Hardcovers You Probably Didn't Know Existed Part 5

As part of its exhibit in New York, the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art produced an extremely limited signed and numbered slipcased edition of Will Eisner: A Retrospective. What is perhaps most interesting of all is that it is signed but no less than 6 people, none of them being Will Eisner. He died on January 3rd, 2005, before the exhibit opened.

The book contains artwork and articles, and served as a companion to the exhibit. It was limited to 500 copies. It no longer appears to be available in any form from the publisher via their website, but it couldn't hurt to contact them and see.

Next up...SPACEGIRL!

Hardcovers You Probably Didn't Know Existed Part 4

Every once in a while you just happen to be in the right place at the right time. That's how I discovered that Oni Press' Souldwind hardcover would be offered exclusively through Coldcut distribution. They sell to retailers like Diamond does, but none of my local retailers had accounts. So I made a couple of calls and soon one was on its way. The book was extremely limited, is now out of print, and commands nearly triple its issue price if you can find one on ebay.

The other book pictured, the Barefoot Serpent, is the book that actually inpsired Oni to produce the Soulwind hardcover. It's from Top Shelf, is limited to 300 copies, and is still available from the publisher.

Next up...Will Eisner!

Hardcovers You Probably Didn't Know Existed Part 3

Abadazad.

This series started out with such promise from the doomed Crossgen Comics. 3 issues were published before the company went belly-up. Disney purchased the company's intellectual property following Crossgen's banruptcy, and inicated that it was largely to acquire Abadazad that they did so. They re-engineered the series into what was to be, at least at the outset, 4 books. Each was to by a hybrid between a prose book and graphic novel. The first two books essentially covered the 4 issues creators J.M. DeMattis and Mike Ploog finished. Yes, four issues. One of them was completed, and may have even been at the printer, but was never released. But since these drew heavily on material that was largely completed, books 1 and 2 were released simultaneously, with the other two books to follow.

After lengthy delays, J.M. DeMattis revealed that Disney had pulled the plud and that volume 3 would be the last book in the series, and that it was coming out everywhere *except* in the US.

My kids and I really enjoyed this series, and hope Disney resurrects it somehow. The book is sadly out of print.

Next up...Scott Morse!

Hardcovers You Probably Didn't Know Existed Part 2

And, we're back.

This time, we're going to tak about 8 different books by one of my all-time favorite publishers, Top Shelf. This company is very small, but is a rising star in the indy comic publishing market due in no small part to Alan Moore signing on to publish a number of projects with them, from Lost Girls to the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. But they have so much more to offer than Moore (sorry, couldn't resist the pun).

Let's start with the suff I have read.

The top row contains volumes 1 and 2 of Korgi, and all-ages, wordless graphic novel series about woodland dwelling gnome-like creatures and their faithful canine companions. It's not as corny as it might sound, I promise. The rendering by Christian Slade is phenominal, and some pages look like 19th century woodcutings they are so detailed. Just a fabulous series. My kids and I both love it. The hardcovers are, as far as I know, only available from Top Shelf directly, and not distributed through normal comic channels like Diamond. However, as of this writing, both are still available for purchase from the publisher.

Next, we have The King. by Rich Koslowski & Adam Wallenta. This book is charming, and pretty philosophical. It's an adventure/mystery about an Elvis Impersonator who may not be impersonating. Very good, and definitely worthy of the hardcover treatment. I need to read this again soon. It is still available from the publisher and is limited to just 500 copies.

In the middle we have Superspy, by Matt Kindt. I just got this in last week and haven't read it yet, but bought it on the strength of Top Shelf's reputation. A casual flip-through does not dissappoint. It's next up in my immediate to-be-read pile. Probably next week. It too, is still available from Top Shelf.

Now, we come to my favorite of the bunch. The Incredible Change-Bots by Jeffrey Brown, is an unabashed love-letter to the Transformers catoon and comic from the 80's. Since I was just about the right age to be a fan of both (I'm 34 now, you can do the math) this resonated with me perfectly. And it's in full color, which is a rarity for Top Shelf. You guessed it, it's still available from the publisher.

Finally, we have 3 books by Alex Robinson.

I haven't read any of these yet. And the truth is, it will be a while until I get to them. I intend to do a post in the near future about my entire library. What's in it, how it's organized, and how I read. Right now I am about halfway through my books alphabetically. I'm about to start Alan Moore's From Hell. My collection (except for superhero stuff from the big 2, newspaper strips, and EC archives) is organzied aphabetically by author, and then chronologically from oldest to newest works. So I have a bit more of Moore's work to plow through before I get to the "R" section. But again, all three of these were purchased on the strength of Top Shelf's reputation for me. Box Office Poison, Tricked, (both limited to 300 copies) and Too Cool to Be Forgotten (which is only available in hardcover) are all still available from the publisher.

Next up, a short post about a book that's only rare here in the colonies. Disney bought an entire company just for the rights to this title, and then pulled the rug out from under the author and artist without finishing the story. Book 4 isn't coming, and book 3 came out everywhere pretty mush, except in the US. Have you guessed it yet? Stay tuned for part 3.

