Archive for: December 2007

Collected Comics Library Podcast #152

36,337Kb; 76m 59s

It’s time once again for the 2007 Year in Review show. Unlike past years I decided not to have individual “Best of” categories and instead do a Top 10 list.
As you can see I also broke the podcast down with time stamps.
I urge you all to use this particular CCL episode as a tool and guide. It should be taken in smell doses because it’s just a ton of information to get in just over an hour. Download it and listen to it at you convenience. Also be sure to download the Complete 2007 Collected Editions Release Schedule, so you can read along.

Chris
Full 2007 Collected Editions Release List
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  CCL Podcast #152 - The 2007 Year in Review [76:59m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

As I mentioned in this week’s Podcast, I was a guest on Rick Gordon’s Pop Cult Online Podcast. You can find Part 1 of the show here or at the end of this post. Thanks to Skype, I was bumped out for a large portion of the show, but Rick, John and Bob do a great job without me. I’ll be in Part 2 for the duration.

• Top 100 Graphic Novels Actual for November 2007. John and I will be recording soon - stay tuned.
• Verizon Wireless on board to distribute Cartoon Network-branded games. I’m only Blogging about this for my wife.
• Little Nemo Volume 2 (1924-1926) will be coming out 3rd Q or 4th Q 2008. Checker has found originals which will allow them to publish the book after all.
• The 2008 Golden Globe nominations have come out. I’m pulling for Persepolis in the Best Foreign Language Film like the rest of you
• Comic Book Club Celebrates 1-Year Anniversary, a weekly interview show at the People’s Improv Theater
• Chuck Dixon blogged about classic British War Comics last October
• In the In Case You Missed It News: F+W shuts down five magazine titles including Comics & Games Retailer
• To gear up for the movie Oni Press has announced a prequel: Jumper Jumpscars TPB
• Review: Tim Janson, Newsarama, on Mad’s Greatest Artists: The Completely Mad Don Martin (Running Press)

 

 Pop Cult Online episode 34 [61:03m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Collected Comics Library Podcast #151

34,166Kb; 36m 10s

In the wake of all the DC news of late, I offer to you, in this week of giving, a simple and yet well thought out, dissertation on what exactly my feelings are towards DC Comics this Christmas. To sum up, I’m not very happy about the whole “fall of the Archive” line of books nor am I pleased that DC is playing catch-up to Marvel when it comes to their new Deluxe Editions. I’m also not very pleased as to what I found when I compared the Black Dossier Hardcover to the Absolute Black Dossier which is due out this summer. For the feature this week I breakdown the price, content and page count, to help you understand just what the heck is going on and why Alan Moore and most of us are receiving coal, stamped with a DC bullet, in our stockings this year. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t blow a gasket and go off on DC (or anyone in particular) it’s more frustrating then anything else.

As for the rest of the show, there isn’t much else; I do the New Releases of the Week and remind you about the Question of the Month.

For those of you you want to hear more of me, feel free to come by John Mayo’s Comic Book Page podcast. John and I discussed the October 2007 trade numbers. I was also on the Pop Cult Online podcast hosted by Rick Gordon. I’ll post a link when it gets uploaded.
Merry Christmas!
Chris
Links of note:
Best Collected Editions of 2007 - forum thread
Alan Moore: Inside The Black Dossier
Official DC Comics Forum: DC Archives thread
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 CCL #151 Carol of The Black Dossier [36:10m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week on December 18, 2007
By Douglas Wolk — Publishers Weekly, 12/17/2007 12:58:00 PM

DC Comics’ collected editions have seen annual double-digit sales growth for a number of years, according to George Brewer, DC Comics’ v-p of design and retail product development. Beginning in spring 2008, as DC’s books begin to be distributed to the bookstore market by Random House, the company is introducing a new line of collections: Deluxe Editions, trade hardcovers with a trim size a bit larger than a standard comic book or paperback, but not quite as large as DC’s high-end, oversized Absolute Editions.

The first book in the new format, Jeff Smith’s Shazam!: The Monster Society of Evil, was released in October. “We kind of backed into it with Monster Society of Evil,” Brewer said. “It was such a singular work that for its first incarnation as a collected edition, we thought it’d be a great way to test the waters. We can only do so many of the Absolutes a year, and we want to keep them the high-water mark. So we started looking through our short list—things that couldn’t have been Absolutes—but where we wanted to do something more special than a regular collection.”

