If we're honest, comics really are disposable items

[paulvonscott]

Prompted by a few comments after Simon Davi's interview... My own thought is, that much as most of us enjoy reading comics (I hope) and whether we collect our progs or not, comics are disposable items, if we're being honest with ourselves.

I have a near full set of 2000AD's.  Every time I think I have it finished I find another one is missing.  But I have at times tried to get rid of my comics, and then during moments of weakness and strange opportunity get them back.

But, despite putting them in a pile and eventually putting them into a box in the spare room, I don't actually go back and read them. 99% of the time I am in no way obsessive about it and honestly don't care.  That 1% is like a nasty glitch I should really get sorted out.

Apart from occasionally lending my back progs to someone to read, I've barely touched them.

I read about 2/5 - 3/5 of the prog on average, sometimes all of it, very rarely none of it.  Once done I leave it lying around the house for a bit, occasionally going back for strips I'm not quite as bothered about (not that they are bad strips, I just don't always get around to them all) it eventually ends up on one of several piles of tat, and when I'm in an obsessive mood or at the end of a rare tidying episode I might put them away in order (very rarely).

Effectively I've had my buzz from my thrill candy, and what's left is the wrapper.  It's interesting enough, but not an awful lot of use.  I keep them, but I don't have any real use for them, if I'm honest.  So they are still disposable items, but for ghoulish part of me insisting on keeping them.  I spend more time wondering if the back progs would go to a good home, the bin or some scumbag trader in the event of my sudden death, than I do about reading them.

My favourite stories are often collected in books which I duly buy and they go on a shelf which I can pick up when I feel like it.

With other comics I buy it's more normal (?).  I buy them, and haunted by my memories of my comic books in the early 90's, usually just give them away or try and flog them at a comic convention for a pittance.  they've entertained me (not a lot) and now could they please go away and never bother me again, unless I REALLY liked it, in which case I'll buy the book.  But I hate throwing stuff away.

So, even if you collect 2000AD, is it for the most part just a quick hit you get from the comic and then you forget about it?

If anyone has got to the end of this, then thank you - or get a life! :)

Paul

[Peter Wolf]

  No life today as nothing is going to tempt me to go out in the grey coldness.

 Most things these days are disposable items ultimatly.

 Comics are considered by a lot of people as being more disposable than books for example.With a book you resell it.A comic you throw it away.

 This is because partly they are  or were made of newspaper.A disposable material by default.Also they are or were cheap to buy.Mostly they are produced weekly.

  So when comics are condensed into one volume then for some reason they are not disposable any more and become more like books.


 so like films or books you read or watch them ,forget about them for a bit , then go back to them later and reread.

 I have a large pile of old progs [up to 1985] that i have no intention of getting rid of and also as i am learning or teaching myself to draw comic art and characters they are a useful resource to have.


 I dont have the luxury of all the strips that i really like being available in GN /Book form either.

 

[paulvonscott]

"Most things these days are disposable items ultimatly."

Yeah, funny that, but today I walked into HMV and thought, hmm, this is all ultimately landfill isn't it?

I always thought it was odd that they want to charge us for producing waste, while at the same time wanting us to cosume even more.  I mean, we're just doing what we've been told to do.  I can't help but think that the disposable culture has perhaps reached it's peak (with maybe ten years left to run at most).

And yes, it's cold and miserable, and I think I'll go and watch a DVD as I cannot think of a single productive thing I want to do today.

[Art]

It wasn't like this in the 70s, when kids would proudly laminate their Prog 2 for future generations.

[Peter Wolf]

"while at the same time wanting us to consume even more"

    That is true but at the same time there is so much secondhand stuff now that unless you have to have something "new" , you dont have to buy anything new.Depends what it is really.I wouldnt buy a secondhand computer for instance.

 Thats the wonderful thing about Capitalism is the fact that you can get older stuff really cheap or sometimes just thrown away.I dont mind secondhand stuff anyway.

 I need a new bike but i am not going to bother losing a third[depreciation] of what i have just paid for it by buying it new.Whats the point ?


 I think it depends wether you have that mindset that says " I must have something new and up to date  and the latest thing".Not interested myself.


 

[paulvonscott]

"It wasn't like this in the 70s, when kids would proudly laminate their Prog 2 for future generations."

No, I just kept a pile of comics till they grew big enough to get noticed by my parents, then they went in the bin (and can't say I missed them much).

[satchmo]

It's weird sometimes seeing things in charity shops and at car boot sales that just a few years ago were must-have items. Shows how quickly consumer culture moves I suppose.

My own two penneth: (whilst understanding the irony of commenting when I have an entire room just for comics! )

I don't think comics are disposable at all. They're a medium, which encompasses everything from hand made mini-comics to ridiculously expensive hardback books.
Somewhere in the middle should be a huge section of affordable, accessible titles for a mass audience that can be disposable. That part of the market is the bit that's been struggling.

I think From Hell deserves to be preserved as a big hardback book because it's one of the great works of literature of the 20th century.

[I, Cosh]

Of course they are, but you can say the same about books, records, CDs, etc.

I always find it weird when people say they only read 2 or 3 stories in a Prog. I sit down and read mine from cover to cover regardless of what's in it. To do otherwise would just seem utterly perverse: can you really not take the time out of your busy schedule to read a five page strip? Sometimes it must take longer to flick through trying to find the right page rather than just read it?

Whatever. I reread pretty much every story in its entirety once it's finished and sometimes, as when the last book of Savage finished, I'll dig out the previous installments for a full refresher course. I can sort of see the logic in getting rid of the issues and buying trades of stuff you particularly like but, quality as they undoubtedly are, I resent paying again for something I already have (with four other strips) in it's intended size.

