It should be collected / It should be in print

I was thinking the time these were out was probably the same time he was suing them, right?

cld be - I thought they were post-lawsuit (ie Marvel finally went ahead with reprints once they knew there was no legal impediment to doing so). obviously wolfman's lawsuit was timed to coincide w/ the first Blade movie, whenever that was.

btw, i hope i'm not giving the impression that i think Marvel are in any way gd custodians of their back catalogue. in fact, their problems go right the way back to the sixties, when the company never even bothered to keep decent stats of the original artwork - compare the shitty repro and obv art retouching on a lot of the Essential volumes w/ the far cleaner, sharper reprints (of often much earlier material) in the equivalent DC Showcase volumes.

Question about the Marvel Masterworks:

Are the Nick Fury volumes recolored in the same horrible way as the paperback release was? They pretty much fucked up the colors and Steranko's linework. I'd be tempted to get the hardcover masterworks versions if they're ok.

Brian Hibbs on Marvel's lack of a trade program impacting their bookstore performance:

I think it is very difficult to look at Marvel's backlist business as anything other than an abject, deeply embarrassing failure, especially when you consider that there was a film that grossed a billion-and-a-half dollars, and was not only also a critical hit, but a near perfect encapsulation of what's awesome about comic books serving as the greatest advertisement for their comics that one could possibly imagine, and Marvel's best-selling comic in BookScan is… "Kick Ass 2."

Listen: Not a single comic book featuring a character owned by Marvel comics sold even ten thousand copies.

That's insane. That's you-are-doing-everything-wrong levels of crazy, and if I were a Disney shareholder, I'd be storming the meetings, demanding that they actually attempt to reach out for what is clearly low-hanging fruit. Marvel could clearly be grossing tens of millions more dollars every year if they had a backlist program aimed at delivering books that people want, in formats and at prices that they want, and actually kept them in print.

I hate to repeat myself from last year, but as I've spent a huge chunk of this column saying, the single hottest property in the entire industry is that zombie comic book by Robert Kirkman; the highest grossing media presentation of the year was "The Avengers" film -- they have a book that is literally zombie versions of those same exact Marvel characters featured in "The Avengers" that is actually written by Kirkman himself, and just how many copies of "Marvel Zombies" sold this year via BookScan? 2814, that's it. That's fewer copies sold than "The Cartoon Guide To Chemistry," for god's sake!

And, worse? It actually dropped in sales this year, down from 3239.

That is some epic-level ball dropping, if you ask me.

Marvel's #1 book this year, as I said, is "Kick Ass 2," scoring just below 11k copies sold.

At #2, there's the expensive hardcover of "Avengers Vs. X-Men," with just 9805 copies sold.

At #3 is the collection of "The Infinity Gauntlet" which is nearly exactly the precise comic book I'd want to put in the hands of someone walking into the lobby after seeing "The Avengers" -- it's self-contained, epic, intensely action-filled, yet with a deep emotional heart. And they can only sell 7266 copies through BookScan reporters. They should have been able to shift 20-30k of those, in my opinion!

#4 for Marvel is "Civil War" (6927), while #5 is a sadly waning "Dark Tower" volume with just 6698 sold. You know the number one question I get from civilians about those comics? "What order should I read them in?" Confusing your customers is seldom the path to success….

Here is Marvel's Long Tail. The only message to take from this performance is: it's not working. "The Avengers" and "Amazing Spider-Man" movies in the theatres (to say nothing of "Ghost Rider"), and sales dropped pretty sharply.

lol marvel
that seems pretty dead on.

I wish there was a Geof Darrow coloring book.

Chester Brown bible stories.

Yeah!

I've been looking for Essential Thor Vol. 2 and 3 and those seem to be kind of scarce right now.

those are the b&W ones...?

