Keep Circulating The Tapes / Comic Books

aka: Comics

• Rescued comic books

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• In general, the vast bulk of Golden Age comics have simply never been reprinted in any form. Want to read anything that doesn't feature Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, or Captain America? Your best bet is torrent sites with image files often shot from university microfilm collections. Even worse for anything that isn't a superhero genre story or starring a licensed character.
• DC Comics:
  • In particular, the Golden Age Captain Marvel comics are very hard to get hold of despite their quality and importance to the genre. In 2018, DC Comics announced a collection of the seminal "The Monster Society of Evil" arc (generally considered the first multi-issue ongoing story in the superhero genre) but cancelled it a few months later due to unspecified "concerns over its contents", generally assumed to be due to racist caricatures (some Yellow Peril Japanese villains, plus the notorious sidekick Steamboat, who was such an Ethnic Scrappy that he was dropped due to anti-racist protests in the 1940s).
  • Legion of Super-Heroes:
    • Paul Levitz has long refused to collect his Legion run in TPB format, going so far as even stopping the LOSH Hardcover Archive series due to it having reached the point where his first issues on the book were published. This has had a detrimental effect upon the Legion franchise as, save for "The Great Darkness Saga" (which was out of print for over a decade), the only way to buy the Legion was to pay $50 a volume for the DC Archives, which while being a comprehensive collection of all Legion stories, consists mainly of the Adventure Comics era. The Legion's 1980s run, where Levitz took over the franchise and made it into a hit series, remained uncollected and unseen until 2 years ago when Levitz (to tie into the return of the original Legion) released two volumes collecting the first 13 issues of the third volume, ironically even as "The Great Darkness Saga" has once again fallen out of print.
    • The fourth book by Keith Giffen and the Bierbaums remains uncollected. The 1994 reboot had its first eight issues and a later storyline involving a retread of the Great Darkness Saga collected, but nothing else. Part of this was due to artist Oliver Coipel, who drew four and half years of the reboot leaving DC to go work for Marvel, leading to Levitz blacklisting him and refusing to collect any of the Legion stories he drew in TPB. Also, when the last 1994 Legion reboot story (a crossover special with the 2002 Teen Titans relaunch) finally see the light of day as part of a Teen Titans TPB, the collection omitted the final pages of the story, where the Legion rally together as their world is destroyed and they are cast outside of the known universe.
  • Swamp Thing suffered this for years with several major issues (the last four issues of Len Wein's original run on the title, the first Alan Moore Swamp Thing story) uncollected until most recently as DC began re-releasing the TPBs in hardcover. Still, stuff like Nancy A. Collins' back-to-basics run and Grant Morrison and Mark Millar's controversial runs on the title remain uncollected, as does the Marty Pasko run (Saga of the Swamp Thing #1-19), the last 4-5 issues of which are crucial for setting up the bulk of Alan Moore's plotlines in the book. As of 2017 all of the mentioned comics are available on ComiXology. You're still out of luck if you want a physical copy, though.
  • Supergirl:
    • Most of Pre-Crisis Supergirl material has never been collected. It wasn't until 2016 her full Action Comics run and Supergirl (1982) were collected, but her Adventure Comics run, Supergirl (1972) and her Superman Family stories remain out of print.
    • Supergirl (2005) issues #60-67 have never been reprinted. DC intended to release a trade collecting the book's final issues, but it was cancelled due to the Flashpoint reboot.
    • Peter David's Supergirl run has never been collected in full. DC reprinted the first nine issues in a single trade in 1998 and the "Many Happy Returns" arc in 2004, and nothing else until 2016, when DC started collecting the series. However, awful sales got the series cancelled before reaching the halfway point of the run.
  • Superman:
    • The bulk of the adventures of the Man of Steel has never been collected.
    • Joe Casey's non-crossover Adventures Of Superman run remains uncollected, even though his book was widely praised to be the best of the early-2000s Superman books.
  • DC has its own 1990s stuff that has yet to be collected, be it obscure cult favorites (Major Bummer; Darkstars; Young Heroes In Love) to major books (Robin (1993); the Kyle Rayner Green Lantern run of Ron Marz; L.E.G.I.O.N.; Peter David's Aquaman (1994) and Young Justice runs). While DC has released "Best Of" volumes of the early Rayner Green Lantern stories, their attempt to do a comprehensive collecting of Kyle's Green Lantern run failed to sell enough to justify further volumes. Young Justice originally only had one TPB released in 2000. The book ran for six years and over 50 issues, and saw strong sales throughout that time, but DC never saw fit to put any real effort into collecting it — until the success of the cartoon's revival in 2017 increased interest in the series, upon which they started releasing TPBs from scratch.
