I wonder what the chances are for Walking Dead II: Walk Deader #1 coming out by 2025?
The big news over the weekend was the announcement that The Walking Dead comic book series would be returning to the stands in a new biweekly reprint series…in color.
I was pretty sure something like this was going to happen…I predicted it here once or twice over the years, but honestly I thought they’d just go with colorized trade collections. I suppose a new color reprint comic book series might help get folks back into the habit of visiting comical-type bookstores again, what with the effect the real life plague has had on business.
Now I expect Robert Kirkman will see this project through to the end…though I do think the possibility of sales on the reprint series falling os low that they’d switch over to doing color trades only. I know the press release states “no trade collections for a while,” but we’ll see what happens if and when circulation drops to precarious levels.
This is nearly 200 comics they’ll be reprinting (I’m assuming the various specials will be included), and I’m wondering what the exact market for these will be. Walking Dead completists, sure. And there’ll be the investor-types who’ll probably want multiples of the first issue, and will want the color editions of whatever “key” issues turn up. There are the folks who didn’t read it the first time, either because it was in black and white, or they just up and missed it. Personally, I may pick up the series myself, since I skipped it initially but had enough interest in it that I’d poke through the occasional issue. We’ll see.
New editorial backmatter will be presented in each book, which may get the old readers to pick it up again, at least for a while. But 200 issues of something you’ve already read, even if it’s now in color, at twice a month over the next eight years, is kind of a big ask. I imagine sales eventually are going to depend heavily on those readers who hadn’t read it before, plus a handful of those old Walking Dead fans who cannot resist the new colorized temptation. It’s gonna start big, I’m sure, but I’ll be selling single digits on these by the time 2028 rolls around. Aaaand I’m sure by that time the trades will have started coming out.
Anyway, this is some project, and like I said, I’m surprised they opted for the comic book format versus the trade. Now to start pestering Dave Sim about Cerebus But Now in Color #1.
“and will want the color editions of whatever “key” issues turn up”
#19, 1st Michonne!
These things never last long- it seems an odd way to do it!
Remember the “cheaper editions” of a few Marvel and DC books? they were soon dropped, leaving JUST the higher priced versions.
DC briefly reprinted the Alan Moore Swamp Thing series, issue by issue, but not for very long.
Besides Dreadstar & Company, Cerebus Bi-Weeky & Classic X-Men, can you recall any other issue by issue reprint series? I used to buy all 3 of those.
In answer to D’s question, there was also “Spider-Man Classics,” though that lasted only sixteen issues.
In the days before trades and everything available in some sort of reprint, Marvel Tales got me introduced to Ditko and Romita Jr. early Spider-Man and I lived for those month to month.
The Classic X-Men reprints did the same to get me into the old tales.
I wasn’t even thinking of all those long running Marvel reprint books – – Marvel Tales, Marvel’s Greatest Comics, Marvel Triple-Action, Collectors Item Classics, Fantasy Masterpieces, I’m sure I’m forgetting 10 more series. Marvel sure loved to reprint everything over & over.
Yep, Marvel Tales is definitely a big one. It lasted quite a long period of time, especially for a reprint book.
They were gold, back in the 1980s, when they were reprinting the Lee/Ditko issues. I was buying that series alongside if the Uncanny X-Men series. I found it amazing that I could read those classic comics without having to spend hundreds of dollars to collect the back-issues. Which, being a kid, I obviously couldn’t afford.
I then decided to buy back-issues of Marvel Tales with the remainder of the Stan Lee run and the Gerry Conway issues.
Since it was a reprint series, even though the issues were a decade old by that point, you could still find them in dollar boxes.
I used to love Marvel Tales. I never imagined a day when the entire Amazing Spider Man run would be collected as TPBs.
It wasn’t reprinting a series in order, but I also absolutely loved all of those 1970s monster/horror Marvel reprint comics. Those were pretty special.
I also remember DC starting to run reprints of the Wolfman/Perez Teen Titans and some classic Legion of Superheroes issues in the 1980s, alongside the ongoing contemporary book (similar to Classic X-Men).
Kirkman already did a Walking Dead reprint project with The Walking Dead Weekly in 2011. It reprinted the first 52 issues of the series weekly for a year after the TV show premiered.
It actually held on surprisingly well. Issue #30 in June sold an estimated 3,806 copies while issue #39 in September (the last issue I can find details for) sold an estimated 3,359 copies
I’m going to play the old-timer card here and mention that I began buying MARVEL TALES and MARVEL COLLECTOR’S ITEM CLASSICS when their covers featured tiny reproductions of all the original covers. That gave these collections a tantalizing sense of history. (When the story reprinted was a back-up not featured on the original cover, that cover would be reprinted but with the hero–the Hulk, Dr. Strange, the Wasp–bursting through it. One then had the challenge of reconstructing the cover from the glimpse shown.)
Sometimes the reprinted covers showed a price of ten cents. I used to stare at these with envy of the lucky souls who had been able to buy comics so cheaply, while I had to pay the exorbitant amount of twelve cents.
Vertigo also tried B&W reprints of Sandman and Swamp Thing, as I recall. They didn’t last, though Swampy looked good in B&W.
Well, surely Cerebus would be in “coloUr”.
I could see it lasting a good while. IDW managed to complete THE MAXX recoloured reprint series, and have done quite a bit of original TMNT and and currently doing the early USAGI YOJIMBO.
And of course there was no problem with the serialized MIRACLEMAN reprints…
But yeah, serialized reprints in 2020 are a bit weird. It’ll be interesting to see how it does, if we ever get direct market sales figures again.
“Dreadstar & Company, Cerebus Bi-Weeky & Classic X-Men”
I forgot those! Dreadstar & co lasted about 6 issues.
Marvel Tales was an older title than the stuff I was thinking of, but it did last a LONG time!
“a Walking Dead reprint project with The Walking Dead Weekly”
I forgot about THAT! which makes doing it again even sillier!
“I never imagined a day when the entire Amazing Spider Man run would be collected as TPBs.”
and they’re in expensive hardcovers, too! TPBs & HCs became the standard for a REASON- they’re convenient! Even bookstores who don’t sell comic books can sell those.
Top Shelf put out “From Hell: Master Edition”
IDW is currently reprinting the incomplete TMNT volume from Image as “TMNT: Urban Legends” and have promised it will have an ending.