The Comic Book is Dead; Long Live the Trade Paperback!

Let's face it. Comic book book magazines are dead. At least they've started to smell rotten, and it won't be long before only a select few will continue to buy them, in a desperate attempt to preserve comic books the way they've always loved them and to keep the precious specialty stores alive.

What I'm talking about here is the move from comic books published as magazines to comic books published as trade paperbacks, which is happening right now. Of course, smaller publishing houses have been doing this for years, but the fact that Marvel and DC have really started to get into the game now, is a telling sign of the beginning of the end for comic books as magazines. I, for one, welcome this change, and for multiple reasons.

First, it's cheaper. You just can't get around the old money thing, and although the difference might not be huge, think about what it is you get for the extra money. Every second page is a stupid teenager commercial and who reads the letters page anyway.

Second, tpb's look better on the shelf. No discussion. Fourteen meters of polybagged magazines just doesn't look nice in most living rooms. Therefore they're always the first to go to the attic or cellar when you move in with someone.

Third, you can sell them on the Internet. This will be the killer argument. The stake that will ram through the chest of the dusty comic book magazine. They guillotine that will...well, you get the picture. Yes, the predominance of the tpb will also mean the end of the comic book specialty store as we know it. Some will survive, but only those who figure out how to move sales to the Internet and of course those who figure out how to hang on to the small back collector's market that will continue to exist. This makes things a lot easier for people not living in the States, such as myself, and cuts prices further for us as postage gets cheaper.

So, am I not just a little bit nostalgic that the comic book magazine is going away? No, good riddance I say. I stopped reading comic books on several occasions because of this format. In most cases, when I get a new issue of some series, I can't remember what happened a month ago and I don't want to. Comic books is something I read and then forget about. It's the poison of the moment, a small shot of entertainment for a quiet moment.

My opinion is that comic book magazines started dying when people took them out of their back pockets and put them in polybags. Because, they belong in back pockets, to be read in the park on warm summer days, not in dark temperature-controlled collection rooms where no one touches them or reads them. So I guess I am a little nostalgic about comic book magazines, just not the way they are now.

The point of all this? Oh, yes, that's right. Well, the point is, these days I read only tpb's, and I was looking for a site that reviewed tpb's, so I could get an idea of what is readable and what stinks. But I did not find such a site (please write me if you know one!). So
I decided to make my own, and that is what you're seeing now.

As you can see the site is right now very much in it's early phase, in fact, it's just a blog. But I figured I should focus on the content from the start, and then I might make a web site out of it later on, if someone cares to read this.

Oh, a warning by the way. These days I only read Marvel, but that doesn't mean I only want reviews of Marvel tpb's here. It's just that right now I will only review what I would otherwise read. At some point I hope to do some collaboration with others, and in that way have more publishing houses represented. But you have to bear with me for a while.

Ok, that's it for the introduction. From now on I will start focusing on the reviews. I hope you will enjoy them, and I also hope that you will comment on them if you agree and especially if you disagree with them.