posted October 31, 2001 10:15 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by India Ink:
Agreed. More reprints, but lose the Millennium Edition signature. I hated the way they obscured the original covers. And Plop! should have been presented in all its wraparound cover adless glory.

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This got me thinking... what did they leave out of the Plop! issue? The back cover of the ME had an Aragones Cain/Abel one-pager.. was that like the original? What was on the interiors of the original's cover?

Cass

posted October 31, 2001 01:49 PM            

But better late than never, I say. If we can have "lost" Green Lantern and Teen Titans annuals, why not "lost" Gil Kane and Murphy Anderson issues of DC Special? Why not Alex Toth, Jack Kirby, Mike Sekowsky issues? Why not Sheldon Mayer? These could serve to test the market for more substantial collections. Remember the Art of Walt Simonson trade paperback? It, too, led me to expect more (and better) volumes devoted to artists closer to my heart.

And on to the next level: The Art of Alex Toth could open the way, finally, for The Alex Toth Archives.

posted November 04, 2001 07:38 PM            

"... Cost recovery, whether it's an Archive, an 'essential', a TPB or a just a recreation of the floppy, is the number one thing DC has to consider. The last thing they (and we) want to do is lose money. The Millenium Editions, as assayed by pre-orders, were a bust. Very low orders, less than 10K in many cases and poor sell through. Note that the Essentials for major characters like Spider-Man are only in the 5000 range. What would they be for a Nova series? A Omega the Unknown series? Marvel is not lining up to stick their necks out either. Ant-Man is only being considered because he has a cult following on Usenet who have sworn to make it successful. Hell, DC is leery about Aquaman being a profitable. Hawk and Dove have no prayer.

"The best hope for the obscure characters is in fact that continued existence and health of the Archives line. DC has become to cautiously experiment with things like Black Canary and early evidence suggest that this will be rewarded. Since they can't extend the BC series, they are likely to experiment with something else (probably not the Creeper) to fill the gap (assuming the economy does not drop out). Ultimately, All-Star Comics will run out, etc etc and DC will keep things filled. They are trying Sgt Rock this year. Who would have asked for that?"

posted November 23, 2001 02:46 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Steven Utley:
All of the wishing we do on this and other threads is great fun, of course, but from time to time a reality check is useful....
"... Cost recovery, whether it's an Archive, an 'essential', a TPB or a just a recreation of the floppy, is the number one thing DC has to consider. The last thing they (and we) want to do is lose money.
"The best hope for the obscure characters is in fact that continued existence and health of the Archives line....

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Yep.
Some questions based on this realistic view to ponder:

So...how many copies of a book in an archive-like format does DC have to sell to break even, and how long do they feel is a reasonable time for the break-even point to be reached?

How open is DC to a packaging and marketing approach which is creator(specifically artist)-driven rather than character-driven, considering that most of the creators involved in the stuff we discuss here are no longer active (with the conspicuous exception of Joe Kubert)?

At the same time that DC's policies are cautiously showing flexibility in experimenting with what to take risks on, time is passing and the fan population interested in the older material is aging--by the time DC might be willing to try, for instance, a nice color hardcover of Golden-Age Lou Fine or even Simon & Kirby stories, will there be enough of us left who care to make it profitable?

posted November 30, 2001 06:07 PM            

Great thing about this--it had a cardstock cover (and so far mine hasn't curled on me the way some of the DCs do), not just the flimsy slick paper. And it was stapled throught the middle, not that box binding that is apt to crack and break especially if you actually try to read the comic.

posted December 20, 2001 09:27 AM            

By way of rectifying this situation, or at least of making a desperate attempt to breathe life back into this thread, or at least the ghastly semblance of life, I hereby propose a 100-Page Giant celebrating the exploits of DC's non-human beings. Who's your, er, pet DC pet? Just to refresh your memory, the Mort Weisinger books featured, besides a supercat and a superhorse, a superdog, a supermonkey, a whole legion of super-pets. Batman had his bathound, too (and Catwoman her cats), Aquaman his octopus and giant seahorse, Blackhawk his black hawk. Don't be shy, and don't restrict yourself to the 1960s, either. In the 1940s, remember, Dr. Mid-Nite had his owl, Hawkman had his birds of prey, Green Lantern had Streak the Wonder Dog, who bumped him off the cover of Green Lantern and then chased Wildcat out of the back pages of Sensation Comics after GL was cancelled. Robotman had a scene-stealing robotdog. Rex the Wonder Dog had his own comic book. Bobo, Detective Chimp, had the middle section of Rex's comic book.

So, on, Comet! on, Krypto! on, Beppo and Topo!
On, Streaky and Streak! on, Ace, and on, Bobo!

posted December 20, 2001 06:32 PM               

The material chosen should be mostly 1948-1950, when the standards of art were increasing to the level we have been used to ever since. Kubert Hawkman. Elias and Kubert Flash. Toth and Elias Green Lantern. For the All-Star Annual, Toth art on The Atom and Dr.Mid-Nite is available, and Kubert on Wildcat as well as the nearly forgotten Jon Kozlak.

posted December 21, 2001 01:54 AM               

Yes I know, Cap slept through the series, but I'd like to see a new collection, instead of a reprint of one of his 1970s compilations.

posted December 21, 2001 03:47 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Steven Utley:
I like the way you think, Mr. Friel.

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Why thank you.

Then there's the recently-discovered deposit of mockups for Annuals of the Quality Comics anthology titles from the mid-Forties, obviously cancelled when Quality downsized and de-emphasized its superhero line like every other publisher did at the end of the War.

Strips we'll never see archived like Stormy Foster, Hercules, The Red Bee, Quicksilver, Captain Triumph, Midnight, Kid Eternity--some featuring artists like Lou Fine, Reed Crandall, Alfred Andriola, Jack Cole and Mac Raboy. And truly obscure characters such as the original Firebrand, Madame Fatal (yes) and the ever-popular Human Bomb.

Plus, of course, generous servings of Blackhawk, Plastic Man, Uncle Sam--plus The Ray and the Black Condor by Fine and Doll Man by Crandall. We might, in a perfect world, some day (probably a very distant one)see archives of those last four, but I'm damned sure we'll never see any of the strips I mentioned in the first group any other way...

Seven of 'em.
The POLICE, MILITARY, FEATURE, NATIONAL, SMASH, HIT and CRACK COMICS ANNUALs for 1945.

posted December 21, 2001 10:18 AM            

(1) reprint more Sheldon Mayer in a variety of formats, up to and including a Kubert Archives-type treasury, and

(2) re-issue replicas of noteworthy issues in a variety of genres.

As to (2), I liked the Millennial Editions as far as they went, but bought only about half of the things becuase they didn't go far enough. Non-superhero comics were represented by barely more than half a dozen out of 52 editions, and even the selection of superhero books left much to be desired. Trees died that we might ne offered replicas of the first issues of The Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen, and other serials which were already available in their entirety as trade paperbacks. The appeal of a replicated Crisis on Infinite Earths # 1 plumb eludes me: you can't read the whole story unless you have either the eleven other issues or the volume containing all twelve issues, and you don't have a collector's item -- you have a replica of a collector's item.

I'd like to see another series of replicas of issues notable for quality and historical importance. The latter should not be a factor, however, as in "much-touted continuity fix that will be flushed right down the crapper by a subsequent continuity fix." Action Comics # 1, primitive as it is, is always going to be historically important in a way that John Byrne's or anyone else's revamp of Superman will never be.