Sorry if the title is confusing, but that’s as succinct as I could think to make it.
I’ve been out of comics for a while, but I’d like to read some more. I don’t like collecting issues, but I do like larger collections. Call them trade paperbacks, graphic novels, whatever. I’ve read some over the years (Sandman, Transmetropolitan, Akira, etc.) but I wanted to try some mainstream (DC, Marvel, etc).
I got a Green Lantern TPB (I loved the cartoons!) but the story was super confusing. It jumped back and forth, the characters referenced things that weren’t in the book, and random side characters joined and left without any explanation. I asked a friend who said that the publishers would put a narrative arc in several different titles, so as to make people buy different things. So readers were somehow supposed to get all those random issues to understand what’s going on.
I’m fine buying whatever, but I want a cohesive narrative. How can I make check that a complete narrative is in a TPB and I don’t buy the incomplete style like I did previously?
It really comes down to the specific collection. Some TPB and omnibuses are more complete than others. Google is your friend in this instance. If there’s a collection that catches your eye, Google around to see if there’s any supplementary reading that goes with it.
Alternatively, of your have an android device and you don’t mind reading your comics digitally, you can do what I do and use Mihon (https://mihon.app/) to find most comics for free and then just Google the reading order of whatever it is you’re trying to to read. For example if you want to read all of Clairmont’s X-Men run you’d just Google “Chris Clairmont X-Men reading order” it’s that simple.