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Underground > Comic Books >

Waiting For The Trade

  
 
miss wonderstarr
08:26 / 24.08.04
During the late 80s and early 1990s, during an immersion in Vertigo's spooky world of intelligent dark fantasy, I bought monthly comic books. I say monthly, but effectively my trips to Skinny Melink's emporium were bi-weekly: Shade on the 6th, Hellblazer on the 10th, Doom Patrol on the 14th, Sandman on the 19th, Animal Man on the 24th, and so on. It all went mentalist when Vertigo souped up their line and sent me slavishly into fast-forward, knowing they only had to announce a new monthly or mini-series to send me out for issue #1: Enigma, Sebastian 0, Black Orchid, Kid Eternity.

I have just been spending a considerable amount of money on storage for these trophies, which with hindsight range from fabulous to piss-takingly poor. As they're all individually bagged, they're in great condition but not especially convenient to read. If I want to go back over the whole Shade storyline, I have to dig out a box of 50 issues, spread them before me in the right order and undo the decade-old sellotape on each, carefully leafing thru the pages and sliding them back into their protective covering as it'd be a crime to spoil them after they've been kept nice for so long.

This is so much hassle that in practice I'm more likely to buy the collected trade paperback and read that instead.

During my three-year scholarly obsession with Batman in the late 90s I relapsed into the practice of buying a comic as it came out, and this time had the newer pleasure of discussing it on Jonah Weiland's CBR on the day of publication... JLA Year One, DC One Million, The Nail. There was a real Saturday-morning-pictures excitement about waiting for the next episode and having a cliffhanger actually mean something.

But in the 21st century it's been trade paperbacks all the way for me: waiting patiently for a new Planetary or Top Ten, buying up The Invisibles in book form. I ignored The Filth until it was out as a collected graphic novel. The payoff of convenience and cost over excitement seemed something I could deal with.

UNTIL NOW. I managed to stay away from Seaguy during its 3 issues, telling myself it'd be out as a book in Jan 05. But I don't think I can wait that long to read We3. And Seven Soldiers is apparently a year-long, multi-title epic along the lines of DC One Million -- a comic that makes no sense whatsoever as a graphic novel, because it drew in so many other monthlies as a crossover and wove thru the DCU.

So it looks like I might have to pick up at least one of GM's new titles the old-skool way, building up a collection of thin volumes that I'll dutifully bag and find it incredibly hard to dig out and read in the future.

HOW ABOUT YOU? do you sit on your wallet until a series comes out in trade, knowing it'll be cheaper and easier to read that way? Something like the Filth arguably only makes sense when you lose yourself in the entire work.

or do you prefer the rush of picking up a comic as it appears, enjoying the anticipation and the immediacy of discussing an unfinished work in progress?
 
 
sleazenation
09:08 / 24.08.04
The answer is - it depends

Undeniablely graphic novels (or 'thick comics' as they should most accurately be called) have many benefits from the lack of adverts through to increased length and often cheaper price and improved paper and for my money win out over comics in all but two areas.

The first of these is frequency - with comics I am really enjoying, I like the fact that i'll be getting a new installment each month rather than each year.

The second is knowing that the issues often underwrite the series making its collection possible. Perhaps this factor is on the wane as publishers increasingly wake up to the reality of the bookshop market which is the source of an ever larger and ever more diverse readership.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
09:22 / 24.08.04
I'm going to add one point to each side of the equation:

thick comics usually have an introduction, sketchbook, new cover and added bonus material.

thin comics sometimes NEVER COME OUT as collected volumes. Only now, to the best of my knowledge, are they doing the decent thing with Shade and Animal Man. Flex Mentallo is the notorious example of a comic that would have totally jinxed anyone waiting for the graphic novel. My nightmare is that Seaguy runs into some copyright issue and is only available on ebay for £50, like the Zenith collected volumes (another prime example... why the fuck is it proving so hard to reissue those? I own every episode but they're all in box files and not exactly easy to read when you have to flick through "Dry Run" and "Tao de Moto" to get to the next bit.)
 
 
Dan Fish - @Fish1k
09:52 / 24.08.04
I have been waiting for the hardcovers for New X Men and Daredevil, cos they are just too pretty. Other stuff, like Hulk, I have picked up in trades, cos they are cheap off Amazon, and handy for reaching the free postage quota.

