shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,862
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Post by shaxper on Sept 21, 2014 18:44:55 GMT -5
I think hoarding is an extreme of collecting. I own 8,000 books and have read only 5,000 of them, yet I still buy more in large, infrequent bursts. Do I need them? Absolutely not? Could I be happy with half of the collection I currently own? Of course. But I enjoy collecting and don't do it compulsively, and it does not interfere with any other aspect of my life. It's hoarding when the compulsion becomes unhealthy, but my bills get paid each month, and my collection is relegated to one room in our house, so I think I'm okay.
I do sometimes feel it's silly though that I OWN a large number of books that I will likely never read twice. That does seem wasteful. Then again, I got most of them absurdly cheap, so maybe that makes it more okay.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2014 18:50:21 GMT -5
My demarcation is simply this-collecting is when you are in control of what and how you acquire things, and hoarding is when the need to acquire controls you.
-M
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Post by hondobrode on Sept 21, 2014 21:54:33 GMT -5
I'm not a hoarder but I love the form and our colorful tales. It's rare anymore for me to pay full price for most items, but it's hard to resist a sale.
These days I'm not much of a Marvel fan, however, I've always liked Mike Allred's Art, and despite not liking Matt Fraction very much, bought the 16 issues they put out before the current James Robinson volume. I didn't buy them at the full 3.99 each, but at $.99 each, I'm willing to give it a chance.
Before that, a few months back I did the same thing with Terry Moore's Rachel Rising and was quite surprised at how well I liked it.
If there was an extra room in our current home I could house the collection, I'd have them sorted for sure.
Someday, with a bigger house. In the meantime, I'm having a ball with my digital copies.
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Post by zryson on Sept 22, 2014 1:44:24 GMT -5
Hoarding is an illness which often has its roots in childhood or other traumatic experiences. Hoarders cling to things possessively (some say neurotically) and are unable to give things away, hence why it becomes such a problem.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 22, 2014 2:36:00 GMT -5
I think hoarding is only hoarding when it's a problem. Kind of how you can have a fully stocked bar and not be an alcoholic. A comic collection within your budget and space concerns can be as large as you can accommodate without seeming out of place to me. Once you can no longer live comfortably, or pay bills because of the spending, or when comics have some other major negative impact on your life, that's when I'd call it hoarding. I don't think the value of the comics matter. You can collect utterly worthless comics, and if they make you happy and all of the above mentioned concerns are met, have at it. A lot of my comics are actually worthless, and I kind of like them that way.
But I also keep a fairly trim collection too. I had a large collection, and at one point it just became a hassle. It was tough letting some of them go, but at the time I did feel like a hoarder. Right now I don't.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 22, 2014 3:18:45 GMT -5
I think I was a bit of a hoarder earlier in my life, from when I seriously began "collecting comics" in high school until my mid-late twenties. I spent more than I had on comics and couldn't say no to getting something I found if I had money in my pocket, afraid I might never find it again. I was a bit obsessed with being a Marvel completist and with completing the DC and Indy stuff I wanted. It was all about the hunt and the acquisition, though I did read and enjoy stuff, that had become secondary. I would plan my off days around visiting different comic shops, toy stores, etc. tag sale-ing, etc. I was single, and pretty irresponsible when it came to finances. The focus of the hoarding sometimes shifted between comics and RPGs, but it was always one of the two. Something had to change, and it did.
The advent of the trade collected edition started to break me of that habit a bit, but the big thing was selling off most of my Silver Age stuff in preparation for relocating to Ohio. The biggest moment was selling off my Avengers run. Once I gave that up, I could give up anything comic related. I got my finances in order and when I started getting stuff again, I was making informed choices about what I wanted to read or have for display, stayed within a budget and was able to walk away empty handed and say no to an acquisition, as I knew there would be other opportunities, other ways to get something to read, etc. and that getting it wasn't a life or death situation. I still have a lot of stuff, but I regularly purge, trade, give away, sell, etc. When I started helping out at the shop, I sampled a lot of stuff I normally wouldn't have, but I have trimmed down what I get, and have focused on enjoying what I have this time around, reading, putting art/action figures on display, etc. and as I read things make choices about what to keep and what to get rid of as it will not be something I want to reread, or hold on to because of the art or cover. I still have a ton of stuff, as anyone who checked out the house pics in the Chez ___ thread can attest to, but it's just stuff now. It has come, it may go, it brought me enjoyment, but it is not a necessity or what I live and breathe. I still love comics, I like having them around to read, study the art what have you, but the are a luxury, a perk of having a little disposable income. I enjoy the hobby, I don't live it, and that's not something I could have said 15-20 years ago.
