  | Book Details Title: The Metabarons Limited Edition: Box Set |
Book DescriptionReview “What keeps me going back to The Metabarons is the immense volume and speed of its innovation. There is literally a new and mad idea on every page.” — Warren Ellis”The Metabaron cycle (…) is, to my mind, the greatest work of graphic fiction ever produced.” — David S. Goyer”[A] magnum opus of unadorned emotion and one that will surprise you in its thoughtfulness and craft.” — Alex Mansfield, All-Comic Read more About the Author Alejandro Jodorowsky (also known as Alexandro Jodorowsky) is a Chilean film and theatre director, screenwriter, playwright, actor, comic book writer, author, poet, mime, musician, and spiritual guru. He is best known for his avant-garde, cult films, such as “El Topo,” a midnight movie favorite.Juan Gimenez is an Argentinian comic book artist. His style has become famous for the extreme attention he devotes to technical details. Gimenez has also written his own stories,such as “The Fourth Power” series. Read more Customers Review: The Metabarons is one of my favorite comics series of all time. I’d been waiting for an OHC reprint since the 2012 edition went out of print. The microsecond this deluxe slipcase edition was announced, I preordered it. To say that I was excited for its release is an understatement; it was the most eagerly anticipated release since I began collecting comics.Cut to me opening the cover on January 28th, and I lived the reviewbrah invocation: “My disappointment is… immeasurable. And my day is ruined.”These images speak for themselves. The pages are matte; the colors desaturated, washed-out, and diffuse; the lines faded. It looks quite literally like a pale shadow of the 2015 edition, which had beautifully rich color depth and gradation, glossy pages, and dark lines. Blacks were blacks, blues were blue. One can make out fine detail in Gimenez’ gorgeous watercolors which vanish in the 2019 edition. His coloring technique is one of the glories of The Metabarons’ visual storytelling and he invested incredible care into them; to have them badly reproduced is such a disservice to the work. The 2015 release was essentially Gimenez’ original work scaled down, which is what all comics releases are supposed to be.The pages of the “Definitive” edition (Humanoids’ temerity in calling it that is laughable) are cream colored, slightly coarse to the touch, and have anemic, shallow colors and little contrast differential. Just dull, flat tones and lines. I will credit its designers with the presentation and design – the inclusion of Humanoids’ signature ribbon bookmark and high quality binding are nice as ever – but those are meaningless when the work itself is poorly reproduced.A lot of people will likely think I’m exaggerating the difference in the colors or am overreacting, but anyone who has the chance to compare the difference in person will recognize the major disparity. Granted, this isn’t as monumental a fuck-up as DC digitally recoloring Swamp Thing (which is its own atrocity worthy of a post), but I was looking forward to Humanoids re-releasing an OHC slipcase Metabarons collection for years, and what I got was… this. Such a huge letdown. And sure, I’m being a little melodramatic – but think about how you’d feel if something you’d looked forward to for the better part of a decade turned out to be such a massive disappointment.I’m keeping my 2015 edition, and will resell the “Definitive” Edition once the OOP market gets up there, and use the money (plus a substantial amount more) to buy a used copy of the long OOP 2012 slipcase edition, which has the same dimensions. | |
10 reviews