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Underground > Comic Books >

Invisibles, Volume 3

Ronald Thomas Clontle

16:52 / 09.11.01

So when are they going to release the trade collecting this?

I finally read through series 2, and fell in love with the Counting To None and Kissing Mr. Quimper books especially...I'm dying to know how the hell it all ends now, and I haven't seen anything on Grant's site or on Amazon to suggest the volume is currently in the works...

anyone willing to spoil it for me? I wouldn't mind too much.

17:41 / 09.11.01

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

09:30 / 10.11.01

that really does not answer the question, and neither can i, but i MUST know, afraid to loan out me originals, had to go to san diego to get em

13:25 / 10.11.01

Vertigo editor Heidi McDonald, who posts on the Warren Ellis forum, sez the third volume will be out in one fat trade in late 2002.

She also sez that, quite frankly, she thinks we (Internet fandom in general) are a bunch of whining pissants for continually asking about it.

Niiiiiiiiiice. And people wonder why Vertigo's not as mighty as it used to be...

14:05 / 10.11.01

Better watch it Jack, one more comment like that and Ellis will drop by to call you "shit eyes" and take away your posting privileges. Then everyone will laugh and tell Warren how funny he is...

14:19 / 10.11.01

Bring it on. Flyboy say Jack Fear am Bizarro Warren Ellis.

Besides, Warren's never been shy about criticizing Vertigo editorial policies in the past--including this one--even when the editors involved are his personal friends.

[ 10-11-2001: Message edited by: Jack Fear ]

Ronald Thomas Clontle

16:51 / 10.11.01

late 2002? I would love to know the reason why they are putting it off so long, especially considering that it's author now pens the bestselling comic in the industry.

One would think you'd want to milk that, right?

17:53 / 10.11.01

I'm sure it's just a bad business decision.

Either that, or it's to make everyone really mad. And by everyone, I mean, you, Flux = *******

20:43 / 10.11.01

now IF the comics industry was like any other entertainment medium - journalists would be flocking for comment and interviews with Ms McDonald. She would be asked A) Why she feels that now would not be an ideal time to capitalise on Morrisons success with marvel by rereleasing his DC back catalogue and B) why she feels such distain towards such desstain towards readers of comics that are paying her wages.

This being the COMICS industry however The Comics Journal will reply with an in depth interview with a critically acclaimed artist whose comics they co-incidentally publish, Wizarad will tell you how cool it is to laminate your comics into an forever unreadablew 'slab' and comics international will remian largely irrelevant .

Ronald Thomas Clontle

09:48 / 11.11.01

Yes. There is no good reason that Morrison's ENTIRE back catalog isn't available in paperback format... The man's name clearly sells... Why not, for example, release Grant's Doom Patrol series as four or five trades, and market them by saying "hey! Grant writes New X-Men, the best selling comic in the world! buy Doom Patrol, because they are kinda like DC's answer to the X-Men and he wrote it and it got all this crazy acclaim!".

Same goes for Shade... "hey! Peter Milligan writes X-Force! Chris Bachalo drew X-Men and does that Steampunk thing! Mark Buckingham does Spider-Man! buy this!"

It just sounds like they are unwilling to capitalize on the strength of Marvel's achievements because they would be forced to say something nice about Marvel on the back cover...

Meanwhile, in the real world, people will try to sell their entertainment products in the most degrading ways to cash in on someone else's success...

09:52 / 11.11.01

Isn't there a whole sackload of bad feeling between Grant M and DC, Vertigo in particular?

Ronald Thomas Clontle

09:52 / 11.11.01

So? Why should that keep people who are in the business of selling comics from making money of his work when they own the copyright? Any other media company would use the fact that they own the copyright to their advantage...

09:52 / 11.11.01

Dunno, just thought it may be a contributory factor to the non-appearance of GM DC work.

On the other hand, DC have always had something against releasing Morisson trades - personally, I've never seen why they didn't release DP collections when he started writing JLA. Would I be right in thinking that common business sense and the comics industry don't usually go hand in hand?

Our Lady of The Two Towers

09:52 / 11.11.01

Seeing as most Vertigo titles Ms. Macdonald has started up have been failures, even the ones that have been reboots of old titles I'm not surprised that she's in the position where she starts lashing out at all and sundry, it also explains why she doesn't post to rec.arts....vertigo any more, JMS was doing a similar thing when Babylon 5 started going a bit shit in season 4...

Ronald Thomas Clontle

10:55 / 11.11.01

See, calling them failures in light of bad promotion several years ago is no good excuse... now they have marketing clout for these properties that didn't exist back then. They have a comics market that is pushing in the favor of collected works.

I'm sure that a BIG BIG BIG part of why those comics didn't sell huge initially was that they were sold in single issue serialization, alienating the majority of the people on the planet who would be interested in what was in those comics.