I keep an eye out on the Marvel Masterworks stuff I want (like Thor) and then buy them as soon as their available, that stuff does not stay in print

think marvel quite often reprint Essentials when there's a relevant movie coming out, so i wldn't be surprised if those Essential Thors came back into print when Thor2 is released

And like someone said above, looks like there won't be any new Shade the Changing Man TPBs either, since the last came out in 2010. Let's just hope they at least manage to get the full run of Milligan's Human Target collected this time, they're one measly book away from doing that.

― Tuomas, 3. tammikuuta 2012 9:59 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

So, the third Human Target TPB never came out... :( I really don't understand DC, they've now collected the first two thirds of Human Target twice (first in the early 00s when the series was new, then again in 2010 and 2011), but the final third has never appeared. All it would've taken is one more TPB to finally collect the full series! I'm never gonna trust DC to reprint any series in full again. (Unless the series has the word "Batman", "Superman", or "Green Lantern" in the title, of course.)

I am guessing that was related to the Human Target TV series - which as cancelled after its second series in 2011.

Yeah, that's my guess too, but it's still hella irritating that they did the same thing twice.

Corto Maltese

― Fox Force Five Punchline (sexyDancer), Tuesday, March 17, 2009 10:49 AM (3 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The Complete CORTO MALTESE To Be Published In English For The First Time

woah

Worst thing about that info is that I'd prefer the hardcovers - which means waiting a year and then hoping to get in early enough on a limited edition (assuming they even ship to the UK c.f. Peanuts).

Yeah, I'm conflicted about that - in a way, the paperbacks are 'truer' to the way the material was presented originally, and those IDW hardcovers tend to be pretty expensive. When they say the hardcovers will be 'original art size', I take it to mean the pages won't actually have been shot from the original artwork.

But I bet they will be very desirable festish objects.

I <gulp> have more than enough of the IDW hardcovers to have come to terms with the price. Plus the Don Lawrence Collection sets of both Trigan Empire and Storm redefined what that sort of pricing level meant, really.

I'm assuming they're going to be the size of the Prince Valiant reprints, or maybe the Popeye ones?

That's cool news! The link says the books will be the black & white versions, but they should at least publish The Secret Rose in colour, as colours play an important role in the story of that book. I think The Secret Rose was also the only Corto book to be in colour right from the start (since Pratt obviously realized this story couldn't be properly told in b&w), the other coloured books were originally black and white, so I guess reprinting is more faithful to the originals. (The added colouring, which is not by Pratt, looks really nice, though it also affects the composition of Pratt lines, so your opinion may vary whether it makes the books better or worse.)

The original Corto books are roughly in the Euro "comic album" size, i.e. the same as with Tintin, Asterix, etc (Wikipedia has a nice reference pic of different sized comics), so I guess "original art size" means that? Wouldn't make much sense to print them larger than that, since Pratt's line is quite thick to being with.

Original art is generally larger than the printed version, even with European albums - for example the Tintin originals I've seen are about twice the size of the printed pages. There are a few comics artists who have worked 'same size', but not many. Pratt may be one of them - his artwork isn't really about details or fine lines, obv - but I would be slightly surprised, even so (I've never seen a page of original Corto artwork.)

also, there would be no point in announcing that the hardcovers will be larger than the paperbacks if... they're going to be the same size.

Yeah, I know original art is usually bigger than what's printed, though like you say that may not be the case with Pratt, his line is pretty thick already in the printed book. But even if his original art is bigger, I don't see the point of releasing it in that size? Obviously Pratt (like any other comic artist drawing in larger size) would have meant for their comics to be published in a certain size, so it's not like printing them bigger is truer to the artist's vision or anything.

also, there would be no point in announcing that the hardcovers will be larger than the paperbacks if... they're going to be the same size.

I took the line about "original art-sized" to mean the hardbacks will be in the original Euro size, and the paperbacks will be shrunk to make them more US friendly. If Pratt's original art was, say, twice as big as how it was printed, publishing it in that "original" size would make the books ludicrously big.

