sfcityduck

Actually it does. Your strawman argument is: But, I'm not arguing that you can collect "reading." I'm arguing that you can collect comic books for the collecting goal of reading them. Hence, your argument is a strawman. It is an argument you are falsely claiming that I am making, when I am not. You can collect comics for the collecting goal of admiring their cover art. That also is not collecting "admiring". Sheesh. For a guy who likes to talk about intellectual integrity, you sure are struggling with it here.

Yet another strawman. No one has argued that you can collect reading. But you can collect comic books, for the collecting goal of being able to read the entire X-Men story. The objects being collected are comic books. The collecting goal is to possess the whole story for the purposes of reading. That you are trying to conflate a "collecting goal" with the object to be collected is absurd.

First, the guy in that picture, is posing with his comics. He's not overly concerned with their condition, that's apparent from the picture. Which does not mean he's not a collector. It does mean that collector's sometimes pose with the comics in ways you find alarming. But, nothing in that picture establishes he is a hoarder as defined by the DSM. To the contrary, we don't see floor to ceiling stacks of junk, and no room to move. And this is where you once again misstate what is plain English. The Psychology Today article states: Get it? "NOT ALL collectors have nice and tidy arrays of their prized objects." The guy in the staged picture you are complaining about, which causes you to conclude he's not a "collector," actually does have a neat room. And it's obvious from the picture that he normally, when not staging for a picture, keeps his comics in big stacks. There's nothing wrong with that. Some of the best collections in comics history were stored in big stacks. As the writer notes, he doesn't need to keep them always "nice and tidy" and there are no other indicia that he is a "hoarder." You really are off the deep end on your interpretation of the DSM.

Already explained, at great and very exhaustive length. I invite you to read the thread again; the answers you seek are already there. They are synonyms. You have NOT set forth any sourced defintions of those terms that distinguish between them. Just your own ramblings, which don't really amount to definitions at all.

The posts of up thread speak for themselves. Anyone who reads them will see that: * Jerry Bails had the addresses of over 1,600+ fans in his Who's Who published in 1964; * The Rocket's Blast ComicCollector had a circulation of 1,100 in 1965 (and, no, it didn't reach every comic collector in America); * The "Academy" of comic fans had over 2,000 members in the mid-1960s; * That the RBCC's circulation had grown to 2,000 in 1968 (and, no, it still didn't reach every comic collector in America); * Bob Overstreet had a print run of 1,000 copies for his first OPG in 1970 (and, no, he didn't think he'd sell to every collector in America); And there are other data points listed above. So, yes, I think that there is ample proof that there were more than 1,000 collectors in 1970. And that's setting aside the many testimonials by people who were collectors back then that you choose to ignore as unworthy of consideration because of your apparently inherent distrust of the wisdom of the guys who lived the experience. P.S. There were no digital copies of comics in 1970. And, based on my experience, there were no comics in libraries. Just a very limited universe of strip reprints. I don't think the 30s to the 70s books have even been published by 1970. Only the Ffieffer book.

Your contention is that "reading is not a collecting goal." That contention is not rebutted by the fact that there may be now an avenue to read comics without collecting them. Setting aside that in the 60s and 70s there were not comics in libraries (other than the Fireside press books, 30s to the 70s books, a few others), that ignores a basic point Just because today you might be able to read Masterworks of many Marvel comics (not all) or get them online, and thus you do not NEED to collect the SA Marvel comics to read them, that does not refute that a desire to read comics can still be a legitimate collecting goal today (and certainly was back in the 60s and 70s - in fact, it was the predominant goal!). It is certainly a legitimate motivation to collect comics for the purpose of reading the stories, possessing the comics, so they may be read over and over at your leisure. I'm aghast that you can, apparently with a straight face, assert otherwise. Have you ever read Ffieffer's book, All in Color for a Dime, etc.? They are about the impact of the stories on collectors.

You really are having trouble reading the DSM. It states: "NOT ALL collectors have nice and tidy arrays of their prized objects, ..." Get it? "NOT ALL" Can you agree with that statement? I can. I can also agree with the statement that excites you so much that "they are much more LIKELY to do so" (not always, just more likely). You are misreading the DSM.

Once again you've constructed a strawman. There is a difference between "no effort to preserve them," and not caring if reading the comics causes them to decrease in grade is vast. Reading comics will NOT ultimately lead to their destruction. And, yes, keeping your comics in stacks in your room is a form of preserving them from ultimate destruction, it just won't keep them perfectly preserved. I'm not saying a kid who buys a comic, reads it, and throws it away is a collector. I am saying a kid who seeks out comics, buys them, and holds them is.

You are taking that quote of out of context. Here is the full context of that quote: Big big problem with your analysis. Which of those is not like the others? It is pretty common knowledge that any books published after 1964 were actively collected by a large and developed comic fandom. It's the pre-1964 books which are rare. Grouping IH 181 with those other books ignores supply and demand. The real gist of my point was that books published after 1965 are much more plentiful than those published before. Why? Because they were kept by a large and developed group of people who knew to keep comic books. This was relevant to the notion that Hulk 181 is comparable to AF 16 and IH 1 (or more remotely Action 1 and D 27). As I noted up thread, Overstreet was quoted back in 1980 as follows: Your entire line of argument has been a nitpick so you don't "lose." Up thread, you were demanding "proof" that there were more than 1,000 comic fans in 1970. To try to win that point, you've been playing games with definitions.

LOL! You are far afield of the mainstream of comic collectors now. And you are floating another strawman here. I have said over and over: A collector seeks out comics, buys them, and holds them, for the love of comics. Folks whose collecting goal is to read, over and over, the stories they love, must possess the comic, or they can't read it over and over.

