The Great Debate - Singles VS Trades

Singles vs Trades.  It's been talked about since the first trade paperback made its way onto the shelves and it is a constant question comic readers ask themselves these days, especially with the expanded trade programs from the major publishers and with the increasing cost of this hobby.

For this post, I'm going to take a look at the two biggest factors that come up in most singles vs trade debates - money and reading experience.  Which format comes out on top for each category?  My conclusions may surprise you.  Hit the jump for more.

Brandon Borzelli writes comic book reviews for Comiclist.com. In 1979, he subscribed to a Marvel series called Star Wars and has been fighting for space in any number of closets and book shelves ever since. He's begun infecting his offspring with this "hobby" in hopes of keeping the fire burning.

A Trade By Any Other Name

Over the past two decades or so, comic publishers have taken great strides in their trade programs.  They've turned the general impression of comics as a twenty-two page floppy on its head. you can now find trades in many varieties, including original graphic novels, trade paperbacks, hardcovers, omnibuses, oversized, Absolutes - the list goes on and on - all ready and waiting for your bookshelf.  You can find anything from a miniseries to an entire comic book run in some form of a collection these days.

Some of the reasons for the rise of the trade paperback can probably be traced to how they store nice and easy on your shelf, generally cost less than their floppy breathren and offer the notion of a “complete” story in one, easy volume. You don’t need long boxes, bags, boards, and there are typically no advertisements found within the trade and, in most cases, the paper quality is better. What’s not to love?

Let's Talk Money

The biggest factor with regard to buying singles versus trades is most undoubtedly the price. We all know you can buy many trades at Amazon or any number of other sites for huge discounts, often times upwards of 30-40% off the regular price.

However, in the siingle issue's favour is the fact that many comic shops and online stores offer a pull list or subscription service with deep discounts for regular customers, typically with discounts in the 10-20% range. Also, on the secondary market, either through sites like eBay or through a comic book show or convention, you can purchase recent comics for a buck or less in most cases.

So, while the cover price for singles or trades is rarely the final sale cost, the comparisons are simply not as easy as saying: four issues at $3 equals $12 while the collected edition is $10. The discount avenue works both sides of the aisle very easily and the suggested retail price is closing the gap of the cover price discounts.

The Reader Experience

If cost were the only factor, you'd probably find yourself in a library reading this stuff at no cost. But is cost really the main factor when it comes to deciding on whether to trade wait or buy singles? If you had endless financial resources and time was not a major detriment to you, would you still “wait for trade”? If it’s not cost related, then what is the main factor in this dilemma? I’d argue that at the heart of the issue lies the notion of the reader experience.

Reader experience is basically how well the story comes across as a collection versus in monthly (or longer with delays) installments. I’ve taken a closer look at a number of titles, such as The Walking Dead, Criminal and more mainstream super-hero events like Secret Invasion and the Sinestro Corps for some careful dissection.

The Walking Dead

Singles, Softcovers, Hardcovers &  Compendiums

The Walking Dead might be the easiest to look at because there are singles, softcovers (six issues per volume), hardcovers (twelve issues per volume) and even a compendium (forty-eight issues per volume). With this array of options, I would say the reader experience can vary quite a bit, especially in addition to the standard monthly grind with the floppies.

Starting with the softcovers, you have an organization of short, six issue arcs. Of the first eight volumes of The Walking Dead, only the first, second and the eighth volumes seem to have natural breaking points that read like a self-contained story. You could even make the case that volumes three through eight is really just one big, complete story arc making reading them one at a time less than ideal whereas, if you were reading them in singles, you would have natural cliffhangers spattered throughout those issues adding even more drama when you have to wait four weeks for the next issue.  However, looking at it from purely a reading experience, The Walking Dead actually falls short in the six issue, softcover version.

The hardcovers for The Walking Dead, however, follow the same pattern as the softcovers.  They have a nice break at the end of the first volume and again at the end of the fourth volume, but if you only read volume two, you simply get left hanging for the third and fourth volumes. The hardcovers offer some extra material to keep you happy, but, as a complete story, you really don’t see one outside of the first volume.

