Companies amuse me. When they’re not being outright evil they’re instead being incredibly stupid. Like “leaving money on the table” stupid. Case in point:

Okay, I’ll admit right upfront that in the grand scheme of things this is a drop in the ocean. But the news that IDW has cancelled the “Classic GI Joe” run of trade paperbacks is disappointing. When I re-ignited my interest in the comic and Larry Hama’s continuation of the classic 80s comic book series – the first book I ever bought on a regular monthly basis – I happily shelled out my $30 a couple times a year to grab the collected editions. I no longer buy monthly comics, and my comics buying over the last few years has diminished substantially. but I was and remain happy to keep supporting the publishers, writers and artists by buying the books. With this cancellation/postponement/whatever I’m kind of stuck.

But not really. There are smaller collections comprising 5 issues each that I can go back and buy to fill in the gaps, if I want to shell out the cash for them. problem is they’re pricey even compared to the bigger collections, and a couple are out of print, which means paying astronomical amounts on the secondary market just to find out what happens next.

What did happen? Beats me. Maybe they felt the return wasn’t worth the investment in bigger trades. maybe they felt since they were reprinting them in smaller blocks anyway, that market could be satisfied (and they could of course make more money that way).

It’s stuff like this that has actually had the unexpected yet welcome benefit of spurring me towards e-books and my local library. I’ve read almost 30 books since Christmas and have no plans to slow down. Maybe rather than forking over money to companies that don’t need it, I’ll just shove it towards my local library instead.