Black and White and Comic All Over
I'm taking a bit of a breather from my regular writing (I did 21K last week which is pretty solid) and decided I was going to write about one of my recent addictions. Illustrated Phonebooks (j/k).
What I'm talking about are the big black and white reprint editions of classic comic books represented by Marvel's Essentials line and DC's Showcase Presents. They retail for 16.99 and each one comes with over 500 pages of comic goodness in a 10x6.5" format; which is a pretty good deal when you think that regular comics these days give you 22 pages for $2.99 (yes it's got color but still) and these give you about 22 times as much story for less than six times the price. As a bonus, you can often find them online for about $10, which is an even better deal.
Image is doing the same thing with their Archive editions, which run a bit more expensive ($19.99) and about 600 pages.
As you can tell, I'm a big fan of these things, and with any luck they'll help revitalize the industry. This is your father's Spider-Man, the very stories that made the characters popular. Marvel started it, at least as far as the "Big Two" are concerned, and DC jumped on the bandwagon shortly thereafter. If you're like most of us, which ones you buy will depend on who your favorite characters are. I've got Marvel's Nova and Captain America (v1) along with World's Finest and Legion of Superheroes from DC and will be getting more from both companies.
Having said that, and at the risk of alienating the hordes of Marvel Zombies trolling the Internet, I have to say that I find the DC Showcases to be a better value. I'm going to ignore the value of the stories themselves, because that's too subjective, and focus on purely objective concerns. As I mentioned earlier, I have two each from the two publishers, and have looked at a large number more on the shelves of my local bookstores, and paid particular attention to the physical quality of the two lines.
The first one is minor, but I think, telling. DC gives you page numbers, Marvel doesn't. These are 500 page books, you aren't going to read one at a sitting. With the Essentials you need a book marker of some kind, because you can't just remember your page (something I do fairly often) because they aren't numbered. It wouldn't have been hard to do, so why didn't they?
The second is content. My two DC Showcases come in at 552 and 549 pages respectively, where the Essentials come in at 512 and 528 pages. It's not much of a difference, but on average the Showcases do give you more pages for the same dollar.
The third and final one, is also the most important. The Showcases have a better quality binding. Both of my Essentials are showing definite signs that I'm going to have to take care reading them in future, not so much the Showcases. In the case of the Nova, the first interior page is bound closer to the cover than the other interior pages so I can already see a split beginning to form after a single gentle reading. DC's phonebooks seem to be holding up better.
Still, no matter which one you choose, you can't go wrong for value, and they're a great way to introduce people to comics, especially the younger set. Many of them like manga, which are black and white anyway, and for those concerned about kids-- the majority of these books reprint stories from the Comics Code era so they're reasonably safe.
I really recommend you give them a try if you like comics, they're well worth the time and the money.
What I'm talking about are the big black and white reprint editions of classic comic books represented by Marvel's Essentials line and DC's Showcase Presents. They retail for 16.99 and each one comes with over 500 pages of comic goodness in a 10x6.5" format; which is a pretty good deal when you think that regular comics these days give you 22 pages for $2.99 (yes it's got color but still) and these give you about 22 times as much story for less than six times the price. As a bonus, you can often find them online for about $10, which is an even better deal.
Image is doing the same thing with their Archive editions, which run a bit more expensive ($19.99) and about 600 pages.
As you can tell, I'm a big fan of these things, and with any luck they'll help revitalize the industry. This is your father's Spider-Man, the very stories that made the characters popular. Marvel started it, at least as far as the "Big Two" are concerned, and DC jumped on the bandwagon shortly thereafter. If you're like most of us, which ones you buy will depend on who your favorite characters are. I've got Marvel's Nova and Captain America (v1) along with World's Finest and Legion of Superheroes from DC and will be getting more from both companies.
Having said that, and at the risk of alienating the hordes of Marvel Zombies trolling the Internet, I have to say that I find the DC Showcases to be a better value. I'm going to ignore the value of the stories themselves, because that's too subjective, and focus on purely objective concerns. As I mentioned earlier, I have two each from the two publishers, and have looked at a large number more on the shelves of my local bookstores, and paid particular attention to the physical quality of the two lines.
The first one is minor, but I think, telling. DC gives you page numbers, Marvel doesn't. These are 500 page books, you aren't going to read one at a sitting. With the Essentials you need a book marker of some kind, because you can't just remember your page (something I do fairly often) because they aren't numbered. It wouldn't have been hard to do, so why didn't they?
The second is content. My two DC Showcases come in at 552 and 549 pages respectively, where the Essentials come in at 512 and 528 pages. It's not much of a difference, but on average the Showcases do give you more pages for the same dollar.
The third and final one, is also the most important. The Showcases have a better quality binding. Both of my Essentials are showing definite signs that I'm going to have to take care reading them in future, not so much the Showcases. In the case of the Nova, the first interior page is bound closer to the cover than the other interior pages so I can already see a split beginning to form after a single gentle reading. DC's phonebooks seem to be holding up better.
Still, no matter which one you choose, you can't go wrong for value, and they're a great way to introduce people to comics, especially the younger set. Many of them like manga, which are black and white anyway, and for those concerned about kids-- the majority of these books reprint stories from the Comics Code era so they're reasonably safe.
I really recommend you give them a try if you like comics, they're well worth the time and the money.