The Smark Avengers - Single Issues vs Trade Paperbacks: The Ultimate Comic Reading Debate!

Episode Date: November 28, 2025

Welcome back to the podcast! In this episode, Corey and Jon dive into one of the oldest debates in the comic book community: Should you read comics as single issues… or wait for collected trade paperbacks? Corey breaks down the highs and lows of having a weekly comic pull list — the excitement of new releases, the rising costs, the ads, the wait times, and the joy of supporting your local comic shop. Jon makes the case for trade-waiting, arguing why binge-reading full story arcs, saving money, and avoiding filler issues might be the smarter way to enjoy comics in 2025. They also discuss: 📚 Print vs digital comics — which format is winning? 📰 Comic ads — harmless tradition or constant distraction? 💸 Rising prices — how much is “too much” for a single issue? 💻 Reading comics online — the convenience VS the physical experience 🔥 How modern comic storytelling affects reading habits Whether you’re a longtime collector, a digital reader, a trade-waiter, or brand new to comics, this episode explores every angle of how fans read comics today. If you love conversations about comic book culture, collecting habits, and the future of the industry, this one’s for you. 👍 Like the episode? 🔔 Subscribe for weekly comic book deep dives! 💬 Tell us in the comments: Are you Team Single Issues or Team Trade Paperback? Click the link for Dylan's radio show!: http://www.bouncedigitalradio.co.uk Click the link for Dylan's Twitch stream: http://Twitch.tv/spookylaroux Click the link for Jon's Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/bigjonbowski/ Click the link for Corey's project "Henry's Usual": https://www.tumblr.com/henrysusual Click the link for Corey's show "Large Old Cup": https://open.spotify.com/show/2YHMppnl9inQevwLIxR64f

Hi, everybody. Welcome to Smart Avengers. My name is Corey. And with me is John. John Dylan is not with us today. But how are things with you? I am grand. Thank you very much. Are you 100 grand? About you? Well, I won't go that far, but let's say I'm 5 grand. Yeah, five grand is a good amount. That's good amount. Yeah.

I am doing, I'm doing pretty well as well. So, Dylan is not with us again, and that has to do with complications with his moon base. I know that's where he was last week when we were discussing, like, the DC and the Marvel movie worlds. I understand something went wrong up there, though. It's a thing to do with his death laser. Is it malfunctioned or, like, or just falling apart? Like, some moon rats have got into the wires or something. I don't know.

I was like, maybe it was like some, like, faulty, like, Acme product kind of design. Some real Wiley Coyote stuff going on up there. Yeah, I'd hope so. I hope so. I mean, you know, the last time Wiley Coyote was going to have a movie Warner Bros. Discovery decided they didn't need to make it. Well, yeah. Did that come out, though?

And apparently, I was going to say. Did it? I think it's supposed to be being released. Because I remember they put out that, there was that Donald Duck, not Donald Duck, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig movie that came out in theaters last year. That was actually really good. And I think that's what motivated somebody to buy the rights to get that Wiley Coyote movie to put it out. but that's like a done movie

that could be yeah yeah yeah I remember like the plot has something to do with like Wiley Coyote suing Acme for all of the all of the accidents he sustained using their products which is kind of a genius story line

to be honest I hope it pays out for I remember when the the Muppets came back with the idea of being like a talk show and like I just remember there was a joke about Fossey the bear using a dating app saying that you know it's difficult to put your bear in your profile

and not get certain attention attention thrown your way, which I was like, gay joking them up. It's all right. But yeah, well, we hope that Dylan is, you know, able to repair the death. Well, do we want Dylan to prepare the death laser? I mean, as long as he's not pointing it at us, then, yeah, I'm fine with that. I live in a country he's likely wanting to point it at. Yeah. I might be collateral damage. I guess ours is as well

so I don't know I don't know he seems does he have a problem with this going on in the UK at the moment we see a Prince

Vichick a loyalist no I don't think so I definitely no I shouldn't do that I mean

we'll let him defend himself when he's back there we go well that will ask him that first thing we'll introduce the show and then we'll say

Dylan how you're what are you're thoughts on Prince Andrew, the former Prince Andrew. The winds are formerly known as Prince Andrew. But it will. So, because this is the two of us, and typically we talk about movies, but we literally just did that, I was kind of thinking of different things that John and I could discuss, and John and I

have a lot of fundamental differences. For one, John is a disembodied voice, and I have a video. John is from the United Kingdom, and I'm for the United States of America. One of the other ways that John and I are different is how we consume our comic books. I am someone who has a weekly poll at my local comic book store. I go in every Saturday. I say hello to the staff. They give me what I get, and then I leave.

And John is a trade waiter, meaning that John reads his books in the collected trade paperbacks. And do you order those from a site? you go to a store to pick them up it kind of varies I usually I would typically order them from Amazon but I don't really use Amazon for it anymore because one I don't like pumping money into like a mega corporation

that basically controls the world and two I can get them slightly cheaper on eBay as well so I found like a pretty decent seller there so yeah I try and get them from eBay exactly yeah yeah so so yeah for those who are not as inclined to understand what the differences are the monthly books come out on a monthly basis you get one issue usually about somewhere between 22 and 24 pages you pay your six you know it means to myself just now when I was at six dollars sometimes they're six dollars most of the time they're like five or four per

issue and then you take them home and you read them and then you go and you continue the story in the next chapter in the following month in some instances or we will talk about shortly a couple of months baby if you're lucky and with the trades they're called people usually who are trade readers are called trade waiters because you would wait until the storyline concludes all of those issues are collected into one bound book that you would pay usually between I mean, at least American, I see them going for $20 to $30. If it's like an omnibus, like a big collection, you're looking probably like more than that, a lot more than that in some instances. But you wait for those.

So, you know, a storyline could be over for months and months or maybe even a year before you really get to read it. And that, you know, pros and cons with both. So I guess first and foremost, I read comics. from my comic book store because I didn't grow up with a comic book store. I think at our very first episode when we were talking about this, you know, I lived in a part

of the country where a lot of specialty stores like that just didn't exist. So I would get comic books from like people's yard sales. And like, you know, it's like 1992, 1993, and a lot of the comics are coming from like 1980-something or 1970-something.

