Thinking of stopping on new books. :(

[jjreason]

I hate it, but the bills are really piling up in the new house (mainly because of high credit card balances accrued over the Christmas season).

I might have to stop buying the new issues all together, and keep track of what I'm missing in order to fill in the blanks later.

Odds are that I'll keep getting Uncanny and Amazing, so that I don't break my runs.... but everything else I'll likely cancel.

There just doesn't seem to be any money left over at the end of every pay period, and we're just running up the cards worse and worse every month.

I hate worrying about money.

EDITED: and I went and did it today. The only books I'm keeping are Uncanny, Amazing and Astonishing X-Men - and the plan is to drop Astonishing at the end of Whedon's run (at which point I'll sneak New Avengers back on the list).

I'll be picking up whatever issues of the books I normally get until I get to good jumping off points as well. Shitty.

[vynsane]

that sucks... your store won't save them up for you until you have the dough? i was doing that at my store in NY when i was living in raleigh. of course i had been going there for a couple of years at that point.

i hear ya on the credit bills, that was what was killing us in raleigh in the first place.

[jjreason]

I don't want to burden him, y'know? I had it good up north in BC - the guy would basically let me run into a LOT of debt until I could pay.... but I know it was a pain for him and that made me feel shitty.

I know the books are easy to get down the road - even the hottest books these days cool right off and are easy to get in one year's time for cover price (except in the most odd circumstances - Ultimate Spidey #1 for example).

He knows I'll be popping in there to buy stuff, and it's not like he's going to find out I switched stores on him - he's the only game in town.

[Eternal Padawan]

Are you in good enough with the guy that he can set aside "Captain America Death" issues that you might not even know about but would certainly pick up if you DID? And hell, we'll give you a heads up if theres anything like that coming.

Other than the occasional issue like that, i find it's actually cheaper to buy bulk runs of back issues if you can be patient. I'll go to shows and conventions and see complete runs of books, like literally 100 issues for $40 and I'm thinking "I paid cover price for every one of those fucking things a month at a time..." Like all those DC back issues I got from that guy in the last few months. I've spent less than $700 total for pretty much EVERY DC comic in the last 7 years. And the ones I didn't buy off of him I already had because I paid cover the day they came out.

Since youare mainly a Marvel guy and especially with this Media Blitz from Civil War/Cap's Death/ Marvel U shakeup theres probably a higher print run on everything coming out right now so it'll be even easier to find your missing stuff down the road, and for cheaper than cover.

And if you don't, the hunt is part of the fun, finding the one or two issues that slipped by.

[jjreason]

Thanks, EP. You always know how to pick a guy up when he's down. Just don't bang my wife while you're at it.

[jjreason]

Sorry I haven't checked in in far too long, but I figured you guys were the right audience to bounce this off. I haven't NOT bought new comics in over 15 years, but I found it VERY hard to fork over $61 for the last 14 new comics I bought this week. I haven't been reading fuck all in ages, I'm so far behind it would take me months of reading to catch up.

I've started seeing spending money on new comics as propping up an industry that refuses to make itself suitably available to new readers, and seems to be content to ride out my willingness to spend more and more money on fewer and fewer new comics until my desire to do so simply implodes.... and I'm pretty much at that point.

I'd have a tough time telling the store owner that I'm bowing out - I don't think the store is doing all that shit-hot but I can't let that factor in too much. I will continue to support him by shopping for back issues, trade paperbacks & the odd toy there, but I can't honestly say how often I'll be in there if I'm not compelled (obliged really, I haven't felt compelled for months).

So go ahead, talk me out of it.

[vynsane]

i'm not going to talk you out of it, as i'm feeling some of the same things. i have a huge stack of books right now that i haven't read. a lot of the, however, are subscriptions - which i'm paying about half cover price for, so i'm not feeling as many pangs.

i would say really take stock of what you're buying and compare it to what you really enjoy reading (if anything). maybe take up some independents (might i suggest 'atomic robo' )

invincible and walking dead have been pretty awesome recently, as has hellboy/bprd. maybe you're just buying the wrong books, because it's become habitual as opposed to basing your purchases on their true 'value'.

[anarky]

I've got to be unoriginal and echo vyn. I gave up on Marvel and DC almost entirely a while back; to me, they're both just spinning their wheels for fanboys, totally alienating kids and other potential new readers, and trying to mimic television in ways comics shouldn't be. I'd suggest re-examining what you're getting; like he said, there are a lot of great under-the-radar books out there.

But, for me at least, all three times I've given up collecting (mid 1990s, around 2000, and again in around 2004 or so), it started like you describe: I was still buying books out of a sort of sense of obligation, but not reading them. Then I realized I had a backlog of a few months worth and cut the cord.

I'm only doing trades now, and not very many. The only exception has been Atomic Robo, which I've gotten from them at Comic-Con two years in a row, and singles are actually easier to find than trades. I'd be buying the continued Joe series in singles, if only the sole remaining comic shop within half an hour of here wasn't a cesspool of scalper assholedom.

The funny thing is, not a week goes by where I didn't wish I was reading singles on a weekly (or at least monthly) basis, but I see it as more the fault of the major publishers for the one-two-three punch of eliminating newsstand distribution, killing off most of the direct market, and publishing subpar stories that cost about three times what they should.

[jjreason]

Hmmm. It's almost difficult for me to comprehend buying them without Amazing & Uncanny - just because of the thought of letting the runs break after building them. It would more likely be a clean break, and then pick up whatever trades you guys are crowing about in here. Still mulling it over, there are many comic-related things to buy that aren't the floppies.

[Rollo Tomassi]

When I quit collecting in '95 it was for much the same reasons. I was spending way too much on books that I wasn't the slightest bit excited in reading. Much of it was just the roteness of furthering the runs I had invested so much time in collecting both forwards and backwards with back issues.

