Why Did You Stop Collecting?

I stopped collecting X-Men after issue #214 (Wolverine-Sabretooth battle). I just lost interest in that series. I collected from #141-214. After that, I stopped.

I also collected:

New Mutants
GI Joe
Conan
Savage Sword of Conan
What If?
All the mini series that came out

I recently started up again, with the new Conan series. The art is excellent, and the stories are following the timeline written by Robert E. Howard.

I can't get myself to start up on the X-Men ( any of the "X" series that are out there).

There comes a point were it (collecting items: comics/cards/trinkets) becomes less of a priority. It is usually when you begin supporting yourself. At least it was in my case.

nathraq, that was about the time I started to pick up X-men books . That was a long time ago.
Anyway many people thing that you stop buying comics because you out grow them. This is not true. Many people quit comics because they are reading the wrong book.

I stopped buying comics between 1999 and 2004. Mainly I stopped because I was starting my family and it seemed like I didn't have time for comics. Also the late 90's was a pretty crappy period for comics, many people got turned off from the medium.

If you are interested in getting back into reading comics I can give you a few recommendations based on what you used to collect.

First I will recommend G.I.Joe: Reloaded

This book is a revamp of the G.I.Joe mythos. It starts over in modern times and tells peoples origins and motivations. The book really parallels our real world.

Second I will recommend Astonishing X-Men there are a few X-books out there right now but this is by far the best one.

A trade paper back collecting the first six issues and in August there is supposed to be the second trade containing issues 7-12. But you don't have to layout any cash yet, Marvel has issue #1 on their website.
For some reason right now I can't get onto the web site right now to get the excact link, But it is at marvel.com...


Edit: here is the direct link. It Finaly let me on the site.
marvel.com...



[edit on 11/7/2005 by Umbrax]

I never stopped collecting, but I've had a 10-12 year hiatus. The mainstream publishers are really not what they were, and today movies and merchandise are king... no longer is the 'dandruff of literature' the main drawcard for pimply adolescents.

Comics trivia for nerds: For my next trick, I'll get the remaining phone books and missing back issues of the series from which my ATS Location is drawn.

I stopped 8 years ago.

Why?

A woman...and a less than adequate job. I had to reassign the money to wooing instead of comics and Magic.

Funny thing, though....Got married, stopped wooing as much, but I still don't seen to have that cash.....I wonder.....

Oh, I did get screwed though. Screwed when I sold 15 years of comics for pennies on the dollar. Unless it's made before the sixties, the collectable argument is crap.

I had to stop when I went to school and did the starving student thing for a while. I went through my old boxes a few years ago and picked it back up again. I still don't go for the new stuff though. I stick to comics from the 60s and 70s.

I stopped collecting comics for a few reasons. The first is cash. When I was a kid, I used to buy comics from a second-hand book store for 70c each. Now, a decent comic can cost $3 - $4, which is just not worth it, in my opinion, for the few pages of entertainment you get.

Which brings me to my next point, the emergence of graphic novels. Why pay a fortune for a series or a story thread when you can pick it up in a bound collection? Graphic novels are the only way I will read comics these days and even then I tend to devour them in an hour or less. And when I learned that my local library has a huge collection of various graphic novels (including The Sandman, The Watchmen, X-Men, Spider-Man, Y: the Last Man, 100 Bullets and other great titles), I stopped buying comics altogether.

The final reason, I am sad to say, is quality. I'm sorry if this makes me sound like a disgruntled old codger, but comics were better in my day. Sabretooth is my classic example. When I was a kid, Sabretooth was a force of almost primal savagery. Only Wolverine could even dream of fighting him, and even then he would often lose. Sabretooth was a truly terrifying character. Now, though, Sabretooth has been reduced to a mere fraction of his former self. He lacks the presence of psychotic evil that he had back in the day, and this change to a more mainstream, palatable version is, in my opinion, indicative of the change in comics as a whole.

As long as the library keeps buying and loaning out brilliant graphic novels, I doubt I shall ever pay for a comic again.

[edit on 29/9/05 by Jeremiah25]