When I'm not editing articles about comics out of love, I'm often to be found writing articles about DVDs for money. Specifically, I review the shiny wee buggers, which means I not only have to wax lyrical about the movies, I also have to appraise the extras.

By now, more or less everyone knows what that means. DVDs have the capacity to contain not only a 'main feature' (be it a movie, TV shows, an assortment of music videos, or even some slack-jawed D-list celebrity doing stepsercise), but also an assortment of bonus items, such as an audio commentary, a 'making of' documentary and some deleted scenes.

Those three are the pretty much the standards. Some of the best discs out there go considerably further. Browsing my own DVD shelf, the ones that leap out are FIGHT CLUB, with its four commentaries, its storyboards and concept art, and its innovative publicity materials; GLADIATOR, with its extensive documentary materials, its interviews and its child actor's video diary; and MOULIN ROUGE, with its branching behind-the-scenes sequences, its design gallery and its multiple-angle dance sequences.

'I want more for my money. Extras aren't so extra any more.' But some discs have none of that. Some only offer a trailer. Some don't even stretch to that. On some disc cases, 'scene selection menu' is boldly proclaimed as an 'extra'.

These discs are sold in the hope that people will be sufficiently satisfied by a crisper picture and better sound to hand over their hard-earned cash. And often, people are. Enhanced presentation quality is a selling point.

However, like a lot of customers, I tend to want more for my money. Videos have fallen in price since the rise of DVD, and I'd much sooner buy a bargain-priced cassette than a disc with no whistles or bells. It's not like I'm watching these movies on a home cinema, after all, so the quality only goes so far. So I only buy DVDs of movies I really like, and even then, only when they come with a decent set of extras.

'Extras' aren't so extra any more. They're essential.

A noted fan of the DVD format is writer Brian Michael Bendis, who has praised the format repeatedly in the highly idiosyncratic letter columns in his non-Marvel work (which, for the time being, is limited to POWERS). In fact, he likes the format so much that he's used it as the template for his 'Definitive Collection' Image trade paperbacks of works like POWERS, JINX, GOLDFISH and TORSO.

So, for example, the main feature in POWERS: WHO KILLED RETRO GIRL is the first six issues of the series. But once you're done reading that, there are the reprints of the POWERS strips that ran as advance publicity in Comic Shop News; there's the full script for the first issue; there's a covers gallery and a couple of sketchbooks; and there's an annotated guide to all the cameo appearances in the book. It's a full package, and it gives the consumer more reasons to pick up the book than just the aesthetic advantage of being able to put a trade paperback on a bookshelf.

Bendis is not the first, of course. He's just one of the more consistent. These days, a trade collection that doesn't include a covers gallery is as miserable as a DVD that doesn't include a trailer. Sketchbooks are also increasingly common, turning up in Alan Moore's America's Best Comics collections as a matter of course - and, like covers, the material is already there to be used.

'The DVD format is the template for Bendis' 'Definitive Collection' trades.' For the same reason, it might be argued that scripts ought to be a more commonplace extra. Marvel's 'Nuff Said' month of speech-free comics last year was a shameful gimmick, but it did have the advantage of carrying script samples in the back of the books, and for most comic readers this was the first time they became aware of the diversity of script styles out there. Scripts can be a fascinating glimpse into a writer's working style and into the way comics are made.

Other contributions that writers can make include extensive page-by-page annotations of the sort seen in Alan Moore's FROM HELL or Carla Speed McNeil's FINDER collections. Eric Shanower's Trojan war story AGE OF BRONZE: A THOUSAND SHIPS contains maps, genealogical charts, a glossary, a bibliography and a 'making of' afterword, all of which brilliantly complement the main work.

Even the NEW X-MEN: E IS FOR EVOLUTION trade contained Grant Morrison's pitch notes for the series - a great idea for an extra, even if it did contain apparent spoilers for future stories. However, for the most part Marvel has been no better than DC in including bonus material in its trades. The only extra you'll find in most Marvel trades is an advertisement for a video game at the back.

Of course, there are costs to be considered here. Extra materials mean extra pages, and that means a higher cover price. However, it's notable that small publishers and self-publishers seem to be the ones most inclined to include extras, suggesting that they at least consider the extra cost to be worth it.

It should also be noted that page counts are often dictated by the layout of the printing presses to increments of eight or sixteen pages. This may be the reason for including extras in the first place, as they can help round out the count to an appropriate number.

'The only extra in most Marvel trades is an ad at the back.' However, the use of extras purely as padding does nothing to help the form. Fifteen pages of near-identical napkin sketches in the medium of biro does not make for much of a selling point. Extras should add value, thus justifying the extra cost and making the book something more than just a straight binding together of the original issues.

Treatments, annotations, scripts, afterwords or forewords, covers, sketches, and even guest 'pin-ups' are just the most obvious extras that trades can include. If, as many believe, the industry really is moving to a book-led economy, extras of this sort ought to be the least we should expect. Publishers seem to think they can entice consumers with hugely expensive CD-ROMs or glossy slipcase hardcovers. Why not try enticing them with value-added trades? I'm sure it would increase people's desire to 'upgrade' from their monthly issues to the trade, and it would be a great way to repackage some older, out-of-print works.

You can't get Peter Milligan and Duncan Fegredo's gorgeous, twisted satire FACE anymore. DC says it costs too much to keep such slender books in print. So what about making it an extra in a Definitive Edition of Milligan and Fegredo's ENIGMA? DC could package it with the usual covers and sketches, and round it out with an interview with the team reflecting on the original work. Heck, shove in the out-of-print GIRL four issue mini (also by the same creative team), and you have a hefty tome that would be well worth a twenty-five or thirty dollar price tag.

It's time for publishers - and creators - to take a lateral-thinking approach to trades. If this is the future, then let's see some innovation. Let's see the more backwards publishers shamed into claiming their contents pages are an 'extra'. Let's see the industry move on from video nasties, and into the age of the DVD trade.

Andrew Wheeler is a London-based entertainment journalist.

This article is Ideological Freeware. The author grants permission for its reproduction and redistribution by private individuals on condition that the author and source of the article are clearly shown, no charge is made, and the whole article is reproduced intact, including this notice.