The Sword and Laser discussion
What Else Are You Reading?
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What comics are on your pull list ?
Trike wrote:The publishing industry has claimed for years that the main reason books have increased in price is because the cost of paper was so high. Ebooks put the lie to that when they suddenly started claiming the cost was due to overhead and revealed that paper was fairly low on the expense list. Yeah the whole paper issue has been put to rest. Over on some comic book websites its been documented by many experts in the industry that paper / production is a minimal cost. Once the decision is made to print even one copy of the comic the cost for printing is largely set so printing one comic or 200,000 comics is roughly the same as a % of overall costs. The real costs come in paying all the employees who make the comics and work for the company.
Rik wrote: "Aildiin wrote: Actually the industry has been going through a nice revival the last 3-4 years.I'm not sure what you define as nice revival but in May only two books cracked 100,000 in sales: Batm..."
I was speaking on a dollar value and as I said one of the main factor is graphic novels.
So far through 5 months 2013 sales are 14% up over the same 5 months in 2012.
2012 as a whole was 14.7% up over 2011.
Sure you don't have those crazy selling marvel or dc comics anymore but you have a lot more indies and a lot more graphic novels.. ( and seeing how tired I am of super heroes tales and ever changing artists I am not going to complain if Marvel or DC sales dip..)
You can find more information here :
http://www.comichron.com/yearlycomics...
John wrote: "Aildinn,I'm really interested to see how you had your issue 8 Saga print mounted since I just got one online from Essential Sequential. Most of my other sci-fi art is mounted in black frames, bu..."
I haven't had time to get it framed yet but I just checked that site where you got it and it's the exact same price and material than what she had at the convention..
I'm liking the new Superman Unchained, aside from gimmick poster stuff and 4.99$ price...
I too liked Superman unchained, so I'm adding that to my pull list and dropping Action. I also picked up "The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys", but only had a chance to flip through it, looks like a cool story though.
Mod
I find eComics can be great value if you're prepared to wait.
There are the comics I have to have day of release but for everything else, I wait and buy the older issues. They are cheaper.
They usually reduce in price once they are 1 issue old. some are $2 cheaper after 1 month.
Comixology has 99c sales most weeks and they have a lot of free comics.
I use the Comics app on my iPad. Of all the comics app it has the best store and best viewing experience.
I read almost all of DC's "new 52" and most of Marvel's books. Personal favourites include:DC:
Red Hood and the Outlaws
Nightwing
Suicide Squad
Teen Titans
Superboy
Earth 2
Marvel:
Winter Soldier
Captain America
Venom
Scarlet Spider
All New X-Men
Aside from the few on my pull list I've been read a lot on Marvel Digital Unlimited. The Sterenko issues, Kirby's FF, Perez's Avengers. The Kree-Skrull War. Silver Surfer's first run. Ditko's Doctor Strange. Great stuff.
Does anyone know if any other companies offer an all you can read option? I'd love to read the old DC or even Archie stuff.
I've also been rereading Walt Kelly works. Both Pogo and his other Dell comics. Free download from The Digital Comic Museum. http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/ If you read a lot here, do consider leaving a donation.
Does anyone know if any other companies offer an all you can read option? I'd love to read the old DC or even Archie stuff.
I've also been rereading Walt Kelly works. Both Pogo and his other Dell comics. Free download from The Digital Comic Museum. http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/ If you read a lot here, do consider leaving a donation.
Me too David I am waiting patiently for dc to get with the program
I've been catching up on Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye. Wow. Fantastic reading. I hadn't paid attention to Transformers since I was a kid. I saw the movies (sadly) but this stuff is great! Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye, Volume 1
Hit the jackpot this week end.Got me the Grant Morisson New X-Men marvel Omnibus for 40$ in a local used book store.
It's a used copy in perfect condition except a tear on the dust jacket... Pretty good deal for a 1120 pages Omnibus with the full Morisson run...
Pull List Update:Just removed East of West, which is good but just not worth spending money on each month. In it's place I'll be adding Lazarus, which looks like a must read for Dystopia fans, and Half Past Danger, which reads like a fun mix between Indiana Jones and Jurassic Park.
Rachel Rising, Godzilla, OZ The Wicked West, Lock & Key and Futurama. I get more into indie books than mainstream but I have been getting into the old trades of Man-Thing.
