I have some questions for fellow comic book collectors on the SDMD. How old are you? When did you start collecting comics? What titles do you collect? How have your comic-collecting habits changed much through the years?
Also – how big of a collection do you have? How do you store/display your comics?
Thanks for any and all replies!
28 years old. Have been ‘collecting’ comics (ie, buying with my own money to read and holding onto them) since I was 8…have been reading them as long as I can remember.
I collect…a whole lot of different books. Too many to bother listing. The two that I’ve collected longest are Legion of Superheroes (Not the title LSH specifically, but books that the Legion headline) and Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew. (CCAHAZC #5 is the first comic I remember reading, a LSH digest is the first I bought.)
How old are you? I am 30 years old.
When did you start collecting comics? I started collecting comics approximately 20 years ago.
What titles do you collect? I collect too many comics to list them all, but mostly I collect comics put out by DC and their imprints (a few that I collect are JLA, JSA, Flash, and Astro City).
How have your comic-collecting habits changed much through the years? I used to pick up the ‘hot’ titles when they first came out. I bought multiple copies of Spiderman #1 by Todd McFarlane, All the covers of X-Men#1 and poly-bagged X-Force #1 (gotta get all the trading cards, you know!), and I got a ridiculous amount of crappy Image comics. Nowadays, I tend to get comics if I like the character or if I like the writer, and I am much more willing to follow a writer around to a different book or company then I am willing to follow an artist to a different book.
How big of a collection do you have? Pretty large. Probably somewhere around 7,500?
How do you store/display your comics? I store my comics in the typical long-boxes. They aren’t really “displayed” at all, just stored in my basement. I hope to someday have a large enough room to display them well.
How about you?
Oops…forgot the ‘have your habits changed much’.
Yes, they have.
When I was younger, I liked humour books, and silver age DC books, and other lighthearted fare.
Then I wouldn’t touch them with a 10 foot pole, preferring the most angsty Marvel, the most violent Image, and most artsy Vertigo and manga.
Now I read them all…although I’ve slacked off a little on the uberviolent books…mostly just horror books in that realm, now.
38 years old. I’ve been buying and saving comics for 30 years or so.
Right now I only get a few. Fable. Lucifer. Love and Rockets. I recently picked up the first two issues of the She-Hulk because it looked funny.
My titles have changed enormously. When I was younger I was big on superheroes and suchlike. The standard adolescent power-fantasy routine. Now I find that, at best, dismaying. I go into the shop (new one just a block from my new office) and look at the wall and shudder. I mean, for God’s sake, the X-Men are STILL fighting the Sentinels? (I can’t actually know this but I saw a Sentinel on a cover today. If the Sentinel was inviting the X-Men in for a Secret Santa exchange I apologize.)
In short, these days I like to see things that are 1) different from the norm 2) well-written. You get the idea.
My collection? I gave them away years ago because the superhero stuff was repulsing me. The stuff I liked I got the TPB of where I could and dropped the others on a pal. Feh. So everything I have fits into 2 or 3 longboxes.
I finally hung up the habit as a freshman in college after I got sick of trying to understand yet another stupid X-Men crossover. I still kept my hand in, buying the Sandman TPB’s when they came out and a few lone issues from here and there.
Eight years later, I was standing in a grocery store byrne-stealing an issue of Adventures of Superman and the bug bit me again. I started going to the LCS every week and buying anything and everything. For a few months, my goal was to collect every single DC title. But then I realized that a lot of them were crap, so that didn’t last.
Now, six years after the end of the Interregnum, I collect very little mainstream superhero stuff – a title here and there if I like the writer, usually. Most of my current purchases are anything Grant Morrison writes, most anything Brian Vaughan writes, Lucifer, Fables and Queen & Country in TPB, and the occasional capes book or something from Fantagraphics. I also buy a ton of reprints from all over and all different eras. And while I don’t follow current mainstream books very much because they’re childish, I happily drop a little coin for mainstream stuff from the '70’s or '80’s as long as I can find a big chunk.
All told, I’ve probably got upwards of 8,000 issues and a few shevles worth of TPB’s. Nothing like some people. Most of my comics are kept in long boxes in the basement. I track the collection in an Excel file on my computer.
–Cliffy, who wishes it were Wednesday so he could buy that The Best of the Spirit TPB.
Been collecting since I was 14.
I won’t touch Marvel since the Crash.
I buy a variety of indies & small press. I patronize Antarctica Press, especially Gold Digger and Ninja High School.
I will be a Superman fan till I die.
How old are you?
27.
*When did you start collecting comics? *
I learned how to read pretty early (2 years old, so my parents tell me), and as early as I remember, my dad would bring home stacks of old Richie Rich comics from used book stores, where he’d go to trade in gun magazines for Mack Bolan novels for himseld. I read Richie Rich until I was about 6 or 7, when I first saw Transformers #5 on a newsstand (this would’ve been about 1985). It was a stark, dark, detailed image of the evil Decepticon Shockwave, having burned three words into a wall with his laser cannon hand under the title banner, so it looked like “THE TRANSFORMERS are all dead.” That’s what I really consider my first comic book.
