G.I. JOE YEARBOOK (IDW, 2012; Softcover)
Collects
G.
I. Joe Yearbook
Nos.
1-4 (cover
dates March, 1985- February, 1988)
Writer:
Larry Hama
Artist:
Herb Trimpe, Michael Golden, and Ron Wagner
IDW
are completely clueless when it comes to collecting G.I. Joe.
You'd think that when they set out to reissue the classic Marvel run
of the title that they would have spent a few minutes online figuring out
crossovers, etc. Instead, they issued Classic G.I. Joe, which
collected the core series, G.I. Joe A Real American Hero.
Then they released the G.I. Joe Special Missions trade
paperbacks, collecting that series over the course of four trades.
Now we have the G.I. Joe Yearbook trade paperback. They should
have collected all three into one cohesive line. Oh wait, they are
going to do that...in hardcover, now that everyone has already bought
of all them. Bastards.
 |
| Artwork by Herb Trimpe. |
I
wonder if they will include the G.I. Joe Vs. The Transformers
'80s series in with those hardcovers? IDW issued a separate trade of
those crossovers. That choice almost made sense, since both G.I. Joe
and the Transformers have been licensed to multiple comic companies
over the years, and there have been crossovers from multiple
companies. They landed over at IDW a couple of years ago, and IDW has
made some decent choices with new material, such as resurrecting the
Marvel continuity for both properties, getting Larry Hama back on the
title, etc. My beef is with the way that they presented the material
in this book. Let's get started, shall we? (*cracks knuckles*)
 |
| If you did a shot for every panel marred by poor restoration, you'd die of alcohol poisoning. |
G.I.
Joe Yearbook No. 1 was appealing to me as an 11 year old upon
it's newsstand release in December of 1984 because I didn't get in to
the G.I. Joe comics until issue 23 in February of that year.
The bulk of Yearbook No. 1 was a reprint of the at-the-time
expensive first issue of G.I. Joe A Real American Hero. This
was already collected in Classic G.I. Joe Vol. 1, so this was
nothing more than padding in my opinion. Had they collected this in
proper sequence, this could have been omitted. The linework doesn't
look too bad for this issue.
 |
| Artwork by Michael Golden. |
The
linework restoration in Yearbook No. 2 is superb, worlds better than
the crap that IDW passed off on us for the rest of the books. I
wonder why the lines are so sharp and clear in this story while the
other three issues are a pixelated mess. My guess is that they had
access to Michael Golden's original artwork.
 |
| Which is worse: the horrible linework or the cheesy airbrushed recoloring? |
The
other two issues in this book suffer from same the subpar production
values that IDW had for Classic G.I. Joe Vols. 6-9. Those
books are complete crap, production-wise. I have reviewed them all
here in my blog. Click on the G.I. Joe tag below and see for
yourself. IDW created typos. The linework is
obliterated. They use crappy substandard computer recoloring,
allowing the computer to fill in the shapes which resulted in poor
gradient blends and “airbrushed” looking lines. There are rampant
jagged lines due to low resolution scanning of the floppies. I would
have rather seen them just do straight scanning of the pages than
this crap. Dots would have been preferable to this garbage. I wonder
if they even bothered asking Marvel to use the files for these
issues. Wouldn't have hurt to ask.
 |
| Yup, IDW actually CREATES typos in these books. This is pathetic. These typos are not found in the original issues. |
The
stories in and of themselves are fun, but the shoddy presentation
ruined this book for me. I would advise everyone to pass on this book
unless you cannot live without this material in collected edition
format. Rating below is based on the stories themselves.
Junk
Food For Thought rating: 3 out of 5.
The
OCD zone- Super thick uncoated paper stock and sewn binding glued
square to the spine make this a tough read. You have to almost pin it
down like a wrestler to read this book. I don't like fighting with my
books just to be able to read them.
The
cardstock cover has coating on it, but not as nice as what Marvel
uses.
I
went over all of the restoration shortcoming above. Let me reiterate:
AVOID THIS BOOK.
Linework
restoration rating: 1 out of 5. (It would have been a 0 if not for
Yearbook No. 2.)
Color
restoration rating: 2 out of 5.
Paper
rating: 5 out of 5.
Binding
rating: 3.5 out of 5.
Cardstock
cover coating rating: 4 out of 5.