Most other stuff I have no problem with buying the individual issues. I don't indiviually bag issues - I have normally 6-8 issues in one bag (normally the equivalent content of the trade), so it is considerably less hassle for me.
 
 
Axolotl
11:32 / 24.08.04
I personally prefer the individual comic. Trades are printed on better paper, don't have any adverts and are objectively much better. However nothing beats that happy feeling when you see the next issue of a story that you're really enjoying. Individual issues are also more pleasing in a tactile sense, easier to read and it's much more fun having a big stack of back issues than a couple of glossy trades. As for the relative ease of reading, if bagging your back issues means you can't (or won't) read them: take them out of the bags. Comics are meant to be read, not collected.
 
 
adamswish
11:40 / 24.08.04
score one for the monthlies.

I view Trade Paperbacks as a back up, a safety net if you will. But in the whole I like the feel of individual comics. And I love the fact that to read a section of Sandman, The Invisibles, Transmetropolitan or whatever I have to dig out several issues and lay them out to the side of me and work my way through them.

And trade paperbacks can backfire with their layout. I noticed in the TPB of "Marvel Boy" that a couple of the superb double page spreads were killed now that the adverts weren't there to regulate the layout.

But I did get the "Invisible Kingdom" TPB, for the new artwork, and I'm on the lookout for the final TPB of "Bone" (missed one poxy issue towards the end and knackered my collection [escaping inner geek speaks], and yes I have seen the Complete Bone collection TPB too).

So what I'm saying I guess is TPBs allow us to dip into other titles, or complete collections (I know it helped me get up to speed on Sandman and Transmet, but it was single issues after that). But I have to say I enjoy the single issues more.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
12:00 / 24.08.04
-----
As for the relative ease of reading, if bagging your back issues means you can't (or won't) read them: take them out of the bags. Comics are meant to be read, not collected.
-----

well, that's debatable. one doesn't really exclude the other. the comics I like are really lovely and precious to me, so I don't want to mess them up any more than I'd want to damage the sleeve of an album I really like... and being quite fragile, they do get messed up if you don't take care of them. Older comics get so brittle you can't read them easily without hurting the pages. Bags stop you from bending back or ripping the cover as you slide it onto a shelf or whatever.

The idea of storing a story arc within a single bag is a good compromise on reflection, but the thing is that I bought all these comics bagged, so that's how they've remained. I'm not aiming to make any money out of them or hoping that they'll become some kind of currency in the future. they're just an important part of my life, and often valuable works of art to me in a personal sense, so I'd like to take fairly good care of them.

there is a good argument for individual comics that you get the letters pages, editorials and adverts... I do enjoy those period features, like the Twinkies comic ads with the JLA, or Atari/Nintendo promotions with really primitive screenshots. I had a lot of letters in those Vertigo comics and met some pals through the forums, so although my contributions are intensely embarrassing to me now, they're also a part of my personal comic-book history and I suppose I became "part of the text" in a small way.

what was the extra artwork in the Invisible Kingdom TPB? i just bought the book this week, having neglected the Invisibles monthly since Steve Yeowell deserted art duties around issue #5.

apologies for haste.
 
 
Dan Fish - @Fish1k
12:12 / 24.08.04
Ashley Wood's bits were redrawn by Cameron Stewart to be closer to the script, and GM's vision.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
14:11 / 24.08.04
Thanks that was a very interesting comparison. Don't want to take my own thread off-topic but it's odd how the first artist -- while I prefer this work technically to the second -- seems either ignorantly to misunderstand or arrogantly to ignore Grant Morrison's instructions.

On the other hand, it's not easy to know what someone wants if the script reads like "and now the tree of all humankind the truest vision of our beetle-selves spunking out into magic-mirror primordial soup".
 
 
Axolotl
15:44 / 24.08.04
Kovacs, I agree about keeping your comics nice and I hate it if one gets torn or tea gets spilt on it or whatever. I too have some bagged and boarded comics because that's how my local shop sells its back issues. It's always worth keeping your stuff nice, but not at the expense of being able to enjoy it, that's all.
I never thought about the period features but I have a shed load of old 60s and 70s comics I inherited and now I think about it all the old adverts and so on do add a certain something to the experience. However the adverts in modern comics piss me off, partly due to the (false?) assumptions they make about the nature of comic readers.
 