What titles do you collect?
Right now? I’m pretty disillusioned with collecting monthly comics, so the only thing I’m following is DC’s mega-crossover Infinite Crisis, and that’s more out of morbid curiosity, because I really don’t care for it so far. In the last few years, I’ve collected fewer and fewer monthlies, preferring to wait for runs and series to be collected in trade paperback format.
How have your comic-collecting habits changed much through the years?
I started with Transformers and G.I. Joe, and the encyclopedia-like DC Who’s Who and Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe series, both of which were published in the mid-'80s. Those made me an expert on characters and continuity at a very young age, long before I had read many of the comics themselves. After that, I moved onto Justice League International, the “sitcom”-like incarnation of the League, and then discovered the X-Men titles around 1991, during the boom, when they had creators like Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, and Whilce Portacio on them. I bought up most of the early Image books even though they mostly sucked, and jumped on a lot of other early-'90s bandwagons like Valiant, which I think was even worse than Image. I collected G.I. Joe, Transformers, and JLI (later JLA) until the end of those respective series, long after they had all gotten really bad.
My interest dwindled for years except for DC’s brilliant Starman series, which I collected over its entire run, the only constant in my life between high school and law school. Now I’m most into stuff like Wildstorm, Vertigo, Oni, anything mystery/crime/noir-styled, interesting new takes on superheroes ranging from comedy to deconstruction, and the occasional “highbrow” stuff like Love and Rockets. I also prefer the TPB format to monthly “floppies,” and never even buy TPBs or back issues unless I can get them at significant discounts. I’m cheap, I admit it, and I’d much rather save my money or spend it on things other than comics.
How big of a collection do you have?
I’ve never counted, but I have catalogued everything I own. You can see my completely alphabetized collection listed at http://www.geocities.com/bigbadvoodoolou/comicmasterlist.html . I’m always trying to sell stuff, though, and I must have sold hundreds of comics and TPBs in the last couple of years. I update the list whenever something enters or leaves my collection, but I’d love for it to dwindle down more. I feel so much less connected to my material possessions these days, and very few of my comics have actual sentimental value anymore.
How do you store/display your comics?
Comics get bagged (and some boarded) and go in longboxes, and I reckon I have the equivalent of five of those, with room to spare. I keep my TPBs on a bookshelf (also bagged, strangely enough), and I have about 2 1/2 shelves full of them.
Hijack: are these actually for sale? I’d love to get my hands on the Sandman, Sin City, and V is for Vendetta TPBs, and some of those Blue Beetle comics…
geekout
I’d be willing to sell the Sin City comics (particularly the original TPB, which is the earlier full-sized edition), but I’m kind of attached to the others, being the #1 Blue Beetlemaniac. But please e-mail me at saxman2@hotmail.com, and we’ll talk!
How old are you?
24
*When did you start collecting comics? *
Comics were a good alternate reading for me since I could read, but I really started seeking them out at 16. I took a hiatus for college and I’m back in the game now.
What titles do you collect?
Mostly DC superhero stuff. I also read Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men, Y: The Last Man, Jonah Hex, Fables, and the Walking Dead.
How have your comic-collecting habits changed much through the years? Not really. They’ve just expanded. I could never have afforded to chase down all of the Infinite Crisis tie-ins back in high school, for example (as much as I’m liking that event, it probably would have killed the hobby for me back in the day, I have to admit). Trade Paperbacks are more important these days. I’m following Fables and the Walking Dead completely through TPBs.
*
Also – how big of a collection do you have?Easily over a thousand single issues and well over a dozen TPBs.
*
How do you store/display your comics?
Longbox. No bag, no board. I’m not interested in resale value. I don’t really consider myself a “collector”, really. I just follow the stories, and like the Wednesday ritual of going to the store.
I think I may have to marry you now. 
Remind me to compare the size of my collection with BBVL’s, if it proves to attract the geek ladies. 
Hey, Kythereia - I have twelve years of uninterrupted X-Men books!
I’m 27. I started at about age 4 seriously, but as early as 2 my mother was getting me comics to read. All-Star Squadron and Justice League were two titles that helped me learn to read.
I’ve always had a heavy slant towards DC titles. I wouldn’t say my habits have changed much over the years - once I get on a title, I tend to stick to it until the writers piss me off. I would say that my tastes have broadened over the years though.
I store my comics in standard comic boxes - short and long; I had been very bad about properly bagging and boarding my comics until recently - most were bagged, but not boarded. I’m currently amidst a project to go back and board them all, while verifying and updating the spreadsheet listing my collection.
Last best guess is about 7000 comics.
How old are you? 22
When did you start collecting comics? About a year ago.
What titles do you collect? A bunch. Green Lantern: Rebirth was the series that got me into it and I read the ongoing series. Justice Society of America was my second series. There’s also Action Comics, Adventures of Superman, She-Hulk, Legion of Super-Heroes, Justice League Europe, the Flash, the Crisises, and a few more.
How have your comic-collecting habits changed much through the years? As its’ only been a year now much.
How big of a collection do you have? Around 200 maybe? Never bothered to count.
How do you store/display your comics? In bags in boxes hanging out in my living room.
