Comics are serious business for us fans and that's why here at The Weekly Crisis, the never ending debate wages on whether singles, the comics that come out every Wednesday in individual format, are better or worse than trades, the soft- and hardcover collections of said singles. This is the first of a two part series listing the reasons each side is better than the other. Expect the followup detailing why trades are better later this week. The only question is, whose side are you on?You Get The Story NOW
Singles give you the story as soon as it's ready, whether it is weekly or monthly. Trades force you to wait and end up killing any momentum you might have had with a series or event. Grab the singles and save yourself the 6-12 month waiting period on most trades.
Digestible Content
Singles let you digest the story, help build anticipation, hype and allow you to discuss and speculate the various happenings going on in a book. You do not get to speculate on who the mysterious figure is or how the characters will get out of their current problem with trades; The entire story is there and all the discussion has already taken place with friends and online while you were waiting.
No Spoilers
With singles, you never have to worry about spoilers as you are getting the newest issue as soon as possible. With trades, you are always behind the curve and with the internet, spoilers are bound to show up in your daily travels. Waiting on trades just leads to people ruining that big reveal or conclusion on you.
Singles Save You Money
No one likes dropping $20+ on a trade and finding out that 'great' story turned out to be crap. Save yourself money and just drop $2.99 on a single issue. If you like it, get the rest. If it's garbage, you saved yourself $17 or more not picking the rest of that series up.
Comic Wednesday
Picking up singles brings you into the shops every Wednesday. This social interaction is a big part of the hobby and being in the shop every week gives you more opportunities to find those key issues or, if it's a slow week, lets you check out a new book, expanding your horizons, something you would not typically do with $20+ price tags on trades. You would typically only show up, buy the trade you wanted and leave if you were coming into the shop looking for a trade. You also get to discuss everything with friends and online as soon as it happens, not 6 months later.
No Gutter Loss
With singles, there is no reason to worry about losing parts of your page to the gutter, the middle space in trades where the pages are bound to the cover. With many trades, splash pages bleed into the gutter and make it difficult to see the entire page. This can even be seen on some non-splash pages. This is never a problem with singles.
Easy to Re-Read
Remember that awesome moment in a story you read once or that character defining single issue? Wouldn't you like to re-read that without having to pull out a huge trade and cycling through 100's of pages looking for what you wanted to see or read? With singles, you just pull out that key issue and check out what you want, when you want.
Get What You Want
In this age where advertising tries to tell us what to do and buy, it is good to have choices. If I only want the main series of a crossover, I only buy that main series. If I hated that fill-in issue, I can skip that piece of garbage. Pointless tie-ins? Not paying for it. With trades, you can easily get stuck footing the bill on a large trade with some real duds in the collection to simply get that certain part of the story you actually wanted. Avoid wasting money and just buy the singles you want and enjoy the books you like.
Singles Are Worth More
Trades are worthless. You can't even get cover price on a resale of them typically. Singles only improve with age and, eventually, your books could end up worth a fair bit of money.
Back Issue Rummaging
There is nothing more thrilling than the hunt itself. Rummaging through those back issue bins is like the call of the wild for comic fans. Searching through those bins and finding that one issue you were looking for on sale for half price is one of the greatest experience a fan can have. These searches typically turn up random new books or issues you were not even expecting or looking to find, a boon in and of itself. You don't get these experiences just casually pulling that trade off the shelf and plodding on home.
Conclusions
The debate will rage on for years to come, but hopefully this list will put some perspective on the Singles Camp's side of things. Tune in later this week for the other half of the story with my counterpoint to this post featuring 10 Reasons Trades Are Better Than Singles. Whose side are you on? The Singles or Trades?
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2 comments:
Singles have hot dog ads every other page, though.
Ahaha, tell me about it. That's definitely part of my second featurette on this when I do the 10 Reasons Trades Are Better part. Those freaky hotdog wielding arms from the stomaches creep me out.
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