 
Billuccho!
16:32 / 24.08.04
Personally, I prefer singles (some call them floppies, or pamphlets, or monthlies, or whatever, but my preferred term is simply 'singles') to trades or GNs. The trades are wonderful, of course, for those series that I missed the first time around and will probably never find full runs of in singles. You know, like Watchmen, or V, or Invisibles, Animal Man, Doom Patrol, any of that. I'm glad they're coming out with those. But if it's a currently-running title, I'd rather pick up the singles than the trades. The singles are glorious, and frozen in time... I love going back and reading the letters pages, and seeing those damned Hostess ads. Right now, sure, most titles, high-profile or not, are going to be traded. But for Superman Birthright, I'm waiting for the inevitable softcover because I couldn't find a single, er, single, after #3. For Adam Strange, I may wait for the trade simply because I don't know if I could afford the singles each month on top of the other books I get. Yet, for those struggling titles like Gotham Central, or Human Target, I've gotta buy the singles, because it supports the sales numbers and helps bring about the availability of a trade. Plus, there are those titles I just can't wait for, and need a 'fix' of each month, like my favorite drug. This was Seaguy, and now my mouth is watering for We3. I just know I'm going to end up getting all of Seven Soldiers in singles form. The trades may be prettier packages, but the singles feel more visceral to me. It's true serial comics.

As for the bag/no-bag argument... My way is simple, anyway. If I bought it bagged, it generally stays bagged. If I didn't, unless it's a highly prized issue for some reason, it stays unbagged. The full Simonson Thor run I bought on eBay (for a price much cheaper than the trades)? It came two-issues-to-a-bag, with board. So that's how it stays. This, at least, keeps it simple. Plus I really don't even know where to buy bags and boards anyway... I'm not sure if my shop stocks them.

And anyway, you could buy both singles *and* trades, if you're into that sort of thing. I had a nice trade of Batman Adventures lying around that I don't even remember cracking open, and I have all the singles, worn and beat up from so many reads. So I gave the trade to my cousin's five-year-old son, and he was ecstatic. I figure a trade's harder to destroy than a cheap floppy single. Or you can read the singles as they come out, buy the trade when the run's finished, and give away the singles (as I hear some posters here have done). I think it's a great way of getting others into comics.
 
 
Simplist
18:03 / 24.08.04
I mostly buy trades these days for all the obvious reasons (see previous posts in this thread or any similiar thread on any other comic book message board), but also because I just can't be bothered anymore with committing to monthly books with all that implies, ie. having to visit the store weekly, keeping track of shipping schedules, etc. I find it more easeful and ultimately more satisfying to simply wait until I have a complete story in front of me, or alternately (in the case of ongoing books) a more satisfyingly large chunk of the story than a twenty-two page pamphlet can provide. Because really, very few comics are sufficiently compelling in twenty-two page installments to feel worth the hassle of following monthly.

There are of course exceptions; I followed NXM through to the end, bought Seaguy, will certainly get We3. I also often buy first issues of interesting-looking new series (or creator runs within series) as samplers for the eventual trades, and occasionally these do prove compelling enough that I go back for issue two, Ex Machina being the most recent example. A counterexample, OTOH, would be Ultimate Nightmare, which looks high-quality, but will pretty clearly be a frustrating read in monthly format; thus, wait for the trade.
 
 
Triplets
18:10 / 24.08.04
For me, if it's going to be a long run like NXM I'll wait for the trade as it saves trekking back and forth weekly/monthly and it works out as a shitload cheaper than getting individual issues. Plus the usual bonus material, however scant and improved paper quality and binding.

If it's a miniseries like Seaguy or We3 I'll just get them monthly, like someone said above the little thrill fix you get is quite enjoyable and reminds me of when I used to collect 2000AD.

I did get the trade of the Filth tho, so it seems on average anything over 8 issues is going to have to wait for me to spring for the trade.
 
 
Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo
19:26 / 24.08.04
I hate that they don't put more work out as trades, and Marvel's new plan of putting just about everything out as trades strikes me as a wise one. Comics seem to be in a transition time, much like fiction was a long time ago, from serialization to completed works.

The best example is that SF was considered crap until they stopped publishing everything as serials in magazines and started coming out with hardcover complete novels. I wonder if SF autors of the time were as resistant to issuing novels as a lot of older comics pros seem to be now. People like Byrne and Claremont seem to be working to make it so their work CAN'T be collected by having endless run-on soap opera stories as if it is still the 70-'s and you need to hook people by making them think that Craptacual Man may be dropped into a lava pit next issue.
 
