Xuthl’s Wilderness Comics and Collectibles Comic Reviews

I was looking through some of my very old comics this last week, and I noticed that the way I buy comics has changed drastically.  I actually started collecting back in about 1985.  In those days you didn’t go to a specialty comic shop to buy your comics, you would just go to the local drug store and browse through the turntable comic rack. 

In those days I used to make most of my purchases based on the cover.  I collected the Amazing Spider-man and the Uncanny X-men pretty religiously, but if the comic did not feature a bad guy that I considered to be worth reading I usually didn’t.  Outside of these titles I read Captain America, Iron Man, Fantastic Four, Avengers, West Coast Avengers, GI Joe, Thing, Hulk, Daredevil, Thor, etc on a very irregular basis.  If it looked like there was something there that might interest me, I would pick it up.

No here is the big thing.  In those days I used to read EVERY comic I owned from cover to cover, over and over and enjoyed every page.  I was a comic reader. 

These days, I buy my comics from a comic store.  I have a file with several titles that the owner pulls for me.  I always do a quick browse of the shelves to see if anything else will catch my eye, but usually nothing does.  I often will buy a couple of older books from the dollar bin, make my purchase, and head on home. 

Here is the flip side of my “big thing” as mentioned above.  I am embarrassed to say that I have A LOT of comics in my collection that I have never removed from the bag.  They are unread!  I have become the very thing I used to despise.  I am a comic collector.  I still read comics, but I read far fewer titles than I used to, and to a large degree, I buy titles because I feel like I have to instead of because I am enjoying them.  For example, I have been reading all Spider-man titles that are available for about 23 years now.  When the Marvel Knights Spider-man series came out I jumped on board, because I did not want to miss any continuity with my favorite hero.  It was awful!  Some of the worst comics I have ever read!  And I stuck with it for 15 ISSUES!  When I finally got pissed off enough to cancel the title I was angry enough that I quit collecting comics altogether for over a year.  Fortunately I just couldn’t stay away for long.

So I am reconsidering my buying patterns.  I am thinking about stopping my subscriptions and just buying comics featuring characters that I like.  For instance, I would never turn down a comic featuring Mad Cap.  I realize he is a third string bad guy at best, but I find him really entertaining if the writer does the job properly.  Same goes for the Absorbing Man, Arcade, Ezekiel, Puma etc.  So maybe books featuring guys like this are the ones I really should be buying.  Something to think about.