We can rebuild him it. We have the technology.

I’ve been a Collected Editions buyer for nearly 15 years now, and in that time I’ve gotten used to the progression of the monthly periodical comic book into a nice reprint edition. From the start reprints were typically softcover trade paperbacks, but we did get the occasional hardcover: The Complete Frank Miller Batman (Longmeadow Press, 1989) comes to mind. More recently, however, the process of the superhero comic has been:

Monthly → Trade Paperback or Hardcover → Deluxe or Premiere Hardcover → Oversized Edition (i.e. Absolute, Omnibus or similar type).

Naturally every publisher is different, but that is the general rule of thumb. And with that the Oversized books are something special. Not only do they reprint the more popular series of days gone by (Crisis On Infinite Earths, Frank Miller Daredevil), but they are also given bonus material to entice us to toss out our old trades and upgrade to the new edition. After all, the latest is the greatest, or so they say.

But now it seems that other publishers have caught on and are creating a new breed of Absolute. Not the monthly comics, mind you, but rather two or more independent books (or graphic novels) that achieved high accolades on their own merit and have now been morphed into new and improved tomes that are very hard to pass up. Let’s take a look at a few:

• In doing my research for this post, the earliest 2-in-1 proto-type I could find was The Complete Maus HC by Art Spiegelman (Pantheon Books, 1997). The 296 page book combines both Volume I: My Father Bleeds History (1986) and Volume II: And Here My Troubles Began (1991). It reads beautifully and besides the chapter break, you would never know it was written in two parts. I beg you to buy this book.
• More recently, W.W. Norton published The Contract With God Trilogy HC by Will Eisner (November 2005) just 10 months after his death. Originally from 1978, A Contract With God went on to have two sequels: A Life Force and Dropsie Avenue, and all are collected here for the full reading experience. So successful was this collected edition that W.W. Norton followed it up with another compilation, Will Eisner’s New York HC (2006) that collects a quartet of his best works: New York, The Building, City People Notebook, and Invisible People. Besides the wonderful Spirit Archives (DC Comics), these are must haves for your book shelf.
• Just released is The Comics: The Complete Collection by Brian Walker (2011), who is the son of Mort Walker (Beetle Bailey) and is the current co-writer of Hi and Lois. This 672 page edition collects Walker’s previous two history books The Comics Before 1945 (2004) and The Comics Since 1945 (2006) into one. The bummer here is that there is no extra material to bring us up-to-date in 2011. None-the-less, it’s a great book to peruse now and then.
• Lastly, we just got word from IDW that they will be publishing Parker: The Martini Edition (2011). This will reportedly collect the first two Parker novels The Hunter (2009 and The Outfit (2010) as done by Darwyn Cooke. This oversized edition will have bonus material and a new exclusive short story.

Is this what it’s coming to? Double sized editions? Who knows for sure, but it seems to be a trend as of late. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to see new Complete Tin Tin oversized two volume hardcover slipcase set that collects all 24 original graphic novels just in time for the movie this Christmas. Talk about a reprint!

Of course the above are just a few of the Combined Collected Editions. Feel free to name the several that I missed in the comment section below.

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