posted April 13, 2003 11:57 AM               

Friend.

posted April 13, 2003 03:14 PM               

But I recently purchased Superman in Action Comics Archive # 1 with weird water spot damage on four pages (manufacturers' defect I assume and it doesn't affect the story I guess).

I also think they went overboard in eliminating the gray tones in the recent Spectre Archives. Even if they made the decision to color the Spectre's costume uniformly throughout (it changed from gray to white during the series and the first cover originally had no green in the costume color scheme) removing gray tone figure modeling from later issues actually detracted from the artwork. This is an "artistic" decision that seemd more like the restoriation team was following a poorly thought out directive to remove all of the gray from the Spectre. No big effect on early issues but it made later covers seem overly cartoonish.

On the other hand the Aquaman, Sgt. Rock and Enemy Ace Archives were much better than I expected. There may be a weird sort of cosmic balance there I suppose.

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Bgztl a/k/a Jack Holt

All of human wisdom is summed up in two words: wait and hope.

posted April 14, 2003 12:28 PM               

Friend.

posted April 14, 2003 01:05 PM               

That said I'm in no rush to buy the ones that aren't high priority so i'm not gonna whine.

Also, my great enjoyment of Superman 3-5 and action 1-3 compensate for my disappointment in the batman line..as I thought I would not really care for them....Even Steven I guess.

I haven't ever been disappointed enough to want my money back...I hardly ever pay over 30.00 anyway...so it's not like I really spend 50.00. I've had paper errors, like the water ring mentioned above (which i believe comes from the paper company not the printer), and my Batman 2 coating on the dustjacket is starting to peel .... They are all worthy in one way or another, and atleast I don't have to pay thousands to find out I don't enjoy something....

posted April 15, 2003 11:25 AM               

Not that we're talking space aliens Batman, but still the dialouge got cornier and Batman became a lot more, shall we say, easy going. I guess I was just hoping for more of the dark, moody feel of the stories early in vol 1. Once Batman got a that grin, I kinda started to lose interest.

Other than that, I can't think of any Archive that I haven't treasured. Okay, so there were some moments in the middle of Starman where it got a little boring, but I still don't regret buying it. Most of I did enjoy. And I would love a second volume worth.

posted April 15, 2003 01:10 PM               

There are also a few Archives that really made me happy I got them through inter-library loan. GA Flash #1 made me wonder how the strip survived it's first year and a half, and Batman V4, while mildly enjoyable and always competently done, seemed lacking somehow. I suppose I had hoped for more from the early Sprang art, as his later work is some of my favorite Batman art of all time.

Additionally, I have the first three All-star Archives, and at that point in the strip, pretty much all it has going for it is the novelty of all those characters under one cover. while some of the work is so crude that it has a kind of appealing anti-charm, it's the only Archive series where I'm seriously considering skipping volumes to get to the good stuff.

posted April 15, 2003 08:10 PM               

I haven't opened Spectre Archives yet, but I am really dismayed to hear about their removing the halftone modeling, especially as DC went out of their way to say that the graduated backgrounds in Superman Archives 1-2 weren't upgrades, but faithful reproductions of the originals.

GBT