2019 Update - Lots of Big Books

It's way past time for an update on my recent purchases as I've neglected posting about these items when they arrived. But I blame Brexit and Christmas.

When I say big books I mean BIG BOOKS. That "Ditko is Amazing" is HUGE!

The book is purely an indulgence on my part as I've all the stories in the Amazing Spider-man Omnibus #1 anyway but I just couldn't resist this.

The other Marvel books are two Fantastic Four Omnibus editions. Confusingly, each is a Number One! Of course they contain different stories.

I wanted the "Fantastic Four Omnibus" because its a decent reprint of FF issues 1-30. I'm now all ready for my long delayed re-reading of Marvel history from its early days.

"Fantastic Four by John Byrne Vol 1" reprints some of my favourite stories and after looking through the originals in early December, I just got the urge to splash out on this and have the comics with much improved reproduction.

The other books are both by Alan Moore.

"Absolute Swamp Thing Vol 1" has been on my wants list for ages and I'm so pleased DC have finally got round to publishing this. My previous reprints of these comics were from very old DC trades and left a great deal to be desired. So chuffed to get this and I will read this very soon together with my Swamp Thing Omnibus!

"The Tempest" is a large HC with the last League of Extraordinary Gentlemen story. This series has been a bit hit and miss but I got this for completeness. Hope it's good!

Joker The Bronze Age Omnibus

I've gotten out of the habit of posting recently mainly because I'm not buying many comics or collections or getting the time to read the stuff I already have, My reading time has been spent on RPG books and sometime the latest Robin Hobb trilogy which I'm halfway through,

I did buy this a few weeks ago when it first came out. Some of the stories I already had but there is a good amount of new Bronze Age Batman related material for me to get my teeth into when I eventually get the time to read these collections.

It's a nice looking book too which is well put together. I'm fine that it doesn't match the style of the other Omnibus editions as it's a character themed collection rather than a title. Just like the Diana Prince edition I got at the beginning of the year.

One last point, it seems strange NOT to have any omnibus editions on pre-order. I'm really running short of room and, to be honest with myself, I've probably got enough DC collections for me to have a good idea what DC was like in the silver and bronze age. I do have two more books due before the end of the year though. These are a bit different from anything I've bought before. More on them soon.

New Omnibus Purchases

It's well past time to catch-up on this blog with What I've been buying, reading and watching.

First up are two Marvel Omnibus volumes the second of which is very close to the perfect book for me.

The Savage Sword of Conan Omnibus Vol 1 is a companion to Conan the Barbarian Omnibus I bought early on this year. It's another big book, full of stories that I've never read and a real interesting purchase for me.

John Buscema's art also looks fantastic in black and white.

By the way, I've read about half of the CtB omni. It's good but a little bit "samey" when reading one issue right after another and so after 13-14 issues I felt I needed a little break before resuming.

The second omnibus is Amazing Spider-man volume 4. This is just perfect.

The issues reprinted include my first ever Spider-man purchased story and so many other Bronze-Age classics which captured my imagination and made me a Spidey fan for life.

So even though I've all the originals of these issues (except for #129 1st Punisher) I just felt I had to get this and I absolutely love going through it. I guess it will help keep my originals in better condition.

Mister Miracle by Tom King

This run has been getting a lot of rave reviews recently and so I thought I'd give it a go after enjoying Tom King's vision run. I bought it a couple of months ago but thought I'd read it sooner rather than later as it is currently "flavour of the month" and it made a nice change from the Conan omnibus I am also currently reading.

I'm not sure that I totally got this to be honest. I was enjoying it but the ending seemed a bit anti-climatic so I'm wondering if I really understood what was going on.

Some nice art by Mitch Gerads and some neat observations on the trials of being a new parent.

Conan the Barbarian Omnibus Vol 1

I finally received my DM edition of this omnibus. I was happy to pay a little more to Forbidden Planet to get this as the regular version (which I'd actually pre-ordered from Amazon but then cancelled when this arrived) had an absolutely dreadful cover. I mean rally bad.

I was happy with a cover which reprints the cover to issue 1

Back-in-the-day, I didn't read Conan as I was very much into Marvel superheroes, so I've only previously read a small amount of Conan in the Marvel Treasury edition. So this a good value purchase for me as well as being a lovely collection.

Wonder Woman: Diana Prince Omnibus

This omnibus has just been published and it's a bit of a curiosity because it covers the time Wonder Woman was de-powered and fought crime as if she was a secret agent. These issues were originally published in the late 1960s and early 70s.

This will be interesting to read and it's nice to have some Bronze Age Wonder Woman to read.

The first of a few Omnibus editions I've on order for the first half of 2019!

