Feelings on the IDW reprints

[Metropoliskid41]

As far as the printing scans goes, IDW is unfortunately at the mercy of using whatever files Mirage sends them or still has in the archives. So if there is an issue with the quality being lackluster, that because that was all Mirage could provide them with.

I love the Mirage centric reprints that IDW has done, I love the Ultimate Collections especially. I do wish that the other stuff was reprinted in larger collections and packaging. Very rarely do I pick up 2 or 3 volumes of the Tales or Classics TPB collections, which together run around $55-$60, and feel that those multiple editions are anywhere close to the same value as what you get for one Ultimate Collection at $50. But the lucky thing here in the US is that most of the non-Laird & Eastman issues from Volume 1 of Mirage are pretty readily available and cheap, so I have only been picking up the Classics volumes that have issues I'm missing and kind find cheap originals. I know that doesn't help you in Europe, though, so I see your point.

As for the Archie reprints, I have to disagree with you about the coloring. I absolutely love the original coloring in the Archie Adventure series, it has the perfect feel for the time it was being printed. I don't know about you, but I have a very high nostalgia for the late 80's and early 90's especially when it comes to that era of the turtles, and so I love that they kept the original coloring it really takes me back to my youth and the coloring really conveys that 90's vibe. I love it. What I don't love is the price point for 4 issues. Honestly, from what issues they've collected so far, you would be better off going to the Mirage website and buying the individual Archie Adventures issues for $3 a pop instead. Again, sorry but that doesn't help you over in Sweden.

IDW is really in a tough spot here, there is so much Turtle material that has never been reprinted, and what has, didn't see large print runs and these collected editions weren't readily available at a reasonable price before IDW got the license. So once IDW took over, you have thousands of hungry fans, salivating over the possibility of finally getting some reprints of the vast catalog of turtle comics out there. And so they are constantly getting flooded with "when are you going to collect this? when are you going to collect that?" questions. I'm just as guilty as anyone. And so IDW has to do their best to meet demand, and try to reprint as much as they can as possible, and that's a lot to cover when there is 30 years worth of material out there. They can't make everyone happy, but they are trying to get as much out there as they can in a reasonable time frame.

Once they get some of that stuff out there, and start reprinting some of the stuff from eras they haven't tapped yet, I would expect them to come back with more complete, larger collections, at a cheaper price point, that will meet a lot of your and many others' (including my own) issues with some of the collected editions thus far. The Transformers comics went through a similar program, and now they've been putting out some downright amazing collections of not only their own IDW series, but also the past Marvel and Marvel UK Transformers stuff.

So I guess all I can say is try to enjoy what we're getting now, I know there are some issues, but I think they will get pretty close to satisfying almost all of our concerns the second time around when they get back to collecting that stuff again in a new format.