Hi all

I joined this forum to seek some advice regarding a binding defect (described below) in the Roger Stern Spiderman omnibus and would be extremely grateful for any opinions, particularly from people who own this omnibus.

I should also say that this defect is straight out of the box and that I opened the omnibus following the instructions for opening a heavy book and am not an omnibus virgin.

I live in the UK and his defect has now been apparent on 3 separate copies that I have bought - I bought 2 copies from Amazon and have returned these and today had a copy arrive from a separate seller (SpeedyHen) with the same defect.

The defect is that the textblock has started to tear away from the solid back cover. This would probably be only apparent if you are a bit paranoid like me and are looking for it, but I think this is a potentially serious defect that could worsen (ie. the textblock will eventually tear out of the cover).

I would therefore really appreciate it if any other owner's of the book could let me know if the same defect is apparent on their copy.

I have included a photo to show the defect:


stern_zpsb767670a.jpg

To make the defect most apparent, the book is lying flat on a desk on its front cover, and then opened from the back to approximately page 1100. The view is then looking at the top of the spine, as if from above.
I have put some arrows on the picture as follows: Red arrow points to the area of exposed back cover which should be stuck to the textblock, green arrow shows glue / paper that has torn, blue shows the exposed back of the textblock spine which looks like it is made out of some sort of mesh.

You can "feel" there is something wrong with these books as soon as you open them using the recommended method. The front cover falls to the desk very slowly under tension, while the back cover falls straight away with no resistance.

I am reluctant to send a 3rd book back as this process is getting tiresome.

Is this just something I should forget and put up with or should I try and glue it myself? Is this a UK pheomenon? Is the book just meant to be like this?

Many thanks in anticipation of any replies.