I have also been reading Criminal, re-reading really and it finally hit me how good these books are. I read Deluxe Edition volume 3, and I had most of it in the original oversized and I guess undersized collections. They hit so hard! I feel like standing up and applauding by the end of each story. They read like great gangster movies and 70s noir. I finally get all the connections and recognize the characters. This book fits together all the pieces like Gaiman’s Sandman or Watchmen. Sin City and 100 Bullets are obvious comparisons but Criminal is less cartoonish or outlandish. It’s closer to Stray Bullets. Good stuff and the one shot formats are so neat.
Actually I just checked Bad Weekend and My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies. They are standard size books, about the size of a comic. I imagined they were the size of the Parker books by Darwyn Cooke. (Also great reads!)