So I was like reading a lot of old stuff. an issue here, an issue there. If you're lucky, you could get a couple of issues together and you could actually follow a storyline. Another thing that would do, and they've actually made a comeback because I saw my local grocery store, they were doing this.

There are, you should be able to get these packets, like sort of in sylophane, and for like $10, you would get, like, somewhere between five to eight comics. You didn't necessarily know what they all were going to be. Sometimes they'd have a theme, but you could get them that way. And there was like a local kind of dollar store that would sell those in the 90s as well.

Because I remember like the bloodline storyline between the Avengers and the X-Men. That was a very special storyline for me as a kid because that was one of the first storylines I could read from beginning to end because all of those issues were in those bundles. So like I think I probably have three of those. And through those three, I was able to combine and make a whole storyline. It was like a momentous occasion. but um so when i moved out of that part of the country um well before i moved out of that part of the country uh in the 2000s where internet purchasing was still kind of new and a little scary uh i

convinced my mother to once a month uh buy issues of comics for me from midtown comics out of new york city so i would get issues mailed to me from new york and I could read them that way. And then I finally moved out of that part of West Virginia into a college town. I had a comic book store. And then I was able to set up a poll list and could go every week and pick up stuff. And then, you know, they had the wall so you could pick up stuff even if you weren't like, I've never heard of this.

Let me grab this. And like that was very, it was a very nice process for me over a decade ago because it made it so much easier to read. And I guess that's really why I still read on a weekly basis like that still because of just the ease of being able to go and pick up stuff and you know there's that sense of community i've made friends over the last 10 years the people who work at the comic book store you know there's uh i'm about to start listing names like that was going to mean anything uh but yeah no you you get to know the locals there you get to be part of the little store community i have a nice

store that's not that's a very healthy environment's not toxic uh probably helps that 95% of the staff are like queer women so you know not really shitty people there because they kind of get chased out but yeah that's a real motivating factor for me reading single issues on a weekly basis i do have some trades i've picked up a couple recently and i'm looking over at over there now um but that's usually older stuff that i will pick up on kind of whim occasionally so so that's my background in it john why did you start as a trade reader well I when I started trading like buying trades which must have been sort of around 20 years ago like my thought process was it would be just like the easiest way to kind of collect everything you know because trades are handy because you do get significant charge trunks serve runs altogether so you know you don't have to worry about cracking down a certain issue or anything like that it just felt like the easiest way to do it and yeah so that's basically what i've and for the last 20 years is just um like certain theories just like try and collect as many trades that are available as possible

to build up as much of a, you know, a run of the comics as possible. So I've like, you know, during that time, come up pretty close to like getting complete

runs on stuff like Daredevil. I think like the X-Men as well. I've got a pretty significant amount of those from start to finish Spider-Man 2

and yeah it just it means that you know if I really really wanted to I could start reading from the beginning and almost get to the end so that was just

yeah what I've done and what I you know will probably continue doing for the rest of my life now okay I would love to do an episode with you talk about daredevil because i know that daredevil is a character that's really important to you and i feel like we've never really spoken much about daredevil because i remember you saying like

you yeah have a complete run i'm like how the hell have we not really done a deep dive on daredevil with john yeah that's a that's a good idea to to put down in the bank at some point so so john like i said there are instances where i buy trades as i see them out like for example i have over there right now actually i'll just grab them Okay, so these are the last trades that I purchased. After we had a conversation about Banshee when we were ranking the X-Men, I went ahead and I got the Essential Generation X back to school. Oh, nice.

Price point on this is 40. I think I got it for about 50. on eBay. The same reason. If I can avoid buying it, I will. This is a big one. This is an omnibus. This is Golden Age Green Arrow.

This retailed at $125. I think I got it for 90 on eBay. But this is the Golden Age comics for like 1930s and 40s of Green Arrow. Nice. I have the suffering game for the Adventure Zone. This is kind of a cheat because they don't put out Monthlies for this So the Venture Zone was a podcast

Where a bunch of like three brothers and their dad were playing Dungeons and Dragons And so this is just the The animated or the comic version of what they did on the podcast That went for $20. I have Superboy The Man of Tomorrow This was Retail 17.

I actually read this as the monthly as it was coming out, but I just liked the story and I really like this version of Superboy, so I wanted to buy the tray to kind of help support the character. Because that's important. Yeah, yeah. That is important, and we will talk a little bit about that, I think.

Next up is Antioch from Image Comics. This was $17 as well. This one is kind of a rare, kind of an interesting situation as well. So Antioch was supposed to be an ongoing monthly comic That was a continuation of the creative team's original monthly series Frontiersmen

But the artist ran into some health issues and had to miss deadlines And image was like, hey, we can keep delaying this or we can just put this all together as a trade for you So you at least have the story done So they decided to just put it out as a trade instead of trying to do monthlies Oh nice And the last thing I got is another epic collection And this is Ghost Rider Danny Catch Vengeance Reborn

Which was the 90s ghost writer series This one also retail for 45 And I think I paid just cover price for it Yeah So that's kind of what I was saying Like I will get trades But they're usually either like special situations Or they are old

Storylines Like I don't think I've gotten Like that Superboy man of tomorrow is probably the most recent storyline I picked up in trade since probably Asriel, sort of as real. Oh, okay. So, again, that is... I tend to do a mix of the two.

