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Underground > Comic Books >

How Do You Treat Yours? Are you going to Hell?

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16:48 / 14.08.01

from the America's Best Comics (ABC) thread (better the fool talking to bongolaces):

People who rip up comics are evil scum from the pit of the darkest most bile encrusted hell there is

Hmm. Well you'd hate to see the state of some of my comics then.

Being someone who once considered roaching a copy of Alan Moore's Big Numbers which I treasure, and who once almost lost a friend by falling asleep on a particularly hard to find Invisibles back issue and tearing it, I think it's fair to say that I'm going down to Comics Hell when I die.

What about you? Are they bagged and backed, or battered and beaten?

Ronald Thomas Clontle

16:51 / 14.08.01

The vast majority of my individual comics are in terrible condition. You see, I read them, sometimes multiple times, and I don't keep them in bags or boxes, just in stacks in bins and things like that. I tend to keep my trades in a decent condition though. I've been conciously trying to avoid damaging my Grant Morrison New X-Men issues, if just because I want them to last me a long time...

17:11 / 14.08.01

I used to be extremely careful about my comics, avoiding even to open them fully. Now I don't really care if I spill coffee on my latest issue of Planetary (but I wouldn't have anything happen to my old Alan Moore Swamp Thing issues!!).

I've never ripped up a comic, but a friend of mine did destroy the (laughable) Shade 'hemingway/joyce' issue, and then stopped buying comics altogether.

Ellis

19:14 / 14.08.01

Funnily, i have boxes full of old Marvel comics boarded and bagged in boxes which I never touch, while the newer stuff I just keep in shoe boxs unbagged or boarded, I just cant be bothered with them, I just buy them to read, as longas they are readable I dont care.

Ganesh

19:42 / 14.08.01

Mine tend to congregate, unbagged, in odd corners of the house - under beds, in piles by the settee, on top of the cistern. When the mounds grow too large, I collect them together and give them away.

19:49 / 14.08.01

I once slept all night with my Jack kirby comics. I forget why, exactly, but now that I have the Power Cosmic I don't concern myself much with mortal reasoning.

20:07 / 14.08.01

most of my comics are bagged, but they are bagged 3-4 or more issues at a time, they are mainly kept in boxes, but thats mainly to keep them from covering the floor...

So I buy my comics to read-- they aren't fetishised objects but items to be used. Any major damage to an issue annoys me cos it inhibits its use value

09:26 / 15.08.01

moriarty- :lol

The shop I get my comics from gives me free boards and bags since I buy so many comics so I keep them in pretty good shape. I've been a collector by nature since I was a kid. My mom really made me take care of my toys so it just came natural to take care of my comics too. I'm not ashamed. I like it. I'm currently in the middle of a re-read of Invisibles Vol. 1, the Arcadia arc. The comics are crisp, fresh and smell like new. Gawd bless the poly bag.

09:26 / 15.08.01

quote:Originally posted by sleazenation:
most of my comics are bagged, but they are bagged 3-4 or more issues at a time, they are mainly kept in boxes, but thats mainly to keep them from covering the floor...

So I buy my comics to read-- they aren't fetishised objects but items to be used. Any major damage to an issue annoys me cos it inhibits its use value

I agree with this. I care for my comics because I want to be able to still read them in a couple of years. I bag 'em, mainly to sort them into series, and usually multiple comics per bag. I still have my first comic I bought back in '85, its not in perfect nick but I can still read it and its not in bits in three different locations with no cover.

The reason I got so heated about the tearing up of comics was that a friend once took one of his comics and tore it up in front of me. His point was to show how different he percieves the use of comics to me. He has even used comics as toilet paper. But he knew how I felt about comics, and whether he meant it or not he was disrespecting me and my opinions.

Now I used to lend this man comics, figuring that he would respect MY comics the way I respect them. Then he trashed my Watchmen trade. The library is now closed...

09:26 / 15.08.01

i keep mine mostly bagless and only bought boxes for them when i last moved, before that on bookshelves and floors and dresser drawrs

09:26 / 15.08.01

Fool, your friend is an asshole.

My comics are destroyed by a love so great that I neglect their fragility. It doesn't matter much to me what happens to them, so long as I see them crease from my reading enjoyment, and age with me. But then, I've probably read the Velveteen Rabbit one too many times.

