Content is always king as far as I’m concerned, and I would never not by a book because of its spine or design or the fact that it didn’t match other books on my shelf. What's on the inside is far and away the most important thing to me!

That said... yes, mismatched volumes/spines on my shelf do bug me. I guess you can call it OCD or whatever, but yeah, I like my books to look nice and neat and together on the shelf! Some examples that make the hair on my neck stand up...

DC/Wildstorm/Vertigo changed BOTH of these Brian Vaughan series’ spines after the 4th volume.

ytlm.jpg

ONI did a good job on Queen and Country design – the fonts and elements are all the same – but did a shoddy job lining them up!

qc.jpg

Here's one Marvel did mostly right - the FF Visionaries series! Although, I will admit, I bought a second print of Byrne V1 because the first print had a different design! YES, I BOUGHT THE SAME THING TWICE ONLY BECAUSE OF SPINE DESIGN.

ffv.jpg

(And yes, it does bother me that the Perez V1 is aligned closer to the bottom!)

On the other hand, was this necessary? Hickman’s FF Volumes already stood apart from the line – the Marvel logo was black on white – why change it to make it fall in line?

ffhick.jpg

Stupid logo change on Flash V3, DC! And I suppose New Teen Titans V3 will be the same. Sigh.

flash.jpg

On Johns’ Titans run, they kept the title font the same, and the element at the top with a headshot. But the books get progressively thinner, causing the font to shrink substantially (it also gets much closer to that top element on the later volumes); some have credits, some don’t; the numbers start at the bottom, then move up (but aren’t aligned) and the “DC Comics” brand changes THREE TIMES. Sheesh.

Also, Perez’ Wonder Woman suffers a logo branding change and re-placement of numbering. Sigh.

titans.jpg

Mick Gray gets inexplicably left off the fifth Promethea TPB!

prom.jpg

Titans Transformers reprints are close but no cigar! The font size changes on some thinner volumes, which I don’t mind… but there are noticeable differences in height of the books themselves, which is odd… and the last volume (chronologically, I don’t believe it was printed last) does its titling in all-caps for some reason! (It's called "Rage in Heaven," so maybe the all-caps represents said rage??)

tfs.jpg

Bendis doesn’t seem to have had spine design on his mind for the first two volumes of Powers (although I believe later printings DID match) but he clearly had it on his mind when he made the switch from Image to Icon, as the design stayed the same, with only the publisher logo changing – kudos to him for that! What’s most odd, though, is why volumes 8 and 12 have a high-glossy finish, and the rest are a matte finish??

powers.jpg

Oh, Ultimate Spider-Man… why did you change your font on the numbering after V9? Oh, never mind, you were planning on changing the Marvel logo for the last volume anyway. Sigh. (Also, hard to see here, but the first book has an almost-imperceptible drop shadow on the lettering as well!)

usm.jpg

Honestly, I may not have bought USM V12 had a I realized the logo was different - I had already had the "World according to" and "Chameleons" MPCs, and I only upgraded to have them in OHC. Ah well.

Was this change even necessary? It was already white on red! What does the box add to it? Blerg.

Grr3.jpg

Grrr....

Grr2.jpg

This one bothers me even more than the Masterworks and Omnibuses, because the shiny metallic logo was unique to this line, and the color always matched the color of the title. This change really did hurt the look of the books from a design standpoint. And then they killed the line anyway! Sigh.

Grr1.jpg

Anyway, though these things do gnaw at that tiny little OCD corner of my brain, they are, indeed, just books. At the end of the day it's not a big deal, I'm obviously happy to have the collection I do and I'm only nitpicking 'cause, you know, it's the internet and that's what the internet is for.