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Post by The Captain on Apr 11, 2015 9:24:40 GMT -5
This is a great question, and a timely one for me, as I recently created a spreadsheet based off of my collection to track everything that I've read. At the current time, I'm at about 45% - 50% of my collection read. I went through a period of years where I was buying a lot of classic books, a lot of them from the $1 bins, but really only reading the new books I was buying on a monthly basis.
The last few years, though, there's been a big change in my habits. I've been acquiring a few hundred new issues (either floppies or in collections) per year, but I've been reading well over 1000 per year, so I am making a bigger dent that I had been. As well, my Want List is rapidly shrinking, so I will be reaching a point in the next couple of years where I probably am not buying more than a handful of books per year while I continue to work through the reading plan.
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Post by Randle-El on Apr 11, 2015 12:50:12 GMT -5
I think in an earlier thread I wrote that I had a system for preventing me from overbuying. As far as back issues, I had set a hard limit of one short box full of unread comics -- i.e., I wouldn't allow myself to buy more back issues until I had I read whatever was in that box. That was a pretty good system and kept me from creating hopelessly large piles of unread books. Unfortunately, I sort of abandoned that earlier this year and went on a bit of a buying spree. But I justified it to myself with the reasoning that the buying spree enabled me to complete several runs I had been working on, after which I expected be done buying back issues for a good long while. So prior to that buying spree, the percentage of my collection that was read would have been pretty high -- probably 95% or so. But now it's probably closer to around 70%. I also suffer from the compulsion that I'm not satisfied to just read a single issue here or there. I need to collect a large run and plow through it over the course of a week or two to feel like I've really delved into it.
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Post by Icctrombone on Apr 11, 2015 16:48:26 GMT -5
Once I've Read a story , It counts as read for all time. I must have 10 versions of Avengers #4, I don't have to read all ten versions to qualify it as more books read.
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Post by Randle-El on Apr 11, 2015 21:36:52 GMT -5
Once I've Read a story , It counts as read for all time. I must have 10 versions of Avengers #4, I don't have to read all ten versions to qualify it as more books read. In addition to reading my back issues primarily via binge reading, I suffer from another compulsion -- I have to read the story again if I buy it in another format. I bought the newly released deluxe hardcover edition of Superman for All Seasons, and even though I've read it a couple of times in other formats, I had to sit down and read the hardcover to justify the fact that I bought it. Not that it was a chore or anything, it's one of my favorite stories. |
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Post by Action Ace on Apr 11, 2015 23:19:18 GMT -5
I've reached the point that I'm not only out of new items to read, but collect as well. Thanks to the Showcases and Essentials that wiped out nearly everything from the 60s, 70s and 80s that I wanted to get. What's left is the stories between where the Golden Age Archives end and the start of the Silver Age Showcases. Those comics are too expensive for me to buy on their own, so I just sit and wait for them to get a collected edition. I'm afraid that stuff from the 1950s just isn't ever going to happen. I hold out hope that something involving Captain Marvel from the Golden Age will get made when the movie comes out.
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Post by Icctrombone on Apr 12, 2015 6:11:45 GMT -5
Once I've Read a story , It counts as read for all time. I must have 10 versions of Avengers #4, I don't have to read all ten versions to qualify it as more books read. In addition to reading my back issues primarily via binge reading, I suffer from another compulsion -- I have to read the story again if I buy it in another format. I bought the newly released deluxe hardcover edition of Superman for All Seasons, and even though I've read it a couple of times in other formats, I had to sit down and read the hardcover to justify the fact that I bought it. Not that it was a chore or anything, it's one of my favorite stories. Actually, It's a treat to do that if it's a better format. When I got JLA/Avengers, I read it in the big hardcover format and likewise the Warlock Masterworks and it was a different experience. |
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Post by MDG on Apr 13, 2015 11:24:16 GMT -5
I forgot to include the Essentials and Showcases. It's amazing how many books you can compile. I have to admit that the black and white bores me sometimes. Yeah, that's why I have a lot of collected editions piling up. I normally read a tpb per night, but when you're dealing with Essentials, Showcases, Epics, or other comps, it can take several days. It took me about three weeks to finish Showcase Presents Legions of Superheroes, vol. 5, but I had to take breaks between stories as the plot construction was so formulaic between issues. (Not the plots themselves, many of which were imaginative, but how they were constructed. Very same-y after three or four in a row. Especially the "twist" ones.) That's the "danger" of these collections--these stories weren't written to be read one after another, and they can get monotonous, especially early SA DCs, where there aren't any b-plots developed over time. Even EC collections suffer from sameness--there's maybe one story in eight that breaks out of the standard plots. |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Apr 13, 2015 11:42:40 GMT -5