How old are you? 29
When did you start collecting comics? Summer 1998
What titles do you collect? Too many to list here, but approximately 70-80 per month. I think it’s roughly 70% DC titles and 30% Marvel, with a few by other publishers mixed in.
How have your comic-collecting habits changed much through the years?
I started slowly, buying books based on recommendations from a friend who knew what kinds of stories I’d like. I found a few writers whose work I liked, and bought their books. When I got together with my husband, my reading expanded a lot because he has near-encyclopedic knowledge of continuity for both Marvel and DC and he was able to help me get into some continuity-heavy books that otherwise I might not have picked up.
Also – how big of a collection do you have? How do you store/display your comics?
I’m not sure exactly how many we have now. We have two full-sized bookshelves full of TPBs and hardcovers, and over 8,000 bagged single issues. We have boards behind the more valuable issues, but there simply isn’t room to put boards behind all of them. We have a whole bedroom on our apartment devoted to comics and action figures (predominantly DC Directs).
Why do you ask?
swoon!
Too bad the X-Men books have never been good for twelve years straight (or even half of that!) 
Fair enough, but the beginning of that run starts with Jim Lee coming on board, so it was at least an extended pretty phase for X-Men.
How old are you? 43
When did you start collecting comics? At 4 or 5, but my mother kept giving them away when I got a few sacks full. Since the late 70s, I have managed to keep most of what I have bought, plus picked a few extras from others.
What titles do you collect? Here is my pull list for last month:
LEGEND OF GRIMJACK TPB (2005) #4: 1 copy
JON SABLE, FREELANCE: BLOODTRAIL (2005) #5: 1 copy
ALL-STAR SUPERMAN (2005) #1: 1 copy
BIRDS OF PREY (1998) #88: 1 copy
DOOM PATROL (2004) #18: 1 copy
FLASH (1987) #228: 1 copy
GREEN ARROW (2001) #56: 1 copy
GREEN LANTERN (2005) #5: 1 copy
INFINITE CRISIS (2005) #1: 1 copy
INFINITE CRISIS (2005) #2: 1 copy
JACK CROSS (2005) #4: 1 copy
JLA (1996) #122: 1 copy
JLA CLASSIFIED (2004) #14: 1 copy
JSA (1999) #79: 1 copy
JSA CLASSIFIED (2005) #5: 1 copy
LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES (2004) #12: 1 copy
NIGHTWING (1996) #114: 1 copy
ROBIN (1993) #144: 1 copy
SEVEN SOLDIERS: BULLETEER (2005) #1: 1 copy
SEVEN SOLDIERS: FRANKENSTEIN (2005) #1: 1 copy
SEVEN SOLDIERS: ZATANNA (2005) #4: 1 copy
SUPERGIRL (2005) #3: 1 copy
TEEN TITANS (2003) #29: 1 copy
TOP TEN: BEYOND THE FARTHEST PRECINCT (2005) #4: 1 copy
I have added a few things to it since then, and a couple have dropped. (Doom Patrol ended just in time, I was going to drop it. Should have done so about a year ago. :p) And I will be checking out some of the stuff right after Infinite Crisis, so this will be subject to change in a few months.
How have your comic-collecting habits changed much through the years? I have wandered back an forth between the 2 big companies as their respective offerings have changed in quality. I also am picking up the trades of some of the various Marvel Ultimate lines, Planetary single issues and trades, Astro City single issues and trades, and the Tom Strong compilations. I have been true to my superhero roots, but I do like other things on occasion.
Also – how big of a collection do you have? I really don’t know. I have around 30 long boxes filled, plus more stacked up around here that could probably fill another 2 or 3 boxes. I am in the very slow process of inputting them into a cataloging program. Needless to say, it is taking a long time. 
How do you store/display your comics? Display? I can’t even get them organized!
Well, I will be 45 in a few days (Dec. 27). I started collecting comics around 1972 (I turned twelve at the end of that year).
When I first started collecting, my main passion was mainstream Marvel superhero comics such as Thor, Avengers, Defenders, Fantastic Four. I preferred Marvel over DC, but also bought a few DC titles : Justice League of America, Superboy/Legion of Super-Heroes. I also tended to collect any title featuring superheroines (Shanna the She-Devil, Ms. Marvel, Spiderwoman, and of course Wonder Woman), since my “heroine addiction”/fetish started in earnest right around this time.
I would have loved to have collected every single superhero comic put out by Marvel and DC, but my rather miniscule budget would not allow this! Fortunately, my circle of fellow comic-addicted friends enabled me to enjoy comics that I did not buy myself!
My interests have not really changed much through the years – I still buy mostly just mainstream Marvel and DC superhero stuff, and also independent comics that have a particular emphasis on superheroines – Cavewoman, Femforce, Lady Death, Tarot Witch of the Black Rose, etc.
I am not sure exactly how many comics I have right now. I have three six-foot tables with 8 long boxes on top, six long boxes on the floor beneath it, and five long boxes lying atop the six! That is nineteen long boxes per six-foot table, in three layers! A fourth six-foot table currently only has five completely-stuffed long boxes on top, with another box not quite half full!