RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Comic Books John Byrne: The good years, the bad years, and what the heck went wrong?

A Byrne illustrattion, portraying Byrne's creation Rog 2000 ,
reading the hardcover omnibus ESSENTIAL JOHN BYRNE.









I couldn't find the hardcover book shown under that title.
The closest I could find was FANTASTIC FOUR BY JOHN BYRNE OMNIBUS, vol. 1 and vol 2 (2022, 2023).
Or MARVEL UNIVERSE BY JOHN BYRNE (2016).

I think maybe the guy who posted it took the early Byrne issues from the 1970's-1980's period, and had them professionally bound, in a one-of-a-kind personal set of hardcovers for himself.

I've seen the same done by others, where they took individual issues and had them bound together in a personal hardcover collections.

I bought one on Ebay a few years back of a small-press trade collection of Lou Fine's complete Black Condor and The Ray stories, that the seller decades ago had re-bound in a decorative hardcover. Mostly black and white with about 20% in color, but still nice to have. The book has an intro by Jim Steranko.

I've seen other similar custom-made collected hardcovers on Ebay I didn't buy. Where for example, another guy did the same with his CONAN THE BARBARIAN Barry Smith and John Buscema issues. If you have the cash and inclination, making your own hardcover is a way to have a collected edition exactly the way you want it. I was tempted to do the same 25 years ago with Jack Kirby 1970's DC work, or a custom-made complete hardcover set of all Neal Adams work for Marvel and DC.
But then Marvel and DC started publishing all that stuff in nice hardcover editions, and I no longer felt the need.

I wouldn't want to damage nice copies of comics, even if I did make a hardcover. I'd want to purchase Good or VG copies for that mission, if I did it at all. And really, as old as these issues are, 50 years or more old, I'd hate to ruin original comics of that era in any grade.
I talked about my hardcover-binding old comics issues idea with a rare used bookstore owner in my area I grew up with, and he was horrified at the idea.
He looked at me like I wanted to murder children.