Finally, the compendium offers forty eight issues and it offers the greatest reading experience of the bunch, spanning an entire arc of The Walking Dead, from their initial trials and tribulations to the exploration of their world and eventual settling down and the chilling conclusion. If there was never another issue to the series this would have been a terrific ending.

Walking Dead, for a reader, probably has the highest enjoyment if you read the whole run in the compendium and the second best enjoyment by reading it in singles simply due to the immediacy of it, the use of cliffhangers to keep the reader engaged and the lack of sudden stops that many of the trade versions have. Of course, buying those early singles is a task unto itself, but I digress.

Criminal 

Singles, Softcovers & Hardcovers

Criminal comes in several varieties, including singles, softcovers and a recently released hardcover. This series is easy to assess because Brubaker writes his story with the plan to make the reader pay attention or get left behind. In this regard, you would be much better served waiting for the collection.

However, Ed Brubaker knows this, so he includes essays about movies and writings that have influenced him and his work. This information enhances the reading experience and teaches the reader how to scrutinize what Brubaker is trying to do. It is worth noting that these essays are not collected in the trades.

This leads to a much different reading experience for Criminal depending on how you read it.  As the trades are pretty much the same in terms of content, it comes down to a matter of preference on whether you want the softcover or hardcover.  The real test is whether the additional content in the singles outweighs reading the story in a single sitting with a trade.  As so few other titles have this option, it's difficult to really judge one way or the other and you may end up buying this series in both singles and trades to experience both unique experiences.

Event Books

Singles, Softcovers & Hardcovers

Mainstream super hero event titles offer the most difficult decision when it comes to trade waiting or buying in singles. Secret Invasion had a core miniseries of eight issues, but the meat of the story was contained in the various Avenger titles (Mighty, New, Initiative, solo titles, etc).

If you purchase the collections for Secret Invasion, can you even get the full story from that single trade or do you have to flip back and forth between tie-in trades to get the full understanding of the event? Or do you read one full trade and then pick up the next to fill in the gaps knowing full well how the story ends? If you read it in singles you get the story as it happens, assuming you buy the correct titles for the story and all the tie-ins.

Switching gears now to the Sinestro Corps War, which only has a few volumes and the two core titles, Green Lantern Corps and Green Lantern, to contend with for the most part. These two titles are mixed together so that the story lines up properly in a Volume 1 and a Volume 2.

However, the first two collections don’t include some of the one-shots that did have relevance to the story. They are collected in a one-off volume, which doesn’t help anyone coming in cold thinking they have the full story in the two core volumes.

Most would assume these event titles would make the best choices for the 'buy one trade and get the full story' line of thought, but the above examples aren't the only instances of this bit of 'missing details' problem that the current crop of event titles employ.  Without some tie-ins, major parts of the story are missing in some cases.  In others, attempting to read those tie-ins becomes a chore since they are out of order or in seperate volumes from the main story, essentially forcing you to jump around or read to the end and then go back to the start for the tie-ins. Do all events fail in this regard?  No, but more often then not, the whole story is rarely in the single volume.

Singles or Trades?

Buying single issues definitely has its advantages, as does buying the trades, but as to which offers the best reading experience, it seems like buying the singles have a slight edge simply because you catch the cliffhangers, get to keep up with and engaged in the “now” of the story with the online communities (such as this blog or internet forums) or simply with your buddies, making it easier to recover if you miss an issue in a large crossover. It also avoids the whole spoilers problem, essentially keeping you in the know by always buying the most current issues.

However, there are definitely stories out there that if you don’t keep your past issues handy, you may find yourself forgetting key items to the story whereas those that are waiting for the trade simply turn a few pages back to get their answer or the story remains fresh in their minds as they read from start to finish in one go. Final Crisis is an obvious example of this.  Many claim it gets better with each subsequent read and even Kirk claimed it was a Must Re-Read title. 

Conclusion

Regardless of which you personally prefer, you will probably find things to like or dislike about whichever path you’ve decided on. Personally speaking, I’ve always found it easier to take a twenty-two page comic to the bathroom as opposed to a three hundred page, oversized volume of Hellboy. Don’t think I haven’t tried.  It's just too difficult.  But what do you think?  Are you a singles reader or trade waiter?  Which do you think has the best mix of pros and cons?  Do you trade wait certain titles? 

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