So, like, those, you had the epic collections there. Those are the, like, sort of main, like, big books I try and pick up every time they come out for, like, certain characters at least because those are the best way of like you know diving into the Marvel vaults really

but then yeah like I've also you know been buying like the the sort of smaller trades that come out for the more recent runs as well so like you know covering all the different

ex-books during the Crocoa age and stuff like that and Spider-Man, I've got so many Spider-Man books from basically like the start of the 2000s onwards

and yeah, like try and mix it up so, you know, I've got a bit of both, but it does mean I end up getting a bit of crossovers sometimes where like sometimes I have

like a trade for like a specific you know few issues and then end up getting like the epic collection or whatever and it's got those specific issues in there and I kind of really need to get better at sorting through those and kind of maybe trying to sell off the ones I don't need because when you've been collecting trades for 20 years it soon starts taking up a lot of space so yeah i've got a i've got a bookshelf in another room that is full of trades and the shelf is bowing in certain spots where it's like i'm fighting that inner like um detail oriented freak and me where it's like no it has to be alphabetical to the point like all right there's a lot of weight in the middle of that shelf and it's going to collapse at some point um like for example

like I have the all six of the Starman Obnibus and that's a lot of weight. It was also, I will tell you, yeah, probably the most expensive books I've ever purchased for the Star Man Munns. I put down more money on the Star Man Obnibus than any others. Because that's, so.

Wow. Yeah, yeah. So this is a little disorganized and I kind of like that it's disorganized. So before we kind of get into like pros and cons, and it sounds like we already kind of talked about cons. They're just, they take up a lot of space. Single issues take up a lot of fucking space. too, my man. I've got

four Tupperware things over here that are about three shelves each stacked with singles. Yeah, yeah. And then I have a collection in my closet that are also stacked and I also have long boxes

that are across from me but those are special long boxes. So some stuff they don't put out on the buses for or they don't put out trade score. So I have the entire 90s Asriel run, which is like 150 some issues.

And they never put out a trade for Asriel. Aside from like the sort of Asriel storyline where they introduce him and like the Nightfall storyline. But this is the series that took place after nightfall. So I have all those in a long box. I have the 80s Blue Beetle run that Lynn Wayne did. That's in that box. I have most of the 90s Superboy run in that box. And then I have some like odd, like storylines that I just really enjoy over in there, too, in single issues. But, uh, yeah, I mean, after a while, I try to find places to donate single issues.

Uh, but most often than not, you kind of just have to pitch them after a while. Which is kind of like, yeah, you know, kind of sad, but it is what they were designed for originally. Like, you weren't supposed to keep comics. you weren't supposed to collect them. They were designed to, like, you read them and throw them away like a newspaper. That's why, like, we talked about, like, you know, the reason why, like, the 90s comics were so,

like, there's that 90s comics boom is because people were starting to sell copies of, like, the old golden age stuff, like, original issues, and they were going for millions of dollars. And the reason they were going for that, it was, like, first appearances of, like, major characters. But also, people threw away comic books back then, so there weren't many,

copies of them left yeah yeah and that was before you know like we started inventing artificial scarcity so so that's that's kind of like some exceptions to that like so going back to the Starman omnibus

and how much money like some of those books they did not give a high print run to so like yeah just because something goes into trade it doesn't mean that it's always going to be easy to find like it might be when they first put it out but give it a few years and it may not be there's a reason why that um generation x epic collection i paid like $20 more for it than the cover price and that's because a it was the first storyline for generation x and b that had been out for a few years so it's sought after the most for sure because if you're going to start start

at the beginning and yeah Starman was kind of like that and then like after like you can get the first Starman Omnibus kind of easily it starts to get real tricky after that like I think the third Starman Omnibus had either the third or the fourth had a very low print run to the point that I paid $300 for a copy of it which is the most I've ever spent

So I spent $300 on the third or fourth Starminan omnibus. I can't even remember which one it was. I could get the fourth one relatively easily if it wasn't the third one or the fifth one. And then the sixth one I had to pay $154. Because again, like, that was like one of those series. I had a definitive beginning and an end. It was critically acclaimed, beautiful art, great writing. And they just didn't make a ton of them after the first one because there's, it's declining.

people want to read the first one and if they want to come back and read the rest they will and if they won't they won't so yeah what's the most money you've spent on a trade oh i mean obviously you know like you say there's omnibuses you get quite expensive the like usually the ones which uh like come in on sort of hard back and have the fancy like cover over the top and everything like i think i spend probably about 120 quid for uh uh the x-men on the buses that came out like i've got the first three of those um which i think it's just the um from the start of uncanny x-men onwards but uh i'm not 100% sure but but aside from that though like I've spent quite a bit on

some of the epic collections which had gone out of print I think there's one X-Men one which was like is either Bishop's Crossing or the executioner's song I can't remember which one but like one of them had come out years ago and like just completely disappeared like the original run had been bought up and like you'd see it occasionally on like eBay but the price would be like 120 quid for that as well so I think I managed the track one down to like

it looked like a dodgy sort of comic bookshop up in Scotland somewhere like Edinburgh or something like I found on a website I mean it the website didn't look legit but I thought well fuck it I can pay 50 quid for this

which is like you know ridiculous pretty reasonable I'd do that like aside from that there was also one trade of underbolts back in the day

like right around the time when Norman Osborne takes over the team and that one was another one which like it must have been you know out in print like a couple of years before yeah yeah it was so hard to find and then I had to pay over the odds to get it but I thought needed it to kind of complete the collection can I say real quick and this is just an aside about Thunderbolts it is so weird that like when I think of the Thunderbolts I think of those critically acclaimed runs which is either like the first run where it's the villains pretending to be heroes and then I think of like the the Civil War and Dark Rain era where it was like just a dark series I remember like

I mean the Civil War one in particular was brutal I mean bull's eye like paralyzing people you know um yeah it is so weird to see how almost kind of goofy and lighthearted they've made thunderbolts in recent in like since then like it doesn't even feel like the same attitude and it's odd to me i'd love for them to go back i'll be honest a warren ellis kind of run on that well i mean that would be great uh i haven't read thunderbolt in so long like they've it's not really been like a series that's stuck around from yeah you know a long period of time like uh over the last 15 years or so So I guess that's probably why I've not sort of invested in it because it doesn't feel like, well, one, it is going to stick around and two, like, it's, you know, consequential to, like, other stuff going on, like, in the Marvel world as well.

So it's like, well, I can skip this, I think. Well, I remember they were, especially, they were pitching that, like, the latest series, which I imagine is already over because I think, like, some of the stuff they've already introduced. with it has changed um they were they were advertising this new thunderbolts book and then like after the thunderbolts movie came out they're like surprise it's actually new avengers and it's like it feels like you shot your own IP in the foot on that one yeah yeah he's energy once more but yeah i saw that eddie brock is no longer carnage again so that's good news for dylan oh okay I'm currently reading through Venom trades at the moment from the series just before this or new Venom. It's Bill and Brock is Eddie as Venom is what you're reading, right?

