Image comics announced today that issues of The Walking Dead will ship weekly starting in January. Now there's a slight hitch. Heeding the wisdom of the inimitable Brian McKnight, they're gonna start it back at one. We're not talking about new issues of the ongoing series, but the full run starting with the debut issue from October, 2003. Rebranded as The Walking Dead Weekly, these reprints are aimed at new readers picking up the story from AMC's television series (T minus 6 days, kiddos).
It's an interesting plan, but will new readers find the weekly installments (priced at $2.99) more appealing than the instant gratification and discounted price of the existing collections (paperbacks, hardcovers, omnibusesssesssess)? Speaking of, volume three of the Omnibus also hits in January with a regular and limited edition.
Find us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
Subscribe to our RSS Feed
Some rights reserved.
Interesting. Will the monthly series continue or will we be waiting until this reprint run is over, a year and a half later?
Yay!! I’ll be using the weeklies as a way to migrate from trades to issues on this series.
I would imagine that the ongoing would just carry on, with an upcoming in series event I doubt they’d delay the series that long. They would miss out on sales and annoy fans.
It is a curious decision. Only time will reveal its success or failure.
I think this will prove successful for Kirkman. Yeah, the issues are $2.99, but it’s still a lower cost alternative versus shelling out more money for a trade or hardcover, for people who don’t read comics. It’s a great way for them to sample the product. This will help migrate them to the trades, hardcovers, and monthlies once they catch up.
so they are reprinting the entire series and calling it a weekly? Kinda genius, especially knowing that obsessive uber fans will be buying these up. It’ll still take a year or so to catch up huh?
I’d rather just buy the trades. I got the first one for 5bux used.
I don’t get it. This is just a way to milk more money. Buy the trades, they are available everywhere. They are even available at Wal mart.
Good idea to get new fans involved; but since we always seem to debate whether ‘film to comics’ or now ‘TV to comics’ gets more readers…..Not sure if this will be a true success or not.
But will these be collected? I kid, I kid
At $2.99 no way. I’ll just get the trades.
Also i LOVE the Brian McKnight reference. Love that song too.
Kudos Paul!
It’s an interesting move. I’ve certainly never heard of it being done before. I would be skeptical if it were up to me. Only time will tell how cost effective something like this will truly be. Still, points for effort.
The trades are cheaper than buying the individual issues. especially if you can find them on sale. Will the regular Walking Dead series go weekly in 2012 when this catches up to it then? Adlard better fire up the turbo switch on the drawing board!
It’s a good idea but I’m going to go back and buy the trades.
I’m not sure how this is preferable to trades? WonderAli’s example seems like the target, but I’m not sure how the weeklies are better than grabbing missed issues from back bins. Interesting move. Can’t wait to see how these sell.
Nobody ever said that Kirkman wasn’t afraid to take chances and push boundaries. We shall see how it works out. Me, I’m sticking with my hardcovers.
I’m kinda with you on this one, stuclach — this seems to be a move to get people into the series, but there also seems to be an ulterior motive to get people on a serial bandwagon. But why?
We’re in a time when most comics are being made with an eye for greater longevity and exposure in bookstores or as digital comics. There are many on this site who has expressed a desire to get rid of single issues, and move to either digital or trade only or both.
Also: the biggest hinderance (no pun intended) to serial publication would seem to be distribution. We’ve heard many people talk about the problems with diamond and the direct market, the trouble with retail stores getting new readers, etc. So, if Walking Dead is just going to be pumped to the same market, a market already looking to get things in trades and hardcovers… well, I dunno, it makes me scratch my head a little. I mean, WonderAli provided the example of someone who wants this, but… how big is that audience? I think about Vertigo pumping out black-and-white, issue-by-issue reprints of Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing awhile back. That didn’t last very long. Is there really a market for this? Is there a secret distribution agenda that we don’t know about yet? Hmm… curiouser and curiouser.
I bought the first 6 issues on the Comixology iPod app and just ordered the Compendium vol 1 😀
Very interesting move as all issues are now available digitally along with day and date release via comixology. I personally love the HCs that have come out (would have jumped on the omnibus train, but they quickly went out of print) but also like the TPB treatment.
I don’t know that the weekly re-release will boost sales as the regular comics crowd has already jumped on board or avoided the series – and I don’t know that someone watching the show is going to go to the comic store to pick up the individual issues… I’d think they would be more inclined to pick up the trades or HCs at a ‘regular’ book store or online.
@daccampo–the more i think about this the more i am convinced these issues aren’t really designed solely for new readers, but more to get as much money as possible out of collectors and complete-ists. To give the benefit of the doubt, he could be trying to see if a reprinted and reissued successful series in floppy form would go over well sales wise.
You can prob get all the back issues (save for the first few) for a lot less than cover price, or just go for the trades.
I’d say this was more of a money grab, if there weren’t so many different ways to get the series. You’ve got trades, hardcovers, big hard trades, digital across so many platforms, single issues, smoke signals, cave paintiings – so it does kind of make some sense to do this. Some of the ‘general public’ who love the series may not be willing to plop down $15 to $50 for something most of them haven’t tried since they were kids, if they ever read comics at all. This is clearly geared to people who love the show, but don’t know anything about comics. Plus, going weekly means, unless it’s a totally ‘duh’ kind of bookstore/newsstand, you’ll find a handful of issues on the stand at the same time. Really a win-win.
Yeah, I think I’m going to be reading it via their Compendiums myself. Seriously guys, $37 bucks for 1000+ pages? You can’t really beat that.
@ottobott – if you can find it in stock, when I last looked for it that print run had run out – that and a paperback spine for that many pages tend to have problems… like The Darkness and Witchblade compendiums and it better to go with the HC bindings…
@rispring – Amazon and Heavy Ink are both showing it in stock. And the reviews on Amazon have mentioned the paper spine as being up for the job of keeping that monster together. It seems worth a shot.
It’s hardly the same market, but there were tons of Marvel reprints in the 70s-90s, so maybe this will serve as a revival of that.
@rispring-in terms of comics, HC bindings and Trade Paperback bindings are identical for the most part. Its actually the same exact book from the same print run, glue bound or sometimes done with side/stab stitch. They attach a hardcover and kind of hide it. In reality Hardcover comics are some of the lowest quality (binding) hardcover books in the publishing industry. Its a total illusion that they will last longer than their paperback cousins.
Proper hard bound books, are printed and bound in signatures, bound with thread and other things that will make it last for decades. Outside of omnibuses, absolutes and other higher end products like that, the vast majority of hard bound comics are cleverly disguised paperbacks.
I wonder when the next Compendium will come out? That’s the money saver collection right there!