Polite Dissent

The GOOD and the BAD of the The Legend of Grimjack: Volume 4 trade paperback.

GOOD: The script by John Ostrander and the art by Timothy Truman. AndGrimjack. Grimjack is just cool.

BAD: The high IDW price point ($24.99). Sure, it’s a very nice high quality collection, but that’s still a steep price. I’m sure it all comes down to supply and demand: I’m willing to cough up that much for the Grimjack collections if it’s the only way I can get them, but how many readers are not picking up this series due to the cost?

GOOD: The original editors notes and references are left in place. It always bugs me when the footnotes and references are rewritten when a series is collected.

BAD: There is no easy way to tell which Grimjack issues are included. It would be nice if the cover of the collection listed what issues of the original series were collected, or at least listed them in the indicia like every other company seems to do. To figure out which comics are collected, you have to look at the cover gallery in the back and read the small print there (for the record, it collects issues #15-22, except for issue #21. There are also a couple of Munden’s Bar back-ups, but which issues those are from — or whether any were not collected — is not listed).

GOOD: Ostrander is at the top of his game here. All the various plots and threads from the first issue onward come together in a way that would make Chris Claremont turn green with envy.

BAD: That page in the middle of the truck fight was printed upside down, wasn’t it? It’s hard to tell because there’s some topsy-turviness to the art leading up to it, but the captions and everything are upside down, so I suspect it’s a goof. If it’s not a mistake and was done intentionally, it doesn’t translate well to the trade paperback format.