  • Stormwatch Team Achilles and Wildcats V3.0 only had the first year's worth of stories collected, as both comics were critical darlings with poor sales, leading to them being put down and replaced with more traditional versions of the concepts that have been largely panned by fans of the "Eye of the Storm" books.
    • Wildcats 3.0, at least, is finally being collected in full in two large trade paperbacks - just in time for Wildstorm's shuttering.
  • Justice League International
    • While DC has begun to make a serious effort to collect the Giffen/DeMatteis/McGuire JLI/JLA run, fans still hold onto the first JLI TPB ("A New Beginning") and not the most recent printing, based off of the first edition hardcover re-release. The original TPB contains a lengthy introduction where Giffen discusses in graphic detail how he got the job writing the book, how the roster came about, the politics that determined that he could only use Batman and Martian Manhunter as far as founding Big Seven members, and the overall tone of the book. This fascinating look at the behind-the-scenes making of this beloved incarnation of the franchise was replaced with a one-page "intro" that is extremely brief and barely mentions the behind-the-scenes stuff except in a brief aside.
    • The Giffen/DeMatteis/McGuire JLI is mostly complete in trade/omnibus— but crucially the final Breakdowns arc remains uncollected, despite plans to collect it in 2017. The cancellation of this volume is speculated to be due to its crossover with Justice League Europe which was authored by the now-disgraced Gerard Jones. The aforementioned volume was cancelled shortly after the criminal charges against Jones were made public.
  • Teen Titans
    • New Teen Titans suffers this — vague, often butchered TPBs have been released of random stories (with the only common theme being that they are drawn by George Perez), while the only way to read the stories in chronological order is the uber-expensive "Archive" Hardcovers, with DC announcing that the Hardcover collecting will stop now that they've reached the point where the earliest issue number TPB would be the next volume.
    • DC eventually released The New Teen Titans in omnibus format, but the first volume is out-of-print and the third volume has been widely panned for both not collecting the issues DC solicited (this happens often) and for containing huge gaps in continuity between the issues that were collected.
    • The New Titans spin-off title Team Titans has had only their first issue collected as part of a trade paperback which collected all parts of the Total Chaos storyline, and the last issue which was collected in the Zero Hour 2023 omnibus. ^note It should be noted that the "first" issue of the run actually consisted of 5 seperate individual releases which focuses on each individual member of the team (Killowat, Mirage, Nightrider, Redwing, Terra) but all had the listing of #1.
    • The first Teen Titans omnibus was out of print by about mid-2012 despite having come out in September of the previous year.
    • While the Geoff Johns run was initially collected into trades as it was publishing, it's re-releases has been met with a few problems. The late 2010s re-release stopped in 2019 at 3 volumes of a theorized 10+ collection, with the next collection of the run being a re-release of the 2012 Omnibus. In addition to all of that, Issues 27-28 of the original run (written by Gail Simone and illustrated by Rob Liefeld) and Issues 48-49 (of the Amazons Attack! event) has never been collected, in either the original trade collection, the late 2010 re-release or the Omnibus.
    • Teen Titans (1996) by Dan Jurgens has similarly never been collected.
  • Peter Milligan and Chris Bachalo's mind-bendingly experimental Vertigo Comics revamp of Shade, the Changing Man remains unavailable for purchase, except for a 2004 TPB of the first six issues. DC likely planned to use this as a test for future TPBs, but since the first arc is the weakest of the 70-issue series, it failed to garner significant interest.
    • This is slowly changing. The first volume of the series was re-released with a second in December 2009, and a third in July 2010.
    • Unfortunately DC has published no further TPBs since the third volume was released in 2010, so the rest of the series still remains in this category.
    • Many of Peter Milligan's other mind-blowing comics, such as Human Target, Enigma and his Batman/Detective stories (bar the one story that was part of The Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul) have not been collected or are out-of-print, or else suffer from the same fate as Shade, the Changing Man.
  • Their much-panned, oversized hardcover reissue of Batman: Year One is now out-of-print (although that may be because it was widely panned, especially by David Mazzuchelli himself). Absolute Watchmen is out-of-print, and there are many others.
  • DC has collected the Batman storyline Knightfall in its entirety in three omnibus volumes. While these are a mostly comprehensive collection of the entire storyline, the books do not contain the "Sword of Azrael" miniseries that introduces Jean-Paul Valley, and Robin #0 is also omitted, despite being a crucial part of the "Prodigal" storyline.
    • DC also declined to reprint Batman: Contagion, Batman: Legacy, and Batman: Cataclysm. All three are big Batman arcs, all three somewhat lead into Batman: No Man's Land, and Legacy contains appearances by Bane, Talia, and Catwoman, three characters you'd think DC would want to reprint stories of, considering.
    • DC has since not only reprinted Contagion and Cataclysm, it is also getting ready to release Legacy again as well, along with Knightfall in a new Omnibus format, which might, hopefully, finally see the entire event collected properly.
