rocket1312

Those library editions are pretty nice, but I've never had the opportunity to really inspect the binding on one of them. I'll have to see if can get a good look at one next time I see one at the store. They do have significantly less content than the average Marvel omnibus, so I don't think they're a great comparison in that regard. They probably do compare favorably to the non-omnibus hardcovers.

The Sin City and Conan books are obviously much more comparable to an omnibus, but again, I've never been able to look closely at their construction. I will say that Sin City being mostly b/w will reduce cost. Also, that Conan book is more expensive than any Marvel Omnibus, so I would hope that it's of a high quality.

slop101

At first, DC was doing their "Absolute" editions when Marvel first started trotting out their Omnibuses. The Absolutes don't have as many issues, but they contain much better paper, reproduction, binding, on an even bigger format - as far a physical book, the Absolutes are much nicer than Omnibuses. But yes, they don't collect as many issues, and certainly nothing that old - oldest being Watchmen and Sandman.

But then DC's always played second fiddle to Marvel when it comes to collected trade books.

PhantomStranger

The Absolute editions are nice, though I have to question some of their choices for that line.

kodave

There's no one set size for Marvel Omnibuses. Young Avengers, Devil Dinosaur, Punisher Max by Aaron, The Death of Captain America - they're all pretty thin for Omnibuses. And then there's stuff like X-Statix and Simonson's Thor on the other end of the spectrum.

Yeah the Library Editions are on the lower end of the number of issues collected, but they have so many extras and the build quality/paper quality on them is so good that they are physically just as wide as many Marvel Omnibuses, and much wider than other similar issue counts in Marvel books. The first Fear Agent Library Edition is MSRP $50, the same as Young Avengers Omnibus. They may be more expensive per issue most of the time but you're buying a premium product that Dark Horse delivers on quality wise, where as Marvel may give you more issues but they're cutting costs and decreasing quality where ever they can. If it wasn't for buyer backlash at DC's first Omnibuses, I bet Marvel would go back to glued binding instead of sewn binding to save costs.

The Colossal Conan has an MSRP of $150. Thor by Simonson Omnibus had a $125 MSRP. 50 versus 40 issues. More expensive? Yes. But the book is also half an inch thicker, 3 inches taller, and half an inch wider.

It's not a perfect one to one comparison, but if that's what a smaller company like Dark Horse can do and come in at that price, then Marvel and DC can do better, no question about it. Dark Horse barely has 5% of the market. Marvel and DC collectively occupy 65-70% of the marketplace. And both have mega corporations backing them up.

I think it's a pretty fair comparison to say Marvel and DC should be doing better in the Omnibus/Oversized department.

I will say DC's Absolute line has always been solid and there can't be that many qualms there. I've only heard about reproduction issues in the V For Vendetta Absolute Edition. Otherwise you're getting exactly what you paid for - carefully selected stories in a well constructed very premium format, and they're priced accordingly. But those aren't there to fill the roll Omnibuses generally fill.

slop101

They mostly seem to be based on art, as the pages are huge, more than the story. And since they are blown up huge, they need to bee newer stories that they have better, higher resolution scans of the originals, rather than stuff from the '70s or '80s where they might not have everything to form a complete run. DC's actual physical archiving is for shit, which is part of the reason why DC doesn't put out a lot of trade collections, as they're missing a lot of the original material.

rocket1312

That's all true, but the implication earlier was that Dark Horse (and other smaller publishers) were giving better value for the money. It seems to me they're about the same. With one book you get higher quality materials and with another you get more content per dollar.

Again, Dark Horse charges more for a better product. I don't see how that reflects poorly on Marvel. If Dark Horse sold that same Conan book for equal or less than the Thor book, then I'd see cause for concern.

That's not how the economics on books like these work. There's no such thing as a volume discount on manufacturing for books with print runs in the low thousands. All things being equal, a 1200 page omnibus that sells 1000 copies published by Dark Horse is going to cost the same amount of money as a 1200 page omnibus that sells 1000 copies published by Marvel. It doesn't matter if there's a huge corporation backing the publisher or not.

majorjoe23

But DC and Marvel are likely to get an overall better rate from a printer due to the quantity of material they're sending a lot more material than a smaller company like Image or Dark Horse.