Update :In the last few weeks I have added Lazarus, Wild Blue Yonder, HellHeim and X-Men by Brian Wood.
I haven't dropped anything yet but I will probably drop some DC titles soon ( I'm looking at you All Star Western)
Pathfinder is really good. Gail Simone will be writing for the Red Sonja series! I am looking forward to that. I love reading Gail Simone's work.
Hey folks, I was cruising through Kickstarter today (I knew I shouldn't start, now I'm hooked) I found a new independent comic artist, who's style I really liked, and the story sounds interesting as well. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1...Art is subjective, but based on the interests of this group, I think others might enjoy it as well. He obviously is a talented artist, but I have no clue how his storytelling is. I emailed a suggestion for him to post some finished pages with dialogue, and he replied that it was a good idea, and was going to. As he states he does have a bit of an eastern style influence (I actually see a bit more anime, then manga style), but I like the clean lines. Not the charcters, but the coloring and overall feel even remind me a bit of our beloved Miss. Staples.
Anyway Just thought I would throw that out here.
Holy crap, is anyone else reading The Wake? I have a feeling this is going to be a "don't read before bed" type comic. Eek!
The Saga trade paperbacks are definitely on my pull list. Just got volume 2.
Nancy wrote: "Holy crap, is anyone else reading The Wake? I have a feeling this is going to be a "don't read before bed" type comic. Eek!"Picked up the first one and liked it. Intended to pick up the 2nd and my shop was sold out by the time I got there. Its the only shop in 200 miles so I guess I'm trade waiting now.
Interesting news out of Marvel. Apparently Marvel Now is over and this fall we get Marvel Now 2. I'm hoping that doesn't mean they are yet again renumbering all the major books and instead its just like DC's 2nd and 3rd waves where new books are added. But I'm cynical, especially of Marvel, so it wouldn't surprise me to see renumberings across the board yet again. We know Spiderman will soon as there is no way they'll still have Doc Ock in charge when the next movie comes out. They'll want a true Peter Parker in charge so without a doubt Amazing Spiderman will relaunch before then.
Rik- Do you know if they can order it for you? My local comic shop is really good at that.I'm also curious about Marvel Now 2. Does this mean, I'll finally get my Cloak and Dagger comic?
Geez: let's see if I can remember them all...monthlies I get as they come out:
Superman
Action
The Adventures of Superman
Superman/batman
Superman/Wonder Woman
Worlds Finest
Earth 2
Supergirl
Superboy
Justice League
Justice League Dark
Justice League of America
Legion of Super Heroes
Teen Titans
Smallville season 11
Ame Comi Girls
Batman Beyond Unlimited
Batman Inc.
Batman (just Year 0)
Batgirl
Batwoman
Wonder Woman
Aquaman
Flash
Green Lantern
Green Lantern Corps
Green Lantern: New Guardians
Red Lanterns
Larfleeze
Threshold
Green Lantern Animated
The Green Team
Simones other DCU book about the 99%
Demon Knights
All Star WQestern
Animal Man
Dial H
Avengers
New Avengers
X-Factor
Thanos Rising
Infinity
Indestructible Hulk
Avengers: Earths Mightiest Heroes
Doctor Who
Doctor Who Classics
Doctor Who: Prisoners of Time
Star Trek
Super Dinosaur
X-Files season 11
Grimm
trades I get as they come out:
Daredevil
Walking Dead
trades I'm in various stages o catching up on:
Ex Machnina
Unwritten
Air
Mice Templar
Mouseguard
Steed and Ms. Peel
The Manhattan Projects
Top 10
Invisibles
Preacher
Transmetropolis
Fables
G-Man
Superbia
Gon
Strangers in Paradise
Love and Rockets
Promethea
The Guild
Girls
Marble Season
100 bullets
Ostrander Star Wars
Wood Star Wars
Northlanders
DMZ
Atomic Robo
Superman: The Dailies
I'm sure there are a crapload more trades I could list, especially if I started listing trades I intend to start on eventually, but I guess my point is: I like comics.
Revival, High Crimes, Ultimate Spiderman, Buffy Season 9, X-files Season 10
Of course not really a "pull list" anymore. Read everything digitally, and then buy the hardcover collections of my faves.
Saga won all 3 Eisner Awards it was nominated for!!!
