I have said, on this blog and other places, I don't read comic books any more. This isn't quite true. I should say I don't read NEW comic books any more. I have a LOT of these fine reprint books, from both DC and Marvel. These are great books, lots of stories for about $20. Back before there were comic book stores (and comic readership was in the millions) you could never be sure to find an issue of a comic you were looking for. I had a series of stores I would hit on a regular basis, hoping that I would find all the comics I was reading. This of course only applies to comics from about 1973 on. The only way I got to read older comic books was from friends who's older siblings had a collection.
Sometimes this route worked and I found the comics I was looking for, sometimes it didn't, and I bought something different. I'm really happy to get nice reprints from the stories I was too young to read back then as well. Early Spider-man, Green Lantern and my two favorites, the JLA and the Avengers.
One of the interesting things I've found is that good art trumps color. These reprints are all in b/w and the truly great artists don't need color. Kirby, Ditko, Kane, Sekowsky, Andru... clean simple lines still look great in black and white. There are some great artists that suffer a bit with poor reproduction here and there (John Buscema and Don Heck in some Avengers books) but I think that's more a production deal.
The problem I have is that I am never sure when to stop getting the volumes. I got about seven Fantastic Four volumes, but realized I really only wanted to read the first three. I stopped Spider-man after two, and I think Avengers #9 (pictured) will be my final one in that series. Probably the same # with the JLA. Some, like Werewolf By Night or the first run of the Hal Jordan Green Lantern end in two or three or four volumes, which makes it easier.
I wonder if I can check some of them out of the library... that would make things easier!
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