The following ones have a lot of negative or average reviews:
http://www.amazon.fr/Spirou-Tome-Zor...4G1KS7ES6J2ZQN
http://www.amazon.fr/Version-Origina...4G1KS7ES6J2ZQN
http://www.amazon.fr/Spirou-Tome-pri...4G1KS7ES6J2ZQN
So the main negative points of view seem to be:
- these artist's editions are too expensive
- editorial material is badly presented
- they contain plain B&W scans when the original art prove to be untraceable
Comparing to other books of this type (like Tirage de Tête) in France , i.e. very over-sized book, low numbered print run (between 2000 and 3000 copies), printing on thick quality mat paper with sewn quality binding they costs quite the same price, and they usually feature much more pages. There use to be one book per year for each collection (Gaston and Spirou), but now it's very more sporadic.
Editorial material is partly made of commented pictures of additional material in Spirou magazine that has not been "cleaned" like the main material. I understand that it can bother some people, for my part I greatly enjoy this part full of anecdotes. For the latest volumes fac similés, i.e. color hi res scans of original material like covers, bits of drawing etc.., have been added to the extra section.
I cannot quite understand the last negative point of view. I have started this collection rather early with the third Gaston, and this collection was sold as original size plain B&W scans of cleaned pages. It has become an ongoing Artist's Edition collection (in the IDW sense, meaning colored scans of original art with traces of pencils) from Gaston #10 (but Gaston #8 was the first AE) and Spirou #2 (QRN) hence the Fac Similés designation. So yes, from time to time we still have a B&W scan, but it's not a secret and what we have now can be seen as an improvement.
For my part, the reason why I have started this collection is the ubber size of reproduction, and it's worth every penny I have invested.
Yes, and you can add to the list Gaston #8 (very hard to find but from everyone opinion the best one in term of material and page count) and Idées Noires 2009 version.
There is another one dedicated to the Marsupilami scheduled for the 21th November (it's on Dupuis' site, they have bought Marsu prod last year) but I don't now yet if it will be "fac similés".
http://www.dupuis.com/version-origin...franquin/57200
There is another collection publishing Spirou's short stories in AE style (around 25€/ book but not over-sized), here is the latest one http://www.dupuis.com/la-quick-super...ck-super/58420
For the Polish readers amongst us there's a great article here talking about how Thorgal came to be with some really interesting stuff on how Grzegorz Rosiński and Jean Van Hamme met up and their beginnings in the "comicbook world". Man, Rosiński truly does draw beautifully.
Some pics from the article for perusal:
A few bad pics of Terry Moore's Echo Complete Edition HC
Art is great, what's this book about? Some superhero flick with deeper story?
Haven't read it. I just got it a few days ago. Here's a summary lifted from IST.
"Julie is in the wrong place at the wrong time when an explosion in the sky rains liquid metal that sticks to her and becomes a symbiotic armor. When Julie discovers the metal is a prototype nuclear weapon, she runs rather than give it back to the army, and the chase is on!"
From what I gleamed while flipping through the book it doesn't come off as much of a super hero title. I think it's mostly a story driven series with strong supporting characters with bits of sci-fi mixed in.