Upcoming volumes in the format include Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s Batman: The Killing Joke, re-colored by Bolland (the story will also remain in print in the trade paperback DC Universe: The Stories of Alan Moore); the World’s Finest miniseries by Dave Gibbons and Steve Rude; and the first volumes of Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris’s Ex Machina and Grant Morrison and Howard Porter’s JLA. According to DC’s summer 2008 catalogue, the first collection of Frank Miller and Jim Lee’s All Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder will also be in the new deluxe format.

The only Absolute collection planned for next summer is the third volume of Neil Gaiman’s acclaimed Sandman series; the fourth volume will also be released next year, in time for the 20th anniversary of Sandman. “We’ve also got what we’re calling, for the moment, Omnibus [editions],” Brewer said. The Omnibus editions released so far are Jack Kirby’s Fourth World Omnibus and The Death and Return of Superman. “What we’re doing with those is bringing together an entire long-format story in fewer volumes. For a retail environment, larger, fatter collections seem to be in vogue.” James Robinson and Tony Harris’s Starman is next on the docket; the first volume will be a 448-page hardcover, due out in May.

The ongoing Archives series may soon be ending, at least in its current form, Brewer implied. “We’ve looked at some of the series that we could finish up quickly, and we’ve accelerated those—like Seven Soldiers of Victory and Adam Strange. And we’re really trying to look at this format: classic library material in deluxe hardcovers. DC’s had an incredible run on a series of books that’s well over 20 years old. Not many people can say that.”

Brewer said DC will continue to look for new ways to reprint backlist material. “We’re seeing that tastes have changed a little bit, and we’ve also collected a lot of that prime material from the early days. So what we’re going to be doing is announcing some new opportunities for some of that material, and different material, but in a different way—it’s a little early to talk about it yet, but the last season of next year we’ll be seeing the first of those. Clearly, there’s a market for this classic material in a sturdy or archival format, but we’re just not sure that calling it Archives and keeping it the same format and branding is the way to go.” Brewer also noted that The Spirit Archives, volume 25, due in August, will be the first complete reprinting of the daily Spirit strip from the early 1940s.

At the opposite end of the price scale, there’s the Showcase Presents line: fat paperbacks that reprint classic DC material with a $16.99 price point. “Showcase has done really well,” Brewer said. “We’re very pleased with that particular series. What’s been a little surprising is how well the off-genre stuff has done. Jonah Hex has done phenomenally well. House of Mystery did well.” The series has also been selling well in bookstores outside the direct market, according to Brewer. “There have been titles that we thought were probably more direct market and geared toward your hardcore comics reader, like Jack Kirby or the Showcases, and seeing the success they’re having beyond that market tells you that the underlying work is really what’s carrying it through.”

Last Friday I Blogged about the DC graphic novel catalog for Summer 2008 I also guessed that DC would release this information to the public within a few days. Glad my prediction came true. I’ve already added them to the New Releases Schedule, but It will take me a few days to create each individual page for the major book releases (Archives, Absolutes, Omnibuses and Showcases) and update the Checklists.

I still can’t get over the fact that there will be a The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier - The Absolute Edition for $100. The preliminary page count reads 200 pages which by the way is eight pages shorter than the edition which is out in stores now. My guess is that it will be the same book, just a lot larger in size. I hope this isn’t the case. I think it would be wise for DC and Alan Moore to add some extra content to make it worth the money.

• Here’s a nice thread over at ComixFan Forums regarding the new 12 Volume Premiere HC series All-New Official Handbook Of The Marvel Universe A To Z. It runs down was is, and perhaps more importantly, what is not, in these books. I’m still wavering on these books.
• ICv2.com reports that Del Rey will Publish ‘Outlander’ Graphic Novel
• Interview: Michael Lorah, Newsarama, Talks To Jules Feiffer. You may recall that I covered his book The Great Comic Book Heroes in Podcast #73
• DVD Review: The Digital Bits on Blade Runner: The Final Cut - All Versions

Collected Comics Library Podcast #150

24,393Kb; 25m 45s

Damn! 150 shows in the can!

There’s only one way to celebrate a big show and that is with a big book!
Sin City: The Frank Miller Library Set 1 and Set 2 is what I cover in today’s show. Now I know many of you have read the books and seen the movie, but there are some of you who may not be familiar with this super, uber, deluxe, absolute/omnibus, oversized set of books. I have also set up a Sin City Flickr page so you can see what I’m talking about.

