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#187790 2003-06-10 10:35 AM
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Does anybody get the DC Archives hardcovers? I know the high price tag immediately makes most potential buyers scoff, but there are some lower price option sout there. I have gotten used ones on ebay for as low as $15.00. Overstock.com (once you search and dig on their poor search engine) has them new from 24.00 to 34.00 all the time. If you want high quality reprints of Golden and Silver Age comics they are definitley the way to go.

My favorites so far have been:
Doom Patrol
SGT Rock
Enemy Ace
Blackhawk
Supergirl
World's Finest
Shazam
Hawkman
SA Green Lantern
SA Flash

I greatly enjoy almost all of them and the only one's i don't enjoy too much are the GA Batman ones.

Does anyone want any reviews of any volumes or have any questions about the line?

#187791 2003-06-10 10:04 PM
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I'd buy these, but they're too pricey.

#187792 2003-06-11 12:12 AM
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Of course, they are cheaper than buying the original books 95% of the time.

So what would be an acceptable price for 200 plus pages of reprinted, chronological comics in hardcover format?

The one thing I'll say is that DC remasters and cleans up all of their pages. Marvel just uses the same photo negatives and still charges $50.00.

#187793 2003-06-11 1:26 AM
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I've picked up a few Wonder Woman and Superman ones, and I'm glad that I did. Nice looking volumes. Reading them gives you a sense of reverance for your comic reading habits that you just can't get anywhere else.

#187794 2003-06-11 1:46 PM
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Frankly, I wish DC would copy the "Essential" idea that Marvel has had some success with. I would love to pick up some of the early Flash (Jay Garrick) stories in one volume without plunking down $50. Even though they are in B&W, I still think they are a great buy at only $15.

#187795 2003-06-11 2:14 PM
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I've got the first New Teen Titans archive and all but the latest Legion one. I usually just buy them on eBay for at least half the cover prices. And for some of the horrible color mistakes that they done in just the Legion series, there is just no way in hell I would pay full price.

If they want to produce a book and expect us to put down $50 for it, they should really pay more attention to detail.

And lancesrealm, I second that "Estentials" shout out. I don't care that they are in black and white, I enjoy them. I have the first couple or three of the Avengers, Ant-Man, Fantastic Four and a few others. Great reading. But they also suffer from their own production value. There isn't a one of them that hasn't separated from its cover.

#187796 2003-06-11 9:14 PM
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I've got quite a few of the Archives myself and enjoy them all. Thanks to ebay and convention deals, I usually pay in the $25-35 range for new volumes, which seems fair to me.

#187797 2003-06-13 8:09 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by lancesrealm:
Frankly, I wish DC would copy the "Essential" idea that Marvel has had some success with. I would love to pick up some of the early Flash (Jay Garrick) stories in one volume without plunking down $50. Even though they are in B&W, I still think they are a great buy at only $15.

They can't. Marvel's archives are about 40 years old and have been stored well, so that means the cost to reprint isn't that great.
DC's archives are 65 years old and they need to be retouched and restored which costs an assload of money. They'd have to sell it for $30.00 just to make up the costs, they add 10 for the hardcover just to make it nicer. Once they sell enough they can afford to re-release them at a cheaper price (Batman Archives are getting a reprint at $20.00)

#187798 2003-06-13 8:21 AM
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I'd like to have 'em all but so far I've been faithful to only the Shazam ones.

#187799 2003-06-13 8:26 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Lightning Lad:
I've got the first New Teen Titans archive

I'd like to get this too. Free up a book of space which I have of old NTT comics.

quote:

Marvel's archives are about 40 years old and have been stored well, so that means the cost to reprint isn't that great.
DC's archives are 65 years old and they need to be retouched and restored which costs an assload of money.

Really? How interesting. How do you know that?

#187800 2003-06-13 8:39 AM
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It's basically true...Dc remasters all the art, which I mentioned. They clean up the ink-line work and re-color it. The process is expensive because they rarely have original art and mostly use the best available comics to remaster from unless they have film or original pages. That's why Spirit and thunder Agents come out so often, because the original art is ready and available.

Marvel's available art isn't really that clean though as you can tell by their masterworks and essentials. A lot of it needs cleaned and remastered as well... I find it amusing that marvel charges the same price for their hardcovers even though it is much cheaper for them to release them...amusing

#187801 2003-06-13 6:55 PM
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I got the 1st Batman at $20. The 1st Plastic Man which was somewhat disappointing. All of the JLA through volume 7 or 8 off of e-bay at about half price. Loved all of them! And the 1st Atom which I'm still reading and enjoying!

