Tired of comics (please read if you collect ANYTHING!)

In My Humble Opinion
1

For some reason, I can’t get the Weezer song “Tired of Sex” out of my head as I write this. But it’s true, I am pretty sick and tired of comic books and action figures, and I’ve been reading and collecting them steadily for two decades. I’m down to following one monthly comic–Sleeper–which I have been buying in singles to support the creative team, but I can hardly get excited about that anymore. I haven’t even picked up the latest issue yet, and it has been out for weeks.

I’ve also been selling off many of my comics and action figures this year, for several reasons. I desperately need the money, since bills and unemployment are a dangerous combination. I could use the space, especially because as soon as I land a decent job, I’m moving back out on my own, and I’d prefer to travel light and unencumbered. And finally, I want to downsize my material possessions in general. I find myself less and less connected to the things I’ve collected, and I feel like it would be a soul-freeing experience to divest myself of a lot of this stuff. Make a cleaner break with the past, move forward to the future with less luggage, that sort of thing. I’ll still probably keep the equivalent of three longboxes of comics and a shelf full of TPBs (good stuff, stuff I love, stuff I’ve written about at length on this forum and most of us agree is quality material), but considering I have enough comics to fill seven longboxes right now, I don’t think I’ll even miss a lot of them. And considering I don’t even have shelves to display any of my toys on, they can go to better homes as well. They’re not doing me any good all boxed up.

Does anyone else ever experience this “collectors’ ennui”? Anyone ever unload a lot of their stuff during downbeat moments in their lives, whether due to true financial necessity, boredom, moving, Fight Club-style anti-consumerism moods, depression, or what? And have you regretted it, or not? So far, I haven’t regretted anything, and I admit depression has also played a large part in my decisions. But in case anyone cares, here are my comic and toy collections:

http://www.geocities.com/bigbadvoodoolou/comicmasterlist.html
http://www.geocities.com/bigbadvoodoolou/toys.html

Th ey are now in states of flux, and I’m sure I’ll list some more goodies for sale on eBay on Sunday evening!

2

Sorry to hear it, BBVL, but I do understand.

I have had repeated encounters with ‘collectoritis’ - that rare disease that strikes borderline obsessive-compulsives like myself that, when we have bought one item in a ‘set’ - however loosely defined that ‘set’ - we feel urged to go and buy the rest.

So, as a result, I have many many collections.

And yes, in the past I’ve divested myself of some things … working on some of that now, actually. Mostly video games and books at the moment… It feels nice to objectively look at it all, realize what you’d not even looked at or thought about in years, and get rid of it.

So, I guess what I’m trying to say is… Maybe you can help me fill out my Justice League International Collection? :wink:

3

I’m a CCG player and can definately tell you that what you’re experiencing is pretty normal for me and others of my aquaintance. My advice to you would be that if you need the cash, then sell, it’s only stuff after all. I’ve sold large portions of my collection at various times in my life in order to fund other ventures only to trade/buy them back later. I would note that you almost always lose money doing that kind of thing so if you think it’s likely that you will want to re-collect again at a later date it might be a better idea just to shovel them into storage somewhere for a few years. If you hardly miss them in that situation you can sell them, and if you do miss them you don’t have to spend a fortune re-collecting them.

From the rest of your post it looks like selling would be the correct option, good luck in getting good prices for everything.

4

I have been collecting Star Trek books for about the past ten years but over the past two, have been growing a little less enthusiastic with them… mostly because I feel the quality has been dropping (and before anyone says it, I am not saying they’re high quality to begin with) and too many have been coming out that, to me, are nothing more than obvious ploys to divest people of their money. The golden age of the franchise was around eight years ago and it’s now in what I’d consider its bronze age although there has been a renaissance of sorts lately with the DS9 Relaunch and the New Frontier series and they’re the only things keeping me interested.

I don’t think I’ve even bought a book in a year or more.