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Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2019 10:18:16 GMT -5
Same experience. Loved them as a kid. Cheap way to read old stories that I could have never afforded. Gave me a sense of history reading stories of the characters I enjoyed that were older than me!
Today with trades and such not as much as a thrill. But I love going back and re-reading old favorites.
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Post by jason on Nov 30, 2019 10:22:31 GMT -5
One neat thing Marvel Tales used to do was have "post office from the past" which would reprint the letters column discussing the story that was just reprinted. Kind of a cool way to see what fans in the 60s thought of those stories.
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Post by profh0011 on Nov 30, 2019 11:01:14 GMT -5
MARVEL TALES in the mid-80s was definitely where, after 2 decades, I finally was able to read the entire STEVE DITKO run of Spider-Man... and my appreciation for what he did increased tremendously.
I believe at some point during that particular run was when they switched to "flexographic" printing, which made "cheap" even "cheaper", but I just tried not to mind, I was there for the STORIES.
Insane but true: during that run, whoever the editor was figured out WHY the 2nd Scorpion story had, up to then, NEVER been reprinted before. There were NO stats, originals or copies, and no original art either. He hired Owen McCarron to REDRAW the entire issue from scratch, to create new stats, so the story could be reprinted. (Decades later, someone online swore that wasn't true, but I was just relating what the editor said in the magazine when the story was reprinted.)
When I saw it, I knew what had happened, from reading an entirely separate source. In 1967, a PILE of art and/or stats had been loaned to the Grantray-Lawrence animation studio, for production of the 1967 SPIDER-MAN cartoon series. You can actually see certain panels imitated quite authentically in their 1st-season Scorpion story-- which, INSANELY, combined both the 1st and 2nd Scorpion stories Ditko wrote into a single 10-minute cartoon.
When GL abruptly went bankrupt one episode into season 2... a lot of what they had "went missing".
Someone online not that long ago said that in the years since, BETTER stats had been created, so there's no problem with that 2nd story being reprinted over and over now.
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Post by profh0011 on Nov 30, 2019 11:09:04 GMT -5
I have a few of the 70s Ditko Dr. Strange reprints... where they actually SHRUNK the size of the art slightly.
I remember so vividly, at some point in the last 20 years, digging out several different printings of many stories I was re-reading, and comparing. Unfortunately, I have very few of Ditko's Dr. Strange stories in the original printing... but the difference in line reproduction quality is SHOCKING.
It turns out, it really is very difficult to fully appreciate some artists' work when viewed only in FUZZY reprints. When I really looked close at the original printing of Ditko's "Face-To-Face AT LAST With Baron Mordo" (the 3rd chapter of his long epic), which I now consider the high point of his art at Marvel in the 60s-- it reminded of Craig Russell's work. Somehow I'd never noticed that before. It suddenly hit me that day, I guess Russell must have been inspired by Ditko's style of rendering.
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Post by tartanphantom on Nov 30, 2019 11:38:48 GMT -5
I’ve always loved the classic reprint titles.
In the late 60s/early 70s they introduced me to stories from before my birth. I was around 9-10 years old, which was the original intended age group for the reprint material when it was new in the 40s and 50s. Maybe this is why I gravitated toward the DC 100 pagers and the 52-page DC books... I was still young enough to be able to suspend belief and get into a story about Hawkman throwing lightning bolts, or that a cop could break into a costume shop and grab a costume and props and transform into The Guardian! I also loved the fact that most of the stories were self-contained, and I didn’t have to buy every issue for 2 years just to read a complete story arc.
My biggest beef with modern reprints is that they don’t have the look and smell of old newsprint... which is a big part of the experience in itself.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2019 14:13:18 GMT -5
I’ve always loved the classic reprint titles. In the late 60s/early 70s they introduced me to stories from before my birth. I was around 9-10 years old, which was the original intended age group for the reprint material when it was new in the 40s and 50s. Maybe this is why I gravitated toward the DC 100 pagers and the 52-page DC books... I was still young enough to be able to suspend belief and get into a story about Hawkman throwing lightning bolts, or that a cop could break into a costume shop and grab a costume and props and transform into The Guardian! I also loved the fact that most of the stories were self-contained, and I didn’t have to buy every issue for 2 years just to read a complete story arc. My biggest beef with modern reprints is that they don’t have the look and smell of old newsprint... which is a big part of the experience in itself. See I guess I an anomaly. I always hated newsprint and wished for better paper. I liked comics on the paper I saw in Son of Origins or the Tempo paperbacks so much better than the newsprint my comics came on which often had colors or lettering that bled through to the other side or was fuzzy and made for a relatively poor reading experience overall. When I first discovered Baxter books and such, it was a revelation and I was like, thank god finally good paper, now can we get rid of newsprint altogether. Newsprint was one of my least favorite parts of the comics experience, and I for one am glad it is no longer part of the experience. As for reprints, I am all for them for several reasons. I like to read, and I prefer the model of the book industry where stories are kept in print and don't become some obscure collectible from the past. Reprints allowed compnies to keep older stories "in print" before the rise of the trade market along with those books like the Fireside books and Pocket paperbacks in the 70s. I was an early adopted of the "trade paperback" as I preferred getting things like the Fireside books (Origins, Son of Origins et. al.), the Tempo paperbacks, pocket paperbacks, etc. as you got more stories for your buck. I discovered Avengers through Marvel Triple Action, and had more issues of Marvel Tales than Amazing as kid, plus issues of Marvel super-Heroes, Marvel Spectacular, Marvel Double Feature, Marvel Super Action, Marvel Adventure, etc. The only time I didn't like reprints is when they showed up as a fill in because of the Dreaded Deadline Doom. -M
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Nov 30, 2019 16:29:43 GMT -5
Kind of crappy that the '70s reprint books cut panels and whole pages from the original stories.
