Trade Paperback (comics) - Readers and Collectors

Readers and Collectors

For many years, trade paperbacks were mainly used to reprint older comic-book stories that were no longer available to the average reader, when original copies of those stories were scarce and hard to find, and often very expensive when found due to their rarity. However, in the first years of the 21st century, comic book publishers began releasing trade paperbacks of collected story arcs, often within a few months of those stories' publication in comic-book form (and in some cases, within the same month that the final issue was originally released). This was found to be an excellent way to draw new readers to a series—where before, one would have to hunt for individual back issues to catch up on a series, now a reader coming into an already established title could purchase the previous issues in trade paperback form and have access to the entire series' worth of stories to date.

As the trade paperback versions are usually cheaper than buying the individual comics and presented without any advertisements, many comic book fans choose to hold off on purchasing the individual issues and only follow the stories when they come out in trade. This can sometimes help a series whose sales are flagging, much like how a film that performed poorly in movie theaters can gain new popularity in home video formats; in a few instances, significant trade paperback sales have even revived a series that had been cancelled or slated for cancellation. However, only buying a series in trade format can also hurt a title; despite the growing popularity of the trade paperback, the serialized, individual issues are still considered the primary mode of sale by comics publishers, and if a series is not meeting sales criteria for individual issues, it may face cancellation no matter how well the collected editions are selling.

A significant benefit of the trade paperback version is that it is often available in bookstores, from smaller booksellers to the larger suppliers, and other retailers that do not normally carry comic books.

Unlike the individual issues, trade paperbacks usually have no particular value to collectors, as they are reprints (which lack the historical significance of the original publication), and they are often kept in print (thus readily available new). However, some trade paperbacks can themselves be noteworthy or scarce, and their value to collectors can go up substantially. Trade paperbacks and graphic novels are the preferred format for circulating library collections, since these collections are focused on patron use and do not have a mission to preserve in original condition for retention or increase in value. Attempts to catalogue and circulate single-issue comics can pose difficult problems and the durability of the trade paperback format is an important consideration for longevity and collection development in public and school libraries.

There are some criticisms of trade paperbacks by some writers and artists in recent years. They argue that because of the popularity of trades that they are forced to produce five or six issue arcs simply because this is the ideal size of a trade. In their perspective this can be quite limiting in the length of a story and pacing as the size is now set. This however is also countered by placing several short arcs in one volume and in the case of longer arcs—the Metal Gear Solid comic adaptation was released in two separate trades.