The quality of the paperback books is appalling, pages are falling out of a new book!

[Kranden]

Hello, I have been a long time fan of order of the stick and decided to purchase the paperback copies of the collection for my bookshelf...

This didn't turn out so well for me and I'm pretty disappointed with the quality of the printing with pages already falling out on a first reading.

Long rant incoming with pictures!

So I first decided to buy as many paperback books on amazon as I could, which led to me returning almost every copy I bought because the pages were already falling out when I received my order.

My copy of "No Cure for the Paladin blues from Amazon upon a first reading."
https://imgur.com/a/1PUInpC

My Copy of "Dungeon Crawling Fools" from Amazon upon a first reading.
https://imgur.com/a/1eyEYHT


I figured... heck I must have gotten some old bad copies of the books and its my fault for buying it from Amazon.... I'll just return these and buy them from Ookoodook instead! I should have just bought them directly from the store that sells Rich Burlew's work! this wont happen again....

Oh how wrong I was.

After spending about $165 and purchasing books 1,2,3,4 and both prequel books and excited waiting a month for my "new" copies to arrive, I recieved my package yesterday and opened it today...

Oh how my hopes and dreams were shattered.

My copy of "Start of Darkness" upon a first reading from Ookadook
https://imgur.com/a/tYTRSQb

My Copy of "On The Origin of PC's" Ookadook
https://imgur.com/a/qNBFUEt

My 2nd Copy of "No Cure for The Paladin Blues" from Ookadook
https://imgur.com/a/tzLl019

My 2nd Copy of "War and XP's" From Oookadook
https://imgur.com/a/clSIhMq

My 2nd Copy of "Don't Split The Party" from Ookadook
https://imgur.com/a/UqUUNzf

I literally just bought these new copies from Ookadook last month and received them yesterday!

Some proof of my order and the fact that I only just received these copies the other day for any doubters.
https://imgur.com/a/qmNGhLT

*edit I should add that while some of the bindings don't look too bad right now, the copies I bought on amazon last month looked like this until I started reading them, then the entire binding split open and pages began to fall out as such https://imgur.com/a/zFInKMj

*Edit 2 To Clarify I began reading "Start of Darkness today" the binding looked like the other books pictures until I began reading it, and the pages began to fall out.
I haven't even had time to be harsh on these books! I opened them on a flat surface and read them at my desk when the pages of "Start of Darkness" began to fall out just like the ones I bought on Amazon originally and led to my purchasing them directly from Oookadook.

*Edit 3 corrections

*Edit 4 New photos added of my new copy of "Start of Darkness" from Oookadook after a continued reading, you can see the pages have completely come out of the book at this point
https://imgur.com/a/YcgifMF
(compare to the first picture of "Start of Darkness" linked above)

Look I'm still a huge fan, but this is a real kick in the nads in all honesty, it feels bad to even post this when this is my favorite comic in existence!
Rich I love your work, but this isn't acceptable.

Sorry for the rant, I felt I needed to share this so other fans could avoid feeling bad for purchasing physical copies of the books.

I should have just gone with the PDF copies.

/rant off

[Precure]

Sadly these kinds of books weren't made for long term use, as they're cheaply made, the adhesives gone after few years and leaves began to fall apart. Books you ordered must be published years ago.

[Kranden]

Sadly these kinds of books weren't made for long term use, as they're cheaply made, the adhesives gone after few years and leaves began to fall apart. Books you ordered must be published years ago.

Yeah... if it had been a few years or a couple of readings I wouldn't have felt so strongly about it, but it certainly feels bad when you buy a "new" book only to have it start falling apart in your hands.

Strip #580 sure makes a lot more sense now however! https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0580.html

I don't blame Rich for this, I should have expected something like this to happen if the Thieves guild had their hands in the printing process!

[hroþila]

Mine are still fine (they're all pretty old now, and only BRitF is a Kickstarter print), but I've always been super careful with them, like I only opened them the bare minimum needed to still be able to read inside because I wanted to avoid any superficial damage to the spine. But yeah, comic books should be able to take a bit more of a beating than that.

[littlebum2002]

Mine were in great condition until my kids (8 and 10) read the books and now they are all but destroyed. I agree that the print quality of these books leaves a lot to be desired, but I think Rich may have tried to keep costs down so more people can afford them. They already cost over $50 for people outside the US, and asking people to pay any more than that for each of 7 books is too much for most comic fans to afford.

