Approximately how long after a story arc is finished in comics will it usually be published in TPB form?
Totally depends on the publisher and the interest in the series. Dark Horse cranks those suckers out within a couple months, it seems. Is there something in particular you’re looking for?
Six months to never.
Like JSexton says, it depends. Mostly on the publisher and popularity of the story. Marvel collects their stories really quickly - generally within a month or two. They’re actually a little slower than they used to be; there was a time when the collected edition would be shipped the same day as the final issue of a story. Marvel tends to do hardcovers for their popular material (New Avengers) with softcovers following six months to a year later.
DC is pretty haphazard in collecting things. Vertigo books like Fables are collected into trades with regularity but a lot of their superhero material is either never collected at all or only collected sporadically. Hardcover editions may or may not be followed up with softcovers. On the other hand, they also keep certain things in print forever.
Image comics depend on the creative team, really, but in general collected editions are released fairly rapidly.
I’ve picked up some TPBs over the last couple of weeks and was just curious. I know Buffy: Season 8 is still ongoing; I just finished the first two parts. Read some Star Wars stuff, Hellboy, and Serenity. I’m about halfway through DC: The New Frontirer, vol. 1. Batman: The Long Halloween is waiting in the wings.
So, whats good? Back when I was a regular reader of comics, I read most anything by Marvel and DC. I’ve tried to keep up through cultural osmosis, but House of M, Civil War, that last two Crisis stories, the latest Spidey stuff… meh. Should I bother?
No, that’s all crap. The only good “event” type story that Marvel has done recently is Annihilation. It was awesome. You can get the complete story in TPB form, in three volumes. They are all affordable if you get them used on amazon or ebay. The sequel, Annihilation: Conquest was also good, but it’s only out in Hardcover right now. I think the softcover trades are due to come out next month and sometime early next year. It’s only going to be in two volumes. If you like cosmic stuff, it’s must-read.
Also good was Planet Hulk. In fact, it was amazing. Its in both hard- and softcover now I believe. The followup story, World War Hulk wasn’t as good, both because of crappy art by John Romita Jr. and because the story was not self-contained like Planet Hulk was.
I don’t read much DC, but I did really like Adam Strange: Planet Heist and Mystery In Space. Can you tell I like cosmic stories? 
Agreed. Planet Hulk was the best mainstream story arc I’ve read in . . . in . . . god, maybe ever. It was just that damn good. World War Hulk wasn’t worthy of kissing Planet Hulk’s taint. It was like The Infinity War after The Infinity Gauntlet.
Planet Heist started out awesome but later got too involved in the DCU for me.
Absolutely not. If your reaction is “meh” I will tell you it does not get better. Okay, the Spidey stuff maybe since if you were reading the post-Civil War crap or One More Day then at least some of the stuff that followed that train wreck of toxic waste hasn’t been bad. Even then I’d say try something else.
You haven’t really told us what you like so offering suggestions is going to be pretty scatter shot. At the moment I’m kind of an long for samurai kicking reading both Lone Wolf and Cub and Usagi Yojimbo.
For currently published superhero books The Incredible Herc is easily the most entertaining book Marvel publishes (everything Fred Van Lente writes is great, really). I’d call it the most entertaining Marvel book of the last ten years but then it would have to fight Dan Slott’s She Hulk run in a battle to death and no one wants that.
Over at DC in their superhero group I’d say Blue Beetle had been the most interesting thing they were publishing though there was a recent creative team change.
Justin if you like cosmic I’d be surprised if you weren’t reading Green Lantern; the Sinestro Corp War story arc nifty space opera.
Finally don’t overlook the used books. There’s a lot of people who get the TPB’s and sell them again in short order which means if you buy from Amazon marketplace you can usually get a fairly steep discount on stuff that’s only a few months old.
Mostly the superhero stuff, but I’m open to suggestions. My favorites were always the classics: Supey, Bats, JLA, Green Lantern, Spidey, Capt’n A, Iron Man, X-Men, Avengers, etc.
Recently, I’ve read the first parts of Star Wars: Legacy and Knights of the Old Republic. I love Star Wars, but I’m a little leary of the EU stuff. I’ve really enjoyed Buffy: Season 8.
My local Borders has something called Fable. From what I could tell it appears that fairy tale characters are alive and well in New York and Snow White is a PI. It looks interesting.
You’re a bit off on the premise but it is interesting despite the derivative premise mainly due to how the cast is juggled. It is one of the few instances where I found the first story arc to be weak and then the quality shot up dramatically. I’d say skip to the second tpb to start but then you skip some of the set up…
Sounds like we have very similar tastes. Rare to meet another Usagi fan.
Fables is very cool. If you like Buffy, then go check out Joss Whedon’s run on *Astonishing X-men. *4 trades plus a Giant-size issue to wrap things up, IIRC. Tremendously good. You might also like Runaways, a Marvel spinoff. Some titles I recommend to my non-comic-book-reading friends are *Walking Dead, Rising Stars, Ex Machina, 100 Girls, Wasteland, *and Y: The Last Man. Terrific story telling.