Yeah, yeah, that's right. And then Eddie is basically the King in Black, but there's, like, he's run into different versions of himself in the time stream where, like, he's, it's like, it's like, it's like. like different variations of him being broken and then of evil variation who kind of you know fixed himself towards the end um and it's i didn't enjoy the series to begin with but like i've been getting into it a bit more but it's a bit scatter shop because it's some stuff dealing with eddie sort of in the far-flung future dealing with all this and then some stuff where it's You know, Dylan in the present where he's got his own stuff going on. There's, like, carnage coming into it now as well and crossing over.

There's a lot going on with the series, and it feels like maybe it could have been a bit tighter. But honestly, it's kind of why I like doing trades as well is because you can get the full picture of everything going on, like, doing it, you know, all together rather than having to wait, you know, a month for the next issue to come out. And my memory is so bad, I would 100% forget what happened in the previous issue. So that's a good segue into talking about pros and cons. So the pro you just mentioned is being able to read an entire storyline that's like contained in one thing. And you don't have to worry about forgetting details between issues, which in an ideal world is the next month. So you read your 24 pages, you wait a month, you get another 24 pages of the story.

That's the ideal world. Right before we started recording, I said, we should probably start recording. I was looking at my poll list to see where, like, just to get an idea of like, oh, if it comes up, like, how many series am I currently subscribed to? and then I saw the solicitations or the release schedule for Batman so Batman is kind of all over the fucking place right now

in the sense that September 1st I believe actually was supposed to be the beginning of Matt Fractions run on Batman and it came out scheduled so Batman one issue one has come out issue two has come out for October and issue three has just come out in November

I have not read any of these issues so far I have them in a pile right now and the reason I have them in a pile is that Jeff Loeb's Batman run has yet to finish Jeff Loeb's Batman's storyline Hush 2 which was supposed to have implications

that were impacting Matt Fractions run is not done yet because it has been delayed significantly because of Jim Lee on art and we love Jim Lee he's a legend in the business. He moves at his own fucking pace

because he's one of the publishers at D.C. He can do what the fuck he wants. So this storyline was supposed to end in August. The penultimate issue of this, I think, is coming out either last week or this week. I think it's last week. I haven't picked up this week's comics yet. So the penultimate issue is supposed to come out now.

And the last issue is supposed to come out. at the end of January. So at that rate, the beginning of Matt Fractions's Batman run will have released its fifth issue by then. And this storyline is supposed to explain some of the things that have happened.

So, for example, from why I understand, like all great Batman's storylines, and I'm going to use great with sarcasm, Batman has lost the trust of some of his allies because of his paranoia and his unwillingness to let people in sometimes. So his relationship with Jason Todd, with Nightwing, with Bar with Backgirl or Oracle, and others have been fractured.

And part of that is explaining why in Matt Fractions run, Tim Drake is his Robin and not his son Damien, who is one of those other people whose relationship has got damaged with. So we have yet to see that happen in Jeff Loeb's run. So I don't want to start reading Matt Fracton. run until I get that bit done because you kind of go and understanding some things. So that's a great, that's, that's a great pro for waiting for the trade is that you don't have to worry about the storyline getting significantly delayed due to health issues or scheduling

issues or work issues that come with all-star talent. I mean, you know, we'll be there. And like I said earlier, it's Jim Lee and Jeff Loeb. Who's going to tell them they can't do something, right? so they're going to do what they're going to do they're going to do what they're going to do and it's going to take time but i think i think a lot of it because i think jefflob's other series which was the um the sequel to the long Halloween that just now finished as well and that storyline's been running i think for over a year and i think it was only supposed to go a year so that also had some delays okay so yeah um so pro for for trades in that sense uh you your enjoyment of the story has not been derailed because of scheduling problems and that also sort of leads me to a con for the trades as well in that uh like just got all those delays there but i mean like it seems dc especially and not great for bringing out trades in like a sort of

timely manner. With Marvel, usually, like, the, you know, they're released the issues. The trades will then come out maybe about, like, four or five months later. So it's, there's not that much of, like, a turnaround, but, like, some of the trades for DC,

because I, like, collect Batman and stuff. And it's just, yeah, like, so far off in the future that, the next Batman trade is going to come out. And it's like, well, you know, like, if I wanted to read this, then I'm going to have to wait ages for it to come out anyway. So, you know, it makes you kind of think, well, why don't I just buy the issues in that case?

From what I understand, that's part of the reasoning. Because, and this is another, well, I don't. know if you're going to put this on the pro side or the con side. But that is, that is apparently legitimately one of the reasons because if you delay that release, you're also delaying people buying the trade. So you're going to either push them towards buying the monthly or DC Comics has a online platform, DC Infinite, which I use sometimes, if I just want to read trash that I don't want to buy. So for example, I started reading the 90s fate comic, which was the super edge lord Dr.

Fate's like adaptation, where instead of wearing the big gold helmet in the cape, he's got like tattoos and a leather jacket and like a face tattoo. You know, he's a cool, he's a cool guy. I started to read perfect use for the online platform. But for $7 a month, I can read old stuff like that. or I can read the newer stuff that's on a slight delay, usually about a month or so. Like, the absolute trades haven't come out yet, but I can go online with my $7 and start reading up, I think up until the last two issues of the absolute comics.

