Category: DC Archives

Collected Comics Library Podcast #168

67,086Kb; 71m 17s

http://www.collectedcomicslibrary.com/

The CCL continues its interviews with a conversation with Eric Bieze, Administrator of the Marvel Essentials and DC Showcases Yahoo! Group. Eric and I talk everything Black and White; what we like and don’t like, what’s coming out and what we would like to see.

Also on the show I go over collected edition news from the New York Comic-Con, and a cool upcoming DC Comics Superhero DVD from Filmation. Lastly, I go over the New Releases of the Week list.

Please visit my site sponsors: In-Stock Trades, Forbidden Planet International (UK), and Library Binding Company.

Chris

Links of Note:
The 10th Annual DC Archives Survey
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 CCL Podcast #168 - Eric Bieze, Admin, Essentials and Showcases Yahoo! Group [71:17m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

While looking at the entire DC Archive Editions and Showcase Presents collection on my book shelves last night, something occurred to me. It seems that every Archive edition, save for one title, has one of the following:

• A second volume
• Is part of a family of other volumes
• Has a Showcase Presents to compliment it.

The exception is The Blackhawks.

Let me show by example:
Take Superman, he has several volumes including the Superman, Action Comics, World’s Finest and Man of Tomorrow Archives. The same could be said fro Batman.

Shazam! Family Archives (which features Captain Marvel Jr. and Mary Marvel) are complimented by four Shazam! Archives and a Shazam! Showcase.

The Robin Archives are complimented by the Robin Showcase. So too are Aquaman and The Metal Men.

The Heroes of the Justice Society that have one Archive each Sandman, Black Canary, The Spectre, Dr. Fate, Starman and the JSA Heroes from the JSA All-Stars Archives are complimented by the All-Star Archives, Comics Cavalcade and the DC Rarities Archives. Throw the GA Green Lantern, Flash and Hawkman in that mix, too.

All other Archives including Supergirl, The Seven Soldiers of Victory, Plastic Man, Legion of Superheroes, Wonder Woman, Doom Patrol, Teen Titans, Action Heroes, Adam Strange, The Atom, World’s Finest Comics, Justice League of America, Challengers of the Unknown, The Flash (Barry), Green Lantern (Hal), Enemy Ace and Sgt. Rock all have at least a second Archive or at least one Showcase Presents.

The other lone one could be The Brave and The Bold Team-Up Archives. However, I exclude it for a couple of reasons

1. Both of the characters pictured on the cover Green Arrow and Martian Manhunter have their own solo Showcase Presents books. The Haunted Tank, which was featured in issue #52, and is included in this Archive, has its own Showcase, too.
2. This comic book title morphed into The Brave & The Bold - Batman Team-Ups, which now has two Showcases.

What does this mean for the Blackhawks? Hopefully it doesn’t mean they will get excluded from another Archive or their first Showcase for long. The team has a rich history dating back to 1941 and the Golden Age of Comics. As it stands now, DC is slowing down their Archive line to only a few new books a year and the Showcase books are all Silver Age material. So DC seems to be in a conundrum of whether to continue (and finish) with more popular lines or start off with a Silver age Blackhawk Showcase, which would start in 1957 with #108 (pictured) when DC took over the title from Quality Comics. Time will tell.

BTW. I thought you would like this similar, bonus pic of the recent Punisher (MAX) Force of Nature; uncanny resemblance, eh?.

Here is an update of some books with new release dates. Thanks to Charles LaPage of ComicList, a loyal friend of the CCL

DC COMICS
Adam Strange Archives Volume 3 HC 4/30/2008
Batman: The Man Who Laughs HC 1/30/2008
El Diablo TPB (Vertigo) 1/30/2008
Heavy Liquid TPB (Vertigo) 1/30/2008
Infinite Crisis TPB 2/27/2008
Manhunter Volume 4: Unleashed TPB 1/30/2008
Outsiders/Checkmate: Checkout TPB 1/30/2008
Penguin Revolution Volume 5 (CMX) 1/30/2008

MARVEL COMICS
Marvel Masterworks Uncanny X-Men HC Volume 6 Regular and Editions 2/13/2008
Powers HC Volume 2 Definitive Collection (resolicited) (MR) 3/26/2008
Thor by J. Michael Straczynski Premiere HC Volume 1 4/16/2008
Thor Visionaries by Walt Simonson TPB Vol. 05 2/6/2008
X-Men HC: Endangered Species 1/30/2008

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.”

Collected Comics Library Podcast #147

29,777Kb; 31m 29s

Happy Thanksgiving! While it may be a nice long relaxing weekend for you, it will be the exact opposite for me. Besides hosting 25 people for Lions football and dinner (yes, in that order) on Thursday, my sister is getting married on Saturday, which means that I also have to go to the rehearsal dinner Friday night. By Sunday, I’m the one who is going to feel like a stuffed turkey.

