The Boys: Definitive Edition, Vol. 1 [Hardcover]

Garth Ennis (Author), Darick Robertson (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 15, 2008

This is going to hurt! In a world where costumed heroes soar through the sky and masked vigilantes prowl the night, someone's got to make sure the "supes" don't get out of line. And someone will! Billy Butcher, Wee Hughie, Mother's Milk, The Frenchman, and The Female are The Boys: A CIA-backed team of very dangerous people, each one dedicated to the struggle against the most dangerous force on Earth - superpower! Some superheores have to be watched. Some have to be controlled. And some of them - sometimes - need to be taken out of the picture. That's when you call in The Boys! The series draped in controversy is now presented in its "definitive" edition as Dynamite present the first 14 issues of the acclaimed series in one massive, oversized hardcover! Featuring some ever-so-slight tweaks the creators have meticulously restored, The Boys Definitive Edition Volume 1 also features bonus art materials, the script to issue #1 by Garth Ennis, a complete cover gallery, and more!

Product Details

• Hardcover: 200 pages
• Publisher: Dynamite Entertainment (December 15, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933305800
• ISBN-13: 978-1933305806
• Product Dimensions: 12.8 x 8.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #599,728 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Great Story, Awful print job., May 5, 2009

By 

J. SIEGEL - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Boys: Definitive Edition, Vol. 1 (Hardcover)

This review is primarily going to focus on the overall quality of the book itself. If you want more insight into the actual story and such read some reviews on the trade paperbacks. That being said, the story is excellent. Ennis tells a great story, with his trade mark pitch black sense of humor, and violence. The art is pretty good as well, (I prefer it to Dillon's art)and really shows through in this oversize slipcased edition. Now onto my review of the physical book the stories are contained in.

When I first received the book in the mail I was pretty excited, the slipcase was in pristine condition and looked really nice. Unfortunately, once I took the book out of the slipcase things started to go downhill. My initial impression was that the paper the pages were printed on was some of the cheapest paper stock I have ever seen in a graphic novel. I was expecting this to be along the lines of the DC absolute editions or even the Image oversized slipcases (Walking Dead omnibus, and Invincible Library) with nice thick paper stock, and excellent binding. Instead what I got was more along the lines of slightly thicker than average magazine paper. These pages will tear easily if you aren't careful. The colors all look fine on the glossy paper, but its still incredibly thin for the retail price of 75 dollars. The binding is another issue, as it would seem that the binding is on the loose side.

The real issue for me however came when I got past all these other nitpicks and decided to sit down and read the damn thing. Whenever the book was printed, several of the pages weren't even cut properly, leading to pages that were still connected on the outside corners. What this meant was I had to actually cut the pages in order to get them apart. On some pages it wasn't as bad as others, just connected at the outside corner, but on others the pages were connected almost halfway across, leading to me having to do the printers job and slice the pages with a razor blade to get them apart. This is completely unacceptable to me, I have never even had this happen with any other graphic novel I have purchased, let alone a high end oversized slipcase edition like this. This was the first dynamite book I purchased, and unfortunately for them will also be the last.

The combination of poor paper stock, and a truly awful print job make this one of the worst purchases I have made in recent history. Even without the awful print job, the low quality paper, and dust jacket smack of poor production value, something you don't want when you are paying damn near 50 dollars for the book. Don't pay more than 25-30 dollars for this unless you have to. 1 star for book quality, 4 stars for story within. I would recommend that any one interested in this just pick up the softcovers, lest you risk having to get an awful print job like I did.

*I just wanted to update my review and state that if you look at comments section on the bottom of the first review by Bondidude that gave the book 5 stars, there are 2 other people that comment that they had pages stuck together, so I'm not an isolated case of this happening. Clearly a case of a poor rushed print job*

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Greate story, bad book., March 16, 2011

By 

Jakob - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Boys: Definitive Edition, Vol. 1 (Hardcover)

Although the story is greate, and i couldnt resist reading it from cover to cover, it has its flaws. The most prominent one is that they printed one of the series twice in a row. Something that almost a blind proofreader would notice. Apart from that, one of the best series ive ever read.

Best regards
Jakob

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic!!, September 27, 2010

By 

Paul (Kansas City, MO USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Boys: Definitive Edition, Vol. 1 (Hardcover)

Saw some other reviews saying the physical quality of the book was poor, but found this not to be true in my case. Book is excellent in both quality and material in it. A must have for Ennis fans and anyone who enjoys things that are awesome. Not for children!! Cool characters, cool story, and if you're not into comics, give this a try and you might change your mind.