 
NezZ the 2nd
08:34 / 25.08.04
Well I completey buy trades. Mainly because I like having the story all at once, and I do not have to think about sold out comics, and their respective mark ups in price. I can also afford trades now, so I can 2-4 at a time, and I have quite a collection now.

I can put my trades on book shelves, and the format encourages my brothers and friends to read them as well. I still actively seek out new and indie comics through trades, but unfortunately, some do not make it to this stage.

The only major shake up I have ran into recently is the cancellation of Wildcats and Stormwatch, and the announcement that DC will not be continuing the trades for these books. Which means that I will most probably be obliged to get the back issues.

As for the bag/no bag issue, I recently felt that comics should be read, and as I do not have anything particularly expensive or old, I have taken all my comics out of their bags to be read whenever.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
10:19 / 25.08.04
I buy comics individually if I can get all of them- if I've missed the first couple and it looks like it's gonna be a frustrating read, I'll wait (basically I don't like reading the ending to anything until I've read all that precedes it).

Usually, due to storage issues and my inability to not lose stuff, I buy the trades when they come out and give away/sell the individual issues which I no longer have any use for, believing (as others have said already) that they're for reading, not bagging. (This is something that's irked me since I worked in a comic shop- if you're buying something purely for its resale value later, and the actual nature of the artifact means nothing to you, you may as well speculate on the stock exchange. The possible returns are larger, and I hear it's more exciting. Apart from which, if I can't get hold of something because it's become rare, I at least like to think that the people who got there before me are actually USING it, and hopefully enjoying it, y'know?)

I certainly prefer reading stuff in trade form- but I'm also kind of impatient, and there is something kind of nice about having the latest issue of whatever to look forward to (Seaguy, for example, turned me briefly back into the sad fanboy I was before working in said comic shop put me off comics for a very long time- I was counting days and shit.)
 
 
Alex's Grandma
11:30 / 25.08.04
The monthlies myself, but then these days really, I don't much collect. Every couple of weeks, I tend to shuffle off down to the local emporium, pick up my haul like a man in a raincoat, and if it's not by George and it isn't on Vertigo, it tends to get read in a pub near the shop, ( a pub, incidentally, where there isn't much chance of seeing anyone I know, comics these days being a guilty pleasure, one best pursued furtively, in anonymous rooms, ) and then disposed of quietly, once I've had my fill.

I realise it's decadent, but what can I do ? Being caught with a copy of Ultimate Spiderman... I'd almost rather explain about Asian Babes.

Anyway, sorry and everything. I will now go back to torturing kittens.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
11:43 / 25.08.04
Surely there's some middle ground between believing it's best to read a comic and then give it away to "spread the word", and buying a comic just for its future resale value, rather than for enjoyment of the stories and art?

I've expressed my position above pretty fully, I think, but I really enjoy reading monthly comics when I'm into that routine, but then also really enjoy having them, keeping them, collecting them and by extension, trying to preserve them in reasonable nick.

Vinyl pop singles (45s) can provide gorgeous throwaway thrills, a hit of energy like a great monthly comic. Does that mean you're almost obliged to literally throw or give them away when you've played them a few times? Does having a collection of vinyl, which you enjoy owning and sometimes go back to, looking at the cover art and remembering the part of your life they evoke, mean you're a cynical stock speculator?
 
 
sleazenation
11:54 / 25.08.04
But do people actually by singles - particularly on vinyl anymore? According to the sales figures it is increasingly becoming a niche market as the way we interact with music changes - I'd argue that a vaguely comparable change is also currently gripping the comics medium.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
12:04 / 25.08.04
Well, yeah I don't buy singles on vinyl anymore and I don't buy comic book monthlies either. But I used to! and I enjoyed both the instant buzz and the pleasure of owning sometimes-beautiful objects that meant a lot to me.

Maybe my shifting shopping patterns are to do with getting older and comparatively richer: I wouldn't have spent £50 in one shot on tpbs when I was 21, as I just stupidly did yesterday, and a £1.20 comic was usually affordable even when I was buying 10 of them per month.
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
12:36 / 25.08.04
Last week I bought the hardcover collection of the first year of Waid/Weiringo Fantastic Four. I read it in four days. Then I bought the next two trades that came after in, and read them in two days. I'm addicted and I need another fix, but I like having the sets of trades and I'm reluctant to go after the individual issues that I haven't read yet. Obvs, it will all be out in trades (I think that the fifth in the series will be out in a month or two), but now I'll see the invididual issues on the racks and it will KILL MY SOUL to put off reading them.
 