Definitely want to get silver age Flash and GL's!

#187802 2003-06-14 12:52 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Pig Iron:
It's basically true...Dc remasters all the art, which I mentioned. They clean up the ink-line work and re-color it. The process is expensive because they rarely have original art and mostly use the best available comics to remaster from unless they have film or original pages.

Right. And the process doesn't work miracles yet either. It's been said that certain artists' work (like Lou Fine's) can't be reproduced well under the current system.

#187803 2003-06-14 12:56 AM
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True...Doll man and the Ray are a while off...

Mac Raboy CM jr stories are in the same boat...

#187804 2003-06-14 1:42 AM
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Which is a shame, as a Raboy CMJr. archive is tops on my Most Wanted list.

I'm also wondering if they'll have to work around the whole Captain Marvel thing. The World's Mightiest Boy Archive doesn't have the same ring.

#187805 2003-06-14 8:27 AM
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I wouldn't mind the JLA ones. Are there JSA ones, from the 40s etc?

#187806 2003-06-14 10:30 AM
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Yeah, they are called the All Star Comics Archives..there are 8 of them so far... they reprint from all star 3 up...
Then there are individual JSA member archives that reprint the advs of individual JSAers from their own books like more fun, flash comics,adventure, sensation, etc.. Green Lantern, flash, spectre, black canary and starman so far.

I think the CM jr stuff will probably be reprinted w/ the mary marvel, uncle, tawny stuff and just thrown into a shazam family type book or adventures of shazam... mostly because there are fans of all characters, the raboy art will be expensive to repro, and the copyright issue will be a bear to deal with for titles...
There is no doubt that there will be some duplication for reprinted stories though...since shazam reprints whiz and captain marvel adventures that still leaves master, mary marvel, marvel family and captain marvel jr titles to reprint w/ a few more odd appearances i can't recall...
There is no doubt that the Marvel family will cause some headaches for the collected editions staff..

#187807 2003-06-14 9:15 PM
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I have a buncha BAtman ones
the first few JLA
Im gonna get all JSA
One Shazam
One Legion (got for like 5 bucks!)
My favorite is Black Canary but I havent read it yet.....

#187808 2003-06-14 10:45 PM
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I got the first few Batman ones which I DIDN'T really enjoy.

I got the Hal Jordan Green Lantern ones which I did enjoy!

I also bought the Wolfman/Perez Titans Volume which I loved - I can't wait for the 70s/80s Justice League volumes to come out!

Not so long now for the Neal Adams HC Batmans!!!!!!!!

#187809 2003-06-14 10:52 PM
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Some of those old Batman stories are so gay theyre amusing!

#187810 2003-06-15 2:09 AM
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The Batman ones are the ones I enjoy least...the world's finest stuff w/superman is drawn well and is fun..the one's I have listed at the start of the thread are quite honestly the best..art and storywise...IMO

Although Supergirl isn't for everyone..that's just a personal favorite...
The All Star volumes, while important and intersting historically, are hit and miss to be sure..mostly because of the range of art from horrible to really nice..each charcter has a different artist..so that's a small problem...

#187811 2003-06-15 2:25 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Pig Iron:
The All Star volumes, while important and intersting historically, are hit and miss to be sure..mostly because of the range of art from horrible to really nice..each charcter has a different artist..so that's a small problem...

What? Within each story?

I was an avid reader of All-Star Squadron as a kid (which I wish they would reprint as a collected work),so I'm pretty keen on reading the old All-Star Comics issues.

#187812 2003-06-15 5:09 AM
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I don't really enjoy too many comics of the 60s or beyond, so I'm really waiting for the Archives to start covering the 70s!

The Batman stories just tended to be hard going to get through - It took me ages to read the second volume because I kept putting it down and reading other stuff, I got through a Marvel essential trade before going back to Bats!

#187813 2003-06-15 9:33 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave:
quote:
Originally posted by Pig Iron:
The All Star volumes, while important and intersting historically, are hit and miss to be sure..mostly because of the range of art from horrible to really nice..each charcter has a different artist..so that's a small problem...

What? Within each story?


...having just cheked ebay, I see what you're talking about. The stories rarely had the heroes team-up - usually they were individual stories with each section drawn by a different artist.

#187814 2003-06-15 7:43 PM
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Yeah, basically you would see them together at the beginning and the end of the issue. Each issue was huge in page count so it probably wasn't feasable to have just one artist...the less important charcters like the Atom get lesser artists..I like Dr Mid-Nite, but he was a lesser character and only got a so-so artist...


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