Plight of the Compulsive Personality

[beaglegod]

Compulsive personality? Yep that would be me,and so what does that have to do with classic comics you ask?
Well for a guy like myself it means not being able to resist the urge every couple of weeks from buying 4,5,6,even 7 trades.Mostly Essentials but now visionaries has been added to the list. They are hidden away in a closet at the moment so the wife doesnt realise that in the past 6 weeks Ive aquired:

Essential X-men 1-7
Essential Hulk 1-3
Essential Woverine 4 (had 1-3)
Essential Silver Surfer 1
Essential Iron Man 1-2
Essential Defenders 1
Hulk Visionaries David Byrne 1-3

Does anyone else ever go on buying binges? I actualy kinda feel bad about it since it takes me a week or more to finish reading one of these,but I cant seem to help myself from picking up more and just stacking them up in my closet.:o

[glue]

I'm the same way (on a smaller scale).

I'm suprised you can read a whole volume of ESSENTIALs in a week. Is that about par for most readers here? Because I've still yet to complete any of the volumes I have. Of course I tend to rotate between them and smaller trades/novels, but still it would take me a month per volume if I read them straight through.

I just realized I took this off topic. If you want to respond I'd be interested, beaglegod, but if not just let me know and I'll delete it.

[Hombre]

Essential X-men 1-7
Essential Hulk 1-3
Essential Woverine 4 (had 1-3)
Essential Silver Surfer 1
Essential Iron Man 1-2
Essential Defenders 1
Hulk Visionaries David Byrne 1-3

Does anyone else ever go on buying binges?

You want to know what's funny? With the Essentials it's not like you can ever stop. Just going by what is out today, and assuming you don't have the issues already, are you sure you can live without Essential Daredevil or Essential Spider Man?

That's why I begun to lose all interest in the merit or lack thereof of the new comics, I realized that I own right now enough to last me a lifetime. And I mean to continue getting at least the Essentials for the foreseeable future.

Incidentally, I think David Byrne would have made a pretty good comics writer.

[Cactusakic]

Does anyone else ever go on buying binges? I actualy kinda feel bad about it since it takes me a week or more to finish reading one of these,but I cant seem to help myself from picking up more and just stacking them up in my closet.:o

I have the same problem.

Every other month I go on massive spree's with dvds and comics.
For example, this month since picking up my regular standing order at my LCS (nearly 100 titles on its own) I have bought:

Uncanny X-Men Omnibus Vol 1
Punisher Max HC Vol 1
Punisher Max HC Vol 2
New X-Men HC Vol 1
New X-Men HC Vol 2
New X-Men HC Vol 3
Earth X HC
Serenity tpb
Lone Wolf And Cub Vol 1
Lone Wolf And Cub Vol 2

and I'm thinking about getting:

Punisher (Marvel Knights) HC Vol 1
Animal Man Vol 3 tpb

I already had MORE than enough comics to see me through the month with just my pull list ( and a couple of HC's my LCS had for me) but I got the idea of buying a few more HC's in my head and now I'm almost broke.

Its not an isolated incident either. I keep doing this. A few months back I bought my normal standing order AND the entire run of Sandman AND the Alias Omnibus HC AND The Walking Dead Omnibus HC AND the Invincible Ultimate Collection Vol 1 HC!!!

I've already said this elsewhere but:

*stands* Hello, my name is Cactusakic and I am a comicoholic.

[beaglegod]

Josh S wrote

I'm suprised you can read a whole volume of ESSENTIALs in a week.

Actualy come to think of it,its a 2 week minimum to make it through an essential volume,wich makes it even more rediculous that I keep buying them by the bushels full! Every 2 weeks dropping 70 - 80 clams at tales of wonder,they have the best all round price on them for now.

Cactusakic wrote:

Uncanny X-Men Omnibus Vol 1
Punisher Max HC Vol 1
Punisher Max HC Vol 2
New X-Men HC Vol 1
New X-Men HC Vol 2
New X-Men HC Vol 3
Earth X HC
Serenity tpb
Lone Wolf And Cub Vol 1
Lone Wolf And Cub Vol 2

and I'm thinking about getting:

Punisher (Marvel Knights) HC Vol 1
Animal Man Vol 3 tpb

Shhesh that quite a bit of coin your spendin there pal, wish I could spend that kind of dough before going broke,I tend to run out of cash a wee bit quicker.:D

Hombre wrote:

With the Essentials it's not like you can ever stop. Just going by what is out today, and assuming you don't have the issues already, are you sure you can live without Essential Daredevil or Essential Spider Man?


Exactly my feeling,unfortuanately Ive yet to learn the collecting part of being a collector,and get the urge to have every volume of what Im collecting yesterday. Realy the only thing yanking on my choke collar is running out of play money,and the wife of course making sure I dont dip into any other funds. Between the essentials and visionaries series,I dont think Ill ever be caught up with my reading.

[Agentum]

The newer Essentials is not so hard to read i think, i read the moonknight one i 3 days only (but i skipped some i had read recently).

But a old Thor, original X-men or FF from early 60s and in this case without color can take forever if i even ever going to finish something like that.

Like the GA Showcase, i will have a hard time ever finish that one.

I think i miss the color most in the older storys that have a campy storytelling, there is really not much nice left in them and i have to read them in short sittings or get very very bored.

