Recently, DC has been doing a better job at meticulously collecting older Batman and Detective Comics runs in trade. Most if not all of the Golden Age stuff, all the Doug Moench stuff, Mike Barr, stuff, Alan Grant stuff, Jim Starlin stuff, Ed Brubaker, Greg Rucka, etc.
But collections of the '70s stuff is still messy. Instead of a neat series of trades collecting all of it in chronological order like the Caped Crusader, Dark Knight Detective, Chronicles, Golden Age Omnibus, etc. collection series do for their eras, there's, like, a bunch of trades that overlap in content and get issues here and there and leave others out. We've got most of the Denny O'Neil stuff between the Neal Adams collection and the Batman in the '70s collection, but not all of it. I think they've collected all the Steve Englehart stuff (it's all in Strange Apparitions, but I don't even know if that's still in print—thank god I already have my copy) and are collecting all the Len Wein stuff. But a lot of Frank Robbins' stuff is kinda left out or split between disparate trades, I think (unless I just don't know where to find it?). Trying to find the most efficient means of neatly owning this era of content is confusing and overwhelming.
Is there a reason for this? It's odd that this is one of the most famous eras of the character that is credited with saving the character and bringing him back to what he was meant to be, and there's not just a sequential collection of it so you can read through it without redundancy or gaps.
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>70s
Meh.
70s Batman is the second best era of Batman (behind the 80s)
DC isn't even finished with their Golden/Silver Age prints. At this point, they should skip ahead to the Bronze Age, but if those stories are still being printed elsewhere, I don't see the point besides "digital uniformity".
>DC isn't even finished with their Golden/Silver Age prints
It's kind of crazy how they've had a Golden Age line of omnibuses going since 2015 but Green Arrow's the only one outside the trinity to get collected.
No Plastic Man, no Captain Marvel, no JSA, etc..
It's also really weird because you'd think they'd have the files for those since they reprinted a lot of stuff in the DC Archives format long ago
I can see collecting the Silver Age being important for characters who were cool during the Silver Age (Superman, Green Lantern, The Flash, etc.) but for Batman, you'd think they'd prioritize Bronze Age. Nobody cares about Silver Age Batman. Golden Age Batman is cool, Bronze Age Batman is cool, and then Post-Crisis Batman through most of the new millennium is cool.
>but for Batman, you'd think they'd prioritize Bronze Age. Nobody cares about Silver Age Batman
I do 🙁
they stopped 60s Green Lantern perfectly imo. Just before his cuckold phase
superb cover art
Michael Cho, I believe.
I think I read somewhere that, DC's reluctant to reprint stories from the mid 70's to mid 80's because they'd have to pay more royalties to those creators than when they're reprinting for other eras.
80s I can believe but I don't buy that the 70s would have that problem
70's is when Neal Adams started pushing for more rights.
Adams rights are human rights!
Is there anywhere you can get the 80s books? I was trying to read the weird Nocturna storyline from just before Crisis and it's really hard to find the issues collected anywhere.
nope, the new contracts didn't come in until the mid 80s, that was why Kirby went back so briefly, they arranged for him to do new work and get all his old work onto the better contracts at the same time
70s DC didn't pay dick for royalties
Frick them.
>I think they've collected all the Steve Englehart stuff (it's all in Strange Apparitions, but I don't even know if that's still in print—thank god I already have my copy)
Doesn't it end on a cliffhanger? I fricking hate when trades do that.
>Doesn't it end on a cliffhanger? I fricking hate when trades do that.
Nah, Englehart's story has a definitive ending and then they put in Len Wein's Clayface III two parter at the end for good measure as an epilogue. Of course Wein's run lasted longer than that, but the only dangling tease was Catwoman wanting to come back in Bruce's life.
Id buy a Superman Bronze Age omni.
Carey Bates and Maggin were great
>all the Doug Moench stuff
They finally collected his 1983-1986 Batman work?
>no golden age plastic man
>no golden age Captain "Shazam" Marvel
>no golden age scribbly
>no golden age Sugar and Spike
Though maybe its some rights issue with some of them
Plas and Captain Marvel have had Archive releases, but those were years ago
It's weird how they only seem to be interested in the golden age Wondy, Batman, and Supes. Probably because they think everything else won't sell
Plas is getting those shitty PS Art book releases. I'd rather have the art be a bit more clear though.
DC figures those guys won't sell so they should license them out to Fantagraphics or Drawn and Quarterly. They market more to "comics as art" crowd so those people would be more apt to buy Shazam and Plastic Man since they have some historical significance
>Probably because they think everything else won't sell
And they’re right
It's mainly because those three are their big characters and they want to focus on them the most first
On top of that most of their stuff is timed with some other media release, like they released a Doom Patrol omnibus when the show was in development, likely so they'd be ready to put out the affordable TPBs (the first TPB of Silver Age Doom Patrol was released close to when the casting was announced)
>It’s weird they focus on the most iconic and popular characters
It’s called operating a fricking business. Next to nobody is going to buy something like Ghosts collection in order to make it profitable, so you’d be remastering and printing it at a loss. Most people don’t even know what Ghosts is. Significantly more people know Superman and might be willing to buy a Superman collection. More so if it’s Batman. It’s pure economics.
