My Comics Addiction Confession

[Themanofbat]

I just closed my file at the comic shop after having it for around 10 years or more. That was so unbelievably hard knowing that doing that will likely result in my not going in there again (or at least not for a very long time). God... I feel like I could cry.

Check your PM box...

 

[OcStat]

I have a similar problem, though not as severe. I hate skipping ahead, but hate falling behind. When I was unemployed I couldn't buy any books at all, and missed out on the whole Heroic Age, after Siege. Avengers Vs. X-Men is the book end to Avengers Disassembled, the Bendis era that got me putting a real effort into collecting. I didn't want to fall behind and hunt down issues on eBay, so I started buying all the books that perked my interest with Marvel Now. I have every issue so far of the Now! bannered Avengers, Superior Spider-Man, Uncanny X-Men, Iron Man, Captain America, the Age of Ultron and Infinity mini's and more. I haven't read a single issue yet, because I haven't read AvX. (Which I did get for Christmas, thanks Dad!) I just buy them knowing it is much more of a hassle looking for them later. I even went back and filled in my gaps of the 2nd Brubaker Cap series, and the rest of Fraction's Iron Man before I even thought of opening the AvX hardcover.

I cut my titles down, but there are so many I at least want to checkout, especially in this new batch of #1's coming out, Moon Knight, Magneto, Silver Surfer. But I don't even know if I like any of the extensive Now! catalog I have already. I'm sure I will, they are a talented group of writers and artists. I dropped a few books, and then the Ultimate Cataclysm series started and I told my shop manager to order every single issue for me, I was not going to miss such a major event in the Ultimate universe. Last week I told her to keep me on just Superior Spidey, Iron Man and Cap, but I just noticed McNiven will be drawing Uncanny Avengers; now I feel like I need that book.

Not to mention the series' I started but fell behind on despite my efforts, Hickman's New Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, Secret Avengers, Superior Foes of Spider-Man, and more (of course).

I also tend to ignore any budgeting when it comes to my books. I think I can afford $50 a month, but I usually spend more than that, or a lot more than that. But it has yet to be a real issue. I am aware of it at least, and can comfortable skip a month if I don't have the extra cash. My shop is cool with holding a big stack of comics for me, but then I need to drop $50 to catch up on the missed month plus the current books. My sister got me a $50 gift card to my shop, and I spent another 15 dollars, and still had maybe $15-20 worth of books left in my stack. My behavior has never been affected by buying or not buying books but I am overprotective of them. I feel bad sometimes because my 3 year old daughter can recognize Spider-Man, and I'll let her look at a book now and again but as soon as she crinkles a page or twists it up I freak out and take it away. And my girlfriend is like "Hello, she's only 3", and I feel guilty for my own little temper tantrum over a silly super hero magazine.

 

[OcStat]

Well, that's a little harsh. The first two points are true, as stated in the OP. But he's making an effort! Maybe his family doesn't deserve that behavior, but every family deserves someone making an effort to do better.

I can't even tell if your post is serious or not, but it really seems uncalled for.

 

[C. Lee]

Well, that's a little harsh. The first two points are true, as stated in the OP. But he's making an effort! Maybe his family doesn't deserve that behavior, but every family deserves someone making an effort to do better.

I can't even tell if your post is serious or not, but it really seems uncalled for.

It was deleted and the guy warned about his behavior.

 

[JewishHobbit]

I missed all the fun.

So today was a big step. Leading up to it though, I've spent the past 4 days going through my comics trying to decide what to keep (if any) and what to sell (if any). It was a 4 day long headache (needle jabbing in my brain sort of headache... I've taken a lot of headache medicine). I realized today that I was no further than when I started because of the constant give and take and renege and frustrated throwing my hands in the air. This mostly came from the X-Men (and I guess it closely resembles what happens IN the comic as well ).

I kept thinking, "I love this stuff too much to get rid of it all, but if I keep it I'll never drop the actual books. Give it a month or two and I'll be right back where I started." So I'd root through it looking for stories I liked, but every story mentions what's come before and hints at what's coming up. So then I started collected eras from the 90s relaunch through Eve of Destruction... which is what I consider MY era of X-Men. But then the Revolution era wrapped up a lot of plots from MY era like the Legacy Virus and Cyclops' merging with Apocalypse. So I grabbed all those. And really, you can't stop there when the very next thing is Morrison's New X-Men. I didn't like how it ended, but I loved everything leading up to that point (save the affair). So I got that far... but then immediately after that was Whedon's Astonishing X-Men run which works so well as a follow up to Morrison's run. By that time I'm considering what I did like about the Messiah time period, but Messiah Complex starts with a lot of questions if you don't have Millgan's X-Men run dealing with Gambit and Sunfire going bad... and then Carey's run with Rogue's condition and her team influencing Messiah Complex.

