I just received Volume 3 of THE FLASH CHRONICLES to-day , following DC's SA Scarlet Speedster through issues #113-118 by which time he had been promoted to eight-times-yearly status , I see .
I'm short for time so I'll just put that starter up...
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Why don't you just pick up the SHOWCASE PRESENTS: FLASH volumes? I think volume 4 is due for release, if it hasn't come out already, which will bring you all the way up to the Andru & Esposito years, around issue # 180 or so. Pretty good return on investment.
I am a huge fan of the Showcase/Essentials format however I received The Flash Chronicles Vol#3 as a Christmas present and there is something to be said for that format as well with full color and higher quality paper. To me The Flash art by Carmine Infantino benefits greatly from the inclusion of color. The obvious drawback is that the Chronicle editions only reprint six issues compared to twenty plus in the B&W format for about the same price. In most cases I will still opt for the Showcase books but with certain characters and artists, as with The Flash, I may go for the higher end color volumes.
...I thought I just put something up !!!!!!!!!
...In some ways , mebbe the SPs almost give you too much , drop too much on your plate...Plus , the Chronicles are in color , which , as much I will preach about " a real artist , generally , gets it across in B&W " is , especially for super-hero stories designed for bright colors , sorta needed...I do wish the Chronicles could reprint text/ltters pages , especially as relates to one story here , one which I have not gone into here yet...
The Chronicles had extra packaging value for their " chronological ALL stories of certain heroes " when they are of multi-title characters...such as Big Blue and Bats , obviously...
In some ways , mebbe the SPs almost give you too much ,
I think they do, at least as a book you sit down to read. There's no question that these comics that were meant to be read in monthly dollops don't work so well in a continuous reading. There are very few that I can just keep reading--FF and ASM stood out to me that way. The rest work best if I mix them up. That doesn't mean I want them to do fewer pages, just that I know it's going to take me awhile to read them.
Plus , the Chronicles are in color , which , as much I will preach about " a real artist , generally , gets it across in B&W " is , especially for super-hero stories designed for bright colors , sorta needed.
Some do, some don't. Some aren't worth the trade-off. Obviously, the color is going to bump up the price a lot--in this case, giving us six comics instead of 20. That's a big difference, but fortunately, we can decide which way we want. Hard to beat that.
I do wish the Chronicles could reprint text/ltters pages , especially as relates to one story here , one which I have not gone into here yet...
That would be cool and really make them stand out. Otherwise, some of these Chronicles are essentially TPBs of the Archives, since the heroes only appeared in one title. Interweaving all the Superman or Batman stories, so I can see what all they were doing each month, is kind of interesting. Reprinting JLA and Flash in order isn't adding much.
Adding in all the text stuff would cut out some of the issues, but there are people who really like those, and it would really give a feel of them being a Chronicle of what the comics were. They do it with the Omnibuses, and I'll bet it might've attracted readers who already owned the Archives or SPs.
-- MSA
Probably wouldn't work so well for DC, but I wonder if Marvel has ever explored the idea of doing a TPB of all (or many) of their Bullpen Bulletins pages, maybe accompanying the cover of a Marvel comic from that month, and running through the various titles. They could fill up a 240 page book with 10 years of covers and BB pages, and charge whatever they charge for a color TPB these days, and I'd bet they'd get a lot of takers. Just the 10 years of covers would probably hook a lot of people, and the 10 years of BBs would hook the hardcore fans who'd like to relive those halycon days of yore when Stan made it seem like his entire staff worked in the same office all day every day, with madcap frenzy ensuing at a moment's notice.
...Years ago , DC did these pocket-size books of a number of years continuous?? of the covers of Trinity characters' titles , remember those ?????????
I have always thought a volume of THE SPIRIT covers - Or more?? - , at least all those in Eisner's years , starting with the Quality (Including POLICE COMICS cover-only teamups with Plastic Man !!!!!) years and at least through the end of the reprints Kitchen Sink series in the early 90s , would be swell !!!!!!!
Dave Blanchard said:
Books of covers have a limited audience, I think, as they tend to be coffee-table books. Those often appeal to a different audience than comic books and are more "art" books than comics.
The Bullpen Bulletins pages might be of interest from a nostalgia standpoint, both for Stan's Soapboxes (which are available online) and for the little news bits they used. They could do it as a b&w book or run a page with all the covers on it next to it. That could be a fun book. If there's extra space, they could throw in some house ads--although most Marvel house ads were pretty basic (and often sideways).
-- MSA