[Simon Garth]

Compulsive personality? Yep that would be me,and so what does that have to do with classic comics you ask?
Well for a guy like myself it means not being able to resist the urge every couple of weeks from buying 4,5,6,even 7 trades.Mostly Essentials but now visionaries has been added to the list. They are hidden away in a closet at the moment so the wife doesnt realise that in the past 6 weeks Ive aquired:

Essential X-men 1-7
Essential Hulk 1-3
Essential Woverine 4 (had 1-3)
Essential Silver Surfer 1
Essential Iron Man 1-2
Essential Defenders 1
Hulk Visionaries David Byrne 1-3

Does anyone else ever go on buying binges? I actualy kinda feel bad about it since it takes me a week or more to finish reading one of these,but I cant seem to help myself from picking up more and just stacking them up in my closet.:o

David Byrne?? That's a Once In a Lifetime body of Hulk stories....

[T GUy]

beaglegod:

Hulk Visionaries David Byrne 1-3

Simon Garth:

David Byrne?? That's a Once In a Lifetime body of Hulk stories....

I had a hard time reading that book - I then realised that I was in a dark room and would be better off if I were to remain in light.

[T GUy]

Hombre: You want to know what's funny? With the Essentials it's not like you can ever stop. Just going by what is out today, and assuming you don't have the issues already, are you sure you can live without Essential Daredevil or Essential Spider Man?

That's why I begun to lose all interest in the merit or lack thereof of the new comics, I realized that I own right now enough to last me a lifetime.

I could stop right now and have a lifetime supply with ten thousand issues of various comics. Reading one a day, that'll last me the thick end of thirty years, by which time I could start over at the begining again. If I'm still alive.

I have the first two Essential DD volumes, and the 1980s Marvel Tales Ditko Spider-Man reprints. I think I need to join Spidey mid-stream in Essential Vol. 2 or 3.

Oh, and the ten thousand doesn't include the hardbacks and TPBs and the like. I tend to get hardbacks of things I don't feel like affording in the originals (the first ten issues of the FF and X-Men come to mind here - I have those as Marvel Masterworks; plus Shock SuspenStories in oversize B/W H/C)) and TPBs of things where they are simply more convenient (Morrison's New X-Men and Waid's FF, which are the only super-heroes I own since about the mid-'eighties).

[dan bailey]

Does anyone else ever go on buying binges?

yes, indeed. mine even has a name -- "2006." its predecessor went by "2005." & then there were "2004," "2003" (though the objects of acquistion were far less likely to be comics than books of all descriptions, albums, cds, dvds, videotapes, etc.), ad infinitum. getting divorced in 1990 let my inner obsessive collector run wild.

[scratchie]

getting divorced in 1990 let my inner obsessive collector run wild.That's ironic; getting married was what helped unleashed my inner obsessive collector. I was all set to sell my collection of X-Men 94-128 (missing three issues) and buy trade paperbacks and my wife said "You can't sell those! That's too cool!" (after I had told her what they were worth). Then she read a page and a half of #94 and said "This sucks!" but that it was too late; the monster had been awakened.

The same thing happened when we first started dating, about nine years ago. At the time, I had a large collection of bootleg concert cassettes that were mostly languishing in cardboard boxes. I had no intention of starting that hobby again (I had collected most of them from around 1987-1992) but she said "That's so cool!", which validated it, and a couple of years later I had my first CD burner and was well on the way to acquiring way too many bootleg concert CDs.

[Lone Ranger]

Does anyone else ever go on buying binges? I actualy kinda feel bad about it since it takes me a week or more to finish reading one of these,but I cant seem to help myself from picking up more and just stacking them up in my closet.:o

I bought a whole stack of Essentials one day at a used bookstore. I haven't even got close to finishing that pile.

I have all sorts of binges and urges.

A while back - I made up my mind that I'd never own certain really expensive books so I started grabbing Archives and Masterworks volumes on eBay if I saw them for a low price. Within a month, I had at least 25, and the low prices had really added up.

I go on buying spree with titles, genres, artists etc...

Many years ago I bought all of the 70s Charlton horror I could get my hands on. Within two weeks I had two short boxes off eBay - average price was probably 20 cents a pop. I am still not sure whether I've finished them.

I've also been on Don Heck sprees, Atlas war sprees, Daredevil sprees, pre-code romance sprees. You name it - I've been bitten by the bug at one time or the other.

If I discover something new (to me) that I like and they are inexpensive - I tend to pounce and before I know it, I've got a stack of books on the 'to read' list.

I am a very, very sick man.

[beaglegod]

Incidentally, I think David Byrne would have made a pretty good comics writer.

David Byrne?? That's a Once In a Lifetime body of Hulk stories....

I had a hard time reading that book - I then realised that I was in a dark room and would be better off if I were to remain in light.

I meant Peter David, doh! I cant believe its taken me this long to understand all the sarcasm :/ *sigh* Maybe my parents did waste high school on me. :D

[DDM]

I've got three versions of The Dark Phoenix Saga TPB...

[isaac a person]

I try to restrain my buying sprees to the occasional visit to half-price books. I read so many different books that there's almost always 3 or 4 trades that I want to buy when I stop in.

[ChadtheH]

Eh...would it be really wrong of me to try and exploit your compulsive buying tendency by interesting you in a new trade paperback my comics label has recently published? You can find out more about the collected stories of "The Calling" at:

http://www.etraincomics.com

Or see some other artistic works of myself and other small press artists at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CommissionArtCentral

Yeah...it definitely would be wrong of me. :o

Good luck in finding all the material you are looking for, though.

[Agentum]

Yes there is so many trades to buy each month it seems.

The best way to avoid buying more than needed is to not read any comc forums and not searching amazon or other netshops for trades.

I have always something i like to buy next month but it always ends with me buying some more stuff anyway:-(