Archival Minutae
I heard some of the Archives were defective. How can I avoid those?
The only major defect that forced a recall was Legion of Super-Heroes Archives #10. DC corrected this problem with a recall and replacement program. Legion Archives #10 ordered currently are a new release with the defects corrected and are no cause for concern.
I see some differences between my Golden Age comics and the Archives. What's wrong?
Nothing. Archives are recreations of Golden Age art based on computer scans and by-hand reproduction. They are not perfect duplicates of the originals. They are, however, very close and while I own a fair amount of Golden Age material, I have never seen anything offensively bad. It should be stated however that, if you are an absolute purist, you will need to save you money for the original material.
Why did they make an Archive of New Teen Titans?
Archives are not based on age but merit. DC's premier series of the early 1980's was the New Teen Titans. In addition to being easily available, it is also more "readable" to a modern generation of comics fans, unlike the sometimes simple material of the Golden Age. DC conducted an experiment, which was perhaps not as successful as it could have been, to explore whether there was a market for such material. The lack of expansion along this lines indicates that it probably was not. Nevertheless, it is a good read and if you don't have the originals, the NTT Archives is a good way to read it all in one place.
Why do they make so many Spirit Archives?
DC has a special relationship with Will Eisner to produce a library of his material, including the Spirit Archives. Because of a wide audience that exists outside of traditional fandom, the market for for Spirit Archives is larger enough to support higher rates of publication. It's worth pointing out that this in no way infringes on DC's ability to make Archives of it's own material and indeed, the success of the Spirit only encourages DC to expand it's reprint program.
And why don't the Spirit Archives look like the others?
The Spirit Archives (and the Tor Archives and the MAD Archives and the Frank Frazetta Archives) are not part of the DC Archives series. The are more part of the DC library program (the Eisner library, etc.) and are treated independently. Hence, for those that have asked, that is why they do not appear in the DC Archive survey as choices.
Who are you to perform the Archives Survey? Does DC care?
I am no one of consequence in DC's corporate weltunschaung, being an individual fan of the material. DC does not commission the survey not affect it's outcome. I do, however, possess considerable experience in data processing and analysis which gives me a better than average set of skills to pull something of the magnitude of the Archives survey off. DC has historically taken an interest in the outcome of the survey but it under no constraint to abide by it. It is simply another source of information they can use to help consider what Archives to produce next. The weight that it carries, if any, is up to them.