By the way I just finished reading the first 2 Blacksad in French and I highly recommend them ( they have been translated to english by Darkhorses and just won an Eisner too)
I'm too poor to have an extensive pull list, but I get Invincible, some of the New 52s, and Invincible Iron Man. I used to get The Sword (Luna Brothers) and Echo (Terry Moore), but those ended. I'd pull The Walking Dead, but it's too late into for me to collect it myself. Has anybody read The Sword? Oh, and I get Rasl.
Ooh, Saga and Echo: 2 more I'm catching up on in trade that I forgot. I knew I'd forget a bunch...
Mikey,We talked a bit about The Sword on the first page of this thread. I very much enjoyed it. I like the concept of Rasl, but have only read a little bit of it (first issue I think). How is it over the long run?
Age of Bronze -- If you are not reading this ... try it now!! It represents that absolute height of the comic art form, simply extraordinary! Star Wars Legacy V. 2
Star Wars Dawn of the Jedi
Star Wars Darth Vader & The Ninth Assassin
Star Wars ... uh "Star Wars" ;)
Green Lantern
Green Lantern Corps
Action Comics
Superman
Justice League
Marvel "Oz"
I'd also just like to plug the Dave Mazuchelli graphic novel Asterios Polyp -- great stuff!
Also Habibi Craig Thompson.
But I am mostly re-reading old comics, my biggest project is to re-read all 300 issues of Cerebus.
I just re-read my way through Elfquest too. You do know that you can read it Free, don't you?
http://www.elfquest.com/gallery/Onlin...
Rik wrote: "Trike wrote: "I don't how people can afford to buy so many comics each month. Some of those lists are like 80-100 bucks every month. $1,200 a year? Ouch."There is a reason the comics industry is ..."
I agree. I'd love to see $1.00 G Rated comics for kids, maybe printed on newsprint paper like the old days, with really good art & stories.
Finally got around to getting my Saga 8 cover mounted. I think it turned out pretty good. Here is a link to a twitter pic of it on my front door (not staying there). http://twitter.com/JohnNevets/status/...
Saga and The Unwritten are my favorites right now. I don't really buy floppy's anymore and just wait for trades and hardcovers.
Really digging on Brian Woods, The Massive and Jeff Lemire's, Trillium as well.
There just so much good stuff to read out there in the comic world, isn't there?
Anyone have any info on how digital comics are doing?I read somewhere that DC's reboot -- which was intended to draw in new readers -- largely failed in its primary task. Most of the readers were the same ones and the only "new" ones who picked up the books were people who used to read DC but stopped. Apparently the readership is still something like 97% male.
From what I have read digital comics are doing ok but it varies greatly from one title to the next. For some titles ( Saga) they represent over 20% of sales, for others only a few percents ( which is weird as Saga is the monthly title with the highest production value in my view but I think it has a lot more to do with viral success, people hear about a title and they want to check it now and not go to a store)..As for the reboot, I would say DC did a great job with Batman and Wonder Woman, not so much with the rest of their cast.
Still in my opinion it's a lot better job than what Marvel is doing by breaking the writer/artist cooperation with their release schedule. By releasing most of their titles twice per months they make it impossible for a steady collaboration between one writer and artist to exist ( which is probably the reason Batman is so successful).
I will only give points to Marvel for their free digital copy with every 3.99$ issue ( this comes in very handy when you want to reread an old issue and don't want to un-bag it..).
Still all in all I remain mostly an Image fan as they are really doing what I want and putting new interesting titles I want to buy....
For digital comics I've been reading titles at the Digital Comics Museum. Walt Kelly, Easter, Christmas, and fairy tale titles. The Blackhawks, Captian Marvel Jr. (Raboy covers), Cole's Plastic Man, early Ditko (love his Black Fury), in Joe Palooka Comics a back-up feature, The Flying Fool by Bob Powell. Sky Girl and Torchy. Early Archie. lots of fun. http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/
Alex wrote: "Anybody else try Lazarus? 4 issues are out (and I believe a TP too)."Love Lazarus. Rucka has clearly put a lot of time and effort into this intelligent dystopian comic. Also, I like it when Forever kicks everyone's ass :)
My list has changed a bit since I last posted, so I figured I'd list them out again:Boom Studios: Supurbia (Will be wrapping up this month)
IDW: Half Past Danger (will be wrapping up next month)
Image: Lazarus, Rocket Girl, Saga
Marvel: All New X-men, Guardians of the Galaxy, Mighty Avengers, Ultimate Spider-man (also will be wrapping up this month), X-men
Vertigo: Trillium, The Wake
I'm also reading Fables, but with the trades.