  • There are more Batman comics that haven't been reprinted yet, such as Batman: Run Riddler Run, Detective Comics #651: A Bullet for Bullock (which was turned into an episode of Batman: The Animated Series) and Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #91-94 (the three former issues written by Garth Ennis, the latter issue being an homage to many previous Batman writers and artists).
  • The Tiny Toon Adventures comic books from Marvel UK are one of the rarest comic books one can find, as not only have they been out of print for decades, but the complicated legal problems^note Tiny Toon Adventures is owned by Warner Bros., parent of Marvel competitor DC Comics, while the comics are property of Marvel, owned by Time Warner competitor Disney are actively keeping the comics from getting reprinted. This is not the case with the US Tiny Toons magazines, though, as DC owned the US license the whole time, but DC hasn't bothered reprinting those due to that series not selling well.
  • Despite all of the issues of the post-Crisis/Pre-Zero Hour Green Arrow run collected into TPBs, the subsequent run which features the death of Oliver Queen and era of his son, Connor Hawke, as Green Arrow has yet to be released. A listing for the next TPB (named "Green Arrow: Connor Hawke Where Angels Fear to Tread") was announced in early 2021 has, as of July 2023, yet to be published, despite his reintroduction in DC Infinite Frontier and his coming-out as asexual giving him a renewed fanbase.
• Marvel Comics:
  • Alan Moore's few-but-canonically-significant Doctor Who comics for Doctor Who Magazine, because of Moore's strained relations with Marvel UK.
  • Jon Muth's graphic novel "Dracula: A Symphony in Moonlight and Nightmares", published by Marvel Graphic Novels in the early 90's, hasn't seen the light of day for years, despite it being one of the best and more unique adaptations of Stoker's novel and would be of great interest to Dracula fans.
  • A majority of the works published under Marvel Graphic Novels have lacked reprints, such as the ones with Elric, The Shadow and Conan the Barbarian. The exceptions would be most of the works featuring Marvel characters that have been reprinted or included in other collections.
  • Spider-Man suffers this as well — Marvel has done a lousy job collecting and keeping in print most of the character's defining storylines. While Essential Spider-Man has now reached Roger Stern and Peter David's legendary runs (and the first third of David Micheline's legendary run on Amazing Spider-Man released as an omnibus), good luck if you want to find most of Spidey's stuff like DeMatteis and Gerry Conway's Spectacular Spider-Man or Tom DeFalco's Amazing Spider-Man.
  • While the Essential Marvel line was cancelled in 2013, it was then replaced by the Epic Collection line, which is still running today. In the case of Spider-Man it has reached up to The Clone Saga.
  • Mark Bagley did a Spider-Man web-comic around the 2000s that seems to have mysteriously dropped off the face of the Earth, with nothing being reprinted and the comic not appearing on Marvel's website.
  • The bulk of Bill Mantlo's work as a comic creator remain uncollected. While Marvel has released two oversized TPBs collecting the first 40 issues of his Hulk run and most of his Spider-Man stuff is available in the Essential line, his Micronauts remains in legal limbo hell (which his other Hasbro licensed series, Rom, only escaped in 2023), while his Alpha Flight run (featuring early pre-fame artwork from Mike Mignola and Jim Lee) is still not collected.
  • Any Daredevil that isn't Frank Miller's or part of the 2000s Marvel Knights reboot. In particular, Ann Nocenti's run has only ever received two collections (One, out-of-print, Daredevil Visionaries collection of Typhoid Mary and one more recent collection of Lone Stranger) despite running far longer than either of Miller's runs and featuring artwork not only by fan favourites John Romita Jr and Lee Weeks, but art from Steve Ditko, Mark Bagley, amongst others.
    • As of November 2022 the entirety of Nocenti's run has been collected as volumes 12-15 of Marvel's Epic Collection series.
  • A lot of 1990s Marvel stuff remains uncollected, even with Marvel recently making headway in collecting it via their "Marvel Classics" line. The 1990s Guardians of the Galaxy series; Nightstalkers (which brought Blade back after fading away into comic limbo and resolved several major dangling plotlines from the 1970s The Tomb of Dracula series); Thunderbolts, Generation X; and X-Man has yet to be collected.
  • Marvel's early comics, back when they didn't even have that name (they started as Timely) and some of whom lasted until their transition to superhero-only in the 1960s, are heavily neglected, even if characters such as Patsy Walker and Millie the Model made their transition into the mainstream universe. The fact that one issue of Millie's title is available on the digital service Marvel Unlimited is nothing short of a miracle.
