Macragge's honour - What is wrong with BL?

[KBA]

Being a huge fan of collector edition :cuss combined with the huge comic fan inside me makes this a no-brainer. I honestly expected it to be more considering the previous price tags for their leather-bound open edition HH books. When looking at other premium formats in comics, I can see how they came to the conclusion at pricing this:

 

'What's retail on DC's Absolute Editions?'

 

'$112 CAD'

 

'So our fans would probably pay $150 CAD?'

 

'If we make it a timed exclusive, yep!'

 

This is the same company that charges close to a hundred bucks for timed exclusive novellas barely over a hundred pages long. If you skip the pricy edition with this comic, you'll for sure have a chance to get a cheaper version down the road. Money in comics is all in the affordable, trade paperback collections, and they too follow hardback releases.

[Kol Saresk]

Except that normal, mainstream comics, usually has more for the prices, or the equivalent amount of material is cheaper. This looks like they went "what's the highest price range for limited edition comics" and then went with it without seeing what usually constitutes that price.

[Cerbero666]

Yep, as Kol said, they just looked at the prices but not the contents. They just wanted the $$€€ and that has been their mistake (as always). Because I don't know other people, but I won't buy 100 pages Macragge's Honour for a 50% more than I would pay for a leather bound, 616 pages, Hellboy compilation. And as long as I like D.Abnett's and N.Robert's work I don't think this will be better than Mignola's Hellboy, IMO. 

[KBA]

I still stand by Black Library's track record. This shouldn't surprise anyone. Hundred-page novellas for how much?

[karden00]

From KNF, wasnt Kor Phaerons ship the Infidus Imperator? 

[Kol Saresk]

 

From KNF, wasnt Kor Phaerons ship the Infidus Imperator?

Something like that. It wasn't the Fidelitas Rex either way you slice it.

[b1soul]

75 quid is really a bit too much for a ~100 page comic book. I guess I'll be waiting for 2 years to read this. Any idea how much the mass release version will cost?

[Chaeron]

75 quid is really a bit too much for a ~100 page comic book. I guess I'll be waiting for 2 years to read this. Any idea how much the mass release version will cost?

 

I'd imagine £30-35.

[Phoebus]

Quick aside:  the Gloriana-class is supposed to be a battlecruiser-type vessel.  Most battle-barges tend to be battleship-type/scale vessels, so my guess is that the Gloriana is not their default STC.  Then again, maybe the author(s) in question erred in using "battlecruiser" to describe the Gloriana.

 

A D-B might one day offer further clarification on this.  If I recall correctly, he introduced the Gloriana.

 

To the main topic...

Here's a completely different perspective:

 

I don't even try to justify the price tag for Macragge's Honour.  It's too high - even for a limited edition.  Why did I buy it?  Because I can afford it and because I want Black Library to get serious about making high-quality graphic novels set in the Horus Heresy.  I'm trying to vote with my dollars.

 

You'll note, though, that I don't buy the hardcover Heresy novels precisely because I don't like the illustrations they've been decorated thus far.  I think they're rushed; I know that they are not up to the artist's standard - I've bought a Black Library graphic novel illustrated by the same individual. If the next Black Library graphic novel defaults to that quality, I won't buy it.  Or, at any rate, I won't buy it as a limited edition.  I'll probably wait until the price drops even more, perhaps via eBay or something like that.

[MordentHex]

I don't like this guys art work, so its a no-brainer for me plus just from what i could see of the art it's reminding me of a certain 40k movie that was disturbingly bad...

[Gorkimedes]

Not diggin the art either, seems to cgi ish for what I'd want in a comic book. Like they just put speech bubbles on a bunch of Heresy covers. I've paid a lot of money for comic books but... I dunno I've never read a 40k comic that would make me drop that kind of money, they're not exactly bringing a triple A track record to this table.

[Kol Saresk]

Or battlecruiser/battle-barge/battleship are interchangeable terms to some authors while less so to us fans. After all, this was during the Golden Age of Innovation rather than the Dark Age of Degradation. Variety and fluidity in technical terms and design would definitely be present. Just look at how some bikers class motorcycles.

[Phoebus]

I'm basing my opinion on Battlefleet Gothic's products, which define battlecruisers as a cruiser-class vessel.  In the same game system, battle-barges are not limited to a specific class of vessel, and battlecruisers can be battle-barges. The majority of battle-barges are battleship-class vessels, though, which are significantly larger and more powerful than battlecruisers.  Given all this, it doesn't make much sense to me that the flagships of at least three Legions would be smaller than their fleets' main-line capital ships.

All that having been said, maybe A D-B is working off of completely different definitions, terminology and ideas.  And if that's the case, no worries.  We're just exchanging ideas.  :)

[Cerbero666]

Quick aside:  the Gloriana-class is supposed to be a battlecruiser-type vessel.  Most battle-barges tend to be battleship-type/scale vessels, so my guess is that the Gloriana is not their default STC.  Then again, maybe the author(s) in question erred in using "battlecruiser" to describe the Gloriana.

 

A D-B might one day offer further clarification on this.  If I recall correctly, he introduced the Gloriana.

 

To the main topic...