Three new DC Silver Age Omnibus Editions

Legion of Super-heroes Vol 2, Supergirl Vol 2 and The Flash Vol 3 all look fantastic on my bookshelf.

No issues with the condition of any of these after shipping by Amazon. 

New Trades from the Bargain Shelf at Forbidden Planet

I like visiting Forbidden Planet in Birmingham as at least that store has items on sale unlike Forbidden Planet Coventry or Nostalgia and Comics in Birmingham.

This time I picked Vols 6,7 & 8 of Superman Chronicles for £2.99 each (but with a buy 2 get 3rd free) and a nice Darwyn Cooke Spirit trade.

I wouldn't have normally gone for Golden Age Superman but this was an exceptional offer because for £6 I got reprints of Action 37 - 47, Superman 10 - 15 and World's Finest 2 - 4. Interesting from a comics history point of view and I'm really happy with them. I think these were on sale because DC are now releasing Golden Age Superman with a new trade dress.

JLA Bronze Age Omnibus Vol 2

My copy of JLA Bronze Age Omnibus Vol 2

I can't believe it's only been a year since I bought my first DC omnibus and it was Vol 1 of this series. I loved the format so much I've bought about 10 more since then. These form all of my pre-Crisis DC collection.

My newest arrival is Vol 2 and I'm delighted to get more cool JLA stories from the dawn of the Bronze Age.

Only problem was that my copy arrived with a small tear in the dust jacket. This is the first one of these weighty tomes that has actually arrived damaged in any way. Bit of a shame.

I tried to repair the damage as much as possible.

I know I could have returned but I can live with it and, whilst I would like a pristine copy, it's the stories I'm interested in.

I've 2 more Omnibus on pre-order. My biggest problem is where the hell am I going to store them!

Thor 262

This back-issue was one of the ones I was missing from the lot I won last year. Only 99p and makes me feel warm inside not having a little gap in the collection.

Great cover too.

Final Purchases of 2017

It's New Years Eve and I thought I'd better blog about my final purchases this year before I do my annual summary early in Jan.

It's been a quiet few months in terms of print editions but I have bought some digital comics but I'll talk more about those in my annual summary.

The fact that these are both collections of DC material is typical for this year. The Omnibus line has been fantastic for me as they are lovely books and I am really keen to read this material for the first time. The only problem with these books is the space they take up on the shelf!

The Batgirl Omnibus features some Bronze Age Batman issues which is wonderful as the actual Batman Omnibus volumes are still reprinting Golden Age material and it will be years before they get this far and I need to double-dip.

New Teen Titans volume 8 will be the last one for me as I started collecting these to read the famous "Judas Contract" storyline and these collection featuring the issues immediately afterwaards appears to have a satisfactory conclusion.

DC Bronze Age Omnibus and Marvel Epic Thor

Some big collections have arrived through the post recently,

The Swamp Thing Omnibus has been on pre-order for over a year but due to DC re-solicitations and Amazon confusion I had to re-order it at a slightly higher price to make sure I got it.

This large volume covers all the issues up to the Alan Moore run which I will also buy in this format although I've got some of the original issues.

I've been coveting the Brave and The Bold Bronze Age Omnibus Vol 1 for some time but had been undecided about whether or not to buy it because I had a few issues already in other collections (particularly my Jim Aparo books) I own. However, this is a great format with oversized pages and covers before each issue (unlike the other ones I had) so I finally succumbed. It looks fab.

The Thor Epic collection is volume 3 which means when combined with my other Epics, Masterworks and original comics I currently have all the issues up to issue 267. Which is enough to be going on with.

I've a couple of other DC Bronze Age Omnibus editions on pre-order but things are generally looking pretty good in my collection right about now and I predict that 2018 will be a year I read more than I buy!!

Update on new purchases

 OK, I'll admit that it looks like I've been on a bit of a spending spree over the last month but some of these were long standing pre-orders. They are all newly published stuff too!

Catwoman by Jim Balent was only published this week.

 So was Dark Knight Volume III collection. Which looks very nice by-the-way and will definitely go to the top of my to-read pile.

 I couldn't resist this 2nd volume of the Flash Silver Age Omnibus and the New Teen Titans volume 7 collects "The Judas Contract" so it's where I'll probably finish collecting.

 I've always been curious about Planet of the Apes comics and I'd seen positive stuff about this recent collection so I went ahead and ordered it. Along with 40+ issues of the old Marvel weekly going cheap on ebay.

Speaking of going cheap, Amazon are currently running another mad sale on Marvel stuff so as well as getting a dozen or so Masterworks volumes I picked-up some "new to-me" stuff too.



  



All for crazy prices! I wish DC would do the same as I am seriously running out of space on my bookshelves!

