Collecting Comics #2 – Not Getting the Whole Story Here

Last time, I talked about my newfound love of hardcovers.  This time, I’d like to discuss a problem I have, and one I suspect I share with many others.

I want the whole story.  I follow comics to find out what happens to the characters.  Do I enjoy looking at great art? Yes.  Do I enjoy a well-written, self-contained work? Yes.  But I also like a good series, that will let me invest in a character over a longer period of time.  Comics are supposedly ideal for this.  But they aren’t.  At least, not unless you are not only there at the time a book is originally published and also know and buy every book the company publishes every month.  The latter I will leave for another post, but for now, let’s concentrate on the former.

Except for more recent books, there is possibly, depending on the length of the series and the subject matter/cast of the book, a zero percent chance that an entire run of a book will be collected in a series of comprehensive trades, hardcovers, omniboo, or collections.  By “run”, I mean the entire length of a book’s life, from start to finish, also including crossover issues where applicable, first issue to last issue, every issue of the book.

I want to be able to buy every issue of Fantastic Four in collected form.  Not just the Lee/Kirby era, not just the Byrne era, not just the Waid/Weiringo era, not just the Hickman era we currently enjoy.  The whole shebang.  I want every last issue, and I want it in print, on my bookshelf.  I want the same for Avengers, the same for Alpha Flight, the same for Star Trek, the same for everything.  Is this wishful thinking?  Of course, but wouldn’t it be nice if I could have it?  If you could have it?  If, of course, you could afford it?

What I would like to see, and I originally read the idea in a column elsewhere online, I’m not sure where, would be a print-on-demand service for comics.  I would like for each company to offer every book they have, available in any configuration you desire, made to order in softcover or hardcover as you prefer, so you could truly collect whatever you want.  If you want to collect every appearance of Firestar, for example, you could do so.  If you want a comprehensive, chronological Unabridged Wolverine collection, then God help you if you have the time to sort out the continuity clashes and timeline snafus, but you could do that too.  If you prefer to collect by creator, and decide you want every Rob Liefeld book ever, you could do that.  Or Kirby.  Or Byrne.  Or, again, God help you, everything Stan Lee ever wrote, you could do that.

But that’s way in the future.  What I want to see in the present day is much more simple…

Take a book, such as Avengers.  Why can’t there be a comprehensive Avengers collection, containing every issue of every incarnation of the title, in chronological (well, publication chronological order, mostly) order?  Why can’t it be in one format?  Why must there be various Essentials, Premiere Hardcovers, Oversized Hardcovers, Omniboo, Masterworks, and plain old simple trades, all of them swirling in my head, demanding attention, and not a single blasted one of them in any way comprehensive?  Now, you may argue that the Masterworks and/or Essentials are comprehensive.  Bull.  There is no way that Marvel, or DC, if we were discussing Justice League of America or whatever, would ever do that.  The Masterworks generally concentrate on the silver age “legend-building” material of the early years of the title.  The Essentials, while they cover more ground in a cheaper and less colorful (but also nice enough) format, will never reach the “Leather Jacket Avengers” of the ’90s, let alone the modern Bendis material.  There will always be huge swathes of a book’s history that will remain un-reprinted.  And that is a shame.  Because, like Paul Harvey, I want “the rest of the story”.  I want the whole she-bang.  I want it on my shelf, in a uniform format that is generally pleasant to look at.

And I want it for all titles, the ones I love and the ones I don’t like or care for.  I even want it for titles I’ve never heard of before.  Because the fans of those books deserve to have them, to treasure for years after their less sturdy floppies fall apart.

Oh, and I want it now.  Naturally.

Collecting Comics #1 – Hard Vs. Soft

As someone who recently stopped purchasing monthly comic books and finally made the move to “waiting for the trade” (or even longer, in most cases, since I need to get a job before I can start collecting properly in any way, shape, or form), I thought I’d take a moment and discuss my thoughts on collecting comics.  Not the act of buying and keeping issues as they come out or scouring back issue bins for a good read.  Collecting comics, into collections.  Trades and hardcovers, that sort of thing.

In general, I like trades.  They’re lightweight, pretty enough for what they do, which is collect and bind a series of issues into a nice little inexpensive package for later perusal.  A great way to keep up with a book without having to follow it regularly.  But comics companies, like all entertainment providers, are in the business of making money.  And to do so, they upped the game.

I don’t know how or why hardcovers became a trend in the industry, but now it’s almost customary on the big sellers to be released first as a hardcover, and then a trade paperback version follows several months later.  It’s kind of contrary to those who want a good, reasonably recent chunk of books in an inexpensive package, because the company can charge more for a hardcover.  By making the customer wait a indeterminate amount of time for a trade version, they can sort of “trick” you into buying a hardcover because if you want to keep up with “current” events, you have to buy what’s available, unless you want to buy the monthlies.

