So I was going back through Kelmeister's blog entries and found this post that blew me away.
You gotta understand, for the longest time Nala was to comics as Kelmeister was to X-Files.
She's more of a paper crack addict than anything. I recall fondly when she and the husband had that like 5 foot tall pile of books and miscellaneous geekage in the basement.
Comics and books in general can be such a pain in the ass.
Even Mrs. JoAG basically said to JoAG, in regards to his comics, "Why don't you just pitch or recycle them. You throw away your magazines don't you! They cost just as much!"
And quite frankly, what takes us geeks so long to break the evil cycle of stashing shit away, especially if we view it, or have been convinced, that they are "collectibles"?
That word "collectible" is en evil loaded concept isn't it. So much baggage involved with it.
I've got 25+ boxes of comics in a storage unit not to mention some in the garage.
Sure I need them out of my life, and sure I would love to recoup the literally thousands and thousands of dollars I spent on them, but being rid of them right now is far more important to me then having to deal with selling them, shipping them, etc.
Maybe just recycling would be the way to go.
It will hurt to hear this, but there is one comic store here in NJ that pays $20 per long box. Which would be some money, but probably not enough.
Hah! It would cost more than that to even ship these.
I believe you got an offer of $18/long box from one of the vendors here.
You *might* get the best results from actually going through the boxes, plucking out the comics that are actually valuable, and just selling those. It would take a lot of time, but it would probably be nostalgic and fun.
The whole way to the recycling dumpster, I was like, "what am i doing what am i doing?" I looked through each box to make sure there wasn't anything REALLY important (like an autographed photo of Keanu--who knew?). Seriously, though, I hadn't looked at any of those magazines in years, and anybody who wants all the collected TV Guides needs to be stopped. So I'm helping myself and I'm helping others. Plus, I seriously doubt any of the magazines I had had any historical value.
That would be my biggest fear if I had comics: that I'd have something that was of significant historical value, and I threw that out. I actually have a copy of Sandman, from the Ramadan part of the story, that has a variant foil cover, and that's supposed to be worth shitloads of money, but of course I didn't find out till later and now it's all banged up.
Botch: Been there. Done that.
Time for them to go bye-bye.
I hear you. I have started the long purge of my comic collection in the manner that Botch describes - it is a long aggravating process - but who would have thought that a complete run of All-Star Squadron was worth more than $100?
If you weren't a nine hour ride away, I'd be glad to recycle them for you.
A better thought - perhaps a charity could take them as a donation and you could get a tax-write off for them.
I'm in the same boat ... I think I have about 10 comic long boxes sitting in my parents' basement waiting to be "purged". One of these days ....
John K: Funny. All-Star Squadron is one of the series I'm keeping. I doubt it'll ever get traded and it is one of my all-time favorite books.
Mine are beat to hell but I couldn't care less.
Hi Nala---
I think the important thing to remember here is that we're all historians or at least frustrated historians at heart. My dad, who my brother and I inherited the insanity from, has about 10,000 pieces of Lionel, Ertl trains, toys and war mags in my childhood basement that someday we'll just have to catalog and disperse! And then there's my brother's Lego and Dr. Who stuff and my tfs and diecast/train collection that are all experiencing maximum sprawl. I think we're all trying to hold on to some aspect of the past. I truly believe that packratism is a belief system as much as it is an addiction or disease, and the people who don't get it, just frankly are chronicling their experiences differently. Just think of the time/money/effort that goes into religiously following the NFL tailgating routine or whatever. I think that as crazy as what we're all doing is, collecting crack is less sad than the people out there who are absolutely oblivious to the world passing them by. . .
Anyway, long post---sorry, but thanks for posting the subject so I could get that off my chest.
Superconductor
Baltimore, MD
Superconductor: Oh, I completely believe you are on to something.
If I was still in academia in some sort of research mode I would love to try and analyze collector behavior indepth like that.
I remember when I tried to explain to my father that is often irrational love of collegiate sports was absolutely no different than my geeking.
I think for me, I keep comics (and keep buying comics) because I will re-read them later. At least, some of them. Some of them give me true joy in reading.
I have recently switched all to TPBs/hardcovers. At least they can be stored nicely on a bookshelf.
One thing you might consider is a local library. When I was young, a nearby library had many single issue comics. I got a lot of enjoyment reading theirs.
sounds like you should give these out at Halloween along with the tf stuff .