Miracleman (Marvel)

Re: Marvel to Publish Miracleman!



Here's Alan Davis's cover to the Marvel A Dream Of Flying TPB.
 
So I downloaded the original Eclipse Miracleman issues so I could compare the coloring.

My God the new reprints by Marvel make a world of difference. The artwork has always been fantastic overall, but the new coloring makes it so much better, more vibrant, MUCH easier to notice detail, gives an incredible amount of depth and layers to the original artwork, etc. It really makes it even more of a joy to read.

And I'm so glad they're reprinting all the related spin-off stuff like the Warpsmiths stories "Cold War, Cold Warrior" and "Ghost Dance", as well as the Summer Special/3D Special. I'm sure they'll eventually reprint the Apocrypha mini-series once they get further along.

Marvel really did this right, and I'm extremely appreciative of their efforts and the results. And I really can't wait to see how Totleben's work looks with the new coloring methods. It was spectacular even with the old school, far more simplistic method, the new approach is going to be amazing.
 
Re: Marvel to Publish Miracleman!

DIrishB said:
Marvel really did this right, and I'm extremely appreciative of their efforts and the results.
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To a degree. They definitely did right in the recoloring and the collection of all of the extras that haven't been published in the US.

But they are overdoing it with the money grabbing and I think it's hurting this book's popularity. There is next to zero buzz on this book, and I think it's because of the pricing and the inclusion of all of the crappy "extras" like reprinting all of the Marvelman garbage they already published when they were re-releasing those books. Not including digital copies in the print editions like they do in their most popular books can't be helping, either.

Who knows; it could be that they've sunk so much money into this that they don't really have a lot of choice. But I kind of doubt it.
 
E said:
To a degree. They definitely did right in the recoloring and the collection of all of the extras that haven't been published in the US. But they are overdoing it with the money grabbing and I think it's hurting this book's popularity. There is next to zero buzz on this book, and I think it's because of the pricing and the inclusion of all of the crappy "extras" like reprinting all of the Marvelman garbage they already published when they were re-releasing those books. Not including digital copies in the print editions like they do in their most popular books can't be helping, either. Who knows; it could be that they've sunk so much money into this that they don't really have a lot of choice. But I kind of doubt it.
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That's a good point, but I disagree about them not investing a lot of money to not only obtain the rights to reprint the issues, but recolor them, as well as line up Gaiman and Buckingham to finish their run. I imagine they invested quite a bit, which is likely the main reason the book is priced as it is. No doubt the old 50's Marvelman stuff by Anglo included in the issues (which is uninteresting and kind of pointless) is merely to pad the issues and act as a way of justifying the price, merely through page count.

I do think once they start releasing the TPB/Hardcover collections that those will sell well both in brick and mortar comic shops and bookstores, though I'm apprehensive at how those will be priced.

I guess the bright side is these reprints, though a little pricey, are still vastly cheaper than what the original Eclipse or Warrior issues tend to run for, as will be the reprint TPB costs, all with fantastic recoloring and collecting all the supplemental/spin-off material in one title. That's a definite plus in my opinion.
 
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Re: Marvel to Publish Miracleman!

Yeah, I'm trade waiting.
 
Re: Marvel to Publish Miracleman!

DIrishB said:
That's a good point, but I disagree about them not investing a lot of money to not only obtain the rights to reprint the issues, but recolor them, as well as line up Gaiman and Buckingham to finish their run.
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I wasn't saying that they didn't invest money into it, I was saying they invested so much that they might not have much choice than to try and do things like double-dip readers (paying separately for print and digital).
 
E said:
I wasn't saying that they didn't invest money into it, I was saying they invested so much that they might not have much choice than to try and do things like double-dip readers (paying separately for print and digital).
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Yeah, which is a shame. But I suppose with the legal nightmare surrounding the rights issues over the MM property, there wasn't much choice. Again, despite the price of the issues and having to buy print/digital separately, I still think it's preferable as opposed to not getting the fantastically recolored reprints or eventually seeing the conclusion to Gaiman's run.
 
Re: Marvel to Publish Miracleman!

Alex Ross variant for Miracleman #5:

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Re: Marvel to Publish Miracleman!

I'm not digging the recolouring. I wonder why. I get that it's clearer, and indeed, the older ones don't look great. But I just seem to enjoy them more. The new ones seem... dull. Lifeless. I wonder why I feel that way about them. Sometimes I just wonder.
 
Bass said:
I'm not digging the recolouring. I wonder why. I get that it's clearer, and indeed, the older ones don't look great. But I just seem to enjoy them more. The new ones seem... dull. Lifeless. I wonder why I feel that way about them. Sometimes I just wonder.
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You're crazy. Dull and lifeless are perfect descriptions of the original versions' coloring. The Marvel reprints are much better, more depth and life to them.
 
Re: Marvel to Publish Miracleman!

DIrishB said:
Dull and lifeless are perfect descriptions of the original versions' coloring. The Marvel reprints are much better, more depth and life to them.
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Completely agreed.

The only real issues are where they tried to color in the original shading, and it looks a little weird. But they still look great, and it's obvious they did the best they could with what they had. I'm glad they didn't try to remove the original shading.
 
Re: Marvel to Publish Miracleman!

CHAMELEONS??!?!?!? CHAMELEONS?!?!?!?

[video=youtube;w23oPQdnNH8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w23oPQdnNH8[/video]
 
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Re: Marvel to Publish Miracleman!

Now I feel like I have to buy two and keep one sealed.
 
Re: Marvel to Publish Miracleman!

The first hardcover came out yesterday.

I'm not sure what they are doing but I thought it was interesting that Amazon had it available the same day as comic stores. Usually Amazon doesn't ship comics out until a few weeks after the comic stores get the books. Also there were reports that some showings of Godzilla and X-Men DoFP had ads for the first book playing before the film.

Anyway the book is beautiful but the cover price is $29.99. The prices on these books have been just short of outrageous, and this is no different. They took 4 issues worth of material that had already been stretched out from the original 3 Eclipse issues. The first trade from Eclipse collected the same stuff and was 9.95. Granted it was 20 years ago but it's still crazy to think about.

Actually that's not entirely true; it does have a few more things - the A1 Warpsmith story, The Yesterday Gambit, and Saturday Morning Pictures are all included. Still, those are pretty short stories.

There are almost as many extras in the book as there is story. It's a borderline ridiculous amount. I can't tell if we're paying more for all of the extras or they are throwing in all of the extras to justify the price they feel they have to charge, but I'm guessing it's the latter. I just wonder at what point they are pricing customers out, because indications are that sales on this book aren't great and not what they were hoping or expecting. I believe they've already drastically lowered ordering requirements for some of the newer variants compared to earlier issues.

Anyway I still feel that even though this comic is expensive it is worth it. They've arguably taken one of the greatest all time stories and made it even better. There are a lot of extras but at least they are relevant. The trade does not have the worthless Marvelman reprints that the issues have; it's all original art and stuff like that.
 
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