My main gripe with hardcovers, however, isn’t really the price.  It’s the dustjackets.  They’re so pretty and dapper and look great on the shelf.  But, hardcovers suggest permanence, of having a book forever, in a way that mere trades do not.  Having a hardcover feels like having a proper book with a secret inside.  You open it up, and there are comics in there!  My eight-year-old self just squealed with joy.  But the dustjackets, which are oh-so-pretty, can and do tear.  And what we are left with underneath is a dull old single-color hardbound surface, the polar opposite of what comics have always meant to me.  Basically, I just wish that comics had the colorful dustjackets as the actual covers, printed onto the hardbound surface that they hide with those silly dustjackets.  So yeah, pretty when I buy them, and although I do take care of my books, accidents can and do happen, and I’m left with a shattered illusion of forever in a ugly hardbound shell that’s nowhere near as exciting as what I signed on for.

So, I find it odd that, finances and pet peeves about dustjackets aside, I find myself drawn more and more to that illusion of permanence.  In the “good old days”, the only hardcovers I bought were Sandman, and I never got all of those in hardcover, unfortunately.  They were something beyond the spandex which I loved, but it felt like more to me, and I wanted to have a permanent copy of them.  The only other time I would consider a hardcover was if it wasn’t coming out in any other format.

That changed when the owner of my local comic shop, who had seen how I’d been getting into the Avengers recently, put a copy of the Marvel Premiere Edition Hardcover of Avengers: Under Siege in my hands and told me he had saved me a copy.  Now, truth be told, I had somewhat of a dilemma.  I mentioned earlier about how I don’t really like hardcovers.  Add to that I was low on extra cash that month (the shop is a town or two away so I only went once per month), and the fact that I had planned on picking up something entirely different that day, and I didn’t want to buy it right then for those reasons.  But two things made me do it anyway: one, someone took the time out of their day to consider what I might enjoy reading, and two, I trust the guy.  So I took it home and read it.  And promptly became addicted to hardcovers.

I felt like such a traitor to myself for changing my mind.  But the illusion of permanence in a temporary world can be a very powerful thing.  I now wish I had everything in hardcovers.  I asked for hardcovers for my birthday (which is coming up soon).  I want them and want them bad.  I now hate my Green Lantern trades even more because I want the pretty hardcovers instead, but vowed never to switch to hardcovers for those out of principle.  I still love my trades, but I wish they were hardcovers instead.  With no dustjackets, mind you, just the cover image on the hardback front of the book.

For my next installment in this series, I plan to discuss my pet peeves when it comes to the actual contents of these collected editions of comics, but for now, I just wanted to confess my newfound love for hardcovers and beg for any spare ones any of you might happen to have lying around that you don’t want anymore because I’d give them a good home.

Speaking of which, I’ve been meaning to start posting my feelings on comics in general for a while now, but a contest and the potential of free swag is too good to allow me to put it off any longer.  Eternal Lizdom is offering up a free copy of Return of the Dapper Men signed by the creators, Jim McCann and Janet Lee, as a prize.  For more info, please visit:

http://eternallizdom.blogspot.com/2011/01/are-you-dapper.html

And to answer the question in your post title, Lizdom, no.  No, I’m not dapper in the slightest.  But I would like to be.  If only I had a book on the subject…

PostADay 2011 – The Failure

Okay, I admit it.  I failed.  I did not post every day this year.  In my defense, however, I have better things to do.

This is not to say that I don’t value what few (if any) readers I have, it’s just that real-life can, does, and always should take priority over posting in an online blog.  The reality of the situation is that I’m trying to finish something.  My brother and I currently play City of Villains, and are trying to make our way to Level 50 and “beating” the game.  Our subscriptions are up for renewal toward the end of March, but we’re trying to accomplish our goal by the end of January if at all possible.  The missions are getting more difficult and it’s taking longer and longer to go up a level.  As a result, we have to spend more and more time playing if we want to reach our goal in time.  Basically, like so much else in life, it’s a money thing.

I still plan to post on a (semi-)regular basis, but it won’t necessarily be every day, and it may or may not include PostADay prompts, although I doubt they’ll be labeled as such.  I may just call them Topic of the Day or Food for Thought or something along those lines.  I dunno, we’ll see.

PostADay 2011 #007 – Oops and Stuff

Kinda topical…erm…topic for today:

Share a story about a memorable job interview.

Well, this is kinda on-topic and sorta not, but anyway…I recently started my job search, as I may have mentioned in a previous post.  I haven’t actually had any interviews yet, though hopefully I’ll have one next week when I hear back from this latest place I applied to.  Whether I get the job or not, I’ll always remember this portion of the search.