  • The Transformers: Generation 1 UK comic stories featuring Death's Head cannot be reprinted in the US, since Marvel owns the character. Luckily, prior to IDW getting the UDS reprint rights, they were collected in the UK via Titan (who distributes Marvel's trade paperbacks in England) with Titan scoring global distribution rights, meaning that they could be grey-market imported to the States.
  • Similarly, a complete collection of Death's Head issues is very difficult, since many of his stories involve crossovers with Transformers and Doctor Who, and reprinting them would require straightening out the license rights. The situation may have been recently resolved, as an old Doctor Who Magazine comics story featuring Death's Head as an antagonist was reprinted by IDW.
  • While its predecessor The Transformers has had the lion's share of reprints over the last 30+ years good luck if you want to find the sequel series Generation 2 as the only option for finding it today are the original print run or the releases that were UK exclusive done by Titan books during the early 2000s and the also-UK exclusive releases via the Definitive G1 Collection line of collections.
  • While the first two volumes of Dreamwave's Transformers: Generation One and Transformers: The War Within, as well as their Transformers: Armada comic, have received multiple reprints over the years, the incomplete third volumes of Generation 1 and The War Within and comic of Transformers: Energon have never been reprinted. This was due to the fact that Dreamwave never properly paid the writers and artists on their incomplete runs at the time of its bankruptcy and fears that reprinting the material could be legally dubious.
  • G.I. Joe for years suffered this, especially after Marvel attempted to reprint the books only to stop after reaching #50. Luckily, IDW has picked up the ball and is now reprinting the entire series.
  • Marvel's current policy is to not maintain any inventory. Once they print a trade or hardcover and send it out you'd better hope it doesn't sell out because unless it's a really popular series it's not going to get a second printing. This means that there are trades just two years old that are already out-of-print. Some of them are trades released to replace older out-of-print collections, which is as ridiculous as it sounds.
  • The 2008 run of Guardians of the Galaxy was a good example of this. Due to the series suffering low sales at the time, compounded by the announcement of the movie, what copies DO exist have shot up in price.
  • Marvel's comic book series based off The Ren & Stimpy Show, due to Nickelodeon owning the rights to the Ren and Stimpy property and Disney owning Marvel. Not helping matters is that issue #6 (May 1993) features Spider-Man as a major character, so any reprinting of the series would have to leave that issue out.
  • Bizarre Adventures #29, originally published by Marvel in 1981, is noteworthy for containing the first comic adaptation of a Stephen King story, The Lawnmower Man. Featuring art by Walt Simonson, to date the story has only ever been reprinted in 2014 by IDW Publishing... in the form of a limited edition art portfolio.
  • Marvel's satirical comics Not Brand Echh and What The--?! have never been reprinted, despite being popular titles and often requested. In November 2017, the 14th issue of Not Brand Echh was finally released as part of Marvel Legacy. What The—?! often took (affectionate) jabs at then-current writers, artists, and other Marvel staffers. Since many of these people no longer work for Marvel, it would likely confuse some readers, and might look like they're taking shots at their former employees.
  • Many Marvel MAX series, such as The Eternal, will probably never get collected, owing to the sex and nudity as well as their out-of-continuity status. This also means that they're not available as digital comics in the all-ages Marvel (Comixology) app, or via Marvel Unlimited - the few that are available digitally only appear in the main Comixology app (which does host mature content).
  • Much of the 1990s Marvel UK material has never been collected or released digitally.
    • The first issue of Death's Head II: The Wild Hunt (first appearance of the character) is one of the rare exceptions, and all but one issue of the original Death's Head run is also available digitally (the missing issue is Exiled from Continuity due to a Doctor Who guest appearance).
    • Dragon's Claws and the first half of The Knights of Pendragon (1990) were collected by Panini for the UK and Irish market, but not made available in the rest of the world. The Knights of Pendragon, and its 1992 Sequel Series (titled simply Knights of Pendragon) were finally collected in an omnibus, and published as digital issues, at the end of 2022.
  • Much of the New Universe line is unavailable digitally and has never been collected as trade paperbacks. The whole of Star Brand is available digitally - but the back-up stories have been edited out.
  • Later issues of the Quasar ongoing series are unavailable, including the Starblast crossover that integrated The New Universe into the main Marvel Universe.
  • Much of the Marvel 2099 line was never collected and is unavailable digitally. The 2099 Unlimited anthology title is partially available digitally, but only includes the Spider-Man stories, not the whole issue.
  • Marvel Comics Presents is largely unavailable digitally and most of it was never collected. Many of the digital issues only include the Wolverine stories.
  • The Shadowline shared world superhero stories from the Epic Comics imprint were never collected or published digitally.
  • Razorline was an imprint that ran from 1993 to 1995 and was created by Clive Barker. None of it seems to have been reprinted.
