Well best friends on the Internet, I’ve come to a realization this week and it goes like this: I collect too many comic books. I knew my pull-list was getting a little long but like any junkie I was sure I had it all in hand. That I could quit anytime I wanted to! Well then my weekly donations to the comic shop started pulling up to $20 a week. And then $25. And then $30 became normal. Hell! This week I handed over $35 – an amount that I’m considering my own personal rock bottom – and finally decided that enough was enough. It’s time to take action! A quick scan of the yellow pages told me that there’s no such thing as rehab for comic book addicts so I’ll just have to take matters into my own hands and come up with my own Six-Step Program.
Step One: Drop all lackluster titles.
Daredevil, I’m sorry Andy Diggle ruined your stellar 10-year run, but I won’t be following whoever takes your place in the New Year. Mark Millar, when Nemesis ends next month, you’re dead to me too. No Superior for this guy, and no Kick Ass 2 either. Also, probably no more Batman comics ever. I think it’s time to face facts; I find Batman boring and nothing I’ve read in the last couple of years – Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne included – has been worth the money I’ve spent.
Step Two: Don’t pick up any new runs that I wouldn’t pay full price on the trade if it was available.
Would I have been seduced by The Magdalena if Ryan Sook hadn’t been drawing such wonderful covers? Probably not. The lady is a super-Catholic and guess what? The anti-Christ might be some kid. Yowza! In the end I’m thinking it probably won’t have been worth four bucks a month though. Also, they’re ending Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight which is awesome because it was disappointingly long and nonsensical. Now that we’re at the end, would I have bought the trades? Nope. And now they’re talking about ramping up Season Nine, but spreading it across four titles (Buffy, Angel, Spike and, um, I dunno, Joss Whedon Glamour Shots Monthly? Just give us your money kid!) Four comics a month? No way Buff-ay.
Step Three: Don’t automatically buy spin-offs, even if they’re spun off from things I love.
See above. Also Jack of Fables, I should have cancelled your ass after James Jean stopped doing the covers (No. 12). The main Fables title is probably the best thing running in comics right now, but Jack? Sure there were some chuckles but I’ve been buying that book since September 2006 and would I say that the whole run has been worth $140? No, I definitely would not. I’m getting better on this front though. For instance, the newest Avengers reboot is awesome despite John Romita Jr.’s stinky-ass art and so is the new New Avengers! But Secret Avengers turned out to be not so great. AXED!
Step Four: Nostalgia always ends up hurting both my heart and my wallet.
Remember when you were a little kid and Spider-Man was the bomb? The show, the comics, the pajamas. Spider-Man ruled! So you go in to the comic shop and you see the newest issue with its beautiful Marko Djurdjevic cover and you think, “Yes indeed! I’m getting back into Spider-Man!” But what happens? Five or six issues in you’re thinking, “I don’t remember Spider-Man being such a whiny little baby. Who cares about Peter Parker’s marriage to Mary Jane Watson and whether or not it’s over?” As it turns out, that little kid you used to be (like all little kids, really) didn’t know shit when it comes to comics.
Step Five: Just because I bought the first issue, doesn’t mean I’ve bought in completely.
I have a tab in one of my comic boxes labeled “Comics Graveyard” and it’s where I put all of my first-issues that I decided not to keep buying. From Ashley Wood’s Duostar Racers to Kevin Smith’s Green Hornet to Mike & Laura Allred’s I, Zombie, there’s a whole pile of stuff that I just decided right away that I wasn’t going to buy anymore. There’s nothing wrong with checking something out before deciding not to go home with it. Shit, that’s the motto of 99% of the women who’ve met Nuv. Zing!
Step Six: Remember that modern comic book corporations are just that, corporations.
Sure, they offer the best and most awesome product going, but at the end of the day they exist not to promote writers and artists, or the medium in general, but to make that almighty dollar. The trick is for us, as consumers, to keep enjoying our hobby without being taken to the cleaners in the process. The good folks over at A Comic Shop recently posted a video blog stating that they’d no longer sell variant covers because, as they put it, “I’ve seen so many people that have the [obsessive-compulsive disorder], that have the problem that these publishers are exploiting…they’re exploiting people that have a disability.” Aspen and Top Cow has got to be the worst companies for this. They’ll put out the first issue with its four different covers, then you’ll wait a month and instead of a new issue you’ll get another variant cover of the first one. Then the sketch cover. Then the Whateverland Comic Con exclusive cover. By the time the second issue rolls around you’ve been chumped so many times you don’t even like the book anymore. LAME SAUCE.
But seriously dear readers! First and foremost, the point of comics collecting should be fun. It’s fun to read these stories and look at the amazing art these talented folks miraculously produce on a monthly basis. New comic book day, I would argue, make Wednesdays worth living. However paying a whole lot of money every week, obsessively collecting comics that you aren’t really going to enjoy, and filling your boxes with crap that you’re never going to read again is to be a collector in the worst sense of the word. Be young, have fun, drink Pepsi. Oh wait, that’s not the moral of the story. Well, the middle part fits so I’ll end with that. Have fun. Be smart with your money. Don’t be a sucker. Love comics! The end.
– Ian
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