The announcement says the paperbacks will be bigger than Asterix/Tintin by at 9 1/4" x 11 3/4" (as opposed to 8 1/2" x 11 1/4"). A bit of googling produces some production art sold a couple of years ago at 12" x 18" which is huge, bigger even than Popeye (10 1/2" x 14 1/2", give or take).

Also, having seen the original artwork for the cover of Destination Moon at full size (Bristol Board 12x18) I'd absolutely want to see these reprints at that size.

EuroComics is working closely with Patrizia Zanotti, Pratt’s long-time collaborator, to present the complete Corto Maltese in a series of twelve quality trade paperbacks in Pratt’s original oversized black and white format. I'm sure they mean the original European album format by this.

IDW already publish a number of large-sized 'artist's editions' exactly reproducing original artwork, and again, I would bet that the hardcover Cortos will closely resemble them, even if they're not directly shot from original pages.

I took the line about "original art-sized" to mean the hardbacks will be in the original Euro size

everything above and: it's Dean Mullaney doing these.

Who's Dean Mullaney?

Okay, I guess I was wrong about the size thing... Still don't understand why anyone would want to read Pratt's thick line in larger size than it was originally printed in, but I guess there's a market for that?

I mean, I understand publishing comics in bigger size if the artist has a fine line and some of the details were lost in the original printings, but that's hardly the case with Pratt.

See my comment on Destination Moon.

Just for example, I think aspiring comic book artists often learn things from studying original artwork - and I'm sure Pratt's mastery of the brush, of black and white contrast, of reduction and subtraction, would be even more evident printed at a larger size.

Mullaney is the creative director of IDW's Library of American Comics line, and was formerly the owner/publisher of Eclipse Comics. He's got a (deserved) reputation for delivering a high quality product (see for example the Noel Sickles and Alex Toth volumes that he edited for IDW).

I didn't know mullaney was with IDW now. Names to conjure with.

Okay, glad to hear the Corto reprints are in good hands. Wasn't the previous English printing of Ballad of the Salt Sea horribly cropped or something? I remember it being discussed on ILC.

The recent American color edition was printed at a small size and inappropriately coloured, yes.

There's an earlier edition published by Collins Harvill that was at the correct size, and with a much better translation than the NBM Corto volumes.

Wasn't Mullaney a creator too?

Nope

I must have been thinking of Dean Motter.

Yep

Wasn't the previous English printing of Ballad of the Salt Sea horribly cropped or something?

see upthread.

So, with volume 8 of the Suicide Squad TPBs coming out this May, DC has *finally* collected the entire Ostrander/Yale run, only 17 years after it finished. Too bad they've never managed the same with Milligan's Shade or Human Target, nor does it seem like they ever will.

It's frankly shocking that they managed, as DC tends to prematurely abandon their reprint projects more often than not (the most recent example I'm aware of being a proposed two-volume collection of Sleeper, for which the second volume was recently solicited and then cancelled).

Yeah, I mentioned Human Target because they've started collecting it and then abandoned it *twice*, which is ridiculous. And it's not like it's a long, multi-volume series, the last time they would've needed to release just one more TPB, and it would've all been reprinted.

I guess I should keep my finger crossed with SS vol. 8, there's still time to cancel it...

Did those English editions of Corto Maltese we talked about upthread ever happen, btw?

Yes, and they're still happening. I think another one of the volumes was just solicited last month.

Like the current Barks reprints, though, they're being released out of order for some reason.

The Barks ones is for a good reason, at least

entire Ostrander/Yale run, only 17 years after it finished.

calling for a recount on this

Oops, yeah, I guess it's 27 actually.

With the Corto Maltese books, the reading order isn't really that important, since they're all stand-alone stories, and some of them are in anachronic order to begin with. You should read Ballad of the Salt Seas first and finish with the last two (Secret Rose and Mu) though, in order to make sense of certain supporting characters reappearing.