-M
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Post by zryson on Sept 22, 2014 4:25:21 GMT -5
The problem with hoarding is that many people who are afflicted by it are oblivious to the problem themselves. In some ways its like other addictions, such as alcoholics. They will fight anyone who thinks they have a problem. Even though their addiction is destructive, not only to themselves but to the people around them.
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Post by Icctrombone on Sept 22, 2014 6:09:09 GMT -5
There's also another line of demarcation. Comic books , because of the artwork , become about collecting things of beauty. My reason for asking the question is that ,ofttimes,we buy more books than we could read in a year and they just get put away. I think I've read 75 % of my total collection. I think I have around 10'000 comic books and even If I've read 80 % of them , that means I haven't read 2000 books that i own. That's a lot.
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Post by Randle-El on Sept 22, 2014 10:46:54 GMT -5
"Hoarding" is one of those words we like to use these days in a mocking or pejorative way that's detached from its actual definition ("stalking" is another one). My wife and I used to live next door to a lady who, looking back, we're pretty certain was a hoarder. She used to order from home shopping channels, and had packages arriving at her door nearly every day. We had a peek past her front door on a few occasions, and she had piles and piles of boxes all over the place. She would put furniture, house plants, and other miscellaneous items out on her patio in a disheveled manner, presumably to make room for all the boxes in her home. It was beyond merely being messy to being quite filthy. At first we thought she was just eccentric, until a doctor friend later suggested that she might be a hoarder.
Personally, when it comes to collecting, I think that anything you acquire should ultimately have some kind of "use", even if it is just to look at or put on display. If it's just going to sit in a box in a dark corner and never see the light of day, I don't much see the point in owning something like that (unless it has a lot of monetary value and it's for investment purposes, but I'm not one to invest in collectibles...). I've read most of my collection, and buy comics with the intent of reading all of them. But I also have no designs to own a large comic collection. The books I'd like to keep long-term are ones that I know I'll re-read, or at least look at again from time to time for the art. Or they are ones that have sentimental/nostalgia value. I go through pretty regular periods of purging books that I've read and decided aren't worth keeping.
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rick
Junior Member
Why yes I am.
Posts: 40 
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Post by rick on Sept 23, 2014 0:56:27 GMT -5
Last night I went into a comic shop that's a little far from my home and picked up 15 books for 10 bucks. I have added them to my 74 books that I bought last Sunday. Is it like hoarding if you don't actually read the books that you buy? If you're planning to read them eventually then it's good, if you are just buying them for the sake of buying them, that's one expensive waste of time you've got there. |
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Post by zryson on Sept 23, 2014 9:27:23 GMT -5
Collecting has a purpose. Hoarding doesn't. In the mind of the hoarder, they believe that hoarding does have a purpose but their illness is so pervasive, they have lost perspective. Often their houses/apartments, will be just full of items. Not just personal items, but general trash and clutter. Its a very sad illness. Because even when friends/family step in to try and help them, they get combative and aggressive and will lash out in cruel ways. I often think its the illness which is guiding them rather than the light of day, truth. And even if the property is cleaned, with the help of others, they often will return to old habits. |
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Post by Icctrombone on Sept 23, 2014 11:18:39 GMT -5
I never suggested in my original post that anyone here had a mental in balance or that we are hoarders. I think you can hoard an item without being like those people in the shows. The people in the shows live in filth with empty garbage containers in their homes. I just wanted to see if anyone was reading what they were buying. Please guys, don't fight over this subject.
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Post by DE Sinclair on Sept 23, 2014 11:28:11 GMT -5
I never suggested in my original post that anyone here had a mental in balance or that we are hoarders. I think you can hoard an item without being like those people in the shows. The people in the shows live in filth with empty garbage containers in their homes. I just wanted to see if anyone was reading what they were buying. Please guys, don't fight over this subject. To get back on track: Yes I do read what I'm buying, eventually. I don't do massive purchases, so I don't end up with a big backlog, usually a few dozen or so, but I do get to them. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 23, 2014 11:41:39 GMT -5
I am going to leave the thread open for now, but let's focus the thread on the topic folks, not on fellow members. If the focus doesn't shift, I will lock it, but I prefer to avoid locking threads. Thanks.
-M
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Post by Deleted on Sept 23, 2014 11:46:36 GMT -5
And as noted above, I'm probably the site's worst, or close to it, about never getting around to reading what I buy. It's not intentional by any means, but simply a consequence of too many comics (& lots of other things ... I don't think I'm nearly at the hoarder level, but I freely admit to being an accumulator; probably there's a fairly fine line there) & too little time, not to mention interest in the field that irritatingly & inconveniently has been known to come & (as been the case for the last year-plus at the very least) go for extended periods.
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