What are Annuals?

[CSPDX]

Marvel also did Uncanny X-Men(v1)/Captain America(Steve Rogers at that time, before Bucky "died)/Namor sometime last year too.

And this year has an Alan Davis Clandestine story running through a number of Annuals at Marvel. The DC annuals seem to be more tightly interwoven into the ongoing narratives, although I can't say for certain until I pick some up, which I'll be doing later today with Batman and Animal Man. Seems to me DC's using annuals in the place of the various 5th-week events they used to run on months like this, which seems like an ok way to go about filling a hole in the publishing schedule.

[Gellio]

Seeing as I'm still relatively new at comic-collecting, Animal Man and Batman will be my first annuals. I'm quite excited about them, especially since they seem to relate to the bigger ongoing stories in each.

[CTpitch]

So I guess there are TWO things that can shut down any discussion - Hitler, and Wikipedia :)

but wait what if the discussion is on Hitler's wikipedia page.........

[Kymeric]

Like everyone above said, theyre bigger more expensive yearly issues. Sometimes they are worth it, some times they are not.

For many years Marvel shipped and extra issue a year instead of an annual because people stopped buying annuals in great number. Annuals use the year instead of continuing the regular issue numbers, so you can skip an annual without missing a number in your collection. 1, 2, 3, 4 etc. Sadly the skipping of annuals and just releasing more individual issues in a year has lead to double shipping, more than one issue coming out in a month. Like Amazing Spiderman and deadpool for instance.

I always pick up annuals for my favorite comics. If im just getting into a title or if the art looks crappy i usually skip em.

[AdamYJ]

I think the "Annuals used to matter!" thing is a little bit of a myth, as I never found an Annual that 'mattered' in any special, and really don't think that there is any criteria for mattering than having a good story.

Like any comic book, an Annual only matters if you want it to matter.

[The_Ronin]

Like everyone above said, theyre bigger more expensive yearly issues. Sometimes they are worth it, some times they are not.

For many years Marvel shipped and extra issue a year instead of an annual because people stopped buying annuals in great number. Annuals use the year instead of continuing the regular issue numbers, so you can skip an annual without missing a number in your collection. 1, 2, 3, 4 etc. Sadly the skipping of annuals and just releasing more individual issues in a year has lead to double shipping, more than one issue coming out in a month. Like Amazing Spiderman and deadpool for instance.

I always pick up annuals for my favorite comics. If im just getting into a title or if the art looks crappy i usually skip em.

Amazing Spider-Man coming out more than once a month is all that gets me out of bed in the morning.

Well not quite, but still Love that book.

[glennsim]

Like any comic book, an Annual only matters if you want it to matter.

Well, there are some annuals that literally continue/complete a story from the main series, where if you didn't get it you'd miss out on something.

There are other annuals that do take place in the character's canon, but nothing that happens there is likely to ever be referenced again. This is probaby the majority.

Then there are those few times when annuals are actually presented as Elseworlds and literally involve non-canon versions of the characters.

[glennsim]

On the other hand, I would think Annuals would be great for getting people interested, because so many of them are done-in-one stories.