I would never purposely destroy a comic, or especially do something to a comic that is not my own. And if anyone showed a marked lack of respect for a comic I gave them in good faith, well, they better have brought a paper bag to carry their teeth home in.

And I wasn't joking about sleeping with my Kirby comics. And girls still want to kiss me.

09:26 / 15.08.01

quote:Originally posted by moriarty:
Fool, your friend is an asshole.

In his defence, he didn't actually mean to trash it. But he didn't respect the trust I placed in him either.

Now the story...

When it left my hands it was perfect and in plastic. I gave it to him so he could show it to his then girlfriend of the time, with the expressed condition that it be returned as so as she finished.

Time passed.

Eventually he broke up with this girl. She doesn't live in Melbourne so 'man in question' thought he was in the clear in regard to having to deal with messy girl problems. Then I said "So, where is my Watchmen?"

There was some umming and arring and then he told me it was okay because he had lent it to someone else.

Someone else.

Now, I was furious at this. And he could not see what my problem was. The girl he had lent it to (who I had never heard of before) was also into comic and apparently would look after it. I demanded he go get it.

Time passed...

Now I heard many excuses in this time as to why he had forgotten to go get it. And being the nice guy that I am I believed him.

Finally I go round to (man in question)'s house for a bit of an after work smoke and see Watchmen on the coffee table.

Trashed, no bag.

Even more furious. I demand it be replaced, in plastic by Sunday.

He did.

Happier now. But as I said, the library is closed.

09:26 / 15.08.01

I'm in the same boat as Ganesh on this one. They tend to form small, unobtrusive stacks around the house, and I have a theory - they're breeding clusters.

I buy x amount of comics during the week. I read them, and put them in the big stack on the shelves. One week later, I find the same comics in two separate piles, one of them two rooms away from their original place. Funny thing is, no-one except me in the house touches my comics. They move, man, i'm tellin' ya, they mooove!

Ahem.

Anyway, i'm going with the main consensus on this one. When I was in secondary school, i made the mistake of lending a girl i knew my copy of "Marvels". Bad idea. Not only did i not get it back, but two months later, i found out that she had cut it up and used it in an art project. Needless to say, i got a smidge angry...

I've only got one (maybe two, at a push) friend who i'll lend comics to, cos i know he'll take care of them. I'm not anal about my comics, i don't really care if they get a little dog-eared (they all do, eventually...), but you want them to last as long as possible, and if people treat them like shit...

deletia

09:26 / 15.08.01

quote:Originally posted by better the Fool you know:

When it left my hands it was perfect and in plastic. I gave it to him so he could show it to his then girlfriend of the time, with the expressed condition that it be returned as so as she finished.

Chicks dig comic books. That's a scientific fact. There's no evidence for it, but it's a scientific fact.

I've ripped the cover of New X-Men 11whatever it is, you know, the alternate cover. My comics are piled up in plastic crates becoming mulch, but I'm far more likely to spend an afternoon getting them in sequence than trying to preserve their integrity. They're just a delivery mechanism for data.

What are you, glossy paper perverts?

Regrettable Juvenilia

09:26 / 15.08.01

Last night I sorted out the piles of comics and trades that were clogging up my room and put them in a bookshelf... however this was only because my landlady is coming round tomorrow and I need to make the place look reasonable.

I think I go with the idea that you want things to still be readable but that fetishing the condition they're in is a bit pointless (unless you have a BLOODSHADOWSTRIKEFORCE #0 with variant chrome embossed die-cut cover, natch). One thing I have learnt to appreciated is the way that something like THB not only looks better but also weathers wear and tear better than shitty Marvel comics...

Oh, and obviously people cutting up or losing comics you lend them is bad, but no worse than them doing that to books or albums, right? If I gave someone a comic and they cut it up for an art project, that'd be <winces> cool. In fact I've been tempted now and again to cut pages/panels/images out of things for collages and the like, only to remind myself that I should scan or photocopy instead...

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

09:26 / 15.08.01

My father played the "buy comics dirt cheap from dumb bastards and sell them at high prices to more dumb bastards" game for years (the man can haggle. I've never seen anything like it) and instilled in me the urge to keep comics in decent shape. Latley, however, I've been getting sloppy.