 
Bed Head
13:08 / 25.08.04
Does that mean you're almost obliged to literally throw or give them away when you've played them a few times?

Well, no. But surely, part of the reason silver age comics, or pulp magazines, or 60s vinyl have become valuable today is precisely because they weren’t seen as worth keeping at the time: they were throwaway mediums, examples of which were mainly, er, thrown away, and so only a few decent copies still exist decades later. Isn’t that right? Whereas now you’ve got a ludicrous situation with a whole network of shops and distributers dedicated to providing fans with their comics pre-bagged, somehow feeding this illusion that they’re actually worth preserving for financial reasons. Which is silly, if anything it makes them less valuable for any reason other than the aesthetic/sentimental ones. Comics are to be read, not bagged, and 99% of your comics *won’t* significantly increase in value, whether they’re ever exposed to the air or not. And the collectors market has skewed the entire medium in some way, which trades, being sold in normal bookshops 'n all that, are just about starting to redress. I mean: comics which are *just* for reading! What a revolutionary idea!
 
 
miss wonderstarr
13:44 / 25.08.04
I take your point and I do think the industry reached, is perhaps still in, a stupid state where people were buying up every holographic-cover #1, with the consequence that of course that issue wasn't going to be worth fuck-all because everyone owned a bagged mint condition copy.

I can only repeat that I don't plan to ever sell any of my comics, even though I paid a fair amount for some of them -- it seemed a lot at the time anyway, £10 for Sandman issue #1, £15 for Doom Patrol #19, which adds up if you are trying to complete a whole run of something.

Even if they are worth more now, which I kind of doubt, I get pleasure in having them in boxes, which says a lot about me and is perhaps a bit pathetic but not as sad as thinking I'm going to make money from them one day.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
14:26 / 25.08.04
I don't think there's anythng *wrong* with putting comics in plastic bags - after all, if the cover tears off or the staples go, it might affect your enjoymnet of reading it. It's just personal choice...like the way some people like to keep their CDs in the boxes, and others pile them around the hi-fi - it involves less organisation and makes it easier to get to the stuff you use most often, but leads potentially to disorganisation and a reduced lifespan.

I just bough longboxes, mainly because they are the most space-efficient storage for comics, but they are stored in them unbagged and currently unordered, and will be until I have a lot more time on my hands.

Sorry, not really about monthly and trades, is it? Will pop back later...
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
14:52 / 25.08.04
I don't disagree with you on that, kovacs- the reason I give mine away or sell them is because I don't have much room. What I was objecting to WASN'T look after your prized possessions, but buying them (or even being interested in comics) purely for their supposed monetary value. If I had the space and could afford to, it'd be nice to keep all my comics, yes, bagged and acid-free-boarded even, just because they're ace and I like them (apart from the shit ones, obviously, but you can't even GIVE those fuckers away), even if I also have the trade.

Imho, individual comics are more fun to BUY, trades are better to READ, evem though you do both with both and both are pretty fun both times.
 
 
Yotsuba & Benjamin!
15:04 / 25.08.04
I also have my books unbagged in long boxes and they've been holding up jest fine. I got too frustrated with taking them out of bags all the time. It's probably not too good for my old Claremont X-Mens, but, I have no plans to sell them.

I actually tend to double dip on books I really like. Cerebus, Sin City, and Sandman are all books that I collected monthly (or whenever) and then bought the trades when they were released just to have the nice package. I don't really do that much anymore except with New X-Men and Daredevil hardcovers (and now maybe Fantastic Four, thank you for reminding me, Matthew). I usually just buy trades to catch up on a title I recently got interested in, Y: The Last Man, The Waking Dead, etc.

I go to the store every Wednesday so I doubt I'd ever have the willpower to wait for a trade of anything.
 
