Comments on: Collection as Blackmail?

By: Johanna

Johanna — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 01:34:36 +0000

Jer, yeah, I went for the overly exaggerated catchy headline. But the problem with efforts like this is that the people who most want to see the series end are presumably the same people who already own the comics in at least one format. There are a lot of great historical collections coming out, but few of them do much marketing to new readers.

And agreed on the edgy/quaint continuum.

By: Daynah

Daynah — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 23:01:05 +0000

Comic book stores refusing to sell books? I haven’t felt that ways with the stores I work with, though, admittedly, it be a popular practice is packets. What is more likely (heck, I did it!) is that comic books employees are more likely to push the books that they like and not push the books that the don’t. I would happily fire someone who didn’t sell a Liefield out of protest of his art.

By: Jer

Jer — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 19:09:15 +0000

Eh. I didn’t read it as “blackmail” but rather as a test for the demand for the series. If it does well, that would indicate that there’s someone out there who might want to read it and IDW (or someone else, I suppose) might be willing to commit to publishing it. OTOH, if the collection tanks it’ll pretty much be a nail in the coffin for the series and we can all stop wondering if he’ll ever end it.

I’d be surprised if the collection does that well, actually. I enjoyed the book well enough back in the day, but I’m not sure that the market as it stands right now is really going to be all that interested in Byrne’s take on the “people with superpowers who aren’t really superheroes” genre. It was fairly “edgy” for its time, but now it seems almost quaint.

(I just re-read my collection of issues last summer – I have the entire series, and I enjoyed it quite a bit when it first came out. Now I’m not sure if I care whether he finishes it or not – either it hasn’t held up well with age or my tastes have radically shifted.)