BIG news on Showcase collected editions

[Super Monkey]

However, I'll go to a comic book store this weekend and see if they have the Superman one in stock.

I think you missed this part: paperbacks are scheduled to arrive in stores on September 14

I may have missed an earlier thread on these books, but are they basically DC's answer to the "Essentials"? (I'm all for it.) Super Monkey's post says, "Originally offered..." I must have missed them the first time around (??) - Were they in hardcover before?

Yes, they are DC's answer to Marvel's Essentials. DC will only do the Sliver Age and up. When they were originally announce they were suppose to cost $16.95, but now they will be offered at $9.95, however it may only be the 1st run then it might go back to $16.95  :?  There never were any plans to make hardcover versions, these are cheapo reprints and that's the whole point  :mrgreen:

[Aldous]

I think you missed this part: paperbacks are scheduled to arrive in stores on September 14

I did. Thanks.

these are cheapo reprints and that's the whole point

Yes! Quite. I grew up on "cheapo reprints" so I'm happy with more of what I know and love!

[nightwing]

Good call, Aldous.  Yep, my oldest is two and 4 months.  And while he is, believe it or not, reading (! -- and writing words and simple sentences), he's not ready for comics yet.

But when the day comes, I'd like to be ready with some good material.  Not to mention heading off his messing with my Archives!  

[dto]

Showcase Presents Superman Vol. 1 is now on store shelves, and I took a quick look through it today.  (I’ll purchase my copy this weekend – I prefer supporting my local retailer.)  At $9.99 for over 500 pages it’s an EXCEPTIONAL value and I highly recommend this, even for those who already have the color archives – this is the copy you thumb through and lend to fellow fans while the hardbound archive editions remain locked away.   :wink:

The black and white artwork is sharp and nicely printed, which brings up an interesting question.  I’ve tried scanning old comics before, and I’ve despaired over cleaning up all the yellowed pages, washed out inks, off-registered color runs and other flaws.   :cry:   Would it be easier to simply scan these black and white pages and simply add color via “ye olde Photoshop paint bucket”?  Sure, it might be tedious for longer stories, but you don’t have to worry about trying to digitally fix old scans with checkerboard Moiré patterns in the colors and uneven fading.

[nightwing]

Why would you want to scan them when they're already available in such a cheap format?  Reading books beats reading a computer screen anyway...

[Great Rao]

Why would you want to scan them when they're already available in such a cheap format?  Reading books beats reading a computer screen anyway...

Agreed.  What I'd really like to see is for DC to scan the actual old comics and do high-quality color reprints of those.  Eclipse did a few Spirit reprints that way and they were fantastic.  This would be a vast improvement over DC's current Archive "restoration" mess, and probably a lot simpler for them to do.

They can ask me for help if they want, I've done a lot of work like along those lines. :wink:

[dto]

Actually I was thinking about scanned stories for this site.  I had a miserable time dealing with DC Comics Presents Annual #1, and that was  only 23 years old.  (And my mail server kept choking on the attachments -- I still don't know if Rao got all my pages.)  Trying to eliminate the yellow overcast due to deteriorating paper without further throwing the already-washed-out colors off is difficult, especially when complicated by faded black artwork and printing that requires more contrast and saturation.  Also, when scanning comics at high dpi you frequently have the four-color printing break up into "polka dots", but smoothing out these dots into an uniform color is tedious work and tends to further blur the image.

[Great Rao]

If you're sending pages in, don't bother to clean them up, I can do that if it's required.  But I don't have a strong interest in stories that are available in current reprints, time would probably be better spent hunting down good stories that are difficult to find.  That's one of the things that makes the reprints here valuable resources.

As far as the DCCP Annual goes, I probably won't add it to the site because, in spite of the great idea of having the E-2 Superman and the E-1 Superman together, it's a Marv Wolfman story and I really didn't like it that much.