Time to stop collecting comics?

About every four months, I tell myself I need to stop collecting comics. This is happening with alarming frequency. My current collection has items from the 60s, 70s, but it’s mostly comprised of comics from the 80s and 90s. I put them in the traditional long white boxes, mostly bagged, with a few precious gems mylared. I have about 18 of the long boxes, 3 of the smaller boxes for the old Warren and Marvel monster magazines. This doesn’t count the bookshelf in the closet which holds an array of graphic novels, treasury editions, and fan magazines like Comic Book Artist. All of this resides inside a closet, in a room which doubles as my exercise room. Which means that wherever I move, I must have an extra room just dedicated to holding my comic collection?

My wife is pretty patient with me. She doesn’t demand that I stop collecting comics, although it would be pretty pleasant for her if I did. But I am starting to view my collection as a monster in the closet that I can no longer control. My habit has been to venture lightly into the closet after finishing my new comics. I place them in a pile on top one of the long white boxes. I say I will immediately alphabetize them and place them into the boxes, but I never do. Four months later, the pile of new comics is spilling everywhere, so I finally decide to integrate my collection. I pull out several of the long white boxes, because there is one box dedicated to just Flash comics, and I want them all in one place. I might get the urge to re-read “Terminal Velocity” in the middle of the night and I want to easily find all the issues. Likewise, JLA, Batman, JSA, and several other important series have their own boxes. Others just go into a box that I label “New 2005” because I can’t be anal about everything. This is another problem, because if a mini-series spawns multiple years, it’s hard to find them. I once had to dig thru six boxes just to piece the entire run of Planetary together. Lifting all of these boxes is no cakewalk for an aging boomer. I have to remind myself to use my legs or else I’ll hurt my back.

There is a pleasure in going through any of my boxes: I find gems that I had totally forgotten about. Just the other day I was thinking about Deathstroke from Teen Titans, wishing that I had those old comics. Then looking in my boxes I find Deathstroke #1 and various other issues. How great is that? Going through my JLA box, I find a couple of 100 page giants reprinting some classic Gardner Fox stories. Good thing I didn’t buy those $50 JLA archives. And then I find a JLA Elseworlds titled “JLA Created Equal” by Fabian Nicieza and Kevin Maguire. What the fuck, I had no memory that such a thing ever existed. I pick it up and it’s got fantastic Maguire art. The story is kitchy, about a virus that kills off all the Earth’s male population except for Superman and Luthor. It’s basically a gimmick to allow Maguire to draw bodacious babes in prestige format. Lots of great scenes involving Wonder Woman, who obviously wishes Superman would dump Lois and impregnate her instead. Zatanna’s fishnet stockings get a lot of show time as well (click to expand the pictures). They don’t deal with the obvious lesbianism that would have to erupt, but you might wonder if Brian K. Vaughn didn’t get an idea for Y: The Last Man after reading this. It’s a fun story, although Superman doesn’t bang all the super-chicks who look lustily at him page after page. It’s a cop-out as this would be his duty to humanity, don’t ya think?

This is one of the things that make me think I should stop collecting new comics. I’ve obviously forgotten 90% of what I’ve bought for 20-30 years, so digging through the boxes and re-reading them would be a series of archeological discoveries. I always told myself when I got old, I would “start with the A’s” and keep on reading. Maybe it’s finally that time. There are a few portentous signs of stopping points. Infinite Crisis is coming up—maybe I should collect through that milestone and stop. I’ll have a pretty good run from Crisis to Crisis. They can’t do anything that compelling afterward, that I haven’t already seen, right? Oh sure, I’ll get a few trades here and there, but the monthly payment to my retailer will end. I’ve tried this before and I couldn’t make it past a month. Sometimes I sold my collection just to re-buy certain items. But now I can’t handle the cost, the space, the lifting of the long whites. It can happen, it must happen, I must stop. I have the will power, just like Hal Jordan. Yeah, right. Nuff said.