And on and on and on and on. I'd eventually realize I saved it all save an arc here and there, and the completionist in me would scream, so I'd start over by looking for small runs, issues, etc. and build back up to the completionist screaming. Added to this was all the preparing and counter-productive going back and forth on trying to decide what to sell on ebay, and my brain was jelly. So finally I said enough is enough. I boxed up nearly all my Marvel Comics and sold them to Half Priced Books. I thought for sure I'd regret it or cry or something, but surprisingly it was like a weight fell off my shoulder... like I could breathe.

I kept some stuff... Bendis' Avengers run (focusing on the New Avengers side of things), Marvels and Marvels 2: Eye of the Camera, Young Avengers vol. 1 and Children's Crusade, The first 17 issues of Generation X (lot of nostalgia here... plus the 5 X-Men comics that led into it), and Remender's Uncanny X-Force. I wasn't planning on keeping anything X-Men related, but Generation X is just special, especially those 17 issues, and Uncanny X-Force was just a masterpiece. Due to keeping that, I also kept his Uncanny Avengers, though I'm not sure if I'll continue with it or not yet. I was so undecided I thought I'd just hang on to it just in case.

Now, in addition to those I've also so far kept Geoff Johns' Green Lantern, Morrison's Batman run, and everything I had from the New 52. Whereas Marvel brings me a LOT of headaches and sucks a lot of enjoyment out of the hobby for me, DC seems to bring a lot of joy. I've realized that I've dwindled my monthly spending from just over $100 a month to about $40 if I were to continue buying the DC books alone. I haven't decided if I'm going to do that yet or if I'm just going to quit, but either way I think I'll hang on to these. I may continue buying those, but I don't want to do anything drastic until I know for sure.

And it was a shame too because besides all the DC books that I read, I've always wanted to try a few others but couldn't because of funds. Two of these are Earth 2 and Swamp Thing (which I started and loved twice but dropped due to finances). Well, Half Priced Books has both sets complete to the newest issue with Annuals and even the Rotworld crossovers with Animal man. I was so tempted to pick them up (at $1.00 to $1.50 a piece), but held off due to not knowing what I'm doing. I'd feel real stupid spending $50-$70 on comics only to drop buying entirely.

So the DC stuff still has me on the fence, but I feel great about the Marvel side of things. If nothing else it's a little bit of progress.

 

[Gr0oT]

Nope.
I thought I had a problem but OP has me beat.

Worse I have done is spend over $1000 in a 3 month period buying Omnibuses.
There was something addictive about it.

Worse thing is I have not read one of them start to finish.
I've actually only opened and read 4 of them.

Most are just stacked, still in their cellophane making me feel sick to my stomach for the money I spent.

Worse thing is a lot of them are filled with 60s stuff which is honestly hard to read in mass.

 

[Themanofbat]

I feel bad sometimes because my 3 year old daughter can recognize Spider-Man, and I'll let her look at a book now and again but as soon as she crinkles a page or twists it up I freak out and take it away. And my girlfriend is like "Hello, she's only 3", and I feel guilty for my own little temper tantrum over a silly super hero magazine.

Heh heh... I have TSoB (who is currently 15 1/2), and TSoB II (almost 3) and TDoB (who is 6 months old).

When TSoB was about three, he got into my Marvel Masterworks (when I was at work), and he loved them... of course he ripped the slipped covers... which essentially rendered hundreds of dollars of the value of these books (they were original MMW's from the 90's) to basically nothing... but you know what? It got him to reading comics that still flourishes to this day (12+ years later)...

Do I wish he never ripped them? Of course.
Am I happy that he's reading comics? DEFINITELY!!!

Buy your little girl some of the younger reader Spider-Man comics... ot buy and old trade in a cheap bin for her to look at over and over again... in this day and age of young people not reading anything, it'll be more rewarding when she's reading at a High School level while she's still in Middle School.

 

[JewishHobbit]

My oldest daughter never had any interest in comics, and my youngest daughter liked looking at the pictures sometimes but that's it... then we discovered My Little Pony! Now they have every issue and eagerly await the next one. I love buying them for them.