So that's plenty to keep me going and together with reading RPG rulebooks etc I should have enough to last me for years!

DC Omnibus editions and Hardcovers

Firstly a couple of Omnibus editions. I do love these.

The Flash vol 1 was from ebay but is like new - so a good bargain.

I've binged a bit on the Legion of Super-heroes just recently and this omnibus will allow me to start from the beginning.

That will allow me to read stuff like this and hopefully enjoy it more as a result.

The final Hardcover is my last planned Harley Quinn collection. This is really a result of no-more-space on my shelves. 

Legion of Super-heroes collections

As I've said previously, I'm in a phase of being very curious and interested in silver and bronze age DC comics. I never bought any of these when I was growing up and my first "real" exposure to DC was when John Byrne left Marvel to join DC and reboot Superman.

So all this stuff is new to me.

One series that keeps coming up on the DC archives message boards is LOSH and there is a Silver Age Omnibus of their early adventures due to be released in August which is on my wishlist. In the discussions these two collections were recommended as the best stories and as it will take years for the omnibus series to reach these issues I decided to pick up the trades whilst they were still available and not out-of-print. 

"The Darkness Saga" Collects Legion of Super-Heroes #284-296 and Annual #1 and "The Curse" collects Collects Legion of Super-Heroes #297-313 and Annual #2 so these collect a considerable number of issues. 

My plan is to get the omnibus edition and the brand new collection (SUPERBOY AND THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES VOL. Collects issues #234-245.) which will give me plenty to read and hopefully an understanding of what made the Legion so popular with DC fans.

Complete Two-In-One (plus another Thor! and Nemo!)

I've now completed by collection of Marvel Two-In-One with this purchase of issue 13. As you can see from the cover scan it's not the VFN as advertised but, to be fair, the seller agreed and fully refunded me when I pointed this out. It'll do but I'd have rather have had that VFN copy.

So, just as promised back in Jan, I've now completed 1-75 of 2-in-1 which was my aim.

I also picked-up Thor #256 from a different seller as it was one of the issues missing from the lot I purchased recently. A nice copy at 99p.

And finally I decided to purchase "River of Ghosts" which is the last part of the Nemo trilogy. I didn't like only having 2/3 of the story on the shelf and this was going cheap. Oh, the completist in me can cause me trouble! 

Three new DC Silver and Bronze Age Omnibus

These are all great books. Extremely interesting to me as I've no experience with any of this stuff.

My only criticism is that the JLA vol 1 doesn't match the new trade dress of more recent volumes. Still I got it for just over £50 which is quite a bit less than Amazon's or shop prices.

More hardcovers and trade paperback collections

It's been a busy time with purchases recently although fortunately I've not spent too much as all the books were bargains. These three purchases were via the Book Depository and were approx 1/3 less than Amazon prices even accounting for P&P.

Quite a range of titles here from Bronze Age Superman, to Batman from 2000s and very recent Marvel series. In fact, I'll read the Vision Vol 2 very soon as Vol 1 was so good.

Amazon Digital bargains

A crazy sale of Marvel comics on Amazon Kindle has meant I've purchased loads of stuff at dirt-cheap prices.

I've bought

Daredevil Masterworks vols 6,7,8,10 &11 (£14.40 total)
Dr Stange Masterworks vol 2 (£2.88)
Iron Fist Masterworks Vol 1 (£2.88)
Amazing Spider-man Masterworks Vols 14 &15 (£5.76)
Avengers vs Thanos collection (£4.67)
Irredeemable Ant-man Vol 1 (£0.99)
Wolverine:Logan (£0.72)
X-Men: God Loves: Man Kills Graphic Novel (£0.60)
Black Widow by Mark Waid Vols 1 &2 (£4.32)

An unbelievable amount of stuff. Some I already own but it'll hopefully be in a format where my son will enjoy reading it.

I only got into digital comics recently and this is a fantastic way of reading stuff I never would have got

Added to My Collection: Bronze-Age Thor!

I still occasionally check ebay for bargains and I recently picked-up 11 issues of Thor in two separate lots from the same seller for the total of £3.87.

I got issues 255-267 but #256 and #262 were missing. All in Fine condition too. Still these issues comprise the next Masterworks so I've saved myself some money by buying the originals. I will look out for those two missing issues though.

These issues feature the change in art from John Buscema to Walt Simonson. I haven't got Simonson's later run where he takes over the writing too but a quick glace through these issues I can tell he adopted a similar style to JB for his initial issues.

A nice bargain and I've now achieved my aim to get all the JB issues. Very soon I'll get Vol 3 of the Epic collection which will Mean I've probably got enough to be going on with.