So, I go down to my local video store the other morning, the one I’ve driven by for several years, ever since they opened, and said each time that “one of these days, I’ll have to stop in there and look around.”  We always had a Blockbuster in town until recently, and I have a membership there, so I just never bothered looking in this other place.  To be honest, I didn’t even know whether they sold videos or rented them.

Anyway, I go in and ask for an application.  They give me one, and I’m on my way.  I go home, fill it out first thing after I have lunch, and then take it back down there.  So far, so good, right?  Not really.  I forgot to sign and date my application.  Did I notice it right away?  Of course not.  I don’t even think about it until I turn down the street my house is on, so I have to turn around and go back, feeling like a fool the entire way.

Long story short, I get my application back and sign it, then kick myself all the way home for not getting it right the first time.  Like I said, not an interview, but the girl behind the counter was very helpful to me, and we both got a good laugh out of the whole thing, so it was an experience I won’t soon forget, even if I don’t wind up getting the job.

PostADay 2011 #006 – I’m Not Bovvered

Today is another almost late day for me, but anyway, here goes:

Are you stressed out right now? (If so, why? If not, why not?)

The only thing stressing me out right now is when I forget to blog daily.  Generally though, I try not to get stressed and am pretty successful at it.  My attitude is basically a “live and let live” and “go with the flow” mentality, and so far it seems to keep me out of trouble.  I think the Australians put it best when they say, “no worries”.

Ultimately, I try to either see the good side in every situation, or at the very least, take an unsalvageable situation and cherish the life experience it gives me.  Knowing how to deal with bad times and let them flow over you like water until the current has passed is a good way to live, and it helps me avoid stress.  Most of the time.

PostADay 2011 #005 – What We’ve Got Here…

…is different ways to communicate.  Specifically, the question of the day is:

Do you prefer to talk, text message, or a different communication method?

I like communicating via message boards and forums best.  True, sometimes the tone you’re trying to convey with your text will be lost, but smileys usually make up for that.  Usually.

I don’t text at all, because I don’t have a cell phone.  I supposed eventually I might get one, but there are just so many brands to choose from with different plans…it’s just a lot of hassle to try and make sense of it all.  I will eventually, I suppose, but not yet.

As for old-fashioned talking, I guess I do like that best of all, but with one downside to it.  Talking is often spur-of-the-moment, wherever-things-may-lead communication.  I prefer a slower steadier pace most of the time, where I can think and consider just what I’m going to “say” before I say it, and communication via forums, Facebook, Twitter, etc., lets me do just that.

PostADay 2011 #004 – Better Late Than Never

Things have been kinda busy today, so much so that I almost forgot to post today.  I don’t care what the timestamp says, I’m posting this before going to bed on January 4, so I say it still counts as the fourth.

Share something that makes you smile.

I found out about something yesterday that made me smile a lot.  One of my favorite video games growing up was Dragon Warrior (Dragon Quest, if you prefer the original Japanese title).  The first four games in that series formed a large part of my gaming childhood.  I heard from the various video game magazines of the time that a fifth title had been released in Japan, and I waited in vain for it to ever be released over here, even asking my poor old parents for it for Christmas every year, only to be disappointed again and again because it never came out over here.  That changed a few years back, and V was released, after VII and VIII came out over here.  But one was still missing.  Even when IX was released last year, I still wondered if the complete series would ever make it over here.  Finally, however, my prayers were answered.  Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation will come out in North America this year.  On my birthday, February 14, no less.  If that don’t make a guy smile, I don’t know what would.

PostADay 2011 #003 – What I Did On My 2010 Vacation

What’s the single most important thing you accomplished in 2010?

Hmm, think I’ll turn this over to the collecting and hobby portion of my brain and, rather than focus on a single item, I’ll tell you what I did accomplish in my hobbies/collections this year:

• Finished several DVD collections – Nothing makes you feel quite as good as a collector than putting the finishing touches on a collection (with the exception of starting a new one, of which, more later).  This year I finished off my Red Dwarf, Voltron, Battlestar Galactica, and Cosby Show DVD collections.  Well, I almost finished BSG – I may get The Plan at a later date, but I won’t be getting the spin-off series Caprica as it just doesn’t interest me.
• Finished a couple of comic trade collections – I managed to get the entire set of Star Wars trades from Dark Horse (well, the ones that reprint the classic Marvel stories, anyway).  Also, I completed Y-The Last Man.
• Made the Move From Monthlies to Trades – This one wasn’t entirely voluntary, but part of me is glad I did so, though I could have wished for better circumstances.  At any rate, I no longer buy comic books every month, but I do wish to continue collecting comics via the trade paperback collections.  There are a couple of titles I would rather get on a monthly basis, but for the most part, I like trades.  They’re like dvd box sets for comics.
• Autographs – I once again started writing to celebrities to ask for an autographed photo.  It is a difficult thing, because in a way it is like begging for a free handout, but in another way, it’s showing an appreciation for their work and your fandom of that person.  For that reason, I will try to write to at least one celebrity a month, and it will always be someone whose work I truly enjoy.  I see no point in wasting paper, postage, and ink on people I don’t really care about.