• It is often agreed that the first truly successful graphic novels were created by Will Eisner in the late 70s and onward, and these works have often been republished and are easy to find. However the graphic novels released before then, which weren't as successful, some of which were published before the term "graphic novel" was invented, aren't as easy to find: It Rhymes with Lust by Arnold Drake and Leslie Waller released in 1950, Harvey Kurtzman's Jungle Book by Harvey Kurtzman released in 1959, His Name Is... Savage by Gil Kane and Archie Goodwin released in 1968, Bloodstar by Richard Corben released in 1976, Red Tide by Jim Steranko also released in 1976 (although Red Tide is technically an illustrated novel, but it's called a graphic novel on the cover and it's still hard to find copies of it) and Sabre by Don McGregor and Paul Gulacy released in 1978 (a few years later it received an ongoing series, none of its issues has been reprinted).
• The Shadow has had many comic incarnations throughout the years, few of which has been reprinted: the series published by Archie Comics in the 60s (with some stories written by Jerry Siegel), the beautifully drawn Michael Kaluta comics published at DC, Marvel and Dark Horse, the Howard Chaykin written-and-drawn run and The Shadow Strikes which had the character team up with Doc Savage for the first time. And that's not even getting into the comics strips. However, it is unclear what comics Condé Nast, the character's current owner, would allow to be reprinted, and what stories Dynamite Comics, the character's current comic publisher, would want to reprint.
• Powerman was drawn by Dave Gibbons and Brian Bolland and initially distributed in Nigeria in the mid-1970s (and reprinted in South Africa without the permission of the original publishers). It was later re-published in the United Kingdom with the eponymous character renamed Powerbolt. Since then though the comic hasn't been seen again.
• Due to Disney's infamous lawsuit, Air Pirates Funnies, a 1970s underground comix series unauthorized by Disney which depicted Disney characters in sexually-explicit situations, is completely out of print. Original copies are valuable, although the series has made appearances on the internet.
• Similar to the Marvel Graphic Novels, there are the DC Graphic Novels. The only one of them which seems to have been reprinted is The Hunger Dogs, and that's likely because it's made by Jack Kirby and starring familiar DC characters.
• Alan Moore's Silver Age-era Marvel pastiche series 1963 has never been reprinted and collected in any form, due to Alan Moore having a severe falling out with artist Steve Bissette that not only caused the comic's premature cancellation, but also complicated attempts to reprint the series due to ownership being split between them.
• Matt Howarth included several real people as characters in his various Bugtown comic book series. He asked their permission to do so, but did not anticipate any future reprint market. So Howarth feels the permission only covered the original publication of the books and he would need new assent to republish the books in collected form. As he has been unable to contact several of the people involved, some of whom have since passed away, these series have never been collected.
• DVD pack-in comics, specifically those that are only packaged with special edition DVDs (bonus points if its only sold by a certain chain of stores) or ones that are only released in certain regions.
• Spawn issues 9 and 10 have a history of coming in and out of limbo in reprint volumes. #9, held up due to the legal battles with Neil Gaiman, the co-author of the issue who claims partial ownership of the (continuity-important) characters he introduced (Medieval Spawn, Angela and Cagliostro), and #10 because it was a Cerebus the Aardvark crossover issue that Dave Sim has not authorized for reprints.
  • This seems to be resolved, as both issues were included in the oversized Spawn Origins Collection: Book 1 hardcover book, with a letter by Dave Sim explaining the story behind the making and reprinting troubles of issue #10 included as a forward to that issue.
• If you want to collect the comic stories that ran in Disney Adventures, you're pretty much gonna have to go to eBay and try to win auctions on the issues, or their reprints in Disney's Colossal Comics Collection. However, Boom! Studios is now reprinting the Darkwing Duck stories.
  • The Legend of the Chaos God, a five part Cross Through story which is widely regarded as one of the greatest stories ever printed in the magazine, has never been reprinted. The only way to read it is to buy all five of the original issues online, or find page scans on the internet.
• For countries that still publish Disney Comics, Brazil sometimes suffers from this despite publisher Editora Abril being prone to republish old stories instead of new, imported ones (as locally produced are sporadic ever since they closed their studio in 2001). Some comics are heavily sought, be they old magazines or recent ones (as their distribution is sometimes cumbersome), particularly collections such as The Complete Works of Carl Barks.
• Archie Comics seems to rarely reprint stuff involving their (Non-Pureheart) superhero output: They themselves put out three trade paperbacks in the early 2000s on certain characters.
  • Archie is offering many of the stories as part of its New Crusaders digital subscription service starting Spring 2012.
• The pulp style comic series Starblazer books, despite some incredibly good stories and a small but very loyal fandom, is doomed to obscurity by the refusal to reprint any stories even as a collection. The old books themselves are getting increasingly hard to come by as time takes its toll.
