Marvel Collected Editions

[Dayle88]

Just started the Wolverine Epic Collection and finished the Marvel Presents issues. Seriously cool, can't wait to read the rest. What's the reason the X-Men are pretending to be dead?

Speaking of cover price. Forbidden Planet in Southampton (and I expect everywhere else) charge the cover price in pounds. So if a trade is $9.99 it'll have a sticker for £9.99 instead of the £6.50 or whatever it should be with the exchange rate. I used to limit my shopping experience to browsing 'cos it can be nice to stumble on stuff but after a while I didn't even want to step in there with what is essentially ripping people off as far as I'm concerned.

[Canucked]

Which LCS doesn't charge cover for omnibuses? All the ones I have been to in the city charge US cover price (plus the exchange rate) which now a days works to more than the Cdn cover price. I used to buy omnibuses at Phoenix Comics SW (I remember buying around 6 at one time so I got a little extra discount) about 1-2 years ago when they had a few OOP omnibuses and that was at US cover price (no exchange rate). Granted the exchange rate was better back then.

I go to Another Dimension, which has killer HC stock and great prices. Picked up two masterworks there recently and certainly did not pay cover. I would never pay more than Canadian cover for a book. That's just fleecing.

[krisis]

Holy crap! I never thought about this but do you think Marvel is tracking which issues are the most view/downloaded? And if not, what is wrong with their marketing department. This is golden data. Wouldn't be great if they saw, for example, that the Eternals comics were being viewed like crazy and led to a reprint of the omnibus? I'm itching to dive into those numbers.

You are describing my dream job, which is basically my current job but with Marvel as one of my clients

I have to believe that in addition to looking for synergy with their release schedule and media properties, someone at Marvel has an eye on back issue performance on digital to understand when a certain character or series is trending or achieving consistent results. Yes, digital preferences don't necessarily translate to physical sales, but having your own digital catalog for a rights managed media company is effectively the same thing as having built in market research.

The release of the Marvel API last year suggests to me that there's some data-minded person in there somewhere making waves

At the bare minimum I'm sure a lot of cumbersome data they used to collect about featuring certain characters or colors on covers yielding more sales is now very easy to collect.

Just started the Wolverine Epic Collection and finished the Marvel Presents issues. Seriously cool, can't wait to read the rest. What's the reason the X-Men are pretending to be dead?

Speaking of cover price. Forbidden Planet in Southampton (and I expect everywhere else) charge the cover price in pounds. So if a trade is $9.99 it'll have a sticker for £9.99 instead of the £6.50 or whatever it should be with the exchange rate. I used to limit my shopping experience to browsing 'cos it can be nice to stumble on stuff but after a while I didn't even want to step in there with what is essentially ripping people off as far as I'm concerned.

The X-Men appeared to die at the end of the confrontation in Fall of the Mutants and were subsequently immune to electronic surveillance thanks to the intervention of Roma. Wolverine's ongoing series begins just before UXM #235.

As for Forbidden Planet, I think my biggest beef there is the sticker But, seriously, is that a common practice for US-priced things in the UK? I don't recall from my last trip.

[Danny77]

Canucked is so 100% right that I think his post bears reading again. I'll wait...

Marvel employees have said repeatedly that the demand they care about is this kind of demand - demand from the business who can order the books, and the demand for current books both in floppy and collected formats. Our individual voices as customers have relatively little meaning to Marvel in their print business because we don't transact with them directly, though I'm sure they occasionally pay attention in aggregate to certain surveys or opinions.

To draw a comparison to the familiar, it was like trying to get a Network to care about your support for a show in the days before DVDs, DVR, Netflix, Hulu, ect - all they really knew to be true were Nielsen ratings, and just about everything else was random noise. Now we can use all of those outlets to show we're actually willing to support a show, and suddenly things are coming back from the dead and finding new life!

