Crisis on Infinite Earths: The Absolute Edition (2026)

07/14/2026 2:48PM: In doing research for my Crisis on Infinite Earths review (particularly regarding the Monitor Tapes), I wanted to bring this back online so you can read for yourself what a mess the original 1998 collection was. Technically it was released in 1999, because of the recall. That must have have costed DC Comics a lot of money.

Lying In The Gutters
Monday February 17, 2003
by Rich Johnston

(excerpt)

TAYLOR MADE

Tony Bedard then outed 'ettacandy' as ex-DC employee, Rick Taylor. Taylor was fired in the wake of the "Crisis" hardcover recall, which saw DC's most prominent Christmas item a few years ago recalled and reprinted after one panel in the book was repeated. After repeated criticism for that on the board, Rick went Krakatoa.

"You see, this is the same cluelessness I got from the DC management and why I so appreciate the comments of Mr. Bedard (who by the way, hasn't had the balls to answer my personal emails. He's probably 'outing' some gay celebs or something. I can count on him answering me back publicly, I'm sure)

"Technically speaking, Crisis on Infinite Earth was literally in THOUSANDS of pieces of film. Because the artists drew THOUSANDS of surprints (all those wacky effects) and hundreds of drop out (all that snow), it took a production artist (thanks Nick Napolotano, you BUSTED YOUR ASS for scale) literally a year to reconstruct all the art.

"I was saddled with the worst sep house DC used at the time (because they were the cheapest, something I fought tooth and nail and got shot down on). I think we proof issues 1 at least 4 times and they STILL couldn't get it right."

"Then DC 'rolled the deadlines FORWARD' 16 weeks (by the way, the line editors were able to just keep being late) on me and my then-assistant (2 people produced 96 collected editions that year) and told us the book HAD TO SHIP ON TIME.

"We got to the issue where they reproduced from George (Perez)'s pencil and because it was letterpress on newsprint those pencilled panels looked like hell. George had Xeroxes which he gladly loaned us, but Gerry Ordway was not available to ink so we hired AL Vey (his assistant when Crisis was originally inked and a great guy. Hey AL!).

"We were pretty far into production by the so the sep house had to strip in those panels. They screwed up and stripped on panel in twice. We missed it when we proofed the book (getting past three sets of eyes) and it made it into print.

"If you wanted to call Crisis a reprint, go ahead. It was a giant assembly process that took over a year, was in THOUSANDS of pieces, had four months cut out of the schedule, got the worst sep house they had who was doing about 15 monthlies at the same time.

"So if you want to be pissed at me, oh clueless fanboy, knock yourself out.

"I got the shit end of the stick for busting you ass for you for over a year after hauling the monthlies out of the toilet for 9 years, too. Hardly fair. Sorry you didn't get your collected book on time. I'm sure you could've just gotten you Crisis book out of their plastic and reread them if you were that anxious.

"Any one who really knows what happen, feel free to chime in.

"You won't have to worry about hearing from me again.

"Go to hell."

07/14/2026 - The Making of Crisis on Infinite Earths

Many of you guys have been asking about the Extra contents of the Crisis Absolute.  It has lots of original art and all of those Amazing Heroes Crisis-related covers.  Be careful with the fold-outs, you can accidentally damage it unintentionally.  

I will update more later, but just quickly:

• Foreword by Robert Greenberger

• Where Ideas Came From (about 140 pages of collected notes, letters, art, etc.)

• Selected Crisis on Infinite Earths pencils

• Aftermath by Robert Greenberger

• Retrospectives

• History of History, Continued by Robert Greenberger

• History of the DC Universe Portfolio

• History of the DC Universe (Graffiti Edition)

• A Seminal Event in the History of Comics by Alex Ross