Hardcovers You Probably Didn't Know Existed Part 1

I've let a number of life's other obligations distract me from posting as regularly as I'd like.

So to catch up and avoid further humiliation, I've got a 14-part series of posts coming your way chronicling hardcovers in my collection that may have slipped under your radar. Most of these are common in trade paperback form, it's just that the hardcover editions were rare or not well publicized. In the latter case, if the book is still available for purchase, I'll provide a link to help you secure a copy of your own. Otherwise, you can try ebay or abe.com.

So without further ado, here we go.


First up we have 3 volumes of The Red Star. This comic was first published by Image, then went to Crossgen, and the 3rd volume was essentially self published Archangel Studios. It has been some years since I read any of these, but the story is about a combination sci-fi/fantasy alternate history of Soviet Russia. Full details can be seen at the comic's wikipedia entry.

As far as I can tell, it is still coming out in periodical form, and according to the publisher's forum a fourth collection will eventualy be released. What I find so interesting about this series is that despite having 3 different publishers over the course of nearly 4 years (2001 - 2004) Chrisitan Gosset & his team of collaborators managed to keep the format of each of these books remarkably consistant. Sadly, I have never seen a complete set of these for sale, but you can still get volume 2 directly from the publisher.

Next up? Alex Robinson, and more, from Top Shelf.

Is Robbie Robbins the Worst Letterer in Comics?

Ok. So I swing by the local shop yesterday to pick up the week's haul. I buy almost no monthly comics. You know, the floppies. I prefer collected editions, and the name of this blog itself is a pretty clear indication of that. But Star Trek comics are a rare exception. I have them all, going back to the Gold Key days. And what's more, I have read them all.

That's right. They don't just go into a mylar sleeve to be stored away for some fabled golden-age retirement, or post-apocolyptic reading orgy. I read them all, usually the day I buy them.

So I am plowing through issue 5 of Star Trek: Assignment Earth last night and discover no fewer than 5 glaring typos throughout this 22 page comic.

page 8, "leaver" which should just be "leave",
page 12 "must have has" which should be "must have had",
page 18 "adjustment" should be plural,
page 18 (SAME WORD BALOON, must be some kind of record) "Richard Nixon on" should be "Richard Nixon and"
page 19 "I not longer" should read "I no longer".

Now I am not some grammar guru, but these are just jarring, and obvious to anyone who bothers reading the proofs before they go to press. Looks to me like no one did here.

Hopefully, this will be corrected in the TPB collected edition. You can bet I'll be checking.

If this had been hand lettered, no way this would have happened. But when you depend on a wordprocessor to do your job for you, and you don't proofread, this is what you get.

For four bucks I deserve better, and so do you.

Darkhorse: The Batman/Grendel Hardcover situation

Darkhorse has a pretty poor track record when it comes to consistancy and uniformity in their collected edition libraries. They are getting better, but the company is a private one owned by Mike Richardson, and almost functions as a sort of vanity press that publishes things he likes in the format he thinks will sell the best. There appears to be very little consumer-level market research used in the decision-making process. I'll post more on this in some detail later, but for now let's talk about how this mindset affected the recent limited edition Batman/Grendel book.

Darkhorse had began what looked like a promising reprint initiative of the Grendel back catalog, starting with the very first Comico material. Completists were thrilled, and optimists thought this might be the start of something wonderful. And for 4 volumes it was. But then Darkhorse announced by way of solicitation that Batman/Grendel would be collected and reprinted, but as a softcover. Over on his forums, Matt Wagner indicated that this decision was driven by the desire to achieve a certain price point, att he expense of allowing collectors to obtain a uniform, complete, hardcover library.

Now, I personally don't understand the logic behind this rationalization. Many publishers will solicit and take orders for both hard and softcover editions together. Since the interiors can be produced at the same time (or in the case of at least one Fantagraphics collections - Krazy & Ignatz - , stored on site at the printer for years) it is actually more cost effective to do it this way, since the presses only have to be set up one time for the "guts" or text block. Then you just slap hardcovers on some, and softcovers on the rest. However, for whatever reason, Darkhorse decided not to do this.

Instead, they solicited a limited edition, signed and numbered hardcover for $99.95, with a pre-set production run of only 300 copies.

Diane Schutz, a bigwig at Darkhorse who edited some of the original Grendel material and contributed creativly to the narrative as well, decided to be a stand-up gal and offer a few publisher's and artist's proof copies, via Matt Wagner's message board to those of us who missed out. Which was nice. Especially since I got one. She said orders came in at nearly twice what they had announced the production run to be. So it was heavily allocated.

But was this really necessary?

Why not just announce it as limited to initial orders and leave it at that. Set production numbers based on how many people wanted to buy, and opposed to guestimating how many you think you could sell and being, well, very very wrong.

Later, we'll discuss uniformity within the Grendel Library, since Darkhorse is having trouble with that too...