Fin Fang Foom wrote:

If you solicit a book as "complete" when you *know* it isn't, you are a liar, and maybe even a crook.


I gather this must be a complaint about the Milt Gross book (though you say you haven't bought it yet), because as far as I can see, having checked several sources, the solicitation copy for this Krazy Kat book makes no claim about "complete." Does this make Craig Yoe still a crook, then, but not a liar?

I agree wholeheartedly with the general consensus of "What was the point?," though. I've nothing personal against Yoe, or his haircut, for that matter (and even if I did, I wouldn't stoop to insulting either of them) but this strikes me as a very poorly-thought-out decision.
Here's the solicit copy I found (emphasis mine):

Krazy Kat's most surreal adventures were the famed 'Tiger Tea' sequence where Krazy Kat imbibed a psychedelia-inducing substance. This is George Herriman at his best in the only full-length Krazy Kat adventure story of his career presented in the same era as Terry and the Pirates and Captain Easy. Krazy & Ignatz in Tiger Tea showcases a rare photo of Herriman sporting a Mexican sombrero and smoking a funny looking cigarette, a perfect addition to this fun, classic trip down memory lane. 

I read that, coupled with the fact that it doesn't mention that this is a sampler, best of, or "best we could do" type offering, to mean complete.  It's called Tiger Tea.  The implication clearly being that it was all of Tiger Tea. This brilliantly illustrates my long-held position that solicitation copy in a non-returnable market should be treated as a contractual obligation, and as such should be *required* to include, at a minimum, an exact description of the contents of any reprint collection.  If it doesn't, it should be returnable.  Period.  If you don't yet *know* what is going to be in the book, then you are not ready to solicit it.

But until retailers demand this, and Diamond enforces it, you'll continue to get crappy, uninformative solicits like the one above that certainly imply one thing, but leave publishers with enough wiggle-room to refuse to accept returns and leave retailers holding the bag for garbage that consumers don't want because it was incompetently or deceptively produced. 

Doesn't change the conclusion at all.  The fact that Yoe didn't once mention that the book was not a complete reprint of the sequence advertised means I would not preorder anything with his name on it ever again.

I'm going to give IDW the benefit of the doubt here.  Because this isn't happeing with the Dean Mullaley (sp?) packaged reprint collections of Annie, Tracy, Terry, et cetera.  And look at Bringing Up Father.  That book also purports to reprint a sequence from the middle of the strip rather than starting at the beginning.  But it, to the best of my knowledge, is complete

Same publisher, same concept, different packager.  What conclusion would you draw? 

Sure, a strip was dropped in Tracy, and a bunch were dropped here which IDW should have noticed, assuming they had a proofreader.  Which in turn means that proofreader's head should roll, maybe, but again I don't think IDW was being intentionally dishonest.  I think they were just in the dark about it.  I'd be very disappointed to learn otherwise.  And would definitely think twice about ordering anything from them again.
  

"All there really is...Is Virtue & Vice."

-Chris Robinson