But when I got back into it in 2003, I discovered that with a little patience and keeping a heads up for deals, 95% of the stuff I had missed I found for a fraction of the original coverprice. AND it revealed an angle of this hobby that had not previously been so accute in my mind. I love the hunt. I love finding an old issue I'm missing or a run of books that looks intersting in the 50 cent bin and taking a shot on it. Since 2003, a majority of my books were bought on the cheap. I have complete runs of newer series like the recent Ghost Rider or Moon Knight and every issue was 50 cents or a buck. Which actually changes how you read and enjoy an issue or a series. I would probably HATE many recent books that wouldve let me down had I paid full price for them, but can give a more objective appreciation and find something positive, be it a line of dialogue or an artists style, than I would have otherwise.

In essence, every issue becomes a back issue the moment the next issue hits the stands. So you could continue your runs in a different style and manner without paying the full price every month.

And like vyn said, subscription saves you mucho deniro on the books you KNOW you want(to keep your runs interrupted or whatever). Don't feel bad about the comic shops bottom line. That's not your problem.

[anarky]

I've quit three times. Each time, there was something to help push me, though in retrospect I realized it was the best idea.

I was subscribing at one comic shop where everything was 30% off and free bags and backboards. In the early 90s, they stopped their subscription service, saying it was unfair to customers to tie up their money for two months. (I doubt that was the real reason, as almost every subscriber was pissed.) I went to the other comic shop in town because, at the time, I preferred paying 30% more and being sure of getting the books. Then, a couple of years later, a baseball card shop started selling comics and doing a subscription service for 20% off, and I went there. I picked up books once a month and went home from college for the summer, expecting everything to be hunky dorey over the next two months. Went back, and the place was gone. They'd not mentioned in May that they were in trouble (and stores don't normally go bust overnight), they hadn't moved, and I had no idea how to find them. And they'd not used my contact info to contact me. So I lost about $100 in pre-orders for the three months. Obviously I was pissed; this was also about the time Transformers G2 was canceled, Age of Apocalypse was still new (and I've said how I felt about that, even if I'm in a minority), the Spider-clone saga was in full swing, and GIJoe was coming up on cancellation. I didn't feel like tracking down two months worth of books--it wouldn't be too much trouble, especially with the number of shops around my parents' house, but I realized I'd been losing interest in an awful lot of stuff. Though I'm still not happy with the way the asshole just skipped town with my money, the only real regret is that I don't have the final two issues of GIJoe to this day, as they had ridiculously small print runs.

Got back into comics shortly after finishing college, mostly for the Star Wars tie-in books, and branched back into the Batman titles and a few others at the time. Was back in VA, going to the comic shop I'd left in the first place when they cut subscriptions. It was in a new location, and now they pulled books, holding them for regular customers instead of taking money for them in advance, the way so many places do now. When I moved to California, I was about 45 minutes from any comic shops (the town liked to keep out mosques and comic shops, so that tells you what podunk white trash burg I was in if you've followed the news), and they were awful. I picked up books a few times, but it was too much trouble, and the Batman and Star Wars books both sort of jumped the shark around this time, so it wasn't hard to drop. (That store deals mostly in toys, even though it says it's a comic shop. It's in a mall, which is a nice location, but also obviously expensive as hell. It moves around based on whatever space there is cheapest. I went there a few months ago, and they had the same dusty POTF2 figures they had in 2000; they never marked them down from $25. And they're very customer-unfriendly, with asshole employees and all sorts of signs that you can't look at the books, even the open ones.)

When Transformers came out from Dreamwave (and before everyone knew it sucked), I wanted to check it out. I went to the local comic shop downtown, which is the one that's closest to me now. They had it, for $20. This was two days after release, and it wasn't a chase version! Looking in the phone book, I found a much better comic shop in the same town. The owner was awesome; he was a really nice guy, and he obviously loved comics. I started going there, and it's the first comic shop I've been to where I'd just buy anything based on the owner's recommendation, because I knew he wasn't trying to sell shit.

Unfortunately, the location he was in wasn't very good, and a hobby shop opened across the street, undermining the game business he relied on for a good chunk of his business, and it went out of business. And again I looked at the backlog, saw I had a lot of unread books I was in no hurry to read, and just quit again.

[jjreason]

I honestly can't remember the last time I stopped - it was a LONG time ago. Sounds like I started up again right when you stopped at one point Chux - the Age of Apocalypse stuff (and I thought that was pretty awesome - as it sounds you did also).

I think what I need to do is stay the course, and not make any decisions until I've done some reading. It's easy to say you don't like something any more when you haven't had it in months and months - I'm not overspending for my budget right now anyhow.

[Diabolical]

You guys actually liked Age of Apocalypse?

I went from buying every X-title to none in less than two months.

[anarky]

I've said before I thought AoA was one of the worst series I ever read, and a big catalyst to me stopping reading, if not buying, at the time it came out. (Luckily I stopped buying not too long after.)

[Rollo Tomassi]

When AoA came out it smacked of PR/editorial mandate which I think tainted it for many readers. As a whole, I think the premise was interesting and a good departure from the roteness of the Xbooks at the time. The execution was spotty across the board, as you had many different writers telling parts of the story.
And compared to the Onslaught/Heroes Reborn debacle, AoA reads like fucking Shakespeare.

I made it through AoA but I stopped collecting within six months of its end and the titles all resumed their normal routine. I've said before it was the one-two punch of the SpiderClone fiaso and the impending Heroes Reborn that made me throw in the towel.

And then Batman's Hush, the return of Transformers and GIJoe to stands, Bendis' Daredevil, JMS' Spidey and Johns' Avengers(Dell Rusk!) Got me back in 2003. And I haven't stopped since.