Are the "Ultimate Edition" books worth it?

[Tetsu Deinonychus]

I mean, are they worth it to someone who already has the old Mirage collected books of the same issues?

Just wondering because I've become interested in IDW's "Ultimate Edition" books, and I plan to get the two "City at War" volumes, as I don't actually have "City at War" in my collection yet. But, I'm told that they don't just have the comics, but lots of "behind the scenes" tid-bits from Eastman and Laird, which is very cool.

I'm a sucker for "behind the scenes" stuff, so it would be neat to have the whole series, but I already have Mirage's own collected books of Issue #1 all the way to "Return to NY". For that matter, I also have the four colorized books of Issues #1-11 by First Comics. So, do I really want yet another collection of all the same issues just for the bonus content?

I guess it comes down to how much behind the scenes bonus content is there? Is it just little bits of trivia that I probably already know from interviews and Eastman's "Artobiography" book, or is there loads of in depth, previously unseen, info about the good old days of Mirage Studios and the creation of TMNT?

[TurtleWA]

The best way might be to go to a book store like Barnes&Noble or your LCBS and flip through the pages yourself. That way your not risking the disappointment of a blind buy.

I attached a YouTube video. If you pause at 3:45 you see two pages on info. After every issue there are one or two pages talking about the previous issue. The info is broke down by each page (pg 1-2 we did this) or grouping of pages with stories about the process that went into creating the work plus some other things.

Im currently only in the middle of vol. 1 so not an expert on these collections by any means. Hope this helps a little.

[funatic]

While I havn't picked them up myself since I own the original issues and a few of the old Mirage TPB collections, I've done plenty of browsing at comic shops and the Ultimate Collections are very nicely put together. Each issue has a few pages of commentary by Eastman & Laird, though I think in the latter volumes Laird provides less and less info and seems rather uninspired.

Of particular note if you're looking to only get the City At War volumes: If I remember correctly there was an error with the scans for the 4th volume (the first half of the City at War arc) that left 2 or 3 of the issues reprinted without their original duotone shading. This left those issues looking a bit unfinished and was a real deal breaker for me when I was deciding if I wanted to buy them. I wound up going with The Works editions for my City At War collected fix instead. As I already had the original issues in b/w (and fully duotoned), I thought seeing them in color was worth the double dip and made up for the lack of shading. They were missing the cool creator commentary though, so if you're in to that and don't have the City At War original issues, I'd say go for the Ultimate Collections.

[ctt4lfecw]

Yes. If you're a new fan it's really awesome to have these be your first exposure to the source material. And the long-time fans will appreciate the behind the scenes stories by Eastman and Laird.

[myconius]

even if you already have to original trades collecting up to R.T.N.Y. i'd say it's well worth it.
the annotations from both Eastman and Laird after each issue are really awesome to read.

if you're worried about space and $$$$ the digital version they sell on comixology are much cheaper as well as not take up shelf space.
though i will say i myself much prefer to be able to skim though physical pages to quickly get to (or read back to) the annotations.

[DK2]

I've not gotten these myself either. I did manage to get TMNT Ultimate Collection book 5 for a $20 sale price sale. But how will I find the others for that type of price? There was a listing for softcover version of Ultimate Book 1 on Amazon. So they maybe coming out as trades in their entirety in the near future assuming it wasn't some "ghost" listing that may not happen. I just wonder if they'll be in the same size or smaller perhaps? It maybe more affordable this way too. I did originally borrow them from the public library and was only checking their commentaries. It is nice from Kevin and Peter to read their memories and what they don't remember. Yeah Peter gets on and off with his thoughts and even to the point there's nothing from him or he says very little. Kevin is joyous in his recollections. Looked back on amazon and book 1 is slated for Oct. 24 this year in softcover. According to the dimensions size, it seems to be slightly smaller.
I do agree about the earlier post that book 4 was missing the duotones on some issues. It was noticeable. I couldn't recall it on the issues as I couldn't get to my old comics. But most likely was missing.