Outside the obvious of floppies or single issue comic books, do you own multiple copies or versions of a specific item and why?
For me it’s any collected edition of Hush, I own the Absolute, Noir, Unwrapped (both editions), 15th anniversary, the coloring book, the collected edition trade paperback, the split trade paperback and the split hardcover editions.
I’m even thinking about adding the 75th anniversary boxset which contains Hush in it and the new trade paperback edition to my collection. I have two sets of the floppies as well, one is the copies I picked up when I was reading it and I have another pristine collection as well.
Hush really pulled me back into comics, so I am unapologetically a huge fan of the storyline and it has its own special section in my bookcase.
Also, I have all of the Amalgam Comics from back in the day, living overseas my selection was limited but for some reason they sent us all of the Marvel v DC and Amalgam Comics titles. I read those until they fell apart. Managed to get my hands on the trades throughout the years as well.
I’m like you when it comes to Hush. I’ve owned every single print release of that story, including the reprinting of it in the Batman Giant series.
I’m tempted to get the new trade coming out in September. Or see if Santa Claus will drop by with it in December.
I also used to have every release of the Wildstorm maxi-series Divine Right: The Adventures of Max Faraday. The single issues (including the variant covers) the Gen13 and WildC.A.T.S tie-ins, Wizard magazine #1/2 and #0 issues, the two softcover trades, the Collected Edition hardbound single issues that reprinted the first half (I think) of the series, and the all-in-one trade that came out a few years ago.
Nowadays for Hush and Divine Right, I have them in digital only.
I’ve collected Akira three times.
The Dark Horse trades (b&w, flipped, fully translated) an old roommate still has these, grrr…
The Epic run (colored, flipped, fully translated)
The new 35th edition boxset (b&w, reads right to left, new translation, but onomatopoeia kanji kept)
Each one is a little different. And it’s Akira. Will probably buy the new restoration ofthey’re the movie they’re planning as well to go with the blu-ray I currently have too. It’s just the one that fires me up to have to get every version of it. It’s always cool to hear which stories trigger that in people.
Given how expensive and space consuming collecting can be, I generally speaking don’t do duplicates/variants. However, my whole collection is pretty much redundant, since it’s figures of the Trinity over & over again
I have both “Snoopy Come Home” and “It’s Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown” on DVD twice because they both were featured in multiple DVD collections.
I have three different versions of The Complete Collection of Sherlock Holmes - a digital version, the Knickerbocker Classics hardcover, and the Stephen Fry narrated audiobook.
I currently own Tom King’s Mister Miracle in both print and digital, and I want to get the hardcover. Any new editions of it that DC prints I will buy. As for other comics, I have limited shelf space so it isn’t really worth it to buy multiple editions if I already own the story. The only other series that comes to mind where I’d buy another edition is if Marvel did Absolute-sized hardcovers of Hawkeye by Matt Fraction. But since I already have the deluxe hardcovers there’s no reason to downgrade to the TPBs.
Also, I’m looking into getting the deluxe edition of Batgirl: Year One even though I own the trade because my copy of it was bought used (I’m not super liquid) and has been read/flipped through/admired multiple times since.
For me it’s James Robinson’s Starman. I have the single issues, I have the original trades and I have all the omnibus editions.
Starman is a series near and dear to my heart. While I’d been reading comics for most of my life, this was the first time I paid attention to things like foreshadowing, characterization and long form storytelling. It was also the first time I’d seen a writer know the ending to a book long before the first issue came out, so everything had a clear direction.
At the time I was thinking about getting into writing. This series really made me think about it. Just a few years later, I was in college going for my writing/literature degree.
I hear there is gonna be another huge collection coming out in a few months…I can feel my wallet hurting already.
I have a few duplicates of various things however, the one I have the most duplication of is the 1987 Justice League series. I have the single issues. The original A New Beginning and the Gospel of Maxwell Lord TPB, Then I have the newer trade paperbacks from a few years ago as well as the hardcover versions, I broke down and bought the Omnibus version. Finally, before there were all these trades and hardcover versions a bunch of my friends collected the first 25 issues, Annual 1, and Suicide Squad 13. They sent them off and had them bound into a hardcover. It was awesome when I got it.
I guess the next things would be the Jack Knight Starman series. I have all the single issues, most of the trades and all the Omnibus volumes.