Also in the show today, I go over some news from Checker and Marvel, go over the New Releases of the Week and give some show updates - you won’t want to miss that.
And thanks to all of you who come by the CCL every day and make this the best place on the web for ALL your collected edition news, information and reviews.

Chris

Links of note:
Best Collected Editions of 2007 - forum thread
Little Nemo 2 Update
Discuss this topic on the CCL forum

 

 CCL Podcast #150 - The Sin City Library [24:45m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Back on track. I’ll have a new podcast up tomorrow, for now here are a few links to get you through the day.

• Forget the kids! I want this bedroom!
• The American Library Association and the Young Adult Library Services Association have announced their Nominations for the 2007 Great Graphic Novels. Lots of Marvel and DC on the list including Civil War, Immortal Iron Fist Vol. 1: The Last Iron Fist Story, Agents Of Atlas, Doctor. Strange: The Oath, Fantastic Four: Books Of Doom, Spider-Man: Reign, and White Tiger: A Hero’s Compulsion; All Star Superman, vol. 1, Batman: Secrets, Blue Beetle: Shellshocked and Blue Beetle: Road Trip, Batman: Ego and Other Tails, Batman: Year 100, Gotham Central, vol. 4: The Quick and the Dead, Superman and Batman versus Aliens and Predator, Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil (2007),
• I May Try Manga After All I: Vertical, will begin publishing the 17-volume Black Jack manga series in September with the release of a first 400-page hardcover volume ($24.95). A second Black Jack volume from Vertical is due in November. In Japan Black Jack is the third most well-known Tezuka manga property after Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion
• I May Try Manga After All II: Del Rey, Marvel to Collaborate on X-Men, Wolverine.
• IDW Partners With Golden Eagle (the action/pulp imprint of Harlequin) and will publish a comic around Don Pendleton’s The Executioner. If that sounds familiar, Marvel Comics’ The Punisher, was based on The Executioner.
• Marvel by way of their Marvel Masterworks website, have announced two new books for March. Captain America Volume 4 (Variant Volume 93) will collect Captain America #114-124 and be released March 19, 2008. Atlas Era - Tales to Astonish Volume 2 (Variant Volume 94) will collect Tales to Astonish #11-20 and be released March 26, 2008. Note the $5 price hike for this book.
• Reviews: Tom Spurgeon empties his basket

Since Thanksgiving, Collected Edition news and reviews have been pretty slim around the blogosphere, so I decided to get off my duff and really scour the web to find everything and anything I may have missed in the past few weeks.
What I found was a mountain of great links:

• Starting off, Douglas Wolk, The Savage Critics, received the mother load; DC’s graphic novel catalog for Summer 2008, Doug says that the list contains 150 items coming out between May and August. They include: Batman: The Resurrection of Ra’s Al Ghul (May), Jack Kirby’s O.M.A.C. (May): $25 hardcover, described as “a companion to the Jack Kirby’s Fourth World Omnibus” series, The Legion of Super-Heroes: 1,050 Years of the Future (May): a retrospective anthology commemorating 50 years since Adventure Comics #247, Absolute Sandman Vol. 3 (May), Vertigo: First Cut (May) that collects the first issues of Army@Love, Crossing Midnight, DMZ, The Exterminators, Jack of Fables, Loveless and Scalped for only $5, Demo (June) The Brian Wood/Becky Cloonan miniseries, All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder vol. 1 (June), Y: The Last Man Vol. 10: Whys and Wherefores (June), The New York Four (June) Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly’s Minx book, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier: The Absolute Edition (June) $99, World of Warcraft vol. 1 (July), Janes in Love (July): The sequel to The Plain Janes. All-Star Superman Vol. 2 (August), The Spirit Archives Vol. 25 (August) word has it there will be a 26th Volume too, that will have all the remaining work Eisner did with Denny Colt, America’s Best Comics Sampler (August), Booster Gold: 52 Pick-Up, Superman: Escape from Bizarro World, The Crime Bible: The Five Lessons of Blood, Green Lantern: The Sinestro Corps War vol. 2, Green Lantern: Tales of the Sinestro Corps, Justice League of America: The Injustice League, Superman: Last Son, The Flash: The Wild Wests, Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes, Astro City: The Dark Ages vol. 1, The Brave and the Bold: The Book of Destiny, The Death of the New Gods and Metal Men. Also listed are several Showcase Volumes, that we here at the CCL already knew about, and can be found on the Release Schedule. I’ll post the full list when I get my hands on it. For now, though, it’s going to be a great summer!
• We knew this one was coming out too, but here is the official PR for Voltron: Defender Of The Universe HC from Devil’s Due. The long-awaited 12th issue of the series printed here for the first time! Collects every issue of both volumes of the spectacular series into one incredible volume. Including covers, sketchbooks, character designs, and features the first and only reprinting of Mark Waid’s “Origin of Zarkon” backup stories! Expected in January 2008; 304 pages, $49.99
• Both ICv2 and The Beat blog about Dark Tower The Gunslinger Born, Heroes Volume 1, The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier, Mad’s Greatest Artists: The Completely Mad Don Martin, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 and their places on the BookScan List
• And speaking of The Completely Mad Don Martin
• And speaking of Heroes Volume 1
• Joe over at FPI, blogs about the Todd Klien/Alan Moore Alphabet of Desire. It sounds very interesting, but it’s not really up my alley.
• Marc-Oliver Frisch, Comiks Debris, whom I respect very much, blogs about DC Comics Month-to-Month Sales. Speaking of which, John Mayo and I did record The October Sales Charts Podcast on Thursday and John should be posting it sometime next week.
• Bob Greenberger updates us on his Batman Encyclopedia
• Broken Frontier interviews Pete Maresca, Sunday Press Books, and the Sundays With Walt and Skeezix and Little Sammy Sneeze collections
• Review: Richard Bruton, via FPI Blog, on The Immortal Iron Fist: The Last Iron Fist Story
• Review: Tim Janson, Newsarama, The Marvel Vault: A Museum-In-a-Book
• Review: Don MacPherson, Eye on Comics, 50 Reasons to Stop Sketching at Conventions by Stuart Immonen
• Review: The Daily Cross Hatch on Essex County Volume 2: Ghost Stories by Jeff Lemire

