Thursday 12 March 2009

Dilemmas of an emotional retard

There's a mart this weekend. Part of me really wants to go because there are a few hard to find on ebay back issues I want to buy, PLUS I've got a rare Sunday off work, meaning that I could have a decent run at the thing instead of the usual one hour zip round before dashing (albeit a fat man's version of dashing) for the tube. BUT at the same time I'm loaded down with huge amounts of unread comics already and, you know, an increasingly loud voice in my head is telling me that I don't need to depress myself any further by bringing home more piles of calcifying tat! Gaaah! Fuck you loud voice! What do you know? NOTHING, that's what,NOTHING! There are important untraded issues of Hellblazer and The Crunch to be bought and hoarded. Yes my pretty, The Crunch, we wants it, WE WANTS IT I tell you!

So anyway, I'll probably be going. 

Before that though I am preparing to make another trip to the new shop where no doubt the boss man will have failed to get me in a copy of Charlatan Ball or Special Forces or indeed the copy of Jersey Gods which he failed to order last week. At this stage, I'm considering two courses of action:
  1. knocking the whole thing on the head,  returning to Gosh and sucking up the lack of discount
  2. ceasing to worry about independent books at all and just waiting until they're traded before snapping up the collected editions on Amazon at a big discount. 
The second option is becoming increasingly appealing to me, but the fact is, if I was going to do this then I should be doing it with the Marvel and DC titles not the indie books that need all the readers they can get to avoid cancellation. I don't know though, it's obvious that the new shop is never going to get the indie stuff I want, yet their whopping discount makes single issues financially viable. By ditching my indie comic habit I'll be saving money on the singles I do buy and the ones which I don't. Won't help the books I love survive of course, but that's how things are probably going to have to go.

See the important life-or-death kind of shit I have to grapple with? Truly t'is a hard life being a comic collector.

7 comments:

mr wheatley said...

balls to the dc and marvel comics. buy them as books off amazon if you must and buy the indys at gosh. The money you will save on the trades will make up fo the shortfall. You will be happier at gosh. thats my thinking!
the way i look at it, its not all about the comics, otherwise it would be onto the torrents and suckem down for free. Its about the ritual. Its about the guilty pleasure of having hobby, its about saying alright to the bloke in the shop and him smiling and suggesting you have a look at this particular comic cos he knows your taste. Thats what i enjoy.

Dom Sutton said...

"balls to the dc and marvel comics"

Unfortunately I've got to the stage where missing an issue of Green Lantern causes a mild panic attack.

I'll probably pop into Gosh soon for the missing books.

Don't suppose you're in London on Sunday are you?

Anonymous said...

I'm going to go on Sunday if that helps you make up your mind any. In other news I think I offended the boss man yesterday by exclaiming "I'll believe that when I see it!" when he told me he'd finally managed to get me a copy of The Walking Dead 55 that I'd been waiting for for weeks. He was right though, there it was in my bag. Obviously none of my standing order was in there but you can't have everything! I agree with Mr Wheatley though, it is about the ritual and for me that ritual now involves taking Hartley down there on the bus every Thursday to give Jackie a break for an hour. Personally I think that Marvel and DC books probably lend themselves better to single issues. Whenever I get into an indie comic like Walking Dead, Y The Last Man or Northlanders (acually, are they indie comics? perhaps not, but I think the point still stands) I find I want to read the whole thing in one go, or at least 6 issues at a time. So I vote for you keeping your weekly trip for the big two and going to trades for the indies.

Dom Sutton said...

alright man, I might see you there.

Neil said...

I drop into the shop once a week, where my standing order is rarely pulled, have a chat and do all of the comic stuff. Then I go into town every couple of weeks for indies, missing bits and such. Ergo, discount on most stuff, but not everything.

I'm having a similar dilemma about the mart. I've a box full of stuff left over from the last one and, as I'm still out of work, a niggling feeling I shouldn't be spending a load of money.

Cut to: INT. COMIC MART. SUNDAY
A ginger man is buying everything.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the heads up on this weekend's fair... now I need to juggle a brunch (so posh...) so I can go shopping.

Anonymous said...

Just got back from the Mart and it wasn't too shabby an affair, even with the hot weather it didn't stink too much, except for the backroom which was a bit of a dirty protest. More importantly did anyone else catch the minor fracas, with the dealer yelling at the punter to "Get the fuck out of here or I'll have you banned!".
I also over heard one dealer declaring how he'd started burning stock he couldn't flog such as old Valient stuff.