How do you decide in which format to buy your books

[ChinBo37]

TPB, issues, digital, HC, OHC, Absolute/Omnibus.

How do you decide?

I prefer OHC but sometimes they are out of print. But then again sometimes simple trades are a good value.

Omnibus and absolutes look great as well, but again price can be a factor especially with out or print books.

I'm a bit new to the hobby of collected editions and sometimes I feel a bit overwhelmed by the choices.

[Batarang]

It's not much of choise for me... i get whatever format is the first collected edition of the series which i fallow regularly. Mostly cause i can't endure to wait anylonger. lol

[awayne83]

I'm a bit new to the hobby of collected editions and sometimes I feel a bit overwhelmed by the choices.

I think everyone goes through this stage. I've altered the way I prefer to buy collections three times since I began in 2013. I still refuse to pay out of print prices, so if it's a series where one book (i.e. punisher max) is difficult to find I just hold out until it's eventually collected in some other format I prefer. Plus, there's too much stuff out there to read/own to get bent out of shape over a particular collection.

[Henrik K. Kristensen]

I look at multiple things:

- page count (I prefer around 300-550 pages)
- paper stock (I prefer not too glossy for material pre-1990)
- art re-production (what do the reviews say)
- binding (if hardcover I want to avoid "moue traps")
- availability (in what other format does the material exist - or is likely to come within a year or two)

So for I prefer Marvel EPICs or they thinner Omnibus (like Squadron Supreme).
I also really like the Marvel Masterworks - but only those printed from 2009 where they upped the restoration, binding and paper stock).

If I really love the stories in thick papaerbacks - then I have them bound into hardcovers,

[Mr`Orange]

I prefer hardcover editions, especially ones that have a complete story. So an omnibus, OHC collection of Absolute work best for me. I also prefer the oversized editions but I have been known to buy a few Premier books now and then. The only time I buy trades is when a hardcover edition is unlikely or if I'm trying out a new book from Image or one of the smaller publishers.

[downinthezero]

I’ve been buying only collected editions for a long, long time. Over the last few years I’ve been leaning more and more towards hardcovers, especially for series that I know I’ll want to re-read more than once.

I don’t know when the last time I bought a floppy was. I bet it’s been a decade. If I want to just check out a new series I’ll typically do a few digital issues, if the price is right, then hold out to finish the story when the trades are released.

[Iron Fist]

Always omnibus first until it's pathetically thin or OOP.

Then TPB, never OHC and never Absolute.

Simple really.

[ROM Spaceknight]

I stopped buying floppies over a year ago - I just wait until these comics are collected.

These days, I only buy collected editions in HC's & TPB's - typically Marvel, but some DC. I would buy more DC since there's a lot of material I want reprinted (primarily from the '80's) but DC is not collecting these series.

The only collected editions I don't get these days are b&w collections - of comics that were originally in color.

[jadekite22]

It mostly comes down to binding and reproduction size/quality. I primarily buy the comics whose art I can use as drawing inspiration, so I avoid TPBs because they don't hold open on their own. Also, if collections are newly reprinted but at a slow pace, I get impatient and just scrounge up the single issues. DC's Absolutes and Archives are my favorite formats, with Humanoids' hardcovers being a close second.

[Tony]

I prefer 300-900 page ohc's. I think the way they do Invincible over at Image is how publishers should run reprint programs. I also prefer the reprint 3 masterworks or archive approach for omnibus vs the crazy uncomfortable bricks DC and Marvel come up with. I love Epics. 400-500 page trades just feel great to read. I do wonder how they will hold up to the years and rereading being so fat and glued. It's a shame DC archives weren't all 400 pages. While I own a lot of them the price for the 200 or so pages is no doubt why sales drove them into the ground.

[adameastment]

It entirely depends on how fast I want to read a story, I buy floppies for everything I want to read "now" which I am trying to limit to 10 titles (getting 11, so failing). After that I will tend to get THB for current books which collects like 6 issues, beyond that if it's a book like The Walking Dead then I will happily wait the three years for the next compendium. OHC have interested me for a long time, and I'd really like to buy them, but it's purely money constraints - if I had the money I would get OHCs.

[Dayle88]

Digital for single issues only because I can't stand floppies. I'm a big omnibus fan so that's my first check and then it boils down to price and availability. If there's a choice between SC and HC of something I've never read it depends on price gap so if the soft cover is £10 and the hard cover is £20+ then I'll go for the former but if the HC is only a little bit more I'll spend the extra few quid.

If it's something I love I'll buy the best version as it becomes available. I'm buying the Black Panther by Priest complete collections as they come out but if they announced an omnibus down the line I'd get it. That only applies to a decent amount of material. I have a paperback copy of Year One, one of my favourite stories, but it's not long enough to pay twice for it if they release a new hard cover.

[MatchstickJohnny]

Hey There! Hi There! Ho There!

Quick Intro: MatchstickJohnny is my screen name. The funny thing is my name is not even Johhny. Kind of a rip off aint it? I actually sort of randomly selected it years ago after reading Claremont and Larroca's Fantastic Four Alternate Negative Zone story (issue 17-18). I have always been a Marvel Comics reader but have enough DC knowledge to survive. Without telling my age, my Marvel Comics history began with Marvel Tales Spider-Man and when I decided to start collecting comics he seemed to be the obvious choice to collect. I started around the time Secret Wars was ending and Secret Wars II was beginning. I missed the introduction and the ending of the black suit (ASM 252-258) but was able to buy them as back issues from this incredible wonderland of a comic store that sold back issues! It was 1984 and a whole new world had just opened up for me. I began building my back issue collection but also picked up new releases as well. And the rest is history…..