Collected Comics Library Podcast #149

28,657Kb; 30m 18s

Heroes is dead! Long live Heroes!

That’s right folks, thanks to the writers strike, Heroes is done. We have no idea when the second half of the second season will be aired. I’m guessing that it’ll turn into season three. But in the meantime we have a slue of books coming out from Wildstorm/DC and NBC to keep us busy, including the newly released Heroes Hardcover. I go over that book as well as all the others you may or may not be aware of.

Secondly, I talk about the 4th Annual CCL NCAA Football Bowl Contest and I also update the prize list.

There are also some new Paul Pope reissues and I have an email from Mitch.

Lastly, not only do I go over the New Releases of the Week, but also the 2008 Showcase Presents rundown with dates.

Chris

PS If you know anyone with the Heroes helix tattoo, let me know. I need a good laugh.

Links of note:
List of Heroes graphic novels (season 1)
List of Heroes graphic novels (season 2)

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 CCL Podcast #149 - The Heroes Hardcover [30:18m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

While I was getting the kids ready for school this today, the power went out neighborhood wide. Thank God I have a backup generator installed at the back of my home. My house is nice and warm and lit up like a firecracker.

I’ll have a new Podcast up later today. Now on with some links:

• You’ll need a big glass of Gatorade for this one, because it has to be the most dry, boring article on hardcovers and collected editions ever. Those of you who read my Blog and listen to the Podcast will know where I’m coming from. If you want your news on trades you come here or to other comic news sites — not The New York Times. Sure, the writer, Joseph V. Tirella, is doing his best to scrape together bits and pieces of information, that we elitists know all about. But all the article does is portray that hardcore collected edition comic book collecting is really expensive. What, no mention of a DCBS discount? Read at your own risk.
• Better Late Then Never: I first read that Scorchy Smith was being collected back in October. 30 days later, the buzz is finally picking up.
• Better Late Then Never II: The same goes for the Indiana Jones Omnibus from Dark Horse. First announced at the SDCC last July, then it was solicited last September and now in December we get a Press Release. Damn, what a chronology that is.
• F&W Publications has announced that it will cease publication of the trade magazine Comics & Games Retailer with the February 2008 issue. I never read one issue. Too bad for me, I like Brian Hibbs.
• A bit of news on more Serenity including the Those Left Behind Hardcover and lunch boxes!
• Review: Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter, on Essential Captain America Volume One. Looks like you can’t keep a good superhero dead after all.
• Review: Gavin Ford, Star Gazette (Entertainment) on the Marvel Premier Classic Hardcover X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills. I was planning on reviewing this myself for today’s Podcast, but with the advent of the Heroes finale, I’m going to go over that Hardcover instead. I’ll get to the X-Men book in a few weeks.