Or if I pay a premium price on top of the $7, I can read the shit as it comes out. And I think they're pushing people to the online platform and buying monthly that way. And the reason why I'm saying... Which is interesting, because I was just going to say, like, I think if I had started getting into comics a bit later, I probably would have gone all in on, you know, doing the online stuff rather than, you know, collecting the physical book. Yes. It feels like they, you know, it's like an easy way to do it. And to be able to read everything all in one go. um and like yeah like it sounds as if like the way of how it works and everything has only improved over the last like 15 20 years as well so yeah kind of wish i'd gone that route but never mind as we do our episodes on pros and cons of trades versus monthly we are actually just making an argument for i should read online

yeah oh you don't have to socialize anyone you can just get it all at the same time um i will say this I think Marvel does, even though they put in their comics, like the advertisements for like scan this code to get this copy electronic, I think they do a shit job advertising their online service. I just saw that, because we were talking about it is why about Generation X, I'm a big fan of the character Banshee. I just found out that not only was he a leader of a team of X-Men in a book that was exclusively online, but it was 42 issues. there was like astonishing x-men i think is what it was called and like he was a main character and it went 42 issues and they announced the cancellation i'm like how am i just now seeing the cancellation but i never saw the announcement that this was a book that was happening like straight up the only time i've ever really seen the marvel comics online app

advertised was either in an issue that i bought with the sticker that says scan this code to get your copy of the book you're currently reading. Or when they made the announcement of the Kid Juggernaut book, which spawned our joke of Baby Juggernaut. Because Kid Juggernaut's an online only comic. Yeah, yeah. And it's like, man, the fact that they're employing creative teams to make exclusive online comics,

and they're not advertising that, it seems like such a waste of money. But it's also Disney's money, so I don't really care. Yeah, yeah. Because, like, D.C. doesn't have an exclusive online comics I'm aware of. Oh, it doesn't? Not that I'm aware of.

Oh, okay. Well, no, actually, they do. They have a partnership with Webtoons. And, but it's, they're kind of goofy Tumblr-era kind of comics. Like, do you know what I mean when I say, like, a Tumblr-era comic? are you familiar what Tumblr is not really yes okay so Tumblr um their fan base the people who use comic or who use Tumblr that are comic fans have a reputation of being um for the fans of more of the character interactions than necessarily like the storyline content or like action so like for example

there is a comic series called Wayne Family Adventures and it's basically just just a comic of like the bat family outside of costume interacting with each other like it's it's lighthearted it's kind of goofy it can be silly but people really really dig it on tumbler so like they have a web like that's a that's a webtoons dc comic right so to kind of take us back to the whole trade paperback versus monthly um i think you were talking about like dc having that delay between when a storyline finishes and when they put it out in trade and how that's annoying because of that gap and that it's likely to push sales of the monthly um so the reason that books get canceled it's based off of like the monthly sales right so like the age old rule and i don't know

if it applies anymore but this is going back to 2007 if your book had over 20 000 sales a month you were usually in good like good standing but the second you started to dip that's cancellation of members and I would not be surprised if that's the reason why because I think DC takes bigger chances with books than Marvel does at times like green I think they just announced that Green Arrow was canceled again I think issue 30 is going to be last Green Arrow and that's a bummer because it was a really good run but you know Green Arrow is a character that ebbs and flows when he gets series but like there's a bat girl comic that's out right now they just put out like kids of King Arthur's court like as a a goofy little kid comic DC takes those chances and I think it's because they have that delay whereas with Marvel the turnaround is so much faster on the trades and I think that does hurt

some of their books like I'll be honest with you I think that's probably why they do so many fucking miniseries because you could just slap another number one on it run at five issues and either extend it or put out a new number one because like Storm was a monthly book and it got canceled

so Age of Revelation could run now that Age of Revelation's ending, it's now starting over with the new number one, but now it's a mini-series that, you know, if the sales are still good at issue five, maybe they'll have another miniseries shortly thereafter. So I do think the quick turnaround for trades does hurt some of like the storylines in that sense that people are trade-waiting because that, again, that was the bane of some people's existence in the old like CBR forums in the 2000s. Oh, God, I'm dating myself.

um 2007 2008 comic book resources seeing like fans of bat girl and stuff getting mad that people are trade waiting because you know it's hurting the monthly sales which means that the comic books not looks like it's not selling as well and then i've inevitably going to hurt so yeah which is why i bought that superboy comic because it's like well if i bought the monthlies and i buy the trade then perhaps that will show dc there is a want for this character and it will be more inclined to use him yeah yeah so is there um like what's another con that you can as a as a person who reads trades what is a con that you can think of because like the one that comes to mind is sort of that delay and stuff like so dylan doesn't really give a shit about spoilers sometimes we've talked multiple times about stuff that's happened um but like for example there's still eras like stuff that's happened with the x-men that we try not to talk about because you've been reading through the crocoa era we don't want to spoil anything for you would you say that's a con in that sense um kind of like you know i don't want stuff for me but at the same time i don't avoid spoilers and uh you know it's kind of like i was saying before like my memory's so bad anyway i'm chances i'm gonna forget it so by the time i get around to reading it so It's not too much of an issue for me. I mean, it definitely does feel like

sometimes you're constantly playing catch-up when you can be, you know, pretty far behind what's currently going on. Then maybe that sort of helps when it comes to spoilers as well, because say if I'm reading the start of the Cocon Age and, like, stuff is happening in this latest run and I hear something that happens there. Like, it's so far off and so completely, you know, separate from what I've just started reading,

that it's, you know, it's not going to make much impact on me one way or the other. So. Yeah. I mean, to even use X-Men as a reference, because, like, they've completely exited the Krakowah era, and now they're doing, like, the age of revelation and stuff. Like, if I told you, like, what's happening in age of revelation, that's going to have to have no. impact on what you're reading at all yeah exactly which there is something i've been really dying to talk about which fucking blew me away because i it was a choice um i'll bring it up now and we'll

just edit it out so in age of revelation i was really confused when we were reading the the solicitations for all those mini series because there was the one book that gale was writing that's about Gambit and how he's like mourning the loss of Rogue because she's dead but then there's the other book that's called Rogue Storm that's all about Rogue leading a team of like basically X-Force characters to go kill Storm

because she's become a crazed gauze and I was like how did that happen? Well it was revealed somehow some way Rogue got split into two different beings and they are referred to as Rogue and Red Rogue

and Red Rogue where's red. and so Gambit does not know of the existence of Red Rogue Red Rogue knows that she got split from regular Rogue so while Gambit's Rogue did die and apparently she died by like absorbing Galactus's power

and turned to a giant statue Red Rogue is like off trying to kill Storm and it's just so fucking weird I was like, okay. I mean, that's certainly a take. So, yeah, there you go. Two roads.

