Another Post About Comics

I'm kind of on a recent comic kick, so I'll keep rolling with my thoughts.

Lately, after perusing some sights, it came to my attention that a lot of fans, including myself, have all taken "sabbatical" from comics for a few years. Some longer than others, but at some point, it seems most comic fans get fed up with the status quo and leave, only to be drawn back in for something.

For me it was when I got a girlfriend in college (who is now my wife). I just quit "cold turkey" from collecting back in November 1998 and didn't start collecting again until the summer of 2001 and then, I really didn't start being serious about collecting until very recently.

This wasn't the first "break" I took, but it was the longest. The others were due mainly to the loss of my local comic store and only picking up issues at the local drugstore, 7-11, or bookstore. Of course it helped that we visited my grandfather frequently and he lived about a block and a half from a comic book store.

Though outwardly it was getting a girlfriend that broke my habit, it was more then that, and I guess I was looking for a reason to stop collecting. At that time most of the titles I collected were in slumps or were just plain bad. Superman titles had gone from featuring the Electric Blue Superman to Superman-Red & Superman-Blue, right into a storyline featuring Superman in four different eras. Flash was embarking on Mark Waid's last major arc--the Cobalt Blue saga, Green Lantern was in a major slump after 4 years of Kyle Raynor not growing in his title at all, etc. Though just before I quit, I managed to collect all of DC's summer crossover, "DC 1,000,000," which is my favorite comic book storyline to date. Not only that, they had just recently published my favorite Superman story, A Superman for All Seasons.

But month after month I was more interested in going to the local comic shop to try to find a new title that would knock my socks off, so to speak. Recently though, I have been picking up more and more titles and have only dropped one. From JSA, to the Transformers titles, to Flash, to Teen Titans, and the recent mini-series Formerly Known as the Justice League, 1602, and JLA*Avengers.

I guess my point is that comics are a hobby and can potentially be an expensive one at that. You go in to read one title, you realize that there are other titles that character appears in or is mentioned in and you pick them up too and before you know it, you're spending a lot of money. I'll probably go into this in another post, but the price of comics is going up all the time, most of the series I buy are $2.25 or $2.95 an issue, with JLA*Avengers coming in at $6.00 an issue. Long stretch from even the days when I started collecting and books were $1.00 an issue (and, as my wife's grandfather likes to say, comics were $0.10 an issue when he was a kid). And as an hobby, it's important to keep looking at what your doing and trying to find out if you're enjoying it or whether it's time for a change.

And that applies to more in life, from relationships to jobs, sometimes you have to reevaluate why you are doing the things you do and whether or not you can or should stop. Case in point, I do things that annoy my wife, but I've been doing them my whole life, so it's hard to stop. But sometimes you almost have to look at yourself from the outside and realize that it's habit that's driving you.

Back to comics and other hobbies, it's important to step outside yourself for a minute and try to decide whether or not you really enjoy what you're reading. Too many times, especially with the internet where everyone can hear you bitch, it is easy to read a bad title, just for the sheer fact that you can log on to a board and state your displeasure to the world. If that's where you get your kicks, that's fine, but more times when I read posts, I begin to wonder why people spend money just to get themselves worked up. Life is too short for you to waste time purposely doing something you get annoyed with.

Life is short, just do the things you love and enjoy it!