Ringmaster

The Big Damn Sin City is such an incredibly produced book. It's massive and you can get one for easily $60 bucks. Dark Horse is making the big Two look bad in comparison.

kodave

A 20% increase in price for a smaller publisher isn't that far fetched. And in this particular example, Colossal Conan sold barely over 400 units to the direct market in the first month of release, while Simonson's Thor sold 4 times that amount. Simonson's Thor went through multiple printings before release based on pre-order sales alone. In fact over a year after release Simonson's Thor sold just about as many copies in the direct market as Colossal Conan did in its first month of release.

Marvel and Dark Horse are not moving or printing similar quantities of these books. And for a while Marvel was drastically overprinting many of their Omnibuses (and other books).

Marvel also pumps out probably an Omnibus + per month on top of all of their hundreds of other trade collections. Dark Horse pretty much just had that one Colossal book, plus the occasional trade output. Again, Dark Horse only has 5% of the market. Marvel and DC are taking up anywhere from 30 to 40% each. You mean to tell me Marvel doesn't get any further discount from their printer for using them to continuously do business with? The sheer amount of business a company like Marvel would generate for a printer would lead one to believe they aren't paying the same prices a much smaller company like Dark Horse would have to pay.

Marvel did put out quality Omnibus builds and then one day decided to start cheaping out on them. These are big expensive books that likely don't have large profit margins, but it's not like the price of nicer paper skyrocketed overnight like a barrel of oil. Marvel figured out they could cut costs on production, charge the same amount OR MORE ($100 MSRP for 23 issues in the Punisher Max by Aaron Omnibus - an insane mark up per issue), which they've done, and pocket the difference. Meanwhile smaller companies that are a fraction of Marvel's size put out similar books in similar formats with more pleasing construction that are generally leaving people more pleased with their purchase. I think it's absolutely a fair criticism and comparison.

Marvel is free to keep doing what they're doing. They're a business. They want to make money. And as much as some collectors complain, business stays good for Marvel, for now. But I do think collectors are going to elect to start spending their money with smaller publishers like Dark Horse and Image more and more frequently.

Marvel couldn't even bother to put the issues in reading order for their Spider-Verse oversized hardcover that just came out. You have to consult the reading list and flip around in the book. That's a roughly 26 issue $75 MSRP book. Marvel didn't even put the correct title in the Edge of Spider-Verse TPB that came out. The title page says "Edge of Spider-Man." It's absurd. That's a 5 issue $16 MSRP trade. You can go buy a $15 MSRP 6 issue trade from Image where they'll at least get the title of the book correct.

slop101

They were, and now they seem to be underprinting, as more than a few of the Omnibuses released within the last year have gone out of print and went up in price in the second hand market far quicker than other years.

rocket1312

I'm not going to get into the minutiae of the printing business, but I will say that even if Marvel is printing 5000 copies of a book and Dark Horse is printing 1000 copies of a similar book, both of those books would still probably be considered short run titles. In other words, they would still fall into the same pricing bracket. Also, the production of Marvel's oversized hardcovers is done at a different facility than their tpbs. While it's all under the RR Donnelly umbrella, my guess is that whatever deal they have for the oversized books would be more or less independent of the paperback side of their catalog and I would be surprised if Marvel could get a significantly better rate on the printing vs. a smaller publisher. We'd be talking about fractions of a cent per page. The profit margins on that sort of manufacturing are low enough that there's not a lot of wiggle room for discounts.

I'm not going to try and defend Marvel and their business practices overall. I'm also not trying to downplay the quality of the work from the other publishers. They put out some really nice books. I mostly purchase omnibuses of older material and while I would agree that Marvel have cut costs in certain areas, I don't consider their books (at least the ones I buy) to be of a significantly lower value than the competition provides. Then again, I don't really see the omnibuses as a prestige product in the way that those Dark Horse library editions or DC Absolutes are. I see them as a great way to get copious amounts of classic material (and don't overlook the extra work that goes into reprinting pre-1990's material) in an oversized format, with quality reproduction and in the case of books involving guys like Jeph York and Cory Sedlmeier, top-notch editorial as it relates to what and how things are collected.

slop101

The main thing that I like about these collections are bang for the buck. Sure, they have a big sticker price, but when you break it down, they are the best deal going. When an omnibus comes out, it can be easily found for half it's cover price. They contain 30 to 40 issues, and that comes out to around $1.50 per issue. That is a freaking steal when you consider that floppies these days are $4, not to mention that the omnibuses are over-sized, have better paper, have no ads and are hardbacks. I know you're supposed to support the books you love by buying floppies, but it's the quality AND the value of these collections that stopped me from buying floppies 7 or 8 years ago.