Ok, so I have been giving some serious thought about going totally collected editions. I am no stranger to collected editions. I own some that are penciled by my favorite artists but don’t really collect the collected editions. With these I already own the “floppy” edition. Lately, I have been getting TPBs of titles I have not read mostly because I did not like the artist. As you can guess, I missed out on a lot of good titles and stories because I was collecting by artist at the time. I feel like I have matured a bit ( a bit) and have become more of a reader these days. There is so much out there and like my early days of comic collecting there are volumes of collected back issues. My collector side has to chill and be OK with not owning it in its first printing comic format.

So far so good with comics I missed. This past spring I scooped up the TPBs of Hickman’s new Avengers/Avengers run and recently got his Fantastic Four/FF volumes in TPB. One thing I learned with collecting the collected editions is they (Marvel) will most likely combine the five or six issue arc TPB into a much larger collected format. Waiting pays off. For example, I was going to pick up Secret Warriors Volumes 1-6 but saw they were coming out with them all in two volumes.

I am not interested in the Omnibus format at this point. I mostly read my comics lying down and feel that an Omnibus would be too awkward to read that way. I respect the Omnibus with its larger page count and larger format. I am just not ready to go that way right now.

As far as going totally collected, meaning not buying new comics on a weekly basis but instead waiting for the collected format, I have been giving it some serious thought. I want to continue reading titles and artists I like but they will all be collected at some point so why not wait for the collected? I have already done the “research” and mapped out the perfect jumping off point. Extraordinary X-Men will be collected 1-5 and released sometime in May (according to B&N). I already got issues 1-5 (issue 6 just dropped this past week) so it seems like a good point to stop getting Extraordinary X-Men on a monthly basis right? There are about ten other titles I have been getting on a monthly basis. I think I can do this. I am actually a little excited about it. If it doesn’t work out I can always get the back issue floppies like I did during my early collecting days.

Thanks for listening.

[mtop2036]

Hey There! Hi There! Ho There!

Quick Intro: MatchstickJohnny is my screen name. The funny thing is my name is not even Johhny. Kind of a rip off aint it? I actually sort of randomly selected it years ago after reading Claremont and Larroca's Fantastic Four Alternate Negative Zone story (issue 17-18). I have always been a Marvel Comics reader but have enough DC knowledge to survive. Without telling my age, my Marvel Comics history began with Marvel Tales Spider-Man and when I decided to start collecting comics he seemed to be the obvious choice to collect. I started around the time Secret Wars was ending and Secret Wars II was beginning. I missed the introduction and the ending of the black suit (ASM 252-258) but was able to buy them as back issues from this incredible wonderland of a comic store that sold back issues! It was 1984 and a whole new world had just opened up for me. I began building my back issue collection but also picked up new releases as well. And the rest is history…..

Ok, so I have been giving some serious thought about going totally collected editions. I am no stranger to collected editions. I own some that are penciled by my favorite artists but don’t really collect the collected editions. With these I already own the “floppy” edition. Lately, I have been getting TPBs of titles I have not read mostly because I did not like the artist. As you can guess, I missed out on a lot of good titles and stories because I was collecting by artist at the time. I feel like I have matured a bit ( a bit) and have become more of a reader these days. There is so much out there and like my early days of comic collecting there are volumes of collected back issues. My collector side has to chill and be OK with not owning it in its first printing comic format.

So far so good with comics I missed. This past spring I scooped up the TPBs of Hickman’s new Avengers/Avengers run and recently got his Fantastic Four/FF volumes in TPB. One thing I learned with collecting the collected editions is they (Marvel) will most likely combine the five or six issue arc TPB into a much larger collected format. Waiting pays off. For example, I was going to pick up Secret Warriors Volumes 1-6 but saw they were coming out with them all in two volumes.

I am not interested in the Omnibus format at this point. I mostly read my comics lying down and feel that an Omnibus would be too awkward to read that way. I respect the Omnibus with its larger page count and larger format. I am just not ready to go that way right now.

As far as going totally collected, meaning not buying new comics on a weekly basis but instead waiting for the collected format, I have been giving it some serious thought. I want to continue reading titles and artists I like but they will all be collected at some point so why not wait for the collected? I have already done the “research” and mapped out the perfect jumping off point. Extraordinary X-Men will be collected 1-5 and released sometime in May (according to B&N). I already got issues 1-5 (issue 6 just dropped this past week) so it seems like a good point to stop getting Extraordinary X-Men on a monthly basis right? There are about ten other titles I have been getting on a monthly basis. I think I can do this. I am actually a little excited about it. If it doesn’t work out I can always get the back issue floppies like I did during my early collecting days.

Thanks for listening.

Btw the 2 secret warriors complete TPB have been out for a little while

[MatchstickJohnny]

Btw the 2 secret warriors complete TPB have been out for a little while

Thank you. I was aware of that. I should have added this was around last summer.