Reissue! Repackage! Re-evaluate the words!
On the Book Standard website, Bookslut’s Jessa Crispin looks at one of the fond traditions of the holiday season — publishers trying to sell us things we already have.
She’s referring to new deluxe editions of everything from the many Da Vinci Code configurations (”its newest incarnations are box-set, collector’s and movie tie-in editions”) to the multi-volume The Annotated Sherlock Holmes (which “scream[s] CHRISTMAS GIFT FOR SOMEONE WHOSE TASTES YOU HAVE NO IDEA ABOUT”) to the new Annotated Uncle Tom’s Cabin. And DC Comics is getting in on the act, too, with its “Absolute” versions of classic graphica like Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns.
Crispin’s irritation is understandable, but it’s worth noting that if anything the book business has been slow to capitalize on the whole deluxe-version scheme. Consider all the movies that come out in one “special edition DVD” after another, or the fact that lately Quillblog can’t turn around without bumping into some rerelease of a favourite record, complete with a “bonus disc” of outtakes, demos, etc.
Related links:
Click here for Jessa Crispin’s Book Standard column
Sneaky little Smiths reference there…