Comic Timing
You ever been connected to something so completely? No, not relationships or family or anything like that. That hobby or passion that you dive into with everything you have? For those that don’t know, which would be surprising, mine is comics.
Until the Marvel Cinematic Universe came around we proud comic nerds would have been shunned or thought odd. Now it’s everywhere and in your face. And I think that’s what burned me out on them. A couple of years ago my collection was impressive, 20,000 books strong. From the 70’s to the present it was well represented. But something felt off about it. I wasn’t enjoying the hobby anymore. It was more chore than joy. I would buy every book I wanted and read practically none of them. I couldn’t figure out what it was but it was becoming what my wife had always said, just a lot of stuff taking up to much space. So I did the unthinkable. I sold it all. Every book, every action figure all of it. When I told my wife what I was doing she thought I was nuts or that we were financially ruined somehow. It was neither. And by the time she got home that night everything was gone. I posted everything in a Facebook group and someone offered me more than I could say no to. And that was that.
And then I bought a comic. And I realized what it was that was missing. It’s hard to get excited for something, when you have everything (that is affordable!). So I bought a few books. Then a few keys. And suddenly I had 1500 books again. The old stories made me happy. I bought stuff I knew I liked. But I was buying new books as well. That wasn’t making me happy. Not because I didn’t want them or anything but as I tried to read them I found them boring or that I could read the original version of the story and that was better.
I’ve found out a lot about myself I. The past three years with my passion. I always knew I was a DC guy but I know it even more now. Marvel’s new books do not interest me at all. They’re boring. They’re repetitive. DC isn’t super but they have more that interests me. But I’ve found that I’m cutting more titles than adding. And that’s a good thing. Before I would have just kept buying stuff I didn’t like because I “had to complete the run”. I don’t think that way anymore. I buy what I like and stop when I don’t like it anymore. It pains me that X-Men has always been one of my favorite books but they have so many titles and it’s so watered down it isn’t worth trying to keep up with.
It’s been therapeutic sort of finding this out about myself. I’m glad I’m not trying to just fill a hole or something like that. I’m enjoying the books again. The characters. I’ve read more in the past few months than in the last 5 years. All because I got to big for my britches (or space in the garage!).