"Collects the first six issues of the fourth, and current, volume of the Love and Rockets comic book series (2016–2018) and features the continuing adventures of Maggie, Ray, Hopey, Luba, and Fritz, as well as new adventures starring twins Rosy and Baby, Tonta, Judy Fair, Frank Lopez, and―Princess Anima?!"

I don’t remember when I picked this up, but it’s beautiful and strange. The signed bookplate says that it’s limited, but it’s not numbered— I have no idea how many copies there are. I should see if I can find a single huge brodart Mylar dust cover jacket for this sucker— there’s some chipping and tears at the top of both the front and back.

"This portfolio of removable posters—the first time Fantagraphics has ever partnered with another publisher for gift products—features 12 full-size posters pulled from the archives of Fantagraphics’ almost fifty year publishing history."

Pulled this out of a $5 bin at a record convention many (many) years ago and couldn’t believe my luck. Scarce, signed by Clowes on the back, and still has the “10 SMASH FLOPS!” sticker on the outer sleeve.

To start this off I'm judging these by a few criteria. Page Quality, Page count with pricing, Binding/Build quality, and Stock/Availability. This is NOT a judgement on if a publisher has better stories/titles than the rest. I used absolutely no Ai for this, just my own experience and little bit of research.

Fantagraphics

Fanta has some of the best build quality, incredible value when it comes to page count and pricing on their books. Binding is always top notch, especially given the price range for some books. Stock wise their books fluctuate and some books can go OOP for many years. Only recently have they been doing more reprints.

Eternaut has been reprinted and Locas in comparison to other books.

MagneticPress

When it comes to binding/book quality including paper quality, they are the best hands down. Incredible quality, pretty good page count for their non slipcase books. If you order from their website then that's when their shipping fees go over the $10 range. The slipcases/limited editions can be very very expensive. Stock can be very limited, even more-so than Fantagraphics.

https://preview.redd.it/odsj9z435c9h1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=d9c8e1d595c97d349beb59b9eaadd737880d2818

Darkhorse

Top quality books with good binding and paper, page count matches and even surpasses most publishers, Library editions are taller than most omnis and beats their price point in page count at times. Stock for some books is limited, so limited that reprints can be rare at times.

https://preview.redd.it/gdo6kgh95c9h1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=7156b2a55e81e22e3330567dc465ab0a27e58ab9

DC

Affordable deluxes, average to expensive omnis, some of their Absolute editions are top quality, but some have poor binding. They have cheapened on their paper quality, but they managed to make some books slimmer, more shelf space. Books are usually widely available and they restock often. Binding on their deluxes can vary but most of their omnis are conistent. DC finest and compacts are very very affordable.

Wonder Woman and Superman are reprints that haven't run out of stock

Titan

Great binding for most of their books, paper quality is good, page count can vary especially in pricing. For more niche titles their stock can be gone for years or never be reprinted, Skydoll as an example. They are consistent enough to recommend for their more popular titles.

I'd show the cover and back but they are both NSFW.

Image

Page quality to price value can vary, some books have slipcases that up the price, some books have reasonable pricing. Binding is pretty consistent, stock can vary wildly since books are printed by creator's own pockets most of the time. Image is very consistent when it comes to quality, pricing and stock is where they fluctuate too often.

Saga even though very popular has stayed in print.

Skybound

Technically they are part of Image but they have their own titles they publish, mainly their Gi Joe and Transformers deluxes are very expensive. The page count to price value is too high, binding is consistent, but the IP is popular so they charge high. Stock is consistent too, Invincible stays in stock often.

https://preview.redd.it/ynob2jtw6c9h1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=6ea84b60a4cff4a57cf6de64575853d651b2192c

Drawn & Quarterly

Well bounded books, reasonable prices for their books, but very limited catalogue. Sadly some books can go OOP for years, like Beautiful Darkness (HC) for example. Even so their catalog is very very affordable.

OOP for years but you can still find it at a affordable price.

DSTLRY

Paper is good quality but the price to page count could be a deal breaker for some. Slimmer books than your average Image comics deluxe while being the same price as one, if not more. Magazine sized books so they are BIG, could annoy some due to limited shelf space. Binding is consistent due to how slim the books can be.

https://preview.redd.it/evfr4osl7c9h1.jpg?width=2461&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b1bac693d0768cb7793e2b42385668dbd0a1375b

IDW

I'll be completely honest here, I own 1 IDW book, Locke and Key, so to keep this short. Binding is great, page quality and page to price value is also great. The problem is IDW has some many long forgotten rights to older books like Obscure Cities that they tend to have short print runs of some books. Popular books like TMNT tend to stay jn stock. Take my opinion here with a grain of salt since I believe IDW is all over the place with how they publish their titles.

NBM

They have pretty good binding, a very very limited catalogue with average paper quality. The problem with NBM is that they tend to have very short print runs and they rarely reprint their hardcovers.

OOP and beyond expensive, even the TPBs are expensive. NBM never bothered reprinting this ever again sadly.

TKO

Affordable books all throughout with good paper quality, books usually go on sale often which drops the prices to really cheap levels. Binding for their trades are decent. Limited catalog but they tend to have plenty of stock.

BOOM! Studios

Some very beautiful slipcases, pretty darn good paper quality, but their binding is all over the place. Sometimes you get good binding, sometimes you get trainwrecks, the page count to price value is pretty horrible. Slim books for expensive prices if you go for the slipcases. Great catalogue but price is iffy.

Marvel

I'm going to offend some fanboys here so if you want to downvote, go ahead, I'm going to say my piece. Pages are so thin you can see right through them, countless binding and misprint issues. They are the worst at quality control. Their stock is so limited that It's a guarantee a popular book will be out of stock on release. They do publish niche titles often, but those titles are usually never reprinted, Nam the omnibus as an example. Nothing is ever evergreen like how DC does with some books. Their catalogue is their only saving grace.

Spectacular Spider-Man was a popular book, went OOP and Marvel never reprinted it.

Conclusion

I wanted to make this to give some old or new to the hobby some insight on the quality of some publishers. Quality can vary from customer to customer so my experience is not the absolute fact. This is what I experienced and what I've seen online. I will probably update this in the future once my collection expands to different publishers. I missed Pantheon and Humanoids, maybe in the future, thank you for reading!