I’ve been pretty good about keeping my resolution of reducing the number of new comics I buy and not buying ANY Marvel titles at all. The thing is, every comic shop around me lately has been having back issue sales with prices cut from 50-75%. Why would I want to spend $3.99 for one comic when I can get several for the same price? Luckily I have two things going for me when it comes to buying back issues.
1) I’m a reader, not a collector. As long as the cover is nice and its all stapled together I’m good with it. Good, very good, fine, extra very fine, mint, diamond double mint- none of that grading crap matters to me. I go for lowest price. A crease on the lower right corner won’t send me into shock.
2) I’m a Gamer first a Comic Fanboy second. I collect titles like Arak, John Carter, Kull, Turok, Weird western tales, and such. I mostly look for titles that I can apply to gaming. I like my four color heroes as well, but even they aren’t the ones most folks fight over. I go for Moon knight, Wildcat, Black Panther, The Phantom, etc. The great thing about my comic taste is that not too many other Fanboys share my passions. One of my favorite stores had their annual 75% blowout sale on back issues last Saturday. That morning the store was packed like a sardine can , so I left and returned an hour before closing time, and I was still able to pick up several runs of Conan, Kull, Turok, Doc Savage, Sgt. Rock, Warlord, John Carter, Ruse, and the Defenders.
I mostly buy titles from the 70’s, most comic folk call that era the “Bronze Age” but for me it’s Golden- much of what I’m about hobby-wise stems from the titles of that era – Conan, Shang-Chi, Cain and Abel, Travis Morgan, Dracula, Hogun the Grim, Nighthawk, Cap and the Falcon - and of course Mad, Crazy and Plop.
A man after my own reading heart. I've long since dropped pretty much buying anything modern and am a discount-bin diver.
ReplyDeleteThe Essential series of Marvel reprints has made it dirt cheap to get in on the Defenders and stuff like that. It took me years to warm up to the idea of black & white superheroes, but man is it worth the lack of color to get all these old issues in one swoop.
ReplyDeleteJohn Carter, Warlord of Mars is an always buy for me because I figure the chance of a reprint is very low.
I was a HUGE Sword and Sorcery fan as well as ANYTHING by ERB in the 70s. It's amazing how cheap you can find some of these titles nowadays. I guess i am more like you a reader more than a collector, even though I have 1,000s of comics after over 35 years of reading/saving!!!
ReplyDelete