Yeah, that's why I have a lot of collected editions piling up. I normally read a tpb per night, but when you're dealing with Essentials, Showcases, Epics, or other comps, it can take several days. It took me about three weeks to finish Showcase Presents Legions of Superheroes, vol. 5, but I had to take breaks between stories as the plot construction was so formulaic between issues. (Not the plots themselves, many of which were imaginative, but how they were constructed. Very same-y after three or four in a row. Especially the "twist" ones.) That's the "danger" of these collections--these stories weren't written to be read one after another, and they can get monotonous, especially early SA DCs, where there aren't any b-plots developed over time. Even EC collections suffer from sameness--there's maybe one story in eight that breaks out of the standard plots. Yep. Absolutely agree. I find it impossible to read more than one or two Silver Age DCs in a week, much less a single sitting. They just keep repeating themselves. They definitely weren't meant to be read that way. |
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Post by Phil Maurice on Apr 13, 2015 15:28:31 GMT -5
Yep. Absolutely agree. I find it impossible to read more than one or two Silver Age DCs in a week, much less a single sitting. They just keep repeating themselves. They definitely weren't meant to be read that way. That's a very enlightened viewpoint. Equally important is that they certainly weren't intended for either a sophisticated adult audience or members of an internet comics forum  . I also don't think anyone involved with those stories anticipated that they would be "kept alive" and pored over relentlessly for half a century and counting. |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Apr 13, 2015 16:41:08 GMT -5
And yet there are some classic tropes in those silver age comics that never get old. I burned through my showcase edition Worlds Finest in a few days because I couldn't get enough of Batman and Superman grinning like idiots while repeatedly tribe to pull one over on Robin, Lois, each other, and/or the reader month after month. Stupid as hell, but absurdly fun to me somehow.
Golden Age books though, I definitely can't read more than a few of those in one sitting. Even Siegel and Bailey on The Spectre (See spooky avatar).
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2015 20:46:45 GMT -5
I am a reader so 100% of my collection. Some runs multiple times.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Apr 13, 2015 20:55:44 GMT -5
By the way, my numbers in the OP were wrong. I've actually read 61% of my collection, with over 30% of it having been read in just the past seven years (the time in which I've been a part of this community). You guys have been a very good influence upon me  |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Apr 13, 2015 21:08:04 GMT -5
Yep. Absolutely agree. I find it impossible to read more than one or two Silver Age DCs in a week, much less a single sitting. They just keep repeating themselves. They definitely weren't meant to be read that way. That's a very enlightened viewpoint. Equally important is that they certainly weren't intended for either a sophisticated adult audience or members of an internet comics forum . I also don't think anyone involved with those stories anticipated that they would be "kept alive" and pored over relentlessly for half a century and counting. No. I get it. Nobody ever thought forty, fifty, sixty years on that the stories would be being read, much less collected in a big book. . The war books were particularly bad about reusing plots. It's not a complaint. Simply the way it was when the assumption, probably valid, that your readership was going to turn over every four years or so. |
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Post by paulie on Apr 14, 2015 11:53:25 GMT -5
I have read about half my collection of about 10,000 books or 50 some odd long boxes.
I won't stop buying books, and I buy like a fiend mind you, but I'm going to try to spend the next year on big dollar items.
It is hard not to dollar bin dive and come up with 50 books on a Saturday after noon but I want to start finishing some series and that is going to require me to start buying pre-1965 Marvel. So 1 or two books on Saturday instead of 50 or 60.
I expect have read about 75% of my collection by the end of the year.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2015 15:06:38 GMT -5
I'd guess maybe 10%, but I tend to let price dictate a purchase too often and (unless it's a current series) I usually wait until I have an entire run before I start. Another thing is, I have lots of omnibuses, and I've realized I just don't like that format much anymore. I've also dumped my collection multiple times, so a lot of stuff I have read isn't in my collection now.
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. I also don't think anyone involved with those stories anticipated that they would be "kept alive" and pored over relentlessly for half a century and counting.
