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How to drop the habit.
azith28
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So. After 30 years of reading comics I'm considering just stopping.
The simple truth is that i love to read, and I mostly still read comics because once i find a character i like alot, i dont want to just hit the end of a series of novels then never get to read about them again, and comics seem like the perpetual motion version of this, at least with the big names. But with rising costs, coupled with DC and now marvels desire to 'reboot' the series so damn often that continuity is more of a guideline then any kind of rule, its gradually turned me off from a love to a habit that i still enjoy, but don't know if i can justify continuing to pile up longbox after longbox at 4 bucks an issue.
I never had any kind of hope to make real money off my collection, I just dont feel right about throwing books away. I've also had a desire to pass them on but as im getting older, children of my own are seeming less likely then ever.
Taking a look around ebay, I see people trying to sell lots of 100 random comics on the cheap, and I wonder just how successful those people are. I dont see anything that would tell me bothering to go back and sort/board/bag every book and then sell them as a run would necessarily attract more interest either. None of the comic shops are seriously looking to invest in a crapload of books, especially in the time range we are talking about. Silverage maybe, but the last 30 years have seemed to be rather lacking in any kind of serious collectables (At least looking back...sure people swore things would be valuable but nothing like silver age originals).
I'd like to hear about people who broke the habit. Did you sell your books successfully? how? did you just change to buying graphic novels, and is that really feasible? So many friggin crossovers occuring make that kind of reading destroy a coherient storyline sometimes.
Thanks for your input.
Stercus, Stercus, Stercus, Morituri Sum
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And ya unless it's a truly old/collectible, it's rarely more than 1-2x cover price, and a lot of the times cover price or lower.
As for those 2 longboxes, I alphabetized them by title, and originally planned to sell them either on Ebay, or to a comics shop or something. A couple years later, I figured out that I am way too lazy to price them all out and sell them accordingly. I ended up doing the next best thing, and found a friend that loved comics, and just gave those two boxes to him and his wife. I was never expecting to get much money for the books to begin with (so none wasn't a problem) and they both loved the comics I gave them.
And yeah, I pretty much switched to only buying TPBs. Assuming they're still in print, they're cheaper than buying singles, and as far as following convoluted crossovers and whatnot, that's what The Internet is for. Plus, by the time the TPBs come out, most of the initial OMG AWESOME/OMG HATE has died down, so there's a better chance of an honest opinion before getting a book.
It's kind of daunting, but kind of not. Really the hard part is that you're basically obligated to photograph all of your lots. I took the time to get several hundred lots of the more recent arcs together, about 5-15 comics usually works okay.
I've had decent profits over the past year and a half, but absolutely nothing to write home about. The first thing I did was get an estimate on the whole collection's value as well as shop it around. No one was really interested in buying for much more than 1/100th of what I'd estimated (understandable, I mean then they're just trying to sell all of them) so I started on my own. I definitely haven't minded, but I can't imagine doing this without a collection worth 10s of thousands. I can justify putting a bit of time in for like $100 a month because I figure the better I know how to do it the easier it is to sell the larger stuff.
What are the best places to sell these days? Is anyone, anywhere buying 70s and 80s-era books? Because that's what I'll be shopping around.
I couldn't bear to lose another collection again.
*flashback: the year is 2005 and Cavemans basement suite apartment is basting in liquid sewage...*
One thing I did find was good for getting rid of the miscellaneous stuff I've collected over the years is Hallowe'en. I started a couple years ago giving away comic books to kids old enough to read instead of candy, and it's worked out well.
Sex & the Cthulhu Mythos
I don't take any issue with the rest of your points, but over the last few days I've been reorganizing my comics and re-bagging and boarding older issues. I have to say that comics seem to be the one thing I've enjoyed over the years that have hardly been impacted by inflation. A lot of the comics I collected in the late 90's/early 2000's were 2.50-2.95. Granted, some were 1.50, but for the most part I was paying 2-3 dollars per comic. To only be paying 3-4 dollars per comic 15-20 years later seems downright cheap. Especially since the over-all quality of materials and printing are so much better, and in most cases the quality of art and storytelling have improved enough to justify the increase in cost.
It also helps that most LCS's seem to offer a pull service now with a discount for a certain number of titles. Mine gives me 10% off of everything in the store for buying 10 titles a month.. which I would have done anyway!
That said, I've started trade-waiting more and more series just due to the sheer volume of titles that I'm interested in. Not to mention that very few issues are ever self-contained stories, with arcs running 5+ issues (Thor: GOT just finally finished its first real arc on issue 11!) By the time I get to the end of an arc, I almost feel like I need to start over from the beginning to really take it all in. Reading a single trade over the course of a day or two is often more enjoyable than reading a story issue-by-issue over the course of several months.
I'd also be way more inclined to go digital if the costs were lower than floppies on the day of release, but right now more than half of the floppies I buy cost the same as the digital release and include a digital copy!
All of that said, I don't know that I could ever be truly happy with the decision to sell my collection, regardless of the amount of money it brought in. Going through a box of old comics and coming across an old issue that was particularly memorable to me brings a sense of joy and nostalgia that is way more valuable than the hundreds of dollars that getting rid of a few long boxes worth of comics would bring me. I also don't know that I'll ever have children, but I might. Nephews and nieces are also a possibility, and I'd much rather share those memories than sell them.
If you follow those "guidelines" you can reduce your spending big time and will actually enjoy what you are reading way more I reckon.
I didnt mind ultimate books. they were doing it right by making it clear that it was an alternate universe, and I enjoyed most of them (I've always also liked What If / exiles books).
I'm not convinced to quit really, my reasons for buying them having changed...I guess i just owe it to my checkbook to at least consider it occasionally.
At most they might retcon a detail or two, but that's part of damn near any long running story in any medium.
The closest thing to a reboot they have done was with Spider-man and the One More Day incident and the marriage wipe. The fallout from that was horrendous with fans and it wasn't until Slott's run that things finally picked up again.
I'll take that bet; Marvel had a golden opportunity to reboot some or all of their titles with their Marvel Now inititive and instead chose to just relaunch them with new creative teams while maintaining past continuity. This has proven to be pretty successful and has taken away DC's New 52 sales lead; if they weren't going to reboot then, I doubt they'll reboot now, especially when they've just demonstrated that they don't need to. Something might happen to the Ultimate universe, but I doubt they'll be anything more than minor retcons in the main universe.
Also, heroes reborn was like 15 years agos and it ended after a year; I doubt Marvel is going to want to repeat that mistake anytime soon.
the new 52 happened
Sex & the Cthulhu Mythos