Comic Book Resources

Agreed.

Then there's Special Forces, about which I will rant when I review the books I bought this week. Image claims it's in the "Slimline" format but charges $2.99 for it, because if it were "regular-sized," they'd have to charge $3.50 for it. So it's not $1.99, but you get only 16 pages. Annoying.

The prime difference being Special Forces is good.

Anyone remember the 100-Page Monster books Marvel did about 10 years ago? One new story, and then about 64 pages of reprints in the back, for about $3.50. That was a good deal.

Was Special Forces promoted as Slimline? My copy's got 32 pages of story...

I don't know which copy you got, Bill, but mine has 16 pages. Maybe you loved it so much that it felt twice as long!

Okay, I just counted thrice. I'm thinking you got stuck with a bizarre misprint, or something. Where's your story end? Or maybe they left out the middle...

Somehow I think if I were running the show, I'd make a one shot like this to kick off a storyline cheaper to try to draw people in, since to follow it you're going to be picking up lots of X-titles.

Monster format books were excellent. Similarly, I don't mind paying $5 for a "family"-style book, with 2-4 reprints. An extra buck for pin-ups is just lame.

Thanks for the heads-up. I might have to skip the Messiah Complex special. Did any of the information seem essential, or could it be summed up in a text piece on the first page of each comic?

That's weird, Bill. Mine ends with Felony on the ground, just after the Apache crashes into the building, and she is narrating about the snipers. That's all! What do you have?????

That's a very good point, Mecha-Shiva. It worked for DC with those 10-cent adventures, so why can't Marvel put this out for a dollar?

After that I see an extended flashback, some more carnage, and a Milleresque tough-as-nails "no turning back" sequence to wrap it up.

That's odd. More discussion when I review it!

I love that we finally have a situation where someone could read Greg's review and say "I must have been reading a different copy than you" and be right!

I was just thinking about Messiah Complex, and y'know what I would have done? Instead of having the destruction of the small town all be a flashback, I'd make that the story, and end with a flash-forward to the X-Men arriving to find the place a total waste. Centering it around some townsperson, maybe the mother of the baby or one of the nurses, would have given it a story while still getting across all the exposition necessary to start the crossover.

"I love that we finally have a situation where someone could read Greg’s review and say “I must have been reading a different copy than you” and be right! "

Ha!!!

Burgas, you better get a new copy to review before you get yet another comics creator chasing you down for slander and wanting to give you a beat down.

I'm on the case ... tomorrow!

I completely agree. It is ridiculous and unnecessary and is up there will Marvel charging an extra dollar for books with the cardboady covers. As if comics were not pricey enough as it is. It almost makes me worry if Marvel is doing a trial run of this price-point.

Oh yeah it was Origins #16 and reprinting classic material should be the only option to charge extra in my view.

My copy of Special Forces is like Bill's.

Somebody owes you a buck setty five, Greg.

Yeah, Greg, you got hosed. I suggest beatings and fire.

You've definitely got a defective Special Forces. It clocks in at 32 pages, no ads.

Greg, I bet your copy starts out with a texty page that begins "I knew him from school."

That's actually page 9. I bet you're missing the signature that includes pages 1-8 and 25-32.

I am pleased that so many of us purchased Special Forces.

As for Marvel overcharging-- yeah, it's lame. I don't mind paying four bucks an issue for, say, Terror, Inc-- I understand that MAX books aren't big sellers, and they're nice enough to upgrade the cover stock-- but I don't think I could put up with paying four bucks per issue for every title I buy.

Yeah, that's where my copy starts, Bully. Good call! I'm looking forward to tracking down the answer! Will my shoppe have all defective copies? Will any store in Arizona have the right ones???? The mind reels!

In a great marketing ploy for Special Forces, we'll all have to track down a copy now to see whether or not an elaborate practical joke is being played on Mr Burgas.

If that were the case, I would send Kyle Baker a check for ten thousand high fives, postdated.

What? I'm not a freakin' tycoon!

Not yet, but you could be, if you bought five thousand copies of the Countdown Arena Spectacular or whatever its called, sent them to Keith Champagne and demanded he follows through on his offer, then sent the profit to Kyle Baker in lieu of high fives. Everybody wins!

Except Keith Champagne, I guess, but hey, the sales figures won't reflect that 5000 copies ended up being sold to him at double the cover price. Result!

it's actually boarderline insulting...give us some content we can't check out on wikipedia or an artists website and the we won't begrudge the extra fundage. we buy the books regardless after all.

[...] So we come to the strangest book of the week.  How so, say you?  Well, in the comments section of this post by Brian, I made the point that Image claims this is in their “Slimline” format - like Fell and Casanova - but in this case, it costs $2.99 instead of $3.50, which is what it would be for a full-sized book.  I based this, not on solid information (what, you expect me to check these things out?), but on the fact that I recall reading somewhere (perhaps on this blog, perhaps not) that Image was going to be using the “Slimline” format for some of its books to avoid charging $3.50 (which kind of defeats the purpose, if you ask me), and also because my copy of Special Forces has only 16 pages, which is the length of a “Slimline” comic.  Our very own Bill Reed challenged me on this assertion, not because he’s a punk (well, he could be, but not in this instance), but because his copy of Special Forces had 32 pages.  We both re-counted the pages in our copies, and unless one of us doesn’t know how to count (I suspect him, because I watch so many educational programs that teach kids how to count I had to have absorbed some of it!), we’re reading two different books.  I have looked at mine very carefully, and there’s nothing to indicate that I got a preview copy or that parts of the book fell out of mine.  It’s stapled competently, says #1 on the inside cover, and doesn’t say anything about the “real” issue #1 coming soon from Image.  It ends a bit abruptly, but it doesn’t end in the middle of a conversation and I’ve gotten used to comics ending without a tag that says, “To be continued,” so I thought nothing of it. [...]

"Anyone remember the 100-Page Monster books Marvel did about 10 years ago? One new story, and then about 64 pages of reprints in the back, for about $3.50. That was a good deal. "

I remember the 100 page Super Spectaculars that DC was putting out in the early '70's. They were 50 and later 60 cents.

Good deal.

Funnily enough I've just finished reading Secret War. That was $25 (not for me- I bought it on eBay) for a book reprinting a standard sized five issues plus loads of padding.

I suspect most readers would have preferred to pay the standard $13-$15 that five issue TPBs seem to go for and just get the story.

Ditto for New Avengers vol 2 which had 4 issues of story and 2 issues worth of crap. And of course the worst offender of all - Ultimate X-Men/Fantastic 4 which only manages two issues of story!