Some of Plastic Man and Captain Marvel's comics are in the public domain iirc, so that might be another reason why they won't collect them.
the entire original Police Comics run and I THINK all of the Quality era Plastic Man issues are public domain
with Whiz Comics only certain issues are PD but a good chunk of it is
ditto with the other books the big red cheese appeared in
>the entire original Police Comics run and I THINK all of the Quality era Plastic Man issues are public domain
The 40s Quality era Plastic Man issues are, the 50s is debated
Isn't Steamboat the main reason they don't collect Captain Marvel?
i was trying to find early jason todd tpbs but no luck
same with superman
The people who work at DC are egomaniacs who always think that the work they're doing now is better, but deep down they know they can't compete with the older comics. It's why Didio cancelled that one reprint series because it was selling too well.
I love 70's Batman, it was the last time he actually solved mysteries. Ever since Dark Knight Returns all he does is crouch on things and get in fights.
What about Grant/Breyfogle?
Cinemaphile has memoryholed Norm Breyfogle, along with Jeff Purves, Angel Medina, Mike Saenz, Pauli Kidd and Vaughn Bode.
I just wish DC was more aggressive in preserving and digitizing their catalog. Marvel has restored a huge bulk of their back catalog, whereas DC barely has, and their quality is shit compared to Marvel's restorations.
>Is there a reason for this?
It's a combination of pettiness, presentism and branding.
The petty is that DC knows the old stuff is good but doesn't want people to use it against them by saying "Why aren't you doing more stuff like this?" and whatever DC is doing right now must ALWAYS be the BEST work DC has EVER done!!
Presentism is the perception that these comics (silver-bronze age) were done by 'old white men' even though they were 20 something young bucks at the time and even though they were always socially ahead of the curve with representation for their time by today's standards it's not enough.
Branding wise DC wants to pushing living talent who have an interactive fanbase and also overlaps with the petty since again they want to say these are the best guys ever so that they can get an audience to follow them on new projects. (If you loved Tom King's Batman? Check out Wonder Woman number 1).
>70s DC
>black hobo whining to green lantern what he do for da blakk folks
begone, casual
All of you Cinemaphile dudes hold the same opinion.
I see nothing in your post that disproves
Applies to you since you think it's not a common opinion around these parts.
Sure thing, NPC
Yeah, I've snapped out of the illusion that these older comics are unequivocally the greatest ever thanks to Cinemaphile.
Reading them myself, I found them quite charming, but never as amazing as claimed on here and other places.
If this is the stuff you like best, so be it. To each their own.
You don't read comics or manga, you dumb fraud
>his knowledge is something he saw in a thread days ago
Damn, the meme is real
GL/GA was mega-cringe but O'Neil wrote a great Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman, Richard Dragon, Creeper, and so on.
O'Neil was a drunk piece of shit Irishman who went to DC because Shooter wouldn't give him a job
Under Shooter's tenure he wrote Spider-Man, Daredevil and Iron Man.
BTFO
Probably because those writers and artists are still alive and they’d have to pay them royalties
Somewhere in 2020, Warner fired several DC employees and since then there has been no one competent to take care about collected editions.
>he doesn't know
DC's collected editions suddenly took a massive step up last month. Theu suddenly solicited a whole bunch of great omnibuses and compendiums for late this year/early the next
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC_Comics
Hit up the bronze age section for an idea of DC's royalty program. Can't find the original source for the following, but I know I read it somewhere. In 1980, Paul Levitz negotiated a deal where DC would give royalties to creators of DC stuff from 1976 to as long as he had power. So DC Comics created from 1976 to (late 90s or early 2000s) would trigger a payment to the original creators when reprinted. Hence what OP was talking about. If I can find the source I got this from, I will post it. But this explains why the DC Showcase B+W omnibuses of years past magically stop at 1976, to avoid that.
Also, anons have mentioned on here that the Bat Office of editorial at DC got mad at Dennis O'Neil after he left in the late 90s. They reprinted his stuff sparsely (mostly the stuff he did with Neal Adams), and sought to minimize and ignore hsi body of work.
So a double whammy of neglect there. (Hint: archive.org has lots of scans of old comics like Bronze Age Batman, and is facing multiple lawsuits. Get over there and download while you can.)
>royalties
why not pay them though? those are not a fixed sum, are they? it's percentage of the sales. isn't dc leaving money on the table?