The Flash Archives vol.6, announced last month, is now available for pre-order on Amazon. $45 is still a bit steep compared to a trade paperback (funny thing, hardcovers and high-quality paper cost extra), but it’s a hefty discount off the list price.
Written by GARDNER FOX and JOHN BROOME • Art by CARMINE INFANTINO, JOE GIELLA and FRANK GIACOIA Cover by CARMINE INFANTINO and MURPHY ANDERSON Advance solicited • On sale JULY 25 • 240 pg, FC, $59.99 US
It’s a Rogues Gallery parade in these tales from THE FLASH #142-150, as the Scarlet Speedster battles The Trickster, Weather Wizard, Mirror Master, Mr. Element, The Reverse Flash, Captain Boomerang and Captain Cold! Plus, a tale guest-starring Green Lantern!
I’m very, very happy to see this. I know it is pricy, but I love the archive line.
I was surprised the price of this collections were raised from 49.99 to 59.99. They were already expensive enough.
To be fair, it’s the first price increase in over a decade – and it’s gone up a lot less than monthly comic books. In 1996, The Flash Archives vol.1 cost $49.95 and Flash #114 cost $1.75.
Individual comics have gone up 71% in price (and lost pages, too) in that time, while the Archives have gone up 20%.
but they include around 8 issues each, maybe 10… you are paying around 5 dollars an issue.
The point I was making was that the price increase isn’t huge compared to the overall rate of inflation. $59 today is actually cheaper than $49 was 15 years ago. That link calculates $50 in 1996 dollars as the equivalent of $72 in 2011 dollars.
And it’s still a lot less than it would cost to buy the original issues in comparable condition. Check out the prices at Mile High Comics, for instance. Even their “fair” quality issues — the ones that are marked up, faded, torn, and may be falling apart — are priced at more than $10 each.
Of course, even a mint copy of one of those issues won’t be in as good condition as the Archive book, which is on high-quality paper with much better printing.
That makes no sense. Archives don’t have collectible value, which is something I absolutely don’t care about.
The Chronicle editions make sense to me. The Archives are overpriced.
I suppose if you’re going to compare the Archives to the Chronicles (which, keep in mind, didn’t exist until at least a decade after the Archives launched), then you’ll have to consider the fact that the Chronicles are
1. shorter than the Archives
2. on cheaper paper
3. softcover instead of hardcover.
Not sure about the printing process on the Chronicles vs. the Archives, but paper makes a huge difference.
I’m not denying that the Archives are expensive, but I don’t believe they’re overpriced when you look at what you actually get.