 

Here's a completely different perspective:

 

I don't even try to justify the price tag for Macragge's Honour.  It's too high - even for a limited edition.  Why did I buy it?  Because I can afford it and because I want Black Library to get serious about making high-quality graphic novels set in the Horus Heresy.  I'm trying to vote with my dollars.

 

You'll note, though, that I don't buy the hardcover Heresy novels precisely because I don't like the illustrations they've been decorated thus far.  I think they're rushed; I know that they are not up to the artist's standard - I've bought a Black Library graphic novel illustrated by the same individual. If the next Black Library graphic novel defaults to that quality, I won't buy it.  Or, at any rate, I won't buy it as a limited edition.  I'll probably wait until the price drops even more, perhaps via eBay or something like that.

 

Well, the problem is that at the same time you're voting for Black Library to release some high-quality graphic novels, you're voting for them to release it on high prices. As long as people buy their releases at high prices they will still doing that. I'm not blaming you at all, don't get me wrong, but obviously they measure the success of their products in the amount of product itself that they sell, including the price of said product. As a player of WFB I found that GW and his other wings don't get to change their sales strategies if they don't earn some profit from it. They're more a sales company than the hobby company they used to be. Some time ago they released some products just because they love doing that stuff, now they do because it provides a benefit, and if it doesn't they pass, or change their strategy. In the example of WFB they give more importance to improve the 40k and the Heresy because the game and the space marines specifically provide them with more profit, not that much with WFB. In the case of the graphic novel, if they only sell one or two at that prices, they will need to change the prices, the strategy, etc.. But if they sell all of them, or enough of them, they will justify the prices because it has been a success, even when most people are not up to pay that much. 

[daveNYC]

I don't even try to justify the price tag for Macragge's Honour.  It's too high - even for a limited edition.  Why did I buy it?  Because I can afford it and because I want Black Library to get serious about making high-quality graphic novels set in the Horus Heresy.  I'm trying to vote with my dollars.

 

I'm totally down with GW producing high quality graphic novels, both in the 30k and 40k settings.  The thing is, I'm not sure that this book is actually high quality,  Sure it's got a grox hide cover and inks made from the tears of angels, but what I've seen of the art ain't exactly my cup of tea, and the story, while a solid concept, isn't making me weak at the knees.  Writing a story that can work in a graphic novel, and then being able to draw the art so that it does work as a graphic novel is hard.  Even professionals who do nothing else for a living and have decades of experience can put out stinkers.  If GW had put out a TPB for $20-30, there's a good chance I'd have bought it, and then maybe bought a collector's edition if they came out with one later.  Doing it this way though?  There's no way I'm going to drop $125 on a 40k graphic novel sight unseen, too much chance of it sucking.

[Phoebus]

daveNYC,

 

Besides you, more than a few posters also stated they didn't like the art.  For my part - and I consider myself a connoisseur of graphic novels - what I've seen thus far has blown me away.  There's comic books - and more often than not, you get exactly what you pay for with those - and then there's graphic novels.  I think Neil Roberts' work is head and shoulders above the quality of artwork you'll see in most products of the genre.  I simply hope that, when the creators mentioned a 100-page graphic novel, that they were not including in that count the "added extras" that are being advertised.

[daveNYC]

Yeah, if you're digging the art, then it's all good.  For me, it's all very static looking.  Between two and four panels per page (except on the big splash stuff), nothing too funky, and the few panels that I can get closeups on are strangely undetailed (though I do like the three panel page of the knife cutting the warp rift, that does look good).  

 

It's just that if this were a TPB at standard TPB prices, I'd probably have bought it and risked it being blah.  At $125 though, there's not a snowball's chance in hell I'm picking it up.  And that's not good, because I've got four of DC's Absolute books and heaps of Black Library stuff, so in theory, I'm a prime target for something like this, and they missed me completely.

[Phoebus]

Fair enough - different folks, different strokes.  :)

[Captain Semper]

The Gloriana is supposed to be a Battleship class and made its appearance in the Collected Visions (don't remember which of the 4 original books but I think it's in the first). It was there before ADBs novels, but the latter gave them the stature they deserve.

 

Kor Phaeron's ship was the Infidus Imperator - no? :unsure:

 

Now I have the feeling that the topic is reaching saturation point... An expensive, limited edition book with high desirability is bound to be a controversial product. I guess we can only hope for a much cheaper, non-limited version to come out in 6 months...

[Kol Saresk]

The Gloriana is supposed to be a Battleship class and made its appearance in the Collected Visions (don't remember which of the 4 original books but I think it's in the first). It was there before ADBs novels, but the latter gave them the stature they deserve.

 

Kor Phaeron's ship was the Infidus Imperator - no? :unsure:

 

Now I have the feeling that the topic is reaching saturation point... An expensive, limited edition book with high desirability is bound to be a controversial product. I guess we can only hope for a much cheaper, non-limited version to come out in 6 months2 years...

;)

[Captain Semper]

Well, the Visions of Heresy is in a 6 month window... One can only hope.

[Kol Saresk]

Fair enough

[Phoebus]

Thanks for the clarification, Captain Semper!