I could never tear up a comic. Even the worthless anti-drug Captain America issue sponsored by Doritos or some shit (has anyone seen this? It's some deal where aliens are dealing drugs to high schoolers. A junkie gets beaten with a bat at some point) at least has a bag in which to sit. I nearly knocked the face off my cousin's head when he tore the cover to a Tick issue.

Ganesh

10:07 / 15.08.01

I wonder whether there's a significant overlap between comic readers and PVC fetishists? There was Betty Woo, for a start...

<types 'plastic bag' into a search engine>

Oh.

10:39 / 15.08.01

Like I said before, I keep mine in good shape just because its easy for me and a habit. But what I'm thinking of doing is going through them a couple of times a year, picking out all the ones I know I wont read againa and giving them to kids.

My buddy who runs a comic shop, passes out his used comics on Halloween.

Better than ripping, tearing or wiping one's ass with them I guess.

10:44 / 15.08.01

"was"? I am still alive, you know. There's some overlap between comic readers and PVC fetishists among the people I know, but I think that has more to do with me knowing a bunch of goths who got into comics via Sandman/JTHM/Gloomcookie.

For the most part, I take semi-good care of my comix: board and bag, but usually two issues to a bag (so it's easy to flip through and find them. Until last year, I was storing the poor things in milk crates. I'll lend out trades, but not individual issues, mainly because my friends are accident-prone, especially around paper.

10:51 / 15.08.01

Most of mine are in pretty good nick, like most other folks I'm not too bothered about the condition, as long as they're readable. I've got stacks of comics under my bed, in draws, cupboard and shoeboxes. I like people to treat my stuff with respect if I lend it to them, and that generally happens.

The whole fetishisation deal has played into my hands from time to time, though, such as getting a tenner knocked off Elektra: Assassin because of an itty bitty tear on the cover.

Ganesh

11:02 / 15.08.01

Nice to see you delurking, Betty. My speculation was actually a fairly idle one, based on a visit to the local Android's Dungeon comic shop and seeing the trenchcoated hordes pawing the mylar in a blatantly sexual manner...

Jamieon

11:11 / 15.08.01

I'm definitely a shiny cover prevert. Well, I would be, if I could keep my comics in anything even remotely resembling good condition. Even when I try really hard circumstance conspires to fuck them. My 'Invisibles' are in pretty good condition, as are my 'Love and Rockets', 'From Hell' and 'Gon' stuff. Like 'nesh I'm trying very hard to keep my 'New X Men' intact. I don't buy many comics, so they don't take up to much space and it shouldn't be too hard to keep them looking chipper, but only time will tell......

And kids, using your comics as a sopping paper condom will only bugger them up.

No star here laces

11:16 / 15.08.01

I recently bought those special boxes that say "comic collector" or something on them and are sized perfectly to take comics. God I felt like a nerd.

12:37 / 15.08.01

Smartest thing I ever did was to get rid of all the bags and boards - it was only after I took all my comics out of them that I realised exactly how much room they take up - more than a third was cardboard and plastic, and when you've got as many comics as I do, that's an awful lot of wasted space. I try to keep them in decent condition, but only as much as I like to keep my clothes or records or books in good condition for future use.

There's a particularly repellent comic shop in the city that caters primarily to the speculator crowd - I don't make a habit of shopping there but on occasion if I'm in the area I'll stop in. Last time I was there I bought a new reprint of the old "Death Of Captain Stacy" Spider-Man story. I brought it up to the counter, paid for it, and the guy put it in a bag and board, and then in a carrier bag.

"Oh, I don't need this," I said, giving him back the carrier bag (I didn't want to give them the free advertising by walking around displaying their logo). Then I removed the comic-bag and board, handed them back to the guy, and said, "I don't need these either." Then, since the comic had a shitty new cover by some Marvel hack, I said, "and come to think of it, I certainly don't need this," and tore the cover right off. I then folded the coverless book in half, stuck it in my back pocket, flashed a cheery grin, and walked out.

The look of horror and confusion on the guy's face kept me grinning all the way home...