The main problems, IMHO, is that OOTS has a combination of a relatively small readership, large pages, and very vibrant colors, all of which contribute to the books being more expensive.

[ti'esar]

Huh, I'm a bit surprised to hear all this. I've noticed I'm regrettably hard on my books in general, but while the "skinnies" (SoD and SSDT) are fairly beat up after having owned them for years, I have no complaints about the quality of any of my other OOTS books, most of which are also several years old. Certainly I'm not missing pages or anything like that.

[Psyren]

My physical copies are all fine, but then I pretty much just make a beeline for the commentaries and bonus strips.

I misplaced my Snips Snails and Dragon Tales in a move at some point though :smallfrown:

[Satohika]

Depends on books. My DStP is still perfectly fine, while W&XPs is falling apart.

[AlessandroHisa]

I noticed it kinda depends on the book.

War and XPs has some damage (fortunately noticeable just when opening the last two pages)

But on the other hand I grabbed Start of Darkness as soon as it came out and it's still in perfect condition!

[Mike Havran]

Mine are pretty OK after 7 years or so. SoD does have minor damage. Then again, I have handled them carefully from the start, because they do not look very durable.

[Kranden]

Mine are pretty OK after 7 years or so. SoD does have minor damage. Then again, I have handled them carefully from the start, because they do not look very durable.

Yeah I had a copy of SOD that's lost somewhere in my parents garage that I bought about 10 years ago, I wish I could find it to do a comparison to the "new" copy I just received to see if the binding glue was falling apart like my recent purchase. Out of curiosity what is the printing year of your copy? I wonder if its a certain printing run that just was done really poorly, or maybe the books were stored in like a 200 degree warehouse!


I sent a message to Ookoodook with pictures of the books I received that are falling apart if anyone's still interested in the outcome, I'll update with their response if/when they give me one.

[Mike Havran]

Yeah I had a copy of SOD that's lost somewhere in my parents garage that I bought about 10 years ago, I wish I could find it to do a comparison to the "new" copy I just received to see if the binding glue was falling apart like my recent purchase. Out of curiosity what is the printing year of your copy? I wonder if its a certain printing run that just was done really poorly, or maybe the books were stored in like a 200 degree warehouse!
My SoD copy is the fourth, Kickstarter print from 2012.

[Crimsonmantle]

3rd printing 2010 for SoD, 6th 2012 for Origin, both purchased at later points. No special care taken and it shows, but no falling apart. Though the binding certainly looks cheap and like it may be prone to such issues.
Meh. Some of my old Asterixes certainly have loose pages to them. Then again they're much older.

[Kranden]

My SoD copy is the fourth, Kickstarter print from 2012.

My copy of SOD that started falling apart when I opened it is from the same printing.

Kind of leads me to the conclusion that perhaps these books were stored improperly, perhaps they have been sitting in a 100 degree warehouse for the last 10 years.

[facw]

My copy of SOD that started falling apart when I opened it is from the same printing.

Kind of leads me to the conclusion that perhaps these books were stored improperly, perhaps they have been sitting in a 100 degree warehouse for the last 10 years.

Ookoodook is in Houston, so it's quite possible the books from there have absorbed some hot and humid weather.

FWIW, my books don't have these issues, though they were bought much closer to date of printing.

Sucks that yours are defective though. Hopefully the sellers will make you whole.

[Kranden]

Well if anyone is still interested...

in the end Ookoodook refunded me, although I did issue a charge back after not hearing back from them for about a week on the matter. They did apologize and refunded me without requesting I return the copies I purchased, so I do give them credit for that. They said it was probably due a to a very hot summer and they try their best to only ship high quality books ect ect.

While I'm disappointed I wont end up with a nice collection of my favorite comic, I am glad they did the right thing in the end. I just hope no other fans have to deal with this headache in the future. Hopefully Rich notices this post and checks in with Ookoodook to make sure they store his merchandise in better conditions.

I still love this comic and some books falling apart isn't gonna change me checking the page every day to see if a new comic is finally up!

Here's to X more long years of my favorite daily web comic routine.

Cheers