[Grab ‘Em Now (GEN) is an irregular feature which proves that I spend way too much time browsing book listings on Amazon. The intent of these Grab ‘Em Now posts is to alert you to graphic novels which have started to rise significantly in price online due to their relative scarcity. If any book I mention is buried somewhere on your future buy list, I recommend that if you can still find it at cover at your local LCS then you bump it to the top of your list and grab it now at cover price while you still can.]
So I have noticed few things in the world of graphic novels since my last GEM post here, and without further ado i will share with you my latest observations.
Back in July, IDW released the Walter Simonson’s The Mighty Thor: Artist’s Edition Hard cover, and since it was released only in limited quantities (and since it was an IDW book) it was really no surprise that soon after its release it became quite hard to find anywhere at cover price. This book has been (deservedly) talked about by a few comic art lovers because of its very faithful and impressive reproduction of the interior art pages of Simonson’s Thor run from the 1980’s. For an in-depth discussion of the motivation for the book and it’s creation process I recommend that you check out this interview with the book’s editor, Scott Dunbier, on Newsarama. In Canada you will be lucky to find this book on a store shelf or even online at a price resembling the original retail (try closer to $250+). In the US, you can still find some selling it online on Amazon.com at a discount but likely not for long. For an example of where the price of this book could go, try searching online for copies of IDW’s first Artist’s Editon book, the Dave Stevens Rocketeer book, and see what I mean.
Move over Nova Vol 4 tpb, Nova Vol 5 is moving in… Recently I was made aware of the fact that the fourth volume in the Nova tpb collection (arguably a recent book) was going on Amazon for way above cover (try $40+), and it was before it started to come back down to Earth. Now, it has been somewhat supplanted as the most expensive book in the series by the fifth volume, which at last check was flirting with the $50 price level. That seems crazy to me for a recent Marvel trade, but if you want it and don’t want to pay through the nose for it, then its time to search around for it at your local comic book shops and you should find it somewhere since many shops will carry the Marvel stuff if nothing else.
You have heard me and Ryan over at Chronic Insomnia both reflect on the weird availability cycle that seems to be perpetually in effect over at IDW, and how there will always be at least one Classic GI Joe tpb that is going for above cover online. This time around it is the Classic G.I. Joe Vol. 4 tpb that is approaching the $40+ level. this is crazy. Why? Because these Classic G.I. Joe books all have a regular demand and should all be in print. What is crazier still, is that you can practically predict and guarantee that soon enough on sites like Amazon, this book will come down to a price below retail and some other book in the series will take its turn reaching for the temporary inflated-price-heavens. If you can’t find this one locally, don’t give in to temptation and pay too much for vol 4 (or 8 or 3 or-whatever) because soon enough you will be able to buy it online for likely less than half the current price.
Here is another interesting trend. the Atomic Robo series of trades have been showing some heat with their prices online. First it was the Atomic Robo Volume 2: Atomic Robo and the Dogs of War TP that was starting to get expensive, now it looks like the first volume, Atomic Robo & the Fightin Scientists of Tesladyne, is starting an upward climb in price. If you have dug the single issues and are at all interested in getting the trades, then now is definitely the time to pick’em up while you still can locally … unless you live in one of those areas where the stores stock mostly Marvel books, then it sucks to be you.