17:16 / 11.11.01

Originally posted by Flux=*******

Why should that keep people who are in the business of selling comics from making money off his work when they own the copyright?

They don't own the copyright, as far as I'm aware...

Grant does.

20:33 / 12.11.01

quote:Originally posted by All-Loving SMatthewStolte:
Either that, or it's to make everyone really mad. And by everyone, I mean, you, Flux = *******

And me. It'll probably take ephemerat twice that long to pull his finger out and lend it to me.

I am desperate.

Ronald Thomas Clontle

22:37 / 12.11.01

quote:Originally posted by Not Me Again:

They don't own the copyright, as far as I'm aware...

Grant does.

I know that, but doesn't DC/Vertigo has exclusive rights to production and distribution or something like that?

it's not as though Grant can just up and say "from now on, Marvel Comics will be putting out Invisibles trades" or something, am I right?

00:18 / 13.11.01

I'd love to see Shade collected in a trade... it's the comic I credit with revitalizing my comic-addiction when crap like the X-men burned me out of my junkie kingdom. DPatrol trades... yum. Animal Man? I want to know why not... that being said, though, I've gotten a perverse pleasure out of buying back issues of all of the above fo 75 cents apiece at "legit" bookstores that just didn't know what they were giving away....

10:43 / 13.11.01

quote:Originally posted by Jack Fear:
Vertigo editor Heidi McDonald, who posts on the Warren Ellis forum, sez the third volume will be out in one fat trade in late 2002.

She also sez that, quite frankly, she thinks we (Internet fandom in general) are a bunch of whining pissants for continually asking about it.

Niiiiiiiiiice. And people wonder why Vertigo's not as mighty as it used to be...

This is why I'm slowly leaving comics altogether. I once e-mailed Heidi to inquire about the release date of a book (one of a series), and when she (surprisely) replied, I asked about the release date of another, and she pissingly replied that comic books fans are never satisfied, "the more we publish, the more you keep asking for".

My jaw dropped. I mean, doesn't DC want to make money? Shouldn't she be happy that they have fans who want their lame product?

I've been buying DC for over two decades, but I've been cutting back considerably. I'm finding I'm becoming less interested in comics and more into DVD's and prose work.

People like Heidi make leaving comics very easy.

[ 13-11-2001: Message edited by: CHUPACABRA ]

13:57 / 16.11.01

i'm sure that if it was up to heidi to magically wave a wand and have the books appear she would do it. instead, she, like all DC editors has a difficult, low-paying job that keeps her incredibly busy and bouncing from one exec decision to another over which she has little control. It takes huge effort and lots of time to collect monthlies, redesign the books, contract out a cover, allocate a horrendously limited budget, set up a business / marketing / distribution plan, settle up contact and royalty issues while doing the same for all the other books that need to come out first.

her frustration probably stems from the fact that comic fans refuse to accept all of these factors, refuse to accept that all these books are produced by a handful of adults working literally around the clock to make them happen. i'm sure its a big drag to go through all the effort to edit these projects when all fans wind up doing is complaining about how long it takes. talk about thankless fucking work.

yawn - thing's buddy

18:57 / 17.11.01

word mystery - but if the biggest company in the hypersphere can't manage it, who the fuck can?

know wot I meanman?

00:36 / 13.11.02

I don't know if this is the right thread to bring up (seeing as there's a number of "When's the Volume 3 Trade Coming Out?" threads), but in the "Coming Out This Wednesday" link on iFanboy.com, therein lies this tidbit of info:

"INVISIBLES TP #7 THE INVISIBLE KINGDOM (MR) $19.95"

I dunno if this is true or not (this same list says that the Cowboy Bebop Zippo lighter is out that same date, but Dark Horse's website posted that it's not out until Dec.), but a heads-up just in case...

02:35 / 13.11.02

I spoke to my editor on that book today and I can indeed confirm that it's out in shops this week.

Remember, new art!

12:56 / 14.11.02

trades are a tricky business. when grant was dc's big gun on jla, this did not necessarly impact sales on invisibles or save aztek, and remember grant morrison isnt making x-men the biggest seller, its been that way for 20 years, despite the fact that the book has been almost universally described as unreadable by many people. a company like dc will only budget for a certain # of trades in a given year, and lets face it theyll make more $ by pumping out new superman, batman, and jla trades. im glad they have finally gotten around to invisibles, and animal man, as well as moores swamp things, but they are in this for $$ and always have to answer to bean counters moreso than readers

15:45 / 15.11.02

well there goes a theory that dc is just a legal holding-port for some hot t.w.aol franchises and tax-write-off, and that the company is prevented from making too much money each year for the latter reason. don't sound that likely to me.