....or, Staring At Creases...and I don't mean the ones that have grown around my eyes...

A few years back I quietly embarked on a comic collecting quest that is somewhat ridiculous, and somewhat maniacal. Many people have laughed at this and many others have just looked at me like I have a hole in my head. I'm getting used to those responses now, and frankly put now find them amusing.

Here's the quick-and-dirty of it: I've started an autobiographical collection.

I'm looking at a certain section of my life when I was wandering back and forth to my Local Comic Shop and picking up my weekly titles and I'm targeting high grade for all of those-and I want them graded. Is it financially motivated? Nope - most of these are worth 3-5 bucks. Is it completely insane and a waste of money? Sure, but it's my money and that's what I'm doing.

My original collection had me reading them (and often times lending them out to my friends for reading) and all the typical things we all did when we first bought comics. The catch-all of "Oh, they're in great condition. I keep them all bagged and boarded" does not mean much these days with the standardization of grading so if I want high grade I'm buying them again. So guess who's going shopping???

Biggest problem I've found in this last year is that these comics that are passed by and left behind by most collectors are not trading actively. The boards are filled with speculators trading "Keys, Keys, and More Keys," however none of these are Keys, so they are not getting listed. Those that I could find are put into dollar bins at the Local Comic Shops and are nicked and dinged from the process of getting dumped in there: spine crease city...

I was lucky recently in finding a site specifically geared to Valiant comics-I just made my first gap filling purchase there and I'm glad something like this exists. Over the next few months it looks like filling in that need-it-list will get a lot easier, but I cannot expect it for every publisher.

My current predicament is that I need to find a place to get early Image comics online in large quantities. I'm not going to sit around picking off one comic at a time with crazy fees on ebay. Any suggestions anyone?

R-Mac

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