To start off, I talk about my involvement int he HERO for the Holidays Initiative, which I hope that all of you will support.

For the feature today, I discuss Aquaman (both Golden Age and Silver Age ) and the passing of his creator, Paul Norris. And you won’t want to miss my rant on Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane #12 , which is included in the Aquaman Showcase.

In other news, both DC and Marvel have released their solicitations and I hope to get those up on the New Releases page sometime this weekend. Also, I go over Marvel’s DCU program and I answer a Masterworks/Omnibus e-mail question.

Go Lions!

Chris

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 CCL Podcast #147 - GA and SA Aquaman [31:29m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Collected Comics Library Podcast #145

28,735Kb; 30m 23s

On today’s show I review, the must read, Avengers/Defenders War Premiere Classic Hardcover (it’s volume 6, if you are keeping track of the variant numbering). Overall, I liked the story very much. It had all the classic characters like Dr. Strange, Hulk, Silver Surfer, Namor, Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Hawkeye and others. It also features the villains Loki and Dormammu, and has a surprise cameo appearance by Sunfire. I have to admit, it did find the setup of the story a bit confusing, but it seems to all be streamlined and explained throughout.

Also there is news from Fantagraphics on a new Steve Ditko retrospective by Blake Bell, I have a little info on the Lone Ranger radio program and more thoughts on the DC collected edition news from Rich Johnston’s Lying in the Gutters column from a few days back.
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As usual, I go over the New Releases of the Week and I have a brand new contest that you don’t want to miss.

Chris

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 CCL #145 Avengers/Defenders War< [30:23m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Rich Johnston, in his Lying in the Gutters column at Comic Book Resources, had some interesting and very cool inside information (and some thanks go to Chapters Indigo of Canada) let’s break it down:

• “Starman: The Complete Saga Volume One Hardcover.” The first of a series, which will reprint the entire James Robinson/Tony Harris series and the various specials, including the Hellboy crossover.
  This one has been rumored for some time now. First as a reissued trade series then as an Absolute format. Either way, it’s good to see this series finally getting its due. It already ranks up in DC lore next to Moore’s Swamp Thing, Miller’s Batman and The O’Neil and Adams Green Lantern/Green Arrow saga.
• “JLI: Volume Two HC.” Meaning that DC may be committed to reprinting this era of the Justice League - excellent!
  Yawn. Next.
• There are lots and lots of Joker-related trade paperbacks from, Hardcover “Killing Joke” to the collection of JM Dematteis and Joe Staton’s “Going Sane” from “Legends Of The Dark Knight” fourteen years ago to “Greatest Stories Ever Told” to “Last Laugh.” Remember the prevalence of Doctor Octopus around “Spider-Man 2?” Think that.
  No surprise here with the advent of The Dark Knight movie. I’m sure we can expect an Archive out of this, too.
• A Jack Kirby’s “OMAC hardcover.” Makes sense, as “Final Crisis” appears to be Grant Morrison playing with all of Kirby’s toys at once.
  I thought 2006 was the year of Jack Kirby reissues, The 2007 came along. I guess The King will have a go at in 2008, too.
• Talking of which, here’s a final collection of the Grant Morrison/Mark Millar “Aztek The Ultimate Man” series as a “JLA Presents” volume.
  I’m more excited about this JLA Presents book then the two previous Stars and Stripe books. If you’ve never read it, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
• Is this really “Ex Machina” getting an Absolute or similar treatment?
  Wow! Absolute?!?! I hope so!
• Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan’s “Demo” series is confirmed as a TPB at DC Comics.
  Never read it. I don’t know a single thing about it.
• Looks like the Archives at DC are being hurried to an end with “Doom Patrol volume 5” released months after volume 4, as well as the release of the final projected volume of the Golden Age Seven Soldiers. Look for a major restructuring of how DC will run the program.
  What restructuring means, I have no idea. It could be anything. I just hope DC keeps the same “Pinstripe” trade dress. I mean, after over 120 Archives, why screw with a good thing. Doom Patrol 5 and a final 7 Soldiers seem like no brainers, but if it’s any indication from the Introduction of the recent JSA All-Stars Archives that Roy Thomas did, well see a second volume there. And like I said above, it’s likely we’ll see some sort of Batman Archive when the new movie comes out this summer. The Archive program isn’t dead and despite what message boards say, it isn’t even in trouble. DC seems to be spending more time and effort with the excellent Showcase Presents and Absolute programs (we’re still expecting Sandman, Superman and Alex Ross’s Justice to keep us busy). Times change, staffs change. It’s time for a shake up that’s all. I’ll sleep well tonight and so should you.

Collected Comics Library Podcast #135
37,390Kb; 39m 36s