Cheap, bumper-sized reprints

[Jared Katooie]

With 2000AD currently enjoying greater success than ever before maybe there would be a market for large collections of stories from its past.

100 page black and white graphic novels with stuff like nemesis, zenith etc. along the lines of Marvels essential collections.

This was already mentioned before but maybe the recent reprints in the megazine have negated this possibility.

What does everyone else think?

[John Caliber]

I think that Dave Bishop mentioned that Rebellion threw out the idea... I'm all for it, considering the rip-off prices being charged for the Titan editions. Just think of it - a 500 page volume for ?13.00 could have the entire first run of Rogue Trooper in it, maybe with room to spare? A great idea.

Link: http://www.jdrpg.com/jdss" target="_blank">THE JUDGE DREDD STREET SIM

[moly]

great idea they could repring thinks like mean areana, ace garp, meltdown man etc the sort of thinks that titan dont appear to want to touch with a barge poll

[Art]

YESSSS!!!

Print it and I will buy it.

[The Amstor Computer]

Newsprint. Great thick pulpy volumes of newsprint.
Just reprint the stories, throw a black cover on it & offer them for ?8-12 a pop. Keep them cheap, keep them complete & keep churning them out. Go for anything & everything you can get your hands on that Titan haven't already snapped up - early runs of Strontium Dog, the VCs, Rogue Trooper, Ace Trucking, Dredd from progs 1-300. Throw in some collections of short stories - how about a Future Shocks compilation?
Throw them out as quarterlies & get them on the newsagents shelves & out of the comic stores - use the old material to get more readers. A ?5, 150 page comic on the shelf of WH Smiths is damn tempting, and at the very least, the extra revenue might be useful.

If sales are good & demand is there for "The Complete Stainless Steel Rat", then go ahead & publish a run on higher quality paper with interviews, lost art & series histories.

[moly]

or they could make them exclusive to subscribers, come on rebellion do a trial i,d love to have complete volumes of my old favs

[Wood]

Dunno about the "exclusive to subscribers" part, but yeah, a fiver for something big, chunky and perfect bound... cool.

[Art]

Yeah, ignore "exclussive to subscribers", what we want is big fat Akira sized volumes at a reasonable price.

And would add that if they were thick enough, I would say that ?20 actually becomes a reasonable price.

[paulvonscott]

Once again subscribers believe they should pay less for everything or have even more exclusive stuff, because they are prepared to pay less for 2000AD than anyone else.  Cue cries of loyalty to 2000AD and other bullshit.

I like the sound of jumbo reprints.  Though I would argue against bogpaper, partly because the stuff takes up more space than decent paper and you would have telephone directories of grimy tat.

2000AD was always dogged by crap paper (except for a brief period) until the late eighties.  Believe me it's a simple joy to read my robohunter as solid black on pure white in my old titan books.  Believe me.

I still think you could do it fairly cheaply on decent enough paper.  I think the ?20 hardbacks that Titan are doing are nice, but a luxury item.

I'd like my books, big, with complete runs (not this piecemeal approach) and as already said, articles on it like the bishop pieces in the Megazine, or in fact the Mega History.

[The Amstor Computer]

>>>Once again subscribers believe they should pay less for everything or have even more exclusive stuff, because they are prepared to pay less for 2000AD than anyone else.  Cue cries of loyalty to 2000AD and other bullshit<<<

Beautiful :-)

>>> Though I would argue against bogpaper, partly because the stuff takes up more space than decent paper and you would have telephone directories of grimy tat.
2000AD was always dogged by crap paper (except for a brief period) until the late eighties.  Believe me it's a simple joy to read my robohunter as solid black on pure white in my old titan books.  Believe me<<<

I suggested newsprint because it seems to be the cheapest option. While I would dearly love to see Rebellion churning out 500 page volumes of classic 2000AD strips on glossy paper, I can't see them being able to offer this kind of quality & quantity at a reasonable price for the average reader. A ?5 chunky volume on cheap paper might not look as good, or last as well as the Titan editions, but it's something that could appeal to someone who doesn't want to spend ?15 on an unknown quantity. How many times have you been in a bookshop or comic store & found yourself sticking with what you know instead of taking a chance on a new title? Imagine that that title was ?10 cheaper? Would you be more or less willing to risk it, despite cheaper paper stock?

Once you've got a taste for something, you're more willing to part with a little more cash, but you've got to get the reader hooked first.

Maybe someone could give us an idea of current prices for different paper types?

[Oddboy]

Why not run a system over the website?  Get ALL of the stories ever in 2000AD scanned page for page & then flog 'em dirt cheap as emails which you can then print out on whatever paper tickles your fancy?  That way you'd get all the colour spreads that were black/white when reprinted in stuff like 2000AD Monthly/The Complete Judge Dredd/Megazine.
The D.I.Y. method may be more effort for the punters then nipping into Smiths on the way to get some lunch but you could pick & choose the stories you want.

[Aaron Smurf Murphy]

This is how it could be done.

Rebellion set up a sister company (this way if the idea fails they can kill the company and make a smaller loss) which'll specially reprint stories from 2000ad (and possibly over mags stuff like Deadline or BLAST!).

The smaller the book format and paper (bog roll to glossy mag) the cheaper to print and release on mass. What you need to work out and agree on is the sutible size and quality. Titans stuff is decent size and quality but extrememly expensive for what it is.

You could have it novel size resulting in graphic novels for a fiver but the ink would come off on you fingers and words and art would be lost down the spine.

The last approach is the mid approach. The US company Viz who publish English language Manga. The book format is 14.3cm X 20.5 cm. With this you can have 200-300 pages for ?12-?15. It's a good deal.

Finnigan

[Ol^ Marbles]

Yeh I'd go for an 'Essentials' style reprint at a reasonable price deffo. Mind u (OT), I bought the Essential Spiderman Vol 1 and (heresy of heresy's) the old Stan Lee/Ditko stiff had dated really badly - virtually unreadable nonesense - had to give up half way thru..

Link: http://www.frothersunite.com/" target="_blank">http://www.frothersunite.com/

[paulvonscott]

I agree about the price, and this isn't because I'm not prepared to pay for it (etc) because graphic novels often cost far more than DVD's or CD's and then it takes half an hour to read them.  They only have a handful of people working on them, unlike films, but the cost and quantities make it so much more expensive than printing off a cd and sticking it in a box.

I've seen those Viz books, you get a good deal for them, considering how many pages you have.

Between the digital archive copies and titan, the room for someone else may not seem great.  But it's fairly obvious what the fans actually want and they aren't getting it at the moment.

Actually those Digital archive copies must be three hundred pages for ?25, that's not that bad and that's a weird format.

At the end of the day, I dunno, I'm not after lovely glossy art paper, just nice decent white paper that doesn't tear when you turn the page.  I think I'm actually asking for something else, so you could have your bog paper editions for the shps and advertise in the back for the expensive nice paper edition.

[DavidXBrunt]

I've just finished Vol 1 of Spidey. I liked it so much I bought the second one before finishing it. It's dated but that's part of the charm, great, great stuff. Vol 1 of the Hulk has been a chore though...