• ElfQuest, while considered an excellent series, hasn't been reprinted since 2003, its quarter-centennial, and the only full-ish reprints — the Father Tree Press 20th anniversary Readers Collections — are getting harder and harder to find as time goes on. On the plus side, all of it — and even never-printed material from aborted series — is available on the official website.
  • Some of the original chapter pages got redesigned without chapter titles for later editions, and the original versions aren't available on line. The website also omits miscellaneous cartoons, promotional art, artwork for editorial page borders, and even one editorial that's lettered in the shape of a wolf's head.
  • The original ElfQuest: Wavedancers series was withdrawn because of a dispute between the Pinis and its creators and cannot be legally reproduced.
  • The first in what is proposed to be a complete series of Doorstopper collections emerged in 2014, although it's unclear if it will include everything.
• The issues of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles written and illustrated by Rick Veitch (issues #24-26 and 30 of Volume One of the original Mirage run, plus the story "North by Downeast" initially serialized in Plastron Cafe #1-4 and later colorized and given a conclusion in the two-part Casey Jones mini-series) face problems when it comes to reprints as Veitch never signed away those rights. Possibly the TMNT stories by Rick Arthur (who did TMNT Vol. 1 #41 and a short story called "Lucindra" in Turtle Soup (vol. 2) #1) fall into the same trap, though there's no confirmation from anyone involved with the franchise (though see below). Frank Bella, who did the two-page gag story "Pesticide" in Turtle Soup (vol. 1) #1, also never signed away reprint rights, which indicates that the same thing happened with the other story in that special (save for one done by Mirage regular Eric Talbot which was later reprinted, a crossover story with Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo which has been reprinted several times, and one by Steve Bissette who did sell the rights to his TMNT-related work). Some of the other TMNT short stories and Vol. 1 issues done by freelance writers and artists during the late 1980s and early 1990s may also have legal problems, but in some cases it's hard to tell since Mirage's contracts could be a bit loose regarding reprint rights at the time.
• Unlike its popular American cousin, Sonic the Comic has yet to be collected into volumes. The series is extremely hard to find (as everytime you search for it the Archie's comics come up instead), though there are sites specifically made for buying issues of the comic. It's still hard to get certain issues though. It's possible the lack of an archive is due to legal issues involving the several Canon Foreigners.
• British company Fleetway published many influential comics during its existence (most famously 2000 AD), and many of them have been reprinted by its successor Rebellion. However, many features like Charlie Peace, Robot Archie, The Wild Wonders, Typhoon Tracy, Death Game 1999, the abovementioned Sonic The Comic and the comic strips present in the Red Dwarf Smegazine still remain to be seen again.
• There are very many features from Heavy Metal that haven't been seen in ages. In particular Captain Sternn, who also appeared in the movie, as a back-up feature in Dreadstar and in the mini-series Captain Sternn: Running Out of Time. There's also The Long Tomorrow, originally published in French magazine Métal Hurlant; the story would go on to influence the sci-fi noir aesthetic that would become the Cyberpunk genre. The story is available in French but harder to come by in other languages.
• Entire companies suffer from this trope. If you like First Comics in the 80s, only American Flagg! has seen a reprint: books like Jon Sable, Freelance, Nexus, The Badger, Grimjack, Dynamo Joe, and Mars 1984 languish in obscurity. A lot of the output of companies like Malibu, Eclipse, and Comico are similar. For more obscure companies, like Neal Adams's Continuity Comics, not even graphic novels exist.
• None of the volumes of Albedo: Erma Felna EDF, the original furry comic, were ever reissued. Unlike its sequel, Birthright, which is currently slowly being put out as a Web Comic.
• Destroyer Duck, and not just the title comic, but also the back-up comics, such as Jerry Siegel's The Starling. The only comic from there to be reprinted is Groo the Wanderer.
• The Lost Ones, a comic book by former Archie Sonic writer Ken Penders, only saw one issue printed, and it sold very poorly. As a result, even if you use the internet to help you, you're very unlikely to find it. The closest it got to a rerelease was being put up on Ken Penders' website, and even then, it's only the first few pages. That said, it has such a poor reputation that, like Ricky 1, in the off chance you do find a copy, it won't cost very much to buy.
• Fish Police, which was independently released for its first 11 issues, has had several reprints of the early issues. Comico reprinted issues 1-4 in a colorized trade, and then reissued 5-11 (with some new material thrown in), but went bankrupt after printing issues 12-17. The series was picked up by Apple Comics for issues 18-26, after which Marvel did bowdlerized colorized reprints of issues 1-6 to capitalize on the short-lived Animated Adaptation. Issues 1-4 were again reprinted in a black-and-white trade by IDW in 2011, but so far, everything afterward remains hard to find. There was also a six-issue Lighter and Softer spinoff called Fish Shticks that was only printed once by Comico.
