Marvel Collected Editions

[Jim Noble]

Just won a copy of War of Kings OHC on eBay.

It was a teensy bit more than I wanted to pay, but I got the eBay bug and decided I would not be beaten as they dont come up often.

I hope you enjoy it, I was bidding on it till it hit £40! I had the Realm of Kings off the same seller though.

[Legion564]

Alright my captain America omnibus shipped and should be here soon. Hopefully it has a sewn binding or I'll just sell it on ebay.

[kodave]

Side note, does anyone know of a place listing the rarer or more desirable Premiere Classics? I've just been gifted a few of the Avengers ones and just wanted to see if they were worth anything before I decide what to do with them (too small looking on the shelf....but I could put them on a different shelf....).

Go on Amazon and look up the marketplace prices. If the Amazon marketplace prices look high, then you're on your way to finding out if it is truly worth anything (since Amazon marketplace can be unrealistically overpriced). Go onto eBay and search for the same book. Then check the box to see only sold listings. If the book regularly sells for a good amount, congrats, you now know if it's a valuable book or not.

[kodave]

Alright my captain America omnibus shipped and should be here soon. Hopefully it has a sewn binding or I'll just sell it on ebay.

3rd printing and beyond are sewn for the first Brubaker Captain America Omnibus.

You can find out more here: http://crushingkrisis.com/collecting...ibus-editions/ - That link should be in the first post of the thread if it isn't already.

[The Lucky One]

Got Oz today and have some pics. I'll spread it out a bit so as not to intrude too much...

A few days/pages late, but thanks for posting these, deltasun! I think I have the wife convinced to let me buy it for our soon-to-be-6-year-old's birthday. We'll just have to talk with her about how this is a very nice, special volume, and emphasize the importance of keeping it safe from her 3-year-old sister, the Destroyer of Books.

Do you mind me asking where you got it? I thought it hadn't officially been released yet and was hoping to take advantage of IST's "week of" 50% discount, but maybe I missed it.

[Jon Rock]

Today was an expensive day for me. I ended up impulse buying Secret Warriors in trade and I just ordered Winter Soldier OHC, Red Menace Ulti, Death of Cap Complete, Cap Lives and Trial of Cap(Decided to wait til I get Trial of to buy Winter Soldier Complete.)

[CrazyOldHermit]

True but your'e not going to draw kids back in with a line or two of half-hearted attempts. It would a require a real change in the whole company to start again what they had before Watchman. And I'm not saying comics should be doing this just that I think it's a loss for the industry.

You're absolutely right about kids not even needing comics. At the moment, if you want to be into super heroes as a kid, you've got a lot of options other than comics.

I don't think anything would get kids back into comics. Not on a regular basis. I'll break it down how I see it.

In the heyday of kid-friendly comics (late 30s to 80s) a small kid could get some spare change (a dime, a quarter later on a buck), walk down to the drug store and buy a comic.

This is so far removed from everything thats going on today that it is impossible to compare. For starters, a comic book now costs $3-4. Thats close to five bucks with tax. Would a parent today give a kid a $5 bill as readily as they would a dime back in the 60s? Even adjusting for inflation there is something very different there. The financial burden of buying a comic book is high, especially for a youngster.

Next is the "walk down to the drug store" part. This is over for two reasons: Comics are no longer sold in grocery stores and drug stores, and every parent is too paranoid to let their 8 year old out of their sight in public.

Finally theres the "buy a comic" part. You can give a kid five bucks but would he even buy a comic with it? The only advantage comics have is they're pretty much the only entertainment you can get for under ten bucks. But if you give that money to a kid I think he might have other ideas.

So basically it breaks down into three things: Cost, distribution and desire. It's a perfect storm of being inaccessible and unappealing to children.

Digital can help, in theory. The problem is now comics are behind a credit card paywall on a specialty service. Another series of obstacles to get through.

I think Marvel would do well to try an newstand experiment. Reissue Silver and Bronze Age issues (no royalties to pay for), distribute them to newstands, drug stores, grocery stores, 7-11s, etc. Sell them for $2. Advertise on TV. See if people go for it. As it is I think distributing All-Ages books to the DM is a snipe hunt.

[mars]

The $5 trades they had at Wal-Mart last month were a good idea for getting kids to read comics, but the content wasn't.

[victorxd1999]

The $5 trades they had at Wal-Mart last month were a good idea for getting kids to read comics, but the content wasn't.

What tpb's were they then?

[mars]

- something from Brubaker's Captain America
- Spider-Man Big Time (I think)
- first Bendis GotG trade
- some Avengers thing

I'm not suggesting they're bad, mind you, just that they didn't seem like the best thing to attract young kids.

[victorxd1999]

- something from Brubaker's Captain America
- Spider-Man Big Time (I think)
- first Bendis GotG trade
- some Avengers thing

I'm not suggesting they're bad, mind you, just that they didn't seem like the best thing to attract young kids.

Yeah, I thought something like that. I wouldn't let a child under 12 read Brubaker's Cap indeed

[Rimmer]

I don't think anything would get kids back into comics. Not on a regular basis. I'll break it down how I see it.

In the heyday of kid-friendly comics (late 30s to 80s) a small kid could get some spare change (a dime, a quarter later on a buck), walk down to the drug store and buy a comic.

