I've been a fan of these books for a while, especially the Batman ones. Right now a lot of them seem to be out of print on Amazon. Is this line of books finished?

Kind of a different subject here, but what about Marvel Essentials? A lot of those seem to be out of print too.

I think they just canceled a Justice League edition.

Batman Chronicles Vol 11 just came out in January 2013 after a two year hiatus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bat...e_paperback%29

Flash Chronicles Vol 4 came out in April 2013.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flash_Chronicles

So it looks like DC is still publishing them, just at a very slow process. DC has always been rather slow at releasing tpbs.

Marvel tends to churn out the tpbs a lot faster than DC, and Marvel shows a lot of future solicitations for their Essential line.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel_essentials

Personally I feel that the Essential line is basically pointless now that Marvel has started releasing the Masterworks line in tpb format at a rate of one per month. The biggest disadvantage of the Masterworks line before was that it was only available in expensive hard cover format, but that disadvantage is gone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel_Masterworks

They recently released a Superman Omnibus which houses basically the Chronicles releases #1-4. I wish I had just waited for that. I stopped collecting the GL and Flash versions when the GL omnibus was released. I figured they are just going to stop them and likely go to omnibus releases. I like the Superman and Batman Chronicles releases but waiting for them sucks.

I like the idea of the Chronicles series but don't actually own any of them since they're earlier than my collecting sweet spot.

Yep, I wish they would start covering more Bronze Age material. DC seems very reluctant to collect long-running, popular series from that era in omnibus format. There seems to be licensing and royalty issues with anything published after a certain point in the 1970s.

There are too many lines of books. I worry about collecting them in one format and then a better presentation coming down the pike.
Same here, although on certain characters I'm very tempted to go all the way back to the beginning of the Silver Age (or even earlier for a few).
I forget, what's your current take on the floppy vs trade debate Phantom? Still collect both? How about digital?

I'm leaning towards getting rid of a sizable chunk of my single issues and concentrating on collections; but I think I'll always want every single issue appearance of you and my other favorite characters.

I almost only buy trades and hardcovers these days. I am probably missing out on good comics that way but there are too many long-term problems with buying individual issues anymore. I still keep the dozens of longboxes I once accumulated as a memento. As for digital issues, I have a very tough time paying for ephemeral content which I only have a license to access.

I love these myself and wish they'd keep them in print - I'm still hunting a few of the earlier volumes of the Batman series but not going to pay $70 on eBay for them!