• When BIONICLE concluded, it got harder to find the Papercutz reprints of the comic series, let alone the originals from LEGO Magazine or the Lunchables comics. Luckily, reproductions on the Internet are available with a bit of digging.
• The comic portion of the Doctor Who Expanded Universe suffers from this.
  • For the pre-1996 Doctor Who Magazine comic strips, because of the TPBs' marketing focus on single Doctors, there was doubt over whether they'd ever reprint the short run of multi-Doctor strips between their Doctor Who New Adventures Seventh Doctor strips and their Eighth Doctor comics, a run best known for breaking with New Adventures continuity in the story "Ground Zero". The announcement of "Land of the Blind", the first TPB collecting strips from this run, confirmed they would, the promotion focusing on strips from multiple Doctors being featured.
  • A less ambiguous example is the 1960s and 1970s TV Comic / Countdown Doctor Who comic strips, which are unlikely ever to be reprinted in TPB form because of their sometimes-dubious quality and the effort involved in reformatting them for TPB publication.
  • The much more highly regarded 1960s "The Daleks" Villain Protagonist strips published in TV Century 21 got a short-print-run collection in the early '90s, but afterwards were unavailable for more than 20 years despite the fact that some other less popular TV Century 21 strips got collections. Although nothing's been made public, the notoriously hardball attitudes of the Terry Nation estate may have had something to do with that. Panini eventually released a bookazine collecting the strips in 2020, albeit without their '90s continuation from Doctor Who Magazine 249-254, "Return of the Elders".
  • The strips from the kid-oriented Doctor Who Adventures magazine haven't been reprinted, though at last report the Panini team were looking at ways they might reprint them, and convincing their powers-that-be that the project would be profitable.
  • The Tenth Doctor strips from the Doctor Who: Battles in Time part-work haven't seen the light of day since the official online archive closed.
  • The short-lived Eighth Doctor Radio Times strip hasn't been republished since its first run in 1996-97.
• Until it met its end in 2017, Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) mostly averted this trope. That said, there were exceptions even during its run:
  • The main story of Sonic Live! remains without reprint. This might have something to do with likeness rights, as it features caricatures of Ken Penders' children.
  • Issue #50 hasn't seen a reprint, as all collections prefer to reprint the extended version seen in Super Sonic Special #6.
  • Sonic Super Special #7 probably won't see a reprint due to it being a crossover with several Image Comics characters, leaving the rights tangled.
  • The final story in Super Sonic Special #8, an adaptation of a cartoon episode, hasn't seen a reprint, notable for having very poor artwork.
  • Sonic Super Special #15's main story is also off the table for some particularly bad artwork (several panels are literally just snow or darkness with word balloons over them). The story was retold and retconned in the Free Comic Book Day issue for 2011.
  • 10 issues of Knuckles the Echidna (#22-#28, #30-#32) are suspects. While the final two Knuckles Archives were announced and even had cover art released, they seem to be in limbo for unknown reasons. Amazon de-listed Volume 5 for pre-order in early 2015. They also aren't available on the Sonic app. Issue #29 made it into Sonic Select Book 7. It was most likely due to the lawsuit with Ken Penders as, in the height of the lawsuit, Penders actually contacted distributors and slapped C&D notices on, at the very least, Volume 4 of the Archives.
  • The Sonic X comic that Archie published hasn't seen a trade reprint, and Ian Flynn has confirmed that Sega doesn't want it republished. This is likely due to legal matters, as the rights to Sonic X are a bit of a mess. This ends up affecting the final issue of the series, as it is a crossover with the main comic when that universe's Shadow and Metal Sonic drop into that universe briefly before disappearing and heading to Blaze's universe.
  • With Archie having lost the Sonic comic license to IDW, it's safe to assume that their entire run will be in limbo for the time being. It is unknown when, or even if, it will get any reprints.
• Anything to do with Valiant Comics is a bit of a tangled mess - when Valiant went under, they sold off all their properties to video game company Acclaim. When Acclaim folded, the comic rights were sold to a new company - however, some of the Valiant books were based on old Gold Key Comics characters, and those rights reverted to Gold Key, not to mention that the Acclaim video games went to another rights holder which further strained things dealing with the tie-in comics. When Jim Shooter finally purchased back the properties he'd originally started, rather than mess with attempted reprints that may not even be legally possible (coupled with a lot of backlash at the franchises, as his original plans did not mesh with what the later owners of Valiant did with the titles), he merely rebooted the Valiant universe.
  • Separately, the video game adaptation of Shadow Man (based on the Acclaim sequel to the original Valiant title) has seen release on Steam, though the 3 console ports are in limbo.
