Thursday, March 15, 2012

What Is Up With DC's Trade Department?

DC has come under fire lately for numerous problems that have come out of their trade paperback department. Here are just some of the issues that have come up:

1) This week alone there was a problem with Batman: Year One Deluxe Edition was released with a shitty coloring job and a few other issues. Creator David Mazzuchelli wouldn't even buy it. Check out his reasoning at Comicvine.com.
Even worse is DC is trying to give this mediocre edition away tweeting, "Good Reads is giving away Batman: Year One. Find out how to win a copy for yourself here."

2) And the other problem trade this week was, The DC Universe by Alan Moore, a nice collection of Alan Moore stories in the DC and Wildstorm universes, came out this week and it doesn't even include The Killing Joke, which it was solicited to have. Even DC's new website states that it is suppose to be included. DC has told retailers that it will be returnable at a later date.

3) Absolute Kingdom Come was released with a page (#104) that was missing words. DC has said that they will replace damaged copies, but you need to get on this because requests to replace these damaged copies must be received by April 3rd. (BleedingCool.com article)

4) At the end of February DC released DC Universe: Secret Origins, and it was missing pages.

5) I personally found two issues with the Resurrection Man Vol. 1 trade. First a low resolution page, and second a splash page on back to back pages.

6) Last year Showcase Presents: Ghosts was printed missing a whole page. BleedingCool.com

7) Marvel Vs. DC - Omnibus Edition. A lot of people have complained about the quality of DC's omnibuses versus Marvel omnibuses. Numerous comparison videos have popped up online. When you charge a lot for an omnibus you expect to get a certain type of quality for your money, but this has not been the case for DC's omnibuses.
Dan Didio has said that this issue needs to get fixed. (BleedingCool.com article)

8) There isn't just a problem with what DC is releasing, but with what they aren't releasing. Like where are those Justice League of America soft cover trades from the 1997 run? Why didn't you finish the R.E.B.E.L.S. trades? Suicide Squad trades; what happened to those? No, soft covers for Justice League: Generation Lost?

DC needs to rejigger their trade department ASAP, because retailers and customers won't stand for this lack of quality control; especially with the "New 52" trades coming out soon.

4 comments:

  1. I saw a second Morrison JLA volume solicited for this summer, so I think they're still on that kinda. But I'm still kinda mad that they stopped the Suicide Squad trades. This means i have to hunt down the single issues (i think your list would come in handy there). Though, maybe i could get them bound which would be kinda cool.

    Not just REBELS, but also Supergirl, JSA (i think), Doom Patrol, and Manhunter trades also got cancelled. I think the low amount of preorders was the official reason for some of them. I think there was even a trade of old JLI stuff that had yet to be collected that got canned.

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    1. That was amazing.

      Also, I've noticed that they constantly let shit go out of print, especially 2nd volumes. The second volumes of Red Robin, Batgirl (the BQM stuff), Teen Titans, and Secret Six are all out of print, and they aren't even that old.

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    2. I don't understand it either. If you want people to buy things you need to make them available. Stuff that goes "out of print", especially volumes in the middle of a collection, makes selling series at the shop level very hard. I wish the publishers would adopt a policy that kept titles in print for a set period of time before taking them OOP.
      Disney's vault isn't the best example, but at least you know about how long a video will be out and when it will come back into print again.

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