"Not all collectors have nice and tidy arrays of their prized objects, but they are much more likely to do so than are people with the disorder of hoarding." He's a collector. Consider these two pictures: You'd call this kid a "hoarder" or "reader." After all, look at the disarray. But that kid is this kid:

So your contention is actually that there were less than 1,000 collectors in 1970. I guess I was giving you the benefit of the doubt. How many fewer than 1,000 collectors in 1970 do you think there were?

"Accumulator" and "collector" are synonyms. What do you think the difference is between those two terms? You are making up definition in your head, but not sharing them or substantiating that they are legitimate.

A strawman is when you refute an easily defeated argument that you pretend was made by your opponent, when your opponent asserted no such thing. An example in this conversation is your statement that "If you're constantly losing pieces of your collection to attrition, because you don't take care of them, how can you possibly call yourself a collector?" No one is arguing that people who are "constantly losing pies of their collection to attrition" are collectors. Instead, we are arguing that you do not need to preserve your collection in the same state in which you acquire it to be a collector.

On the subject of strawmen arguments, let's quickly discuss the difference between a "collector" and a "hoarder." "Hoarding" is a mental disorder with a medical definition, which basically is as follows: This is how the authors of a study published in Pychology Today differentiated between hoarders and collectors: Several of the points made above cut against the assertions you are making RAM.

Pictures like this are not unusual. RAM was asking up thread if collectors display their collections spread out on the floor with dogs walking on them. Although I've never seen a picture displaying comics with a dog on the comics, I have seen pictures of comics laid on a bed with a cat sleeping on them. And I'm talking GA keys here. I've also seen plenty of pictures like the above. I just haven't had the time time to pull the picture of RAM to consider. Thanks for providing an example.

Really? Where is this definition published? It is not common parlance (e.g. dictionary definitions). It sure isn't a definition in use by comic collectors when I was collecting in the 70s.

In common parlance, the term "collector" is defined to mean "a person who collects things of a specified type, professionally or as a hobby." And the term "collect" means in common parlance "gather together." So forgive that I do not see your very narrow definition as self-evident. It is not. I have not seen a common parlance definition of "collector" that imposes the requirement of "preservation," let alone "preservation in the condition of acquisition." Your whole argument is a strawman. Their is a vast gulf between reading comics without concern with whether that is causing a descent in grade from "newstand fresh" to "fine reading copy" (as I argued) and "constantly losing pieces of your collection to attrition" (the strawman you posit). Indeed, the original context of this debate was your foolish assertion that there were only 1,000 "collectors" in 1970. You don't want to "lose" that argument. So you have been desperately trying to define "collectors" in the narrowest possible fashion to ensure you don't "lose." In doing so, you have resorted to the logical fallacies of constructing strawmen and reductio ad absurdem. So let me bring some experience to bear. Back in the 1970s there were a lot of kids who bought comics, read comics, and held comics, out of a love of comics. But many were not concerned with keeping them in the same condition in which they were acquired. Why? Because their collecting goal was to read the story. That does not make them "readers", that makes them people who collect comics for the purpose of reading and enjoying them. They sought out comics by artists (like Byrne and Miller) because they loved the art and loved to read stories by that artist. The key being "loved to read." This should not be a hard concept to grasp. Reading is a legitimate collecting goal. Did these kids bag their comics? Some did, others didn't. Bags cost additional money. No one had backing boards (heck Bangzoom keeps his collection in polyprophylene bages without backing boards and I'm sure he's a collector). Do you need to index your comics to be a collector? No. Do you need to put comics in chronological order or alphabetical order or group by publisher or group by artist to be a collector? No. Those are just tools that some collectors use to aid certain collecting goals. Not all collecting goals require that type of organization. I know plenty of folks whose main organizational scheme is keeping their favorite comics together. In fact, this seems increasingly common in a world where "run collecting" is no longer as prevalent and you see folks chasing "classic covers" and buying increasingly fewer comics compared to collectors in the past (my LCS owner had more than 15,000 before 1970, when he was still just a teen). This is where we agree: I believe that comic collectors should act to preserve comic history. And, for me, this means that if you are the owner of the best copy of a comic that is rare in condition, you should do your utmost to preserve the object. Do I feel that way about comics bought off the newstand? No. Not at all. Why? Because they are not rare items that are key to comic history. Fortunately, the market does operate to deter people who would likely damage a rare high grade comic from owning one or gives them good cause to either preserve the item or sell it to downgrade to a lesser grade copy. And this is another difference between us: I believe that a collector can collect new comics, without feeling a need to chase back issues. Indeed, I think for most of us back in the day, our collections were primarily comics we bought new. Why? Because a fair number of collectors were enamored with the current artists (Adams, Byrne, Perez, Simonson, Miller, etc.) and thought that the old artists (Kirby, Swan, etc.) were crude and unappealing in comparison. There's no accounting for taste. But, that's ok, because the comic hobby is a big hobby and if you want to focus on collecting Richie Rich off the stands, that's ok. Even today, there are guys who are "Marvel completists" (or Zombies) who bought their entire collections off the stands, and never got into buying back issues of Atlas or Timely. I think almost all of us recognize the diversity that exists in this great hobby. You don't. Which, I think, is ultimately a statement about you, not an insight into what the term "collector" really means. In sum, it appears that you believe, with really no support other than bald assertion, that only your collecting goals and style are legitimate. Which is wrong.

Some folks collect comics so they can read the whole story. They aren't obsessed