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A brief definition & backstory on 'Artist's Edition' - or 'AE' - format books: Over-sized Hardcover collections of the most important & influential comic art, using high-resolution, full-color scans to create facsimile reproductions of the original finished art-boards.
The generic 'Artist's Edition'/'AE' title comes from the specific brand name used by format creator & series editor Scott Dunbier (the same man who introduced the 'Absolute Format' during his time as a DC editor) for 'The Rocketeer: Artist's Edition' published after he brought his passion for collecting original art to IDW. It was initially conceived as a being a one-off; but the book's popularity quickly convinced the publisher to greenlight it as a very deluxe, very ambitious, & very successful series, one loved by hardcore comic art fans.
Dunbier continues to oversee each new project, & the series now includes 60 Artist's Edition releases, with more on the way; and a dozen or so IDW 'Artifact Editions', which are nearly identical, but typically presenting an artistic showcase of outstanding pages, instead of complete stories.
As well, other publishers have followed the IDW AE model with their own Collected Original Comic Art Facsimiles: Dark Horse has TWO lines - their own 'Gallery Editions', and a line in cooperation with Kitchen Sink, with 2 brilliant entries under the 'Curator's Collection' rubric. Fantagraphics have killed it with all 5 of their 'fantastic' 'Studio Editions'. And DC have allowed Graphitti Designs to publish the best - and occasional worst - books in their 80-year catalog - confusingly, they share the 'Gallery Editions' moniker with Dark Horse - as well as independent titles like 'Strangers in Paradise'. The production standards are uniformly excellent, but the Fantagraphics, Graphitti Design & Dark Horse/Kitchen Sink books have a very slight edge in design over IDW, The rest of the pack - Titan, Dynamite, Hermes, Genesis West - are doing their own fine books, with varying degrees of critical & commercial success, but it's pretty clear that this very slim slice of the comic market will be quickly devoured by the aforementioned, better established publishers.
The generic 'Artist's Edition'/'AE' title comes from the specific brand name used by format creator & series editor Scott Dunbier (the same man who introduced the 'Absolute Format' during his time as a DC editor) for 'The Rocketeer: Artist's Edition' published after he brought his passion for collecting original art to IDW. It was initially conceived as a being a one-off; but the book's popularity quickly convinced the publisher to greenlight it as a very deluxe, very ambitious, & very successful series, one loved by hardcore comic art fans.
Dunbier continues to oversee each new project, & the series now includes 60 Artist's Edition releases, with more on the way; and a dozen or so IDW 'Artifact Editions', which are nearly identical, but typically presenting an artistic showcase of outstanding pages, instead of complete stories.
As well, other publishers have followed the IDW AE model with their own Collected Original Comic Art Facsimiles: Dark Horse has TWO lines - their own 'Gallery Editions', and a line in cooperation with Kitchen Sink, with 2 brilliant entries under the 'Curator's Collection' rubric. Fantagraphics have killed it with all 5 of their 'fantastic' 'Studio Editions'. And DC have allowed Graphitti Designs to publish the best - and occasional worst - books in their 80-year catalog - confusingly, they share the 'Gallery Editions' moniker with Dark Horse - as well as independent titles like 'Strangers in Paradise'. The production standards are uniformly excellent, but the Fantagraphics, Graphitti Design & Dark Horse/Kitchen Sink books have a very slight edge in design over IDW, The rest of the pack - Titan, Dynamite, Hermes, Genesis West - are doing their own fine books, with varying degrees of critical & commercial success, but it's pretty clear that this very slim slice of the comic market will be quickly devoured by the aforementioned, better established publishers.
