by Darryl Ayo
So that’s that. I’m pulling up out the game. In the past year or year-and-a-half, I’ve purchased a stupid, irresponsible amount of comic books. Now my apartment looks like Sanford and Son’s junkyard. So here’s what is happening in my personal life:
I just had my friends L. Nichols and Sophie Goldstein come to my apartment and take away some graphic novels. Nichols took an armload, Sophie took a giant bagful and I still have too many books. So I’m sitting here on my duff, emailing everyone I know, enticing them with stories of bountiful comics and treasures unknown…how does this happen?
Acquisition is a major aspect of comics. I mean “collecting.” And if one’s purchases aren’t “collecting” (ie, owning for the sake of owning things), then it’s still out of necessity of some sort. In other words, in order to read something I am interested in, I have to buy it. In these days and times, comics are widely available in libraries, but let’s be honest: most of us hardcore people individually rival public library collections. Which is neat as a point of pride, but really hard to explain when you literally cannot take a step in your NYC apartment without trampling on a book or comic magazine. Another thing that’s funny is that while a reader like me purchases comics for the purposes of reading, items are very rarely re-read. If the goal is simply to “read,” then I need to quit buying these paper objects–these information-delivery-objects.
It’ll be fun to burn back my personal library to only the barest essentials and books that I have consistently re-read. As I organize this stuff into piles (donate, give, burn) I’ll try to give a few decent books a final look. Perhaps some quick reviews on this site in the coming days.
To all of the cartoonists out there: you’re obviously doing a great job! (0_0);
HULK appears (C) Marvel Entertainment. Art by John Romita Jr.
comixcube.com 
i haven’t started using it yet, but http://www.paperbackswap.com seems to be a good way to get rid of stuff you don’t want and replace it with stuff you would have paid full price for.
I used to own a comic book store and my personal collection has been cut down to the equivalent of 12 long boxes. Stacked together, they qualified as a table in my old apartment (pre-wife, obviously).
I quit collecting most Marvel & DC early thought because I found them to be less interesting than what other companies were doing at the time. Also, I knew that if I tried to collect already on-going series that I could run into (financial) trouble real quick, so I ended up supporting a lot of new series or mini-series instead.
These days, I’m only picking up trades of Usagi Yojimbo, Blade of the Immortal, and pretty much anything Hellboy related. At some point, I want to go back and resume Strangers in Paradise and to find some other new reading, but it’s all TPB for me from now on.
-@StephenChast