I don't really buy many other comics, and I do root out the chaff from time to time, but I'm in the middle or reading The Invisibles again at the moment and I've read the Sandman all the way through more than once. On the other hand, I don't read Moby Dick or Legend or Protector or London Fields very often, but I'm not going to throw them out to make room for the inevitable more stuff I'll buy to replace it. This "House Doctor" ideal of uncluttered, minimalist living with no internal life is a pile of shit.
NB This last couple of sentences may indicate an unwarranted and groundless flight of warped fancy and skewed interpretation on the part of the typer.

Techy types have spare rooms full of old printers and computer leads; serious cyclists have half a dozen bikes and a shed full of unidentifiable tools and parts that wont fit any frame made since 1985. I don't really know where I'm going with this. I suppose it's just: if you like it and you've got the space, why worry about it?

[COMMANDO FORCES]

I go along with The Cosh on his sentiment here, if you like it and you've got the space, why worry about it?
Comics are a throw away product but the enjoyment they can bring can far outweigh the cover price. I just horde mine away in sleeves inside boxes in the cellar and hardly ever go back to them unless for a specific thing.
Although I have been known to pick out one box now and again and flick through the contents (about 180 progs) just to have a blast from the past. I do this more with the Megazines than the 2000ad's.
As to all the graphic novels I don't buy them except the Dreddfiles although I do buy the odd one, Origins & Judgement Day (reason behind that one being it was easier to read without getting both comics out). It just seems a waste to myself as I have them all in the comic anyway. I do think they are a good thing though.
In the end I suppose it's just a part of my childhood that I have grown up with and it's always been there with me through the good and bad times and been a constant.
With all that I do prefer to look at all my other 2000ad stuff in the cellar more often as it's all on display and therefor more easily accessible.

[ThryllSeekyr]

It's funny when you have read comics ( Even with those novels full of words, no pictures.) as youngster and then as a teenage and now as adult getting a different perspective from the same piece of material.

Which makes all of my old comics ( books.) worth-while keeping.

I'm not saying if your reading the same comic over and over agin you getting a different story. No, but you as older person. Your mind is going make all the connections that you missed the first couple of times. Things might not even become readily apparent to you until your getting the full mental picture.

[Steve Green]

Isn't it more that it takes a lot more effort to read a multi-part story as part of an anthology title, which itself is usually in a box anyway?

I dig around for the odd old prog now and then, but I really can't be arsed to root around for the whole story, and I'm always on the verge of chucking them because of space anyway.

If Rebellion could offer online digital archives, maybe to subscribers, then I probably would get rid of them.

Even if I did have the space, it's just not an ideal way to read a story, jumping from prog to prog, when you don't have the week gap that you had when you first read it.

- Steve

[Buddy]

But, despite putting them in a pile and eventually putting them into a box in the spare room, I don't actually go back and read them

You just hit the nail there PVS. That was the very reason I decided to get rid of a load of my 2000ad's, they were just taking up space.

I didn'r re read them or even flick through them too often. They just sat there in a box.

I stopped reading 2000ad a while ago because I wasn't getting value for money (I thought anyway).

I'd read Dredd and maybe one or two other strips but the others just didn't interest me.

Strips like Dante, Sinister Dexter and i'm sure numerous others didn't get a look in. I just don't like them.

So is a prog had Sin/Dex & Dante in it, well that was almost half a prog I wasn't going to read before I'd even opened it.

I was just buying out of habbit and I just got out of the habbit.

I'll buy the odd prog if something cathces my interest, like a Jock Dredd or something like that.

The same with the Meg, too many reprints and duff stories just made it not worth the cover price.

I still have a load of progs to get rid of, and will do as soon as I get the time to sort them out.

I'll hang onto a few with special interest to me but that's about it.

[paulvonscott]

As far as how much of the comic I read goes, I only read the stuff that gives me some positive reward.  

I'll give a new series a go, but if I'm not enjoying it, I might not make it to the end, never mind a second series.  

Something series are just rewarding enough for me that I would try the next series, but it would need to be going somewhere.

Some series and characters I dip my toe in now and again, if the story grabs me, I'll read it.  

As long as someone likes it, I can't begrudge it entirely, and I don't mind paying for the stuff I do get a lot of pleasure from.

[COMMANDO FORCES]

Certain stories I can read straight off due to the appeal of the character and the artwork on the strip. This first and foremost catches my eye and makes the strip more thrilling to read.
Some stories have to be read on the throne due to having something to do rather than contemplating life and all it's ills. These are normally the more cerebral stories which also need a bit of quiet to take it all in.
I have never not read a story (no matter how terrible) in the two titles as I have always gotten round to reading all of them before the next prog. The only thing I don't always read are the Meg articles due to many of them not being my cup of tea.
The features on the writers and artists (never seen one on a letterer yet, except did we have one on Tom) are mostly read in bed in the wee hours and are thoroughly enjoyable.
All in all it's down to storage space. If you have loads it's great and if not build an annexe.

[Dounreay]

"Most things these days are disposable items"

An intriguing thought. I'd take it a bit further and say the world is divided into two sets, people and stuff.

All stuff, be it cars, houses, teapots or comics are disposable. People, obviously, are not. (Pets occupy a weird grey area I can't get my head round).

We all seem to have a deep seated need for stuff. In a way, it defines us, to ourselves and probably to how we want other people to think of us.

I can't think of any practical reason for having hundreds of comics and books in the attic that I don't re-read. I do know that all those tooths form a tangible, physical link back to my childhood. I could thow them out but I know there would be an emotional price to pay.

So now they're not disposable and have been elvated from stuffhood to the borders of the weird area of disposablility occupied by pets.

Works of art are not disposable due to their being unique but then what about live music?

The value we put on things, I supose, determines their disposability and values are ultimately subjective. I mean, look at stamp collecting.