I uh, I've been venting alot for the past 30 minutes or so and randomly pacing throughout the my room. I actually quoted Mr. Dent and JewishHobbit talking about Marvel and there ridiculously stupid 4$ double-shipping nonsense and it kept building into more anger.
I have built so much frustration I can hardly express myself. I've only began buying comics a little over a month ago and I enjoy it greatly BUT the cost is starting to become a big strain on my wallet. Marvel is really frustrating me to no end. I'm exploding. I don't normally get upset but I just realized something.
I wanted to try out Venom and Journey into Mystery and I did and decided to check them out for a while. I noticed on Venom it says published monthly except January, April, July, and September. I mistakenly took that for it just not coming out that month and I thought cool I can get some other stuff....I didn't realize it meant it would be coming out TWICE a month instead. I suppose the same thing for Journey into Mystery and other titles that detail this. I didn't know that! I can handle a 3$ title twice a month but on top of the other 4$ double junk? Curses Marvel!
I want to check out numerous DC, IDW, and Dark horse titles. How the crap am I supposed to do that with Marvel doing this?! Looks like I may have to drop Hickman's Avengers and New Avengers which I'm really enjoying but don't have a clue how I'm going to continue to pick it up now that I think about it. I don't want to drop All New X-Men, Superior, and Uncanny X-Men...I'm picking up the ongoing Star Wars series from Dark Horse and thats only 2.99 with a digital copy included!
I really felt good back when I made my New Your's Resolution to get into the wonderful world of comics on a monthly/weekly basis. Before I had to read what people TALKED about in the comic world but wanted to experience it for myself as I was given some comics years ago but never bought any for myself despite loving them.
Now I'm starting to think I may of made a mistake...maybe I should go back to picking up trades every once and a while. I do like collected trades but I'm behind when I was getting those, I go for whatever is good for the price and its something usually from years ago. In the past few months I got the Avengers Assemble Vol.1 Busiek's run and the Big Time Ultimate Collection because of the excellent price for so many pages. But I've always wanted to have a big comic book collection, to add to what was given to me as a child.
I know I probably should clam down and not vent on a internet forum where generally the only emotion I express is excitement and positive thoughts(I'm rarely negative...I try to avoid that) but apart of me said no just say something.
Jeez I probably embarrassed myself. And I have the evils of college homework I should be doing....so I will check here tomorrow morning and see the chaos(or lack thereof) I caused....
Maybe we should make a thread to vent our frustrations and then send it to Marvel with the title of "We Love You Marvel, But Seriously...Stop"
Yeah... completely understand. You're in the same boat I am, but my weakness is X-Men. That's why I've made the decision to focus on the X-titles I want and base the rest of my buying around that. Once I get my X-Men books listed, I look at the rest of Marvel and DC. If it's too much, I look to cut from Marvel first because it's their fault I have to cut. If I'm set on what I'm buying there, then I look at DC, who I give more slack to due to their better handling of prices and shipping scheduals.
Some help I might offer... stick with the ongoings you love most (for you, I'm guessing the Spider-Man books). After that consider genres. If you want to cut back on books and not feel tempted to buy more, drop genres instead of individual titles. That might not work for some but it works for me often.
I was horribly turned off of Spidey after OMD and as a general rule of thumb, I stay away from that genre. So as much as I'm curious at times, I typically dodge things like Venom, Scarlet Spider, Morbius, and Avenging Spider-Man. I'm currently debating on picking up Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy because that'd be introducing me into the cosmic genre, and do I really want to start a new genre?! I don't know.
Also, if you don't want to do the genre thing you could always focus on the core books of each genre and stick to those. For X-Men it'd be All New X-Men and Uncanny X-Men. For Spider-Man it'd be Superior Spider-Man. For Avengers it'd be Avengers and New Avengers. The Cosmic line's just restarting but it sounds like Guardians of the Galaxy is the core book (though Nova might be just as important, but I don't think so). Once you get what you want of those, fill in the gaps with as many individual, stand alone titles that you can... like Indestructible Hulk, Thor: God of Thunder, and Daredevil.
This can also help while at DC. There aren't many genres but I find if you stick to Batman and Green Lantern, you don't really need the other books in their genres.
Just some advice. It might not be for you but I thought I'd offer it. My top recommendation though... set up a SET limit of monthly spending and stick with it. Don't overshoot it and, if you can, stay under it. That'll help you decide what gets dropped and what stays.
Or you could just ignore this entire post.