So basically, 2010 is a year of endings for me, and 2011, hopefully, a year of beginnings.  I would like to continue to finish what I start and also start new things and challenges, constantly doing my best to improve.

PostADay 2011 #002 – Credit Where It’s Due

Name someone who deserves more credit than they get. And for bonus points, how to change things so they get more.

Honestly, and I’m guilty of this as well, but I often think that the people behind the scenes don’t get enough credit for assisting in the creative process.  For every hit television show, movie, or song, there are a whole host of people who help bring it to your attention that never see any sort of reward for their efforts.  A couple of examples include:

• Sound Engineers – For every hit song on the radio, there’s at least one person who helped record, mix and edit the song into the configuration you hear on Top 40 radio.
• Movie Crew – For every fx wizard that occasionally gets recognized for their mad skillz, there are plenty of other people whose efforts aren’t immediately evident onscreen, but who are just as essential.  What about the set designers, makeup artists, boom mike operators, and other such personnel?  What about the gofers who get the precious stars their coffee and donuts and such?  What about the cameraman?  Plenty of people praise the director, but although he demands a certain shot from a certain angle, who actually films it, eh?  The cameraman, and what does he get for his efforts?  Nada, that’s what.  Oh sure, he gets paid, but as usual, it’s the more “important” jobs that are noticed and credit is given for.  Now, I’m not saying a cameraman or a set designer or whoever can make a movie on their own, but being completely honest, neither can an actor, director, producer or fx specialist.
• Editors – Yeah, writers get lots of credit for their work, but the editors who guide their hand get little or no respect.  It’s always about the written work and the name of the person on the byline.  But spelling and grammatical errors crop up, and it’s the editor’s job to make sure you never notice.

Actually, I think that may be the best way to continue to honor the efforts of these hard-working men and women behind the scenes – not to notice that something has been done at all.  Try not to think about the hard work they put in and just enjoy the finished product they’ve designed and built so well.  If you will, however, take a moment now and then and think of them anyway.  Read the liner notes on a CD, or watch the full end credits of a television show and/or movie, maybe even read a couple of names aloud, and spare a thought for the time and effort they put in to try and bring you enjoyment.  After all they’ve done for us, is it so much to ask that we occasionally think of them and all they do?

PostADay 2011 #001 – Pex the Tourist

In order to get a little more writing under my belt, I’ve decided to participate in WordPress’s PostADay 2011 challenge.  Basically, it’s a lot like the Writer’s Block suggestion box on LiveJournal, where they suggest a topic, and then you offer your thoughts on it in your very own post.  Let’s see how many days in a row I can post these puppies without missing a day!

The topic of today, January 1, 2011, is:

List three countries you’d like to visit, and why you want to go.

1. Japan – I have several reasons for wanting to visit Japan.  I love J-Pop in general and Hello!Project in particular, so I’d love to visit Japan and see a Morning Musume concert.  Also, while I know outsiders never see the full spectrum of a foreign culture, what little I do know about Japanese culture fascinates me, and I’d like to experience that culture firsthand. Also, Japanese women are cute.
2. England – Before I became interested in Japan, my first foreign love was England, thanks to Doctor Who and the many BritComs (British Sitcoms, for the laymen out there) shown on PBS over the years.  I would love to visit England and see an episode of Doctor Who as it is broadcast on tv for the first time anywhere.  Thanks to a strange BBC experiment, I did get to see Dalek live over the internet when it first came on, but I’m an old-fashioned guy – the proper way to watch Doctor Who is in a living room on an actual television set, and I’d like to experience that for myself someday.
3. Scotland – I have a friend online who lives in Scotland, and I thought it’d be neat to visit her someday.  Apart from that, however, Scotland is a beautiful country, with ancient castles, rolling hills, and beautiful land and a beautiful people with beautiful accents that dance across my eardrums so poetically.  Plus, I want to see Nessie.  Don’t laugh, I’m serious.

So yeah, that’s it.  I wanted to say Hawaii, but it’s not really a country, so I stuck to the rules.  But I totally want to see Hawaii and experience the Aloha spirit that makes it seem so inviting.