IDW had done two different versions of the old Ninja Turtles comics. Big hardcover editions and new paperback ones. However, BOTH releases are missing issues and I don't get why. What is the point of releasing an incomplete collection? Like Volume 3 of the new versions includes issues 12,14, 15, 17, and then 19-21. What happened to 13, 16, and 18? That makes no sense to me.
Probably because those were kind of fill-in issues by other creators. Maybe they wanted to limit the collections to the Eastman/Laird stuff. But what is also possible is that however they did the contracts in the '80s, they may not have the rights to re-publish those other creators' work.
For the most part, only the stuff involving Eastman and/or Lair is in-continuity in Vol.1 and the rest is other guys that they know doing their own takes or stories with the characters. That's how they've always been collected, IDW aren't doing it any different to what Mirage used to do. There is probably an element of other guys having rights to their stuff as well, these are comics from the creator owned indie scene of the time where people believed in that and not shitty corporate publishers.
That needs to change though. If I'm going to be dropping my money on those, I want the WHOLE thing, not just selected issues. I just can't justify paying for incomplete books.
IDW collected almost all of the other stuff in a separate TPB series, only a couple of issues missing IIRC. I don't know what the prices are like on originals now, but that stuff was dirt cheap when I was collecting a whole run about 15 years ago.
Just pretend those issues never existed. You’re collecting the original run of the original creators.
My brain doesn't work like that. When I see that I own 1-12, 14, 15, 19, etc, I am mad I am missing issues. That is the same reason I stopped collecting the Jedge Dredd Case Files after Volume 2. I got annoyed at all of the missing issues that were in Volume 2.
This is not a perfect analogy, but there are Marvel comics (such as the original Uncanny X-Men) that would also be missing issue numbers in a "complete" compilation. In that case, it's because there were reprint issues that were given new issue numbers. To read through the series without skipping issue numbers, you'd have to read several stories again, out of sequence. While that's a bit different from what TMNT did, the reasons for doing it are essentially the same. In both cases, it only ever happened to fill space when there wasn't a story ready. In both cases, the problem is that the filler was given regular issue numbers in the first place, not that anything is missing that actually belongs.
Oh I've read later stories, I just couldn't justify buying books that were skipping stories. I completely gave up on the Wasteland story because after a bit due to how confused I was getting since there were so many parts missing. I just couldn't keep track of what was going on.
The Cursed Earth, yeah. That wasn't their fault, though. That was a legal thing. McDonalds and Burger King sued the living shit out of them, and they can never reprint those stories. Good luck finding the original progs from 1978. That's the only way you can read them. But I don't think the Casefile books skipped anything after that. edit: I just read that the copyright law has changed and they can actually reprint it now, since Ronald McDonald and Burger King were used as parody. So maybe you made the right choice after all. I do like the Casefiles books though, although I wish the paper was a little thicker.