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Post by jason on Nov 30, 2019 16:48:24 GMT -5
Not exactly a "reprint book" per se, but I also liked Marvel Saga, which basically summarized what was going on in the Marvel Universe during a certain month (starting in the 60s). Some of the artwork was redrawn, but I was unaware of that at the time, it was like getting multiple stories in one comic.
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Post by dbutler69 on Dec 1, 2019 15:27:57 GMT -5
Kind of crappy that the '70s reprint books cut panels and whole pages from the original stories. Yup, that was my main complaint. The worst thing about the 70's is that most books only had 17 pages of story.
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Post by profh0011 on Dec 1, 2019 15:38:24 GMT -5
In the 70s, Philly's Channel 48 used to cut 5 minutes out of every episode of " STAR TREK"-- usually in one big chunk! Often, they'd cut to a commercial break, and when they came back, you had the feeling they left the film running the whole time. Except for " Errand of Mercy"-- the 1st Klingon episode. That one, they'd cut the entire pre-credit sequence... so for a whole decade, you never saw the scene where the Enterprise shot it out with an (OFF-PANEL!!!) Klingon ship. My best friend and I had this game where we could turn on any " ST" episode at random, at any point, and identify it BY NAME, within seconds!! In 1980, Channel 17 ran the show UNCUT, and that was when I taped them. (I got my 1st VCR long before most people.) I had my friend over one day and popped on that episode. You should have seen his face filling with confusion and frustration. We watched the ENTIRE pre-credit sequence and he HAD NO IDEA what episode it was-- because, he'd never seen it from the beginning! I almost fell over laughing when I explained to him the trick I'd pulled on him. So, there's probably worse things than pages cut from reprinted comics...
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Post by profh0011 on Dec 1, 2019 15:48:13 GMT -5
Yup, that was my main complaint. The worst thing about the 70's is that most books only had 17 pages of story. In the 90s, I started getting my hands on original FANTASTIC FOUR issues from the late 60s. (Early 60s were too expensive.) This allowed me, when I was re-filing the books, to visually compare originals vs. reprints.
Sometimes, it wasn't just the line quality that sucked in the 70s reprints... or the re-coloring jobs on some covers.
There was at least one that stood out-- the 2-part " Inhumans" story-- where, a major CONTINUITY screw-up (purely in the dialogue) was removed... because the page it appeared on was cut in the reprint. I don't think that was the intention, of course.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 1, 2019 17:11:35 GMT -5
Kind of crappy that the '70s reprint books cut panels and whole pages from the original stories. Yup, that was my main complaint. The worst thing about the 70's is that most books only had 17 pages of story. I know and I have read several of them that has around 17 pages.
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Post by spoon on Dec 1, 2019 17:34:00 GMT -5
Classic X-Men was a really great way to get into X-Men as a kid, back when the TPB selection was a lot more limited. It was especially important, because I think a lot of X-Men back issues were expensive compared to other titles from the same period. It really depends from issue to issue whether I prefer the new cover from Classic X-Men or the original Uncanny X-Men cover. John Byrne did a new but similar cover the Classic X-Men issue that reprinted the climactic battle in the Dark Phoenix Saga, and I actually like the Classic X-Men cover better. The back stories were general pretty good, and sometimes Claremont found ways to write new stories set in the past that were relevant to what he was doing at the time.
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Post by badwolf on Dec 1, 2019 18:58:33 GMT -5
Many of the first comics I ever got as a kid, in the 1970s, were reprint titles. I don't know why anyone would object to their existence. It was a time when comic book stores were scarce, and reprint collections (except for the handful of "origin" books) were nonexistent. I didn't find out till years later that there could be pages missing, but in any case I never noticed.
Classic X-Men was great; there still weren't many reprint collections and the original issues were pricey, if you could find them. I liked the backup stories drawn by Bolton which told a related side story or fleshed out the events in the main story. I did not like the retroactive inserts into the older stories, but that's a minor complaint.
And I like the current reprints too, the True Believers and the facsimiles, ads and all.
Cash grab maybe, but it benefits us.
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Post by Icctrombone on Dec 1, 2019 19:05:26 GMT -5
Reprints are books that benefits readers that missed out the first time around. The term " Cash grab" doesn't really make sense. No one is forcing a comic fan to buy it. I see the facsimile line as a good value for books that are much more pricey in original form. If you don't want it, don't buy it.
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