I have to say, these are way cooler than I could even have anticipated, even after all my research! Just to have some really neat storylines in a more concise format rather than fish them out of boxes was worth it alone. I went absolutely no frills with standard lettering and I still think they came out awesome. I think the lining up of the panel lines with the publisher came out nice and I experimented with various color combinations for the lettering and the buckrum covers, as well as lettering placement.
Just to give you an idea of what I did:
Green Lantern - Beyond Rebirth is issues 1-20 of the current series. I have the Rebirth trade, as well as the first Sinestro Corps War hardcover. This is everything in between. I chose green buckrum with white lettering, in the hope of capturing the Green Lantern color scheme. There's a bit more gutter loss in the center than I anticipated but it's not surprising. This is the larger volume of the batch at about 1 1/2" thick.
Green Lantern Corps - Recharge Plus was the name I gave this volume, as it has the Recharge mini-series 1-5 as well as the regular series 1-13, again leading up to the Sinestro Corps War. I went ahead and included Blue Beetle 20, as it was left out of the Sinestro HC's, and I thought it made a cool little Corps side story, plus I don't plan on ever doing a Blue Beetle volume. Also done in green buckrum with white lettering. Slightly smaller than the GL volume, but still over 1 1/4"
The Janus Directive was my baby and the first experiment I really wanted to do with binding a combination of issues of items that had never been collected.
I put all 11 issues in order as they were tagged, though I also added Firestorm 87 before Captain Atom 11. Even though it's not tagged as part of the
crossover, it quite frankly adds a much needed epilogue that Captain Atom 30 does not provide and fits in nicely between parts 10 and 11. Twelve issues was a
little small for how I wanted to do this binding so I added the Peacemaker 4 issue mini-series since the Janus Directive is what turned me on to that
character. I also realized I had both Captain Atom annuals from that era and since I had nothing else from that character's series, I included them as
appedices. They feature some characters like Major Force that were part of the Janus Directive, so I thought it would add some nice extra features. I went for
black buckram with gold lettering. No
gutter loss here, even at 1 1/2" thick.
My mapping of this volume:
Checkmate 15
Suicide Squad 27
Checkmate 16
Suicide Squad 28
Checkmate 17
Manhunter 14
Firestorm 86
Suicide Squad 29
Checkmate 18
Suicide Squad 30
Firestorm 87
Captain Atom 30
Peacemaker 1-4
Captain Atom Annuals 1, 2
Atlantis Chronicles was my experiment in a smaller volume. Even though its only seven issues, they were double-sized so they made a decent size volume at about an inch thick. I went for light green buckrum with blue lettering, hoping for an ocean color effect. In retrospect, I wish I had reversed my color scheme and gone light green lettering on blue buckrum or perhaps a teal buckrum with maybe green lettering for that effect, but my wife really digs this volume as it is and this was her favorite of the choices I made.
Honestly, as I build up the budget, I'm going to convert the majority of my collection into volumes like this. I've already got some Justice League, JLI, Batman and many others already lined up!
