show wasn't very well timed with the alias reprint but that's understandable since linking "alias" to a tv show can get confusing maybe. Daredevil hasn't had an omni solicited at all this year.
We are getting lots of iron fist tpbs so, yay

So do people really want omni reprints? I can understand the frustration with the price that these books are commanding on the secondary market but the hate and vitriol that are constantly espoused about the quality of paper and the lack of faux leather bindings on all the new prints leave me wondering where do the priorities lay. I personally was satisfied with reprints of Alias and Howard but I don't think I could do a reprint of any DD or SS I would pay the cost to have original higher quality book. Any other thoughts?

[DragonPiece]

Sounds nice, i don't trust his vague Magic 8 Ball response. It would look odd on most people's shelves unless they collect some of the other Slott material in OHC.

I don't think so. Marvel just released that 16 issue Young Avengers omnibus, I'm sure they would have no problem releasing this.

[krisis]

So do people really want omni reprints? I can understand the frustration with the price that these books are commanding on the secondary market but the hate and vitriol that are constantly espoused about the quality of paper and the lack of faux leather bindings on all the new prints leave me wondering where do the priorities lay. I personally was satisfied with reprints of Alias and Howard but I don't think I could do a reprint of any DD or SS I would pay the cost to have original higher quality book. Any other thoughts?

I think the reprints we've seen so far were Marvel capitalizing on books with the most ridiculous and consistent aftermarket demand and reflective of a somewhat refreshed approach to keeping Volume 1s in print. For example, Fantastic Four's first 10 issues will now be reprinted in THREE formats in the course of six months - Omni, MMW, and Epic.

This trend is tied to Marvel's constant distinct third-place in the book market to DC and Image. Image simply has to keep every version of Walking Dead in print to dominate the market. DC has a bevy of evergreen stories they constantly reissue. Marvel is finally trying to nail down what's evergreen for them and keeping it in print through a rotating set of formats - which is a roulette wheel that sometimes lands on the Omnibus.

Look at what got reprinted last fall. UXM Vol. 1 is as close to evergreen as Marvel gets, and they needed it in the marketplace to release a Vol. 2. FFv1 and v2 are considered prohibitive classics, and now Marvel is releasing a Vol. 3. Frank Miller Daredevil is considered a definitive take and wasn't readily available in any other format with the show approaching. ASM Vol. 1 is the odd man out - Vol. 2 was already selling, and they had both the Epic and MMW reprint upcoming. Still - it's freaking Spider-Man.

Will we see Iron Fist in Omnibus again? Who knows! But, Marvel just got it out in two massive TPBs, which will probably still be around for the show's launch. Alias already hit that dual-TPB format (and they're OOP), so we saw the Omnibus get a refresh. It looks like the Bendis Daredevil Ultimates got a fresh print, because they are suddenly plentifully available, which probably means no Omni reprint upcoming. Luke Cage has no good collections to speak of, so that will all be fresh.

(NXM also fits the "not otherwise readily available" mold, and was a clear cash cow for them. Howard the Duck does not count, as it was simply naked capitalism to try to extend GotG movie goodwill to buying a $100 book.)

Not entirely unrelated - that's 7 of their first 12 omnibuses.

Want my predictions of what will see a reprint in the next 24 months? X-Men, Vol. 1. Brubaker Cap 1 and 2. Maybe Elektra. (Silver Surfer probably gets defused by its impending Epic.)

[kodave]

Of course books go oop because publishers stop printing them. The print run is based on how many they believe will be sold. So the point holds that as more people are satisfied with digital media print runs are going to become smaller and more expensive. At this point looking at the numbers that have been posted about how many copies omni's and ohc's are moving the idea that hundreds of thousands and maybe even tens of thousands of these books are being printed is slightly ludicrous. The other thing to look at is the nature of what we are talking about here this is not a new novel by joe blow; the collectibility of comic books has been proven over decades. The rules that might apply to print runs and how many editions are issued for a normal book will never apply to what the collective group here is into.

I post sales numbers quite frequently. Other than the lowest selling Omnibuses, most of them move over 1,000 units the first month of sales on the direct market. That doesn't count Amazon or Barnes and Noble. It doesn't add up what the books sell every month after. The idea that there are thousands of any single Marvel Omnibus out in the wild is not ludicrous in the slightest. Saga Volume 4 moved 24,661 direct market units in its first month. While that's definitely an outlier, it's quite possible you could have 100,000+ copies of Saga Vol. 4 out there within a couple of years taking into consideration the bookstore market and sales in subsequent months and years. Even the more "normal" collected edition books move several thousand copies in the DM their first month will have plenty of product floating out and about in the world.

There's no scarcity or shortage to the vast majority of trades and graphic novels being printed today. Even when publishers try to manipulate scarcity with LEs it fails. IDW has a bunch of ultra limited fancy signed and sketched editions of things like the TMNT books which they've had to put on sales before even though the print run was maybe 200 copies or something like that.

Just because a book gets labelled "rare" doesn't mean it's actually rare. High prices aren't always necessarily a valuation of scarcity. Even something like the Uncanny X-Force Omnibus, which may have a dozen reliable listings out there right now, isn't truly rare or scarce. There are thousands of copies of that book sitting on consumer shelves around the world and that's likely why no one is biting on extremely high priced listings, because they know there are more copies out there and eventually a more reasonable one will trickle onto the market. The internet makes true rarity or scarcity less of a thing. Instead of hoping your LCS ordered a certain book or that a certain book will miraculously be sold to a shop second hand in some small town and that may be the only copy you ever lay eyes on, you can instead go online and have access to far more copies. 50 years from now when Marvel still hasn't reprinted the Uncanny X-Force Omnibus and all of the thousands of consumer copies are raptured into Omnibus heaven and only the couple hundred ex-library copies remain left behind, then we can bemoan the long standing abusive treatment of library books and truly say that book has become rare/scarce.

Additionally, trade/GN sales are up these days while digital continues to grow. There's room for both and there's no real evidence that digital is displacing or making physical scarce at this time. It's not like declining DVD or CD sales. Could it happen in the future? Perhaps. But so far the sky isn't falling.

[JJ87]

Oh good, I didn't want to hunt them both down and discover their binding was crappy. I want to read the frank miller run but the new omnibus is ugly as are the trades.

I actually really like the trades. When I purchased them, they were the easy-reading, cheap alternative to the omnibus. This of course was before I started prioritizing hardcovers and when I was responsible with my expenses in general .

The third volume includes the Sienkewicz-illustrated graphic novel that is in the Companion.
I'm planning on getting Born Again and The Man Without Fear in paperback, just to keep the spine look on my DD by Miller collection.

[Brewman]

So the main reason I got into omni's was the belief that they were going to be a super sized masterwork format. I enjoy the fact that they are incorporating so much current material but the fact remains that the mmw line seems to have had no drop in quality. To me OMNIBUS should be the ultimate line of production. As oversized presentations of what should be the most influential marvel events or ground breaking arcs.