One's dead, though, so it doesn't really matter. Yeah, yeah. What a weird way to have your cake you need it to. I mean, I guess, yeah, that comes with these sort of events where... It's in the future. Especially, yeah, like, this sort of... elseworld kind of like alternative dimension kind of thing like you can just go crazy and do whatever you want and that's like a hard thing as well when it comes to right just comics in general

is like knowing what's worth collecting and what isn't because i'm sure there's like you know probably in my grade collection there's stuff which just is completely inconsequential and i don't really need uh doesn't do anything for the characters or anything it's just like a little aside or whatever it's like well why did i spend a significant amount money on this which i'm probably never going to go back and reread yeah i um i i honest god like that is kind of just like i will say that is a positive about reading monthly is it makes it really easy to drop because you can be like all right this is taking a direction i don't need it to and i can drop um case and point uh tim drake is my favorite robin tim drake is also probably in my top

five characters of all time and a few years ago they made the you know dc made the call that tim was going to come out as bisexual and uh all of the like that entire uh reveal and in the storylines following it was handled by this writer, I think their name is like something Fitzmartin. Megan Fitzmartin. And as somebody who is

in the, I guess technically in the bi-community, the way that Anne was writing Tim that's not really like a bisexual male, like suddenly Tim was just very, just as a gay man, a kind of a femme gay man at that. And it just seemed kind of out of nowhere.

and it completely disregarded a lot of the previous continuity. You know, at that point, Tim had been in a very long relationship with a female character, and they ended that off panel by him basically just ghosting her. And then when they came back together when he basically, like, saw her again and revealed, like, yeah, sorry, I was going through some things, realized some things about myself, and I've now started this relationship with this guy, she got excited because now she got to have basically treated his boyfriend as like her new gay best friend despite the fact that's like you and stephanie have been in a long relationship for years like

in the old continuity in the old dc continuity stephanie had like an unplanned pregnancy with a different person and like tim went to like um like pregnancy classes with her like that was tim's dedication as a boyfriend was like helping her through the pregnancy and stuff. So like to have it handled so poorly, it just seemed like Megan Fitzmartin had storylines that they wanted to run with Tim that didn't involve Stephanie and wanted to just get from point A to point B.

It just left a bad taste in my mouth. And plus the art was so bad in those series and it was just like, I read the first issue of that after reading a couple of mini-series that, you know, that Megan Fitzman wrote for Tim. and realized I don't want to read this and for the first time

I didn't read the Tim Drake's Tim Drake run. It ran I think like 10 issues and got canceled for sales because it was not alone in feeling that but it was still like I didn't wait and buy a $20 trade just to realize I didn't like it within the first couple pages.

Yeah. So the there was a low risk there. I wish I could have done something like that to kind of avoid buying some of those Crocoe era books like that second

like chapter of the well Knights of X wasn't good as well I was going to say the Marauders like I can't remember who the writer was but like it could have been but it was

just dreadful like the art was horrible and that as well and pretty much one issue in I was like oh man this sucks but because I've got the trade I feel obliged to read through the entire thing which was an absolute slog

yeah it looks like Steve Orlando which they're the person writing the DC AEW crossover two issue mini series so oh wow definitely not reading that then for multitude of reasons not reading that one

I don't know why they like another short aside I think we should do an episode at one point on wrestling comics because there have been a lot of wrestling comic books over the years and none of them have been I think it's just a it's something that doesn't translate to comic books

very well I've always wanted to read the Kane comic book they did back in the day which was sort of like filling in some of his backstory and trying to you know like add a bit of flavor to his character but um yeah i've never managed to track it down i'm sure it'll be something especially if it was a comic put out in the 90s but uh but yeah like you said so that's you know that is a positive is low cost or low risk

in that sense of like i i bought one issue of this robin series and realized it was trash and didn't continue on with it as opposed to spending like 20 25 for it when he was put out on trade. Mm-hmm. I will also say, though, that because of being able to jump in and out pretty easily, that does also make the trades really handy when you do, like, I'm trying to think of, like, a real good example, like, case in point, right, cool, case in point. I, when it comes to Green Lantern, I have a favorite Lantern, and I have a favorite Lantern, and

That's Kyle Rainer. The only time I've read Green Lantern where Kyle was not the main character was when Grant Morrison was writing Hal Jordan. And I was reading that one because Grant Morrison writing space stuff. And he got real weird with it and pissed off some people because he grant just said one day like, yeah, why wouldn't Hell Jordan be pansexual? And people lost their fucking minds. Because like, what do you mean? It's like, well, you know, he's having sex with aliens in space. Why would they conform to gender binary?

They're aliens. They might have something else entirely going. on. So technically that would make him ban. But anyway, I was not reading this most recent run of Green Lantern. And then I found out that the beast plot to the story that has been running for the last year was actually starring Kyle. And the Superboy that I just showed you in the trade was also part of Kyle's team as they were going in space doing their own thing. And I went, all right well i actually kind of want to check that out now because like i don't really cave a shit about how jordan is green lantern but these other characters i do so now i have a reason to buy like

the first trade or two of green lantern to get caught up on that story so trade do make it easy to get caught up i'm not having to dig through the bins trying to find all the old issues before then which you know you run into the situations of like if it's a number one they might not be that many of them left or you might have to overpay for it um if it's just holes in general that you're having to spend. Like you said, I have a full, almost a full run of Superboy from the 90s in a long box across from me. And I'll have to track those missing issues down at some point because they didn't put out a trade for the 90 Superboy side from like the first storyline. Do you keep a track of like what you own and what you're missing so you can

kind of try and fill those gaps? I have two ways of doing it. One's incredibly manual and the other is pretty easy. So I have a notes app, you know, on the notes app on the phone. I have all of the missing numbers for that Superboy run that I need. Yeah, yeah. So that's the manual way. There is an app that I used to track my comics, like my poll list in what's coming out called like Comic Geek.

