Comics Background Info

Since I touched on video games a bit yesterday, today I’ll just talk about comics. I currently have ~1,700 comics – the mass majority of which are Marvel comics, with about 800 of those being X-Men comics. One rainy day I went into the closet and decided I would inventory every book I had onto an Excel Spreadsheet. It seemed like a grueling task though it wasn’t really, and I finished it in two short evenings.

“Back when I was a kid, comics only cost $0.75!” That’s my old man line, because comics now cost $2.99, and $3.99 for monumental issues.

I started collecting comics when I was six. My older brother collected them as well, and I had access to all of his, which gave me a wider perspective as to what I might like. The first comic I ever bought with my own money was Fantastic Four #324 for $0.75 – a comic book my brother did not collect. I subsequently bought every issue of Fantastic Four after that until issue 375, where the art and the story plummeted to a place I had little interest in following. I like to think I’m responsible for getting two of my best friends hooked on comics as well. One of them, whom I mentioned yesterday as the giver of Final Fantasy XII: RW, duB, has in the past year started collecting once again as well.

Once I hit the teenage years, I gave up on comics for a while – and it was a good thing, because the 90s were TERRIBLE for Marvel Comics – plus I needed money for more important things. About four years ago, while in a Books A Million book store, I happened upon a comic book shelf, and just started browsing through. I was so confused by all of the different X-Men titles, and couldn’t figure out WHAT was going on – X-Treme, Ultimate, Astonishing, Uncanny, New X-Men – did any of these tie together anymore, why was someone dead or powerless in one issue but alive in another?

So I started going to BAM a lot, and reading all of the trade paperbacks, along with current issues, to catch up. That year for Christmas, my wife surprised me with a subscription to X-Men, and I have actively been collecting 3-5 comics a month (or every other month in some cases). I currently pick up ‘Adjectiveless’ X-Men, Astonishing X-Men, Runaways, occasionally Uncanny X-Men, and the now-finished limited series of New Avengers: Illuminati.

One big difference between collecting as an adult and as a kid is the internet – specifically eBay. I have been buying and selling on eBay for about 4 years now, and if you have a good eye, you can pick up some Really good deals on there. Through eBay, I was able to bolster my collection by picking up back issues of some of my more favorite titles.

My longest run (without interruption) of comics is ‘Adjectiveless’ X-Men, ranging from 134-206. My goal is have the entire series, though I have no deadline to get this done…

The comic I have the most issues of (with interruptions) is Uncanny X-Men with 157 issues in total.

Next post: More video game stuff – my top 10 list of console video games.