Here's tactics likely to be more effective than "pester X human being who happens to work at Marvel via every possible form of social media":
- Ask your LCS or physical store to try to order ISBNs you know to be OOP, even if they're just one possible portion of what could be a larger collection you're dreaming of
- Tell your LCS or small book store that you might stop your orders (or: would start ordering) if they could get news from Marvel on XYZ thing you care about
- If you order a lot from CGN, IST, DCBS, ect, see if they have a customer service rep who knows some insider information
- Gently ask X human being who works for Marvel what external form of feedback they tend to look at the most when making a decision on XYZ thing you care about
- Look at news stories about the Diamond Retailer awards or check which stores tend to get their own Marvel exclusive covers. These are people whose opinions matter. Try the above with them.
- If you have Marvel Unlimited, access the heck out of the books you'd want to see collected. These correlate pretty consistently to what get non-standard collection releases like OHCs and Omnis.

Great suggestions Krisis. The one thing i would recommend is to preorder your omnibus. From my understanding the direct market covers are limited to what stores preorder, DCBS offers preorder, you have to pay for shipping, but it still may be worth it for folks that need a specific cover.
My LCS will not consider bringing in any Omnibus unless they get it at a cut out rate. It is too bad that Marvel has set this impossible measure for the publication of new Omnibuses. As i've said before, the blessing and curse of this hobby is the Direct Market. If Marvel followed some of the other models out there, we would get just about everything we want. The Grateful Dead sell subscriptions on their website for 4 CD concert albums that are delivered quarterly. Each album has three disks, and the second album comes with a subscriber only bonus disk. You don't know what the concerts will be, they could be just about anything for better or worse. If you preorder you get the package for about $100.00. The first year of the subscription they limited the offer to 10,000 units, and each album you get is numbered. Each subsequent year they have upped production by about 1,000. If the subscriptions do not sell out, then you can purchase the individual albums upon their release, and once they are gone, they are gone.
While the owner of the LCS hates the fact that Marvel now offers a subscription box, he will probably never bring one into the store based on the fact he thinks it is too much of a risk, and it would encourage Marvel to offer other products directly to fans. Marvel just needs to offer an exclusive Omnibus directly to fans and i'm confident it would be a success. But as i think about it a bit more, i imagine it is all a pipe dream. For the most part i will not pay more than the going price on IST, for a book, so i'd hate to pay Marvel cover price for most of the books they make. Maybe they could offer collector editions of books, like first printing available on their website would have the classic thick paper and good construction. I might pay cover for that.

[zeze]

I go to Another Dimension, which has killer HC stock and great prices. Picked up two masterworks there recently and certainly did not pay cover. I would never pay more than Canadian cover for a book. That's just fleecing.

That is weird. My sister always goes there all the time and gets charged US price plus exchange rate (those are floppies). I have bought a few omnibuses (OOP ones like Devil Dinosaur, Fantastic Four Vol 1 - 2nd printing, ASM volume 2, AoV Crossovers Variant) and HCs from them in the past and have always been charged US price + exchange rate. And one thing I have noticed is that their exchange rate is usually higher than the actual exchange rate so they are making a bit more money. I have seen people there paying more than Cdn cover price for a trade. I personally can't stand the store (plus most of them are very unfriendly), but I still regret not picking up the Captain America and Thor SA omnibuses when they still have them in stock (this was after they went OOP). But yeah I will agree with you that they have a good stock of HC (though Phoenix Comics SW selection is better). Though it doesn't matter to me anymore as I buy almost everything online now. Only time I go to a comic book store is to look for OOP books and to buy those darn Funko Pop toys (those things are addicting).

[Balakin]

Just started the Wolverine Epic Collection and finished the Marvel Presents issues. Seriously cool, can't wait to read the rest. What's the reason the X-Men are pretending to be dead?

Speaking of cover price. Forbidden Planet in Southampton (and I expect everywhere else) charge the cover price in pounds. So if a trade is $9.99 it'll have a sticker for £9.99 instead of the £6.50 or whatever it should be with the exchange rate. I used to limit my shopping experience to browsing 'cos it can be nice to stumble on stuff but after a while I didn't even want to step in there with what is essentially ripping people off as far as I'm concerned.

That is the case everywhere in the UK, bookshops, LCS-s, FP. I realized this the first time I come to the UK and went to a FP to spend my hard earned money which I save for my holiday...and didn't buy any books. So yeah, a $100 omnibus is 100 pounds. I have no idea who buys omnibuses in comicbook shops in the UK.
And yeah, they put a f#&@ sticker on the books, and AFAIK every other comicbok shop does that (A guy did it in front of me when I asked for the price of an ohc because it didn't have a price tag. Almost slapped him).