And we've used them before in the past on the show. There was a very cursed episode of the podcast that never came out where Dylan and I were just looking at stuff. And, yeah. basically the capture froze really bad to the point that it was completely unusable. But anyway, that makes it pretty easy to track

what comics you want, what comics you have, and what comics you've read. So you can indicate, like, I have these, but I've not read them, or I need this,

or et cetera. So, a full long database. Sometimes, I'll be honest, certain times searching on it can be really hard, especially if it's a character

that's had a lot of runs. So, like, if I'm looking for, like green lantern I have to get very specific about the volume number because if you just search green lantern you're going to get

so much shit brought back in the return yeah yeah yeah what about you because you're like said you're reading trades and I've noticed with the epic collections we'll come back around to this but

previous to the epic collections there was the essential collections which were Uh, usually in those books, they weren't colored. So it was just black and white pages. And they were like phone books. Yes. Yes.

But, um, we'll come back around and talk about that in a moment. Those were numbered. Whereas I noticed in the epic collections, they are sort of, they go by like, like, say, there's no number on the spine here, if you're looking on the webcam or on YouTube. No, but there should be, there should be a number inside it, though, because they, they do come with, like, a numbered stairs there you go volume one but if you're just scrolling if you're just at the store and you're just running your finger around the spines on the shelf you're not going to see that yeah so that's pain absolutely whereas the essentials were numbered but um do you have like a way that you track

what you need what you don't especially now with the switch to epic collections where they don't put that right on the spine yeah i mean like a few years ago Marvel came out with like a sort of explainer of like how their numbering works for like certain runs so

like it would tell you like how many issues were in like volume one and volume two and volume three and how that affected like the legacy numbering I was able to kind of use that to kind of

build my own sort of spreadsheet um and then as i was keeping a track of like what books i had and what books were coming out or you know had been out and i was looking to buy i was able to kind of combine the two and so now i've got this spreadsheet on my google drive where i've like added like a formula where i can color the cells which I've thought of the you know the phrase I own

yeah yeah and and it helps me spreadsheets of work yeah yeah you can tell yeah immediately you might have how would you do that

oh okay it's you know it's all manually done by me basically rather than you know getting an app or something for it then you know I'm kind of a nerd anyway so I like doing it that way I feel you like I said I love an organization that would so make that

bookshelf terrifying because it will snap one day and I'm terrified that happened to me once before I had a bookshelf that did collapse in on itself from the weight so yeah it's a good day so we're to circle back to the essentials collections That, like I said, that was a previous thing that Marvel did. They were about the size of phone books. They were pretty affordable of memory serves. And a lot of that is because the pages were black and white.

They didn't color them. Yes. The focus being, I think, was they were pushing more for affordability than anything else to attract readers that way. I've got a Wolverine run, which is basically in those essential formats where I think I've managed to buy like five or six volumes and it basically covers like the first 120 odd issues of his solo series I was kind of tempted to like start coloring them in myself as well but I thought hang on no that's just it takes forever don't do that yeah I had the first I had the first three moon night essential collections I had the first doctor I think I had the first two doctor strange ones

And then I had a couple of odds and end X-Men ones that were that way. And I liked the essential collections because of that, A, the affordability and just that kind of, like, the material that the books were made out of, like, the binding was really soft and easy to carry. Do you prefer the essentials or the epic collections? I mean, I think you really, well, for me anyway, I would really want, like, the, full experience with color and everything so like the epic collections definitely went out for me there's like an you know an affordable alternative like essentials right like easy to kind of build a collection but not spend too much and like i say like the the books themselves seem to come out with way more uh like issues in each volume

than you typically get in like the epic collection so it was sort of easier to get like longer runs of these theories as well so there's definitely pros and cons for both yeah yeah i guess they've actually had like some captain america ones too i uh i ended up selling them i would go through cullings of my trades every now and then because again the weight of the bookshelf uh but also we were talking about affordability DC has started to do this thing I don't know if you've seen them but they call them DC Compact Comics

which is a trade paperback but in a small book sized instead of like a trade you know like when I think of a trade I think of like more magazine sized these are actual books and they are selling them in like Target stores

and whatnot and they're like 10 bucks and they are like essential storyline so you can get like hush final crisis killing joke you know like all of the big heavy hitter storylines as well as like the first the first like volume or two of like more recent nightwing more recent back girl etc i don't own any of them but i i've seen them at the comic book store they keep them like on the counter and i've seen them at target too so i guess that's like another way they're trying to penetrate, you know,

unconventional markets. I mentioned earlier, like the bagged comics where you get like 10 in a little bag for like $3 or whatever. I don't know if you get 10 of them, but on my grocery store or next door, they have a DC Comics display at the entrance that have like several of them. And they're all more recent comics. Like, you know,

a lot of the rebirth stuff, a lot of the new frontier stuff, a lot of like, I saw some Grant Morrison, you know, like Superman and the Authority comics up front. as well. So it does look like the D.C. is trying to explore different ways to get out of the comic

book store and into more open areas again. Yeah, yeah. Would you look at, now, I know you, you're wanting the full experience. I understand, I've not really looked at these in great depth. They are in color, but they're small. Would the small size be something that would attract you as a trade person or deter you? because I mean it's like $10 versus like 2025 for the same volume

but just in a smaller format I don't know like I think I'd have to check one out and see it for myself because on the one hand I think you know just in terms of practicality and space and everything if I could get smaller books that would be amazing

and you know obviously it wouldn't take up as much room that way but I don't know again I feel like it comes back to trying to get the full experience and I guess it depends like how they're formatting it in these smaller books as well and everything's if it's just everything shrunk down and like you know you have to squint to read it or whatever then you know probably wouldn't be a big fan of it but um i don't know uh me i'd always go for just like at the normal size trades yeah and over everything else i mean i would say that like it would be nice for a like case and point i think it was just it's either rumored or just

revealed that the villain for Man of Tomorrow, which is the sequel to Superman, that they're pitching as a Superman Lex Luthor team up, is going to be Brainiac, which, fucking great. Brainiac is a character that they have been needing to adapt for a long time, in my opinion. Like, when I think of Superman villains, he's in the top three. So, like, if you were, like, DC Comics and you're trying to get people to read the comics themselves, and you're going into Target and you're putting out these smaller, like, paperback book size copies of your trades

