I am no longer a "read 20 comics per week" kind of guy. I'm more of a "I'll knock through a trade once a week or so" kind of guy. My comics reading and collecting was changing before this site was frozen in carbonite, and it's continued to mutate.
y'all buckle in, because it's about to get pedantic and ornery up in here |
I kind of quit trying to keep up with Marvel as a universe around Secret Invasion, which was several years ago now. I've tried to keep up here and there with Captain America and a few other titles, but Marvel's insistence on the cross-over stunt has made that exceptionally difficult. Pair that with the fact I read Marvel in trade collections rather than floppies or digital comics, and their "all new #1's all the time" marketing strategy, and I literally gave up trying to understand what was happening at Marvel as a Universe. But I will be picking up some of the Star Wars books for a few months and see how I like a Marvelized Star Wars U.
DC and the New 52 kind of sent me screaming. The quality of DC hasn't really improved much over the past two years, and it was in the basement with the launch of the New 52. I recently read that by Spring, DC will have canceled 60 titles since the launch of the New 52, which is an indication that I'm not crazy to think they have some problems and maybe they aren't serving their audience very well.
In the past year, it's safe to say my habit of reading comics has greatly reduced. At least the reading of new comics. When I do buy floppies, I collect them for a couple months and read a few at a time, unless it's something that's self-contained. And I'll talk about what I'm buying as floppies, which isn't much.
The other day I mentioned that I've recently also sold off a huge portion of my collection. Well over half my stuff has been dispensed with since August, something like 15-20 boxes (short and long), something like 4-5000 comics. I've also sold a huge number of my action figures, graphic novels and other items.
And - you know - I don't miss them. I have more than a room full of great stuff that I like and feel like showing off from time to time, and it's a lot more focused than it once was.