Tamahome wrote: "Except for Sandman Overture?"Yeah...there are always a few exceptions. ;)
An easy question... none.
Alex wrote: "Anybody else try Lazarus? 4 issues are out (and I believe a TP too)."It's on my pull list and I love it. The bits at the end explaining the world chronology that led to the present are especially great.
I'm reading Lazarus in TP, it's very cool. However, I can't think of a Rucka project I haven't enjoyed. Even getting his Lady Saber collection off of Kickstarter.
Tamahome wrote: "Anyone checking out Paul Pope's Battling Boy trade?"Its on my Amazon wishlist and will be part of the next order I make.
It's getting rave reviews and I'm pretty excited to sink my eyes into it!!
The other day in another post I railed on the price of collected comics, specifically digital comics. I still think that the publishers could make a ton of money selling large collections (like whole 60+ issue series) for $1 dollar an issue or less all the time. But until that happens, I went looking for what deals were out there. Now Comixology has rotating sales going on all the time. I picked up the whole Planetary series a couple of years ago that way, and loved it. Right now they have "V for Vendetta" on sale, and since I've been meaning to get it for a while, I picked it up.
I then remembered that Amazon was starting to sell more comics on Kindle, so I decided to check out what they had. If you like smaller imprint stuff, they have a lot. Top Shelf does a couple of sales each year, with really good prices (one of physical books, one for digital), but even there non sale prices are better then just about anybody else out there. I stayed on the Moore train and picked up "From Hell", and the first collection of "Lost Girls".
IDW, Dark Horse, and Image had good prices on some things as well, but I didn't end up picking up anything, although I probably will get "Mystery Society", and The Finder at some point. DC/Vertigo also had some good prices, but you had to really look for them. As far as I know the prices were everyday ones. The best deals seemed to be in the kindle version of the "book" collections from Vertigo. I picked up "Book 1" of Preacher, and put a few others on my wish list for latter. I also found a few Batman Collections for a dollar an issue, both "The Long Halloween", and "The Complete Hush".
I didn't go digging for Marvel, but I'm guessing you would find something similar, some good deals, but you have to hunt. I also know they have a pretty good monthly "Netflix" style deal, but I don't read enough Marvel to make that worth while.
Now that I've written a book in this post, I think I'll go read some. Hope this info. is helpful for some other comic readers out there.
John
Marvel has deals every Monday and Friday on their site and on Comixology. Aside from that they do no have much except something called Marvel Unlimited on their website, you pay a flat fee every month and get access to all the digital comics you want ( with the caveat that recent titles are not available , all titles are at least 1 year old I think.)Basically whatever you want if you wait long enough and check those sites often you will probably find it on sale but you need to be patient.
Well, I aparently bought my Top Shelf books a week early. Oh well, there regular prices are still very good, but there sale prices are great.http://www.comixology.com/Giant-Top-S...
The Sword and Laser
Books mentioned in this topic
Batman: Year 100 (other topics)Battling Boy (other topics)
The Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye, Volume 1 (other topics)
Attack on Titan, Vol. 1 (other topics)
A Certain Scientific Railgun, Vol. 1 (other topics)
More...
I'm not sure what you define as nice revival but in May only two books cracked 100,000 in sales: Batman #20 and X-men #1. The latter book is obviously a blip due to being a #1. New 52 at DC did cause a minor spike in sales but only relative to the doldrums of the last 6-7 years. Now though things are starting to settle back to Earth. Marvel Now which is sort of a relaunch / reboot caused a lesser blip and while it did firmly put Marvel back ahead of DC its not the success that New 52 was.
You can say sales are up sharply which if you look at a % basis maybe thats true but it doesn't take much of a gain to make a big % increase when your starting from a low sales number. The telling thing is that the top selling non #1 book in May was Batman #20 and it would have been WAY BELOW cancellation range back in comic's hey day. Any book selling below 400,000 was once thought of as a failure. Now a book selling above 60,000 is considered a smash hit.