This is so far removed from everything thats going on today that it is impossible to compare. For starters, a comic book now costs $3-4. Thats close to five bucks with tax. Would a parent today give a kid a $5 bill as readily as they would a dime back in the 60s? Even adjusting for inflation there is something very different there. The financial burden of buying a comic book is high, especially for a youngster.

Next is the "walk down to the drug store" part. This is over for two reasons: Comics are no longer sold in grocery stores and drug stores, and every parent is too paranoid to let their 8 year old out of their sight in public.

Finally theres the "buy a comic" part. You can give a kid five bucks but would he even buy a comic with it? The only advantage comics have is they're pretty much the only entertainment you can get for under ten bucks. But if you give that money to a kid I think he might have other ideas.

So basically it breaks down into three things: Cost, distribution and desire. It's a perfect storm of being inaccessible and unappealing to children.

Digital can help, in theory. The problem is now comics are behind a credit card paywall on a specialty service. Another series of obstacles to get through.

I think Marvel would do well to try an newstand experiment. Reissue Silver and Bronze Age issues (no royalties to pay for), distribute them to newstands, drug stores, grocery stores, 7-11s, etc. Sell them for $2. Advertise on TV. See if people go for it. As it is I think distributing All-Ages books to the DM is a snipe hunt.

Hermit, I agree with just about everything you say here. My son is 7, we just started going down the chores/allowance route, and we give him $5 per week if he does everything. He knows about comics, flips through some of my TPBs now and then, reads a ton of age-appropriate kids books about Marvel and DC heroes, etc... but buying an actual comic is the farthest thing from his mind. Mostly because, well, they're practically $5 themselves, and that's what he gets in a week. He'd rather save up his money for a few weeks and get a Star Wars lego set. Granted, he's a little young, but I just don't see the market opening up for kids.

I agree the big items are cost, distribution, and desire. Well put. Cost is the big one. I like the newsprint idea you have, but I'd almost say $2 is still too high to get a 'casual reader' or a kid to pick one up. Kids would much rather watch a movie/DVD/Netflix about super heroes (my son LOVES the Earth's Mightiest Heroes Avengers cartoon from a year or so ago on Netflix), or play a video game with the characters, than actually read comics. I don't want to spout it's a "dying medium", because I don't think that's totally true, but I think until a kid is a teenager with more disposable income, it pretty much is true. My two cents.

[legion_quest]

I hope you enjoy it, I was bidding on it till it hit £40! I had the Realm of Kings off the same seller though.

Yeah, that it cost me £60 is going to hurt.....but it's actually a rare book and Amazon's cheapest price is over £150!

Go on Amazon and look up the marketplace prices. If the Amazon marketplace prices look high, then you're on your way to finding out if it is truly worth anything (since Amazon marketplace can be unrealistically overpriced). Go onto eBay and search for the same book. Then check the box to see only sold listings. If the book regularly sells for a good amount, congrats, you now know if it's a valuable book or not.

The only ones that seems to meet that criteria is Avengers: Under Siege which is really high on Amazon and doesn't seem to have anyone selling it on eBay. There is also a Silver Surfer: Return of Thanos, which is high on Amazon, but has a readily available TPB, So that could give me a clue as to if either are worth anything.....maybe.....

[Rimmer]

Yeah, I thought something like that. I wouldn't let a child under 12 read Brubaker's Cap indeed

Yeah but you get to see these hillarious Hatchette book headings, though:

https://www.hachettebookgroup.biz/se...exact%3AMarvel

The running joke about there's a millino Avengers teams? Yeah, now there's a WalMart Avengers team, too.

[TomSlick]

I don't think anything would get kids back into comics. Not on a regular basis. I'll break it down how I see it.

In the heyday of kid-friendly comics (late 30s to 80s) a small kid could get some spare change (a dime, a quarter later on a buck), walk down to the drug store and buy a comic.

This is so far removed from everything thats going on today that it is impossible to compare. For starters, a comic book now costs $3-4. Thats close to five bucks with tax. Would a parent today give a kid a $5 bill as readily as they would a dime back in the 60s? Even adjusting for inflation there is something very different there. The financial burden of buying a comic book is high, especially for a youngster.

Next is the "walk down to the drug store" part. This is over for two reasons: Comics are no longer sold in grocery stores and drug stores, and every parent is too paranoid to let their 8 year old out of their sight in public.

Finally theres the "buy a comic" part. You can give a kid five bucks but would he even buy a comic with it? The only advantage comics have is they're pretty much the only entertainment you can get for under ten bucks. But if you give that money to a kid I think he might have other ideas.

So basically it breaks down into three things: Cost, distribution and desire. It's a perfect storm of being inaccessible and unappealing to children.

Digital can help, in theory. The problem is now comics are behind a credit card paywall on a specialty service. Another series of obstacles to get through.

I think Marvel would do well to try an newstand experiment. Reissue Silver and Bronze Age issues (no royalties to pay for), distribute them to newstands, drug stores, grocery stores, 7-11s, etc. Sell them for $2. Advertise on TV. See if people go for it. As it is I think distributing All-Ages books to the DM is a snipe hunt.

I don't think there's anything to add to this.
You pretty much hit it dead on.