• Nintendo Comics System has yet to receive a reprint, which may be because of trying to be Distanced from Current Events (two storylines in the Game Boy comics series dealt with both the World Trade Center and the space shuttle Columbia.) The legal red tape surrounding the back catalogue of Valiant Comics, who published the series, makes any chances of a reprint even less likely.
  • While on the subject of Nintendo, many of the old Nintendo Power comics count as this too. The only ones to get modern re-releases are The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (1992) and Super Mario Adventures which have gotten new edition graphic novels by Viz Media. Others such as Star Fox & Super Metroid on the other hand are a lot more easier to find off of unofficial internet scans.
• DC's 6-issue Ratchet & Clank comic miniseries, released to bridge the gap between 2009's A Crack in Time and 2011's All 4 One, has been out of print for years and prices have begun to skyrocket, especially on the much rarer trade paperback. And while it is still available digitally, it is only available on a small number of digital storefronts so even finding where you can get it that way is a challenge. Not helping matters is the fact that Sony Interactive has moved from DC to IDW to make comics based on their properties, so reprints of the comic are incredibly unlikely.
• Sam & Max: Freelance Police has run into this twice. Surfin' The Highway, a compilation of all the comics up to that point, was printed in 1995 and went out of print. For years, second-hand copies were going for a substantial amount of money. Then, in 2008, following the success of Telltale's Sam & Max: Freelance Police games, the company re-released a greatly expanded version. Then that went out of print, and as of this writing neither version is easily obtainable.
  • For that matter, licensed comics in general. Unless it was based off of an incredibly successful franchise (i.e. Transformers, Masters of the Universe, etc), chances of reprints are slim, and if it was based off a franchise aimed at younger audiences with little to no Periphery Demographic (i.e. most of the licensed Star Comics line from the 80's such as Strawberry Shortcake or The Get Along Gang), you can forget about seeing those outside of finding back issues.
• Pretty much all of Eros Comix's output has fallen prey to this trope since Fantagraphics closed the imprint down. This includes Ironwood (one of Bill Willingham's earliest series), Birdland (by Love and Rockets co-creator Gilbert Hernandez) and some of the erotic works of Gray Morrow and Wallace Wood.
• Because of the way that AC Comics binds each issue, back issues of Femforce are very hard to reprint, and consequently, your best bet of acquiring them is to buy them secondhand, which can get very pricey.
• Tekno Comix, a division of Big Entertainment, published many comics in the 90s with concepts created by famous writers, such as Neil Gaiman's Teknophage, Mr. Hero: The Newmatic Man, Leonard Nimoy's Primortals, Gene Roddenberry's Lost Universe, Mickey Spillane's Mike Danger, Isaac Asimov's I-BOTS and John Jakes' Mullkon Empire. None of these comics seem to have been reprinted.
• Fall Out Toy Works, a Fall Out Boy comic miniseries published by Image Comics, is no longer for sale digitally and is out of print for both individual issues and the trade paperback. The UK publisher, Atomeka Press, made the full comic available for free online in webcomic format through Keenspot and in individual issues through Graphite Comics. The original print issues have certain pages (including the original ending) that weren't included in the trade paperback or Atomika's Keenspot and Graphite Comics. There's been no comment by those involved with Fall Out Toy Works about future reprints or digital sales.
• The Unfunnies has not been re-released since the series ended in 2007, since creators Mark Millar and Anthony Williams would rather not admit that the comic ever happened.
• Due to the company being shut down after just a couple of years of operation, nothing in Defiant Comics' catalogue has been made legally available, neither in reprints nor in digital form, so the only way to read them now is through second-hand back issues.
• Clive Barker has plenty of comics associated with him that lack reprints:
  • The heavily truncated comic adaptation of Weaveworld released by Marvel under their Epic Comics label in 1991-1992.
  • Tapping the Vein, a five issue series published by Eclipse Comics, that adapted various stories from his Books of Blood anthologies. A collection was printed in 2002 by Checker (which itself has gone out of print), but for reasons unknown it omits the "Hell's Event" story from book four.
  • Additionally, six more stories would receive stand-alone adaptations, but these have likewise fallen out of print, with some of them fetching rather hefty prices on the secondhand market.
  • The aforementioned Razorline imprint from Marvel, though considering Barker's own indifference to the line, there's even less of a chance from either party to pursue reprints.
  • While the Clive Barker's Hellraiser comic series from Marvel has seen reprints from Boom! Studios, it has only been reprinted via "best of" compilations and has yet to receive a full reprint.
• While DC keeps the Garth Ennis run on The Demon in print fairly regularly, the same can't be said for the previous 39 issues, written primarily by Alan Grant (with a guest issue by Matt Wagner that was reprinted along with his 1987 miniseries, and a guest arc by Dwayne McDuffie). What's more, Grant's run established some of the supporting cast who frequent Ennis' stories, leaving modern readers in the dark.

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