 
Bed Head
15:13 / 25.08.04
I think there was a point, which I was stumbling around without actually properly saying. That, in the wider world, the single comics have come to be seen as potentially valuable items which need to be protected and preserved. My dad, ferchrissakes, has asked me why I don’t keep my comics in bags; perfectly normal people read news stories about Superman #1 fetching 10 million pounds or whatever, and naturally think maybe *you*, the weirdy comic fan, could be steadily accumulating some hugely valuable archive if you’d only stop reading them all the time. Whereas the same material, if it's in a book, is being seen as *not* likely to accumulate, and as being safe to read without gloves, over and over again. (I’m not thinking of specific instances hereabouts, just trying to pick up on the way trades are being generally presented to comics fans: the sense that you can collect the singles, keep them pristine, and read the trade. Or am I getting that all completely wrong with my useless generalisations?) And I don’t think this is just down to a trade paperback being more durable, with a spine instead of staples; it’s also to do with a weird sense of ‘value’ that’s been imposed on comics, and about publishers actually changing the format in order to prise comics away from a tiny marketplace where they’re kept in a bag and ‘collected’ in a formally prescribed sense, and into the kind of shop where books are sold for people to read. In the bath, if they so wish. When it’s a question of trades vs singles, you’re talking about the *same* artwork, just a different approach to it which is being allowed/encouraged on some level.

I reckon. Also factor into this that I quite enjoy being mean to comics, uppity little princesses that they are, and the rise of trade paperbacks will spoil all my fun.
 
 
lukabeast
22:42 / 25.08.04
I am kind of on the fence here. I enjoy getting certain titles monthly to get my fix, but some titles scream TPB to me (The Filth, new plastic Man TPB coming out). Stuff I would just like to sit down and read and enjoy in one lump sum. I am kind of scared at building up the monthly fever for too many titles..big bucks indeed..I..have no control. Lately I have been trying to buy smaller companies books monthly / bi-monthly etc, and save the "2 bigs" for the TPBs. They can more easily afford it I believe.
 
 
Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo
03:41 / 26.08.04
I'm starting to get resentful of the "run to the comic store every week or the comic might cost more" shite. I don't have to RUN to the CD store, the bookstore or the DVD rental shop...why do I have to RUSH to a comic shop to make sure I get a book?

Because comic stores are undercaptialized, publishers don't keep inventory, and comics are a weekly heroin addiction that emphasize ritual as part of their entertainment.

If I could get everything as a book at the local bookstore, I'd change over in less than a heartbeat.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
14:42 / 26.08.04
A MORAL TALE

Today! kovacs at Comic Showcase, LONDON!

[searches for We3, enjoying novelty of looking for a monthly comic on the day of publication for 1st time in years]

[no sign of We3: begins to fume remembering Barbelith post (above) expressing resentment that readers have to run slavishly to comic shop, only to find comic in question has sold out or not arrived yet.]

[asks shopkeeper: shopkeeper points to obvious rack of We3 on Vertigo shelf.]

kovacs: have you got any bagged copies?

shopman: no.

kovacs [with selfconscious, Barbelith-referential contentment]: O well! comics are meant to be read, not collected! right?

shopman: hn, whatever.

[takes We3 in bag on various trains and tubes. experiences pleasure surge. gets home. We3, almost appropriately, is already DOG-EARED.]
 
 
sleazenation
08:06 / 27.08.04
Oddly enough, I picked up a bagged copy of WE3 from GOSH purely because I'm running out of bags at home...
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
09:04 / 27.08.04
I am actually addicted, I think, to the *process* of buying comics - Thursday or Friday of almost every week I will hie myself down to the comic shop, usually Comic Showcase since it is easier to get to from work and opens late, flick through a bunch of comics, buy... so, I tend to get most of my comics as monthlies. Trades are largely either for series that I dropped out of but am interested in catching up with, or where I missed some issues or have now lost the originals, or things I have discovered subsequently - so, for example, I found a bunch of issues of the James Robinson "Starman" in the 50p box, enjoyed it, got the first trade last week and will probably get the rest over time, I imagine. Although of course the other great thing about trades is that you can get a coffee and read them in Borders.
 
 
sleazenation
09:12 / 27.08.04
Boarders is lovely but I hate them foul and fetid stench of coffee that all two often permiates from the cafe area through to the rest of the store with all the allure of mustard gas.
 
 
Simplist
16:16 / 27.08.04
But do people actually by singles - particularly on vinyl anymore?

Vinyl's probably toast as a singles format aside from the collector/fetishist market, but OTOH my fanatical iPod-user friends download enormous numbers of singles at $.99/per or whatever, so I don't think singles per se are in any real danger. Albums may very well be, though, if the download-for-pay industry continues to grow. Can't see any of this applying to comics, though--threadrot over.
 
  
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