When Young Matt first got going in the realm of collecting ye olde comicke bookes, playing with formats was all the rage.<\/p>\n
Remember the “New Format”? Slightly better paper, slightly higher price tag? Wasn’t there a “Newsstand Format” too, which was basically “Same Old Crappy Comic Book Format”? And of course, WAY back in the day, the Baxter Format, whatever that means.<\/p>\n
Part of me misses the format fun, especially since today’s comics seem to arrive with haphazard formats that have nothing to do with anything. One month, you get glossy paper and a so-so cover; the next month, it’s matted paper and a cardstock cover.<\/p>\n
One thing I do not miss–one thing I think the Big Two especially need to stake through the heart–is the Prestige Format.<\/p>\n
You know of what I speak. Heavy stock cover, high-end paper, square bound spine, but not so many pages–like 48 or so. And a hefty price tag to go with its name.<\/p>\n
Back in the day, the Prestige Format made sense. Trade paperbacks were the exception, not the rule. Comics needed a format to tell a more evolved story with longer chapters. It became–dare I say?–a more ADULT format, at first. Then it just became an excuse to sell crap at a high price.<\/p>\n
Today, paying $5.99 for just one chapter in a longer story, and a short chapter at that, is a RIP-OFF and exploitation. Plain and simple. For $6.99, I can get a Marvel digest with four complete issues. For $7.99, I can get a bigger digest. Add just four more dollars–$9.99–and you’re in the range of a low-end trade paperback, or if you shop online, a $14.99 price-point trade at a discounted price.<\/p>\n
And then, when the prestige books are collected, how do you price that? Is it like $19.99 for a four-issue series? I guess that’s not too bad…but who would actually bother to buy the “floppies” (which actually don’t flop all that much, thanks to the heavy stock cover) when they could just wait for the trade?<\/p>\n
The Prestige Format: Lacks the value of a trade, with a higher price tag than your average monthly book. SUCKY.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When Young Matt first got going in the realm of collecting ye olde comicke bookes, playing with formats was all the rage. Remember the “New Format”? Slightly better paper, slightly higher price tag? Wasn’t there a “Newsstand Format” too, which was basically “Same Old Crappy Comic Book Format”? And of course, WAY back in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}