[legion_quest]

Just started the Wolverine Epic Collection and finished the Marvel Presents issues. Seriously cool, can't wait to read the rest. What's the reason the X-Men are pretending to be dead?

Speaking of cover price. Forbidden Planet in Southampton (and I expect everywhere else) charge the cover price in pounds. So if a trade is $9.99 it'll have a sticker for £9.99 instead of the £6.50 or whatever it should be with the exchange rate. I used to limit my shopping experience to browsing 'cos it can be nice to stumble on stuff but after a while I didn't even want to step in there with what is essentially ripping people off as far as I'm concerned.

Forbidden Planet in Southampton is the most expensive FP in the country, including the London one. They have power to set some of their own prices on some things, as they are apparently kind of a franchise rather than a full chain, and the Southampton one is dreadful for it!

I miss the days when I was 12 and Southampton had two independent comic book shops down on St Marys Street. Used to get some amazing deals in those.

[Mr`Orange]

Referring to the existence of child labor is racist now?

Implying that because a company is based in east Asia they employ child labour is.

[Mr`Orange]

It's probably not actually that bad, but the customs would likely be a killer

As it is a book you won't have to pay VAT or duty to bring it into the UK.

EDIT: Should have read a few posts down.

[Iron Fist]

I don't understand why we can't get eBay to refund the 'customs charges' isn't it basically theft or fraud for them to imply there are charges when there aren't?

[Rich]

I don't understand why we can't get eBay to refund the 'customs charges' isn't it basically theft or fraud for them to imply there are charges when there aren't?

I've brought this up with EBay several times and asked where the money goes. They agreed the charge shouldn't be there but a year later its still there. I've asked people (usually Americans) if they would send me books themselves instead of using the global shipping program but often they think I'm making the reason up.

[Iron Fist]

I've brought this up with EBay several times and asked where the money goes. They agreed the charge shouldn't be there but a year later its still there. I've asked people (usually Americans) if they would send me books themselves instead of using the global shipping program but often they think I'm making the reason up.

Even legally, it shouldn't be there. I wonder if they need to be reported to HMRC, I mean they're claiming custom charges as an expense for items that don't get charges, that sounds illegal.

[DrGregatron]

Implying that because a company is based in east Asia they employ child labour is.

It's not racism and only a PC thug would suggest otherwise during a discussion of the quality of production of Marvel omnibuses! The communist government which was theoretically supposed to protect the worker has no problem exploiting its children while building itself into an economic powerhouse. My statement about child labor implied a political and economic problem and was not a statement of subtle racism. Try googling "Chinese child labor" to inform yourself about the human rights violations in China.

[Iron Fist]

It's not racism and only a PC thug would suggest otherwise during a discussion of the quality of production of Marvel omnibuses! The communist government which was theoretically supposed to protect the worker has no problem exploiting its children while building itself into an economic powerhouse. My statement about child labor implied a political and economic problem and was not a statement of subtle racism. Try googling "Chinese child labor" to inform yourself about the human rights violations in China.

Not to mention the slave labour used to make the Beijing Olympics happen. Their track record with human rights is abysmal. It's never racist to point out human rights abuses.

[Mr`Orange]

It's not racism and only a PC thug would suggest otherwise during a discussion of the quality of production of Marvel omnibuses! The communist government which was theoretically supposed to protect the worker has no problem exploiting its children while building itself into an economic powerhouse. My statement about child labor implied a political and economic problem and was not a statement of subtle racism. Try googling "Chinese child labor" to inform yourself about the human rights violations in China.

I'm not saying that child labour isn't a problem, it is, and it is an issue all over the world, but to insinuate that the poor quality of a book is down to the use of child labour because the book is printed in Asia is racist.

It would be the same as me saying that the American books are badly made because that company used illiterate hillbliies to put the books together.

Are there illiterate hilbillies in America? Yes. Is there any connection between that fact and that initial comment of quality? No.