It looks like DC Comics are using the Omnibus format as their current way to collect classic material in chronological order. In the past, there have been the Archives series (hardcover, full color), the Showcase Presents series (softcover, black and white, usually twice the page count of an Archive), and the Chronicles series (softcover, full color, smaller page count than an Archive). In the past few years, all of these lines have been quietly shuttered, and now DC is releasing Omnibus collections in both hardcover and softcover formats.
As you would expect, the Omnibus hardcovers are huge. Two Silver Age volumes collected the first 76 issues of JLA (along with Brave and Bold 28-30 and Mystery in Space 75), for example. Earlier this year, DC released JLA: The Bronze Age Omnibus Volume 1, collecting JLA # 77-113. That's almost half of the original series collected in this way, which for a fan like me is great news. The JLA Archives had 10 volumes, collected the first 93 issues, and the first volume and last volume were released twenty-two years apart. The first JLA Omnibus came out in 2014.
DC is also releasing these collections in trade paperbacks with a smaller page count than the hardcovers. The great thing is that these TPBs collect more issues than the Archives did! The material collected in the first JLA Silver Age Omnibus has all been released in 3 TPBs.
I have the first JLA Silver Age TPB, and I loved it! I also have the first JLA Showcase Presents, but I find that without color, I just don't enjoy the stories as much as I could. Actually, I find I enjoy most Silver Age comics more in color versus reading them in Showcase Presents and Essential Marvel.
I wonder how many of the rest of you are buying and reading these Omnibus collections, and what you think of the format.
Replies
I just went to the Fantagraphics website. A search for Carl Barks shows the two additional volumes.
I wonder if your LCS guy knew about this. I'm going ahead with ordering them both.
I arrived at my LCS today to find v29 waiting for me in my file because "Carl Barks Library" is on my p&h list. That's the way it is supposed to work, but I have gotten into the habit of doubling down and also ordering each individual volume of certain series as a failsafe "just in case.". I didn't see v29 solicited so I didn't "double down," but it's good to know the system works. I mentioned v30, but he said, "If it's solicited through the normal channels I will get it." Incidentally, v29 has been added to the checklist in the back of the book, but not v30. Who knows how many more volumes there will be? (I'm sure somebody does, but I don't.)
I've ordered Vol. 29 from InStockTrades. I'm curious, those of you who have your copies. Are these maybe only PARTLY Barks? That's the only thing I can think of that would have prevented them from being part of the Library from the get-go. And I'm wondering, as y'all are, how many more they could potentially add.
My poor brain read this as "I've ordered 29 volumes", and I was like, "Why would he want so many?'
I get the impression that some of the later stories were laid out and written by Barks and that all of them were written by him. If he wrote them all, that's good enough for me.
Specifically, of the 17 stories in the book, 13 of them were written and drawn solely by Barks. The remianing four were by Carl Barks (script and layouts) and Daan Jippes (pencils and inks). FWIW, my eye cannot discern the difference between the first 13 and the final four.
MY GUN IS THE JURY and Other Stories illustrated by Jack Davis and Wallace Wood:
The often-overlooked parodies by Mad artists Jack Davis and Wallace Wood — their complete Panic stories!
Jack Davis and Wallace Wood’s crazed cartooning in Mad changed the art form, and comedy itself, forever. But their gonzo parody work in Mad’s sister satire title, Panic, published at the same time, is less well-known. To invert that injustice, this volume of The Fantagraphics EC Artists’ Library presents all their zany, pun-packed Panic lampoonery, especially their pomposity-puncturing movie parodies, including Davis’s “My Gun Is the Jury!” “Come Back, Little Street Car!”, “A Star Is Corn” and Wood’s “African Scream!”, “Gone With The Widow,” and “20,000 Leaks Under The Sea.”
These visual volleys are verbalized by Al Feldstein (editor of Panic, later editor of Mad) and Jack Mendelsohn (prolific cartoonist and writer whose non-comics credits include TV’s Laugh-In and The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine). But the laughs don’t languish. Also included is the never-before-reprinted “V-Vampires,” a riotous romp written by the legendary Harvey Kurtzman and drawn by Wood that vanished after its initial appearance more than 70 years ago!
On sale date: February 24, 2026
"My Gun Is the Jury" sounds like current news.
I haven't been buying these, because I already have the EC books collected by series. But I'll get this one. I have two volumes of Panic that I haven't been able to wade through, so this is a short-cut to the good stuff!
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