you could like what's an I you know get an iconic Brainiac storyline throw it on for a $10 book put it near the toy section and you could probably make some money that way like I said I I don't see the compact comics being more for collectors like you and I I think they're really

more designed to get people who have maybe always heard of these storylines but have never read them because like trades are kind of pricier and they're kind of big so for example like if you're if you're a casual i hate the term casual fan wrestling has ruined me for that um if you're like a casual fan someone who's not into the niche and are tempted to you know i've always heard about kingdom come or i've always heard about killing joke and i want to read it then if you're at target and you

find it for 10 bucks that's a low risk and you're more inclined to buy it and maybe you'll want read more of them or maybe you will want to actually get into the larger size versions of it or whatever but i mean i i do see the pros of doing a small handheld version of these older like more iconic storylines i can't for the life of me think that's going to be what they're going to do with all their trades moving forward no i wouldn't have thought so maybe they're more like kid friendly as well like it's like an introduction for young kid well yeah maybe not that book specifically but you know yeah

in terms of like trades versus issues so there's one other little thing I was going to bring up what your thought on ads in comics is it like I've got like a few single issues

which I've picked up the kind of help just plug little gaps between trades and I'm amazed at just how many ads are in these, like, regular comic books. I will tell you, my feeling on ads is completely dependent on how old the comic is. Modern day ads in comics are usually just advertising, like, buy more comics, or buy or watch this show or movie that's connected to the comics.

But I told you, I have long boxes of Asriel and Superboy from the 90s and stuff from the 80s. I love old ads. I love like going like, you know, like seeing like an advertisement for like mortal combat before like that blew up and was a huge thing or like, like, they used to advertise like music in some of these issues. Like I saw there was this band like I think their name is Paradise Lost that was they were advertised an issue of, um, um, Asriel. And I had to look them up on Spotify because I was like, I don't see many music advertisements in comics. Like what made them think this would apply? and honestly it sounds something a little like Dylan would like if not maybe he already knows about them that might be something i'll bring up to him at some point like you've ever heard of paradise lost but yeah i love seeing like old advertisements in comics from like the 90s and 80s

a lot of like modern day ads just feel you know i'm already reading marvel comics you know i don't need to be reminded that there's going to be five new x-men books coming out or like in dc it's like you got to go see Superman already saw it you know and it's like especially if it's like their own product they're going to market the fuck out of it and you're like man I read predominantly DC comics so I so many advertisements for Superman and

peacemaker and again weirdly enough not really much for creature commandos but yeah that was to follow up on last time but yeah it all depends like you said you were you were saying that there were a lot of ads in the comics better filling in your gaps

do you have that same sort of level of like fascination or are you more like can this just fucking get out of the way oh a hundred percent just get out the way it felt really obtrusive like just the amount of them

and everything and then you know like that's I kind of like trades as well it's just so clean and like you don't get any of that it's the ads are at the end yeah and they're just here's some trades

basically yeah I will say so this is this is like sort of plays along with it they're more common in Marvel now than not letter columns they've been making a return in Marvel for the last few years where you're feeling

because I don't think they're included in trades you get introductions no no definitely not you get like the letter columns and letter columns can be kind of entertaining because you know the editors will let you know a little bit of what the thought process was And especially in the old, the 90s and 80s, Stan Soapbox.

I love Stan Soapbox. And the old hot or not meter, where they would like, you just see where pop culture was at a time. You're like, man, in 1992, we were really up on Millie Vanilli or whatever the fuck. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm kind of glad they're not included in the trades nowadays because, I don't know, it feels a little bit superfluous. Like, I don't really need to read other people's opinions on the books and stuff, and, like, the, you know, writer sort of either defending themselves or, like...

Almost always the editor now. It's never the writer. Isn't... Okay, fair enough. It's always an editor. I mean, I don't know what you mean, though. It can be pretty entertaining. Like, I've got some old Marvel Masterworks trades from, like, the, you know, you know, beginning of the Spider-Man run. And those are, like, full of letter pages and stuff with Stanley kind of talking about it.

I remember the Marvel Masterworks. I had, like, a Hawkeye Marvel Masterworks. But, yeah. Well, I've been, I've received word that Dylan might have repaired his death ray. So that might be a sign for us to wrap this up before he decides to test it on one of our locations. yeah so uh ultimately i you know i see the pros and cons of both i i like reading my monthly so or my weekly so i'm going to keep doing that and it sounds like you know the pros and cons of both and you still enjoy your trades oh yeah there you go well i hope that you all enjoy listening

to two people who seem very stuck in their ways and are not going to be changing any time soon But, you know, if you have any thoughts on trades or monthlies or if you're someone who's really into the digital formatting that neither of us are super into quite yet, then by all means, let us know in the comments. We'll touch on about your movie count when we chat with Dylan next. Just give a little more time because, like you said, I feel like the death rate might be coming in soon. But, John, where can people go to see where your current movie count is as well as your thoughts and opinions on what you have seen? they can head to a letterbox and find me at big john balski or one word there you go uh dylan who is not here but has got his finger hovering over the button uh dylan has a couple projects that he gets up to during the week uh every monday he does a radio show uh from his home in northern ireland

i don't think it's actually from his home he goes to a studio if i'm not mistaken regardless uh it's at radio station that he plays a lot of grunge music and other things that interest him. The show does not have a name. We confirm that very recently. But you'll know it's Dylan because you will hear his lovely dulcid tones as well. And that can be found at bounce. Dot digital radio.com. You can find that in the link below, as well as his Twitch live stream that he hops in from now and now,

from now and then as he works on his animation skills. additionally I have other things that I do once a podcast called Large Old Cup we've been on a bit of a hiatus because stuff has been very busy lately as well as Henry's usual which is a writing thing that I do which is also on a bit of a break at the moment but the links to both are in the description

until next time however you can find us on social media stuff and I can't think of anything else to say is there anything else we should say I think all that's left to say is bye bye bye