12:43 / 15.08.01

Smartest thing I ever did was to get rid of all the bags and boards - it was only after I took all my comics out of them that I realised exactly how much room they take up - more than a third was cardboard and plastic, and when you've got as many comics as I do, that's an awful lot of wasted space. I try to keep them in decent condition, but only as much as I like to keep my clothes or records or books in good condition for future use.

There's a particularly repellent comic shop in the city that caters primarily to the speculator crowd - I don't make a habit of shopping there but on occasion if I'm in the area I'll stop in. Last time I was there I bought a new reprint of the old "Death Of Captain Stacy" Spider-Man story. I brought it up to the counter, paid for it, and the guy put it in a bag and board, and then in a carrier bag.

"Oh, I don't need this," I said, giving him back the carrier bag (I didn't want to give them the free advertising by walking around displaying their logo). Then I removed the comic-bag and board, handed them back to the guy, and said, "I don't need these either." Then, since the comic had a shitty new cover by some Marvel hack, I said, "and come to think of it, I certainly don't need this," and tore the cover right off. I then folded the coverless book in half, stuck it in my back pocket, flashed a cheery grin, and walked out.

The look of horror and confusion on the guy's face kept me grinning all the way home...

Jamieon

13:06 / 15.08.01

He said said.

13:25 / 15.08.01

I used to read my Sandmans in the bathtub, until I saw that the #1 was selling for $50.

You can get four comics in one bag if you try.

I alphabetize in boxes. Not everything is bagged, but it's all in order so I can find 'em.

14:41 / 15.08.01

Barring the trade paperbacks, which are sorted by author/subject on my bookshelves, I have absolutely no order whatsoever for my comics - which is a huge pain whenever I have to find one particular comic, as I then spend at least an hour going through the piles. Needle in a haystack...

[ 15-08-2001: Message edited by: CameronStewart ]

uncle retrospective

16:02 / 15.08.01

I have started to look after my comics again, after years of boards and bags I'd been leaving my comics lying round my room or the front room, lost most of deadenders this way but then New x Nen had a close call so there all back in bags, Graphic Novels stored with novels on the book shelves in the front room and my wardrobe is full of comic boxes.

As for lending out comics, there's only 2 people I'll lend stuff. I'm quite anal about it, but it's more a "respect my stuff" thing than a comic fettish.

18:02 / 15.08.01

quote:Originally posted by grant:
You can get four comics in one bag if you try.

I'll see your four and raise you six.

18:03 / 15.08.01

I don't think I've ever gotten any comics I've lent out back.

Fuckers!

18:30 / 15.08.01

quote:Originally posted by Lee:

I'll see your four and raise you six.

4?!? 6?? I'm sure I've got about 8 million issues of Transmetropolitan into one..

I use plastic bags, but only cos I get them free at the comics shop and they're handy for keeping story arcs together.

I wouldn't pay for them or anything like that.

As for Comic abuse, my brother cut up all my old Spiderman comics for "spare parts" for his mad collage projects.

I wasn't that horrified, as they were pretty shit and I hadn't read them since I was a kid. But still, ripping up comics.. it's a pretty evil activity..

22:22 / 15.08.01

When I began buying comics seriously (right about when the first Bat-movie came out

) I used to bag and board them individually. By the time I filled the 3rd or 4th long box I began to realize how pointless and space-consuming habit that was...

Now, I just pile them weekly in a cofee table and let them accrete until I feel the need to organize them in a long box. My store bags all my reserved copies but I quickly discard the bags. I've learned you can keep comics in pretty good shape without the damned things... My TPBs and HCs go in the bookshelves, for quick reference...

I don't normally lend my comics. I suppose I'd be mad if someone mistreated them...

23:10 / 15.08.01

I have been 'boardless' for a few years now.
Just bags. I have 21 filled longboxes (300 each give or take) and a stack of 300 ready to go into box 22.
When I get my stuff each week and read it I put it in a pile somewhere handy for repeat as neccessary perusal.
I keep my most favorite TPBs, HC, limited editions and other comic whatnot on my bookshelf of which I need more because I have more tpb's waiting in magazine boxes.
I really need to cut back.

00:39 / 16.08.01

quote:Originally posted by THX-1138:

I really need to cut back.

That's what I keep saying to myself. Then I see something new, and go 'Oooh Oooh! I must have it... and all the back issues' and my addiction continues unabated.

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