A while back I purchased Powers: The Definitive Hardcover Collection Volume 1.  It collects the first three story arcs of Powers, the somewhat monthly comic written by Brain Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming.  I never read the comic, but I thought the basic premise of a world where people with superpowers is common and because if this, the police department has a section devoted to superpower related homicides, sounded interesting.

I finally got around to reading it.  That is, I finally got around to trying to read it.  The problem is, the book is so poorly bound that some of the pages cannot be read.  For example:

I cannot read page 9 because one of the panels is obstructed by the binding.  Even though I shelled out money for a deluxe edition, I cannot read it.  Wonderful.

It’s not even like I could have flipped through the book before purchasing it.  When I found it at my local Borders, it was sealed in shrink wrapped plastic.  As a consumer, I had to simply trust Icon, an imprint of Marvel Comics, that they knew how to properly bind a book so that it could be read.

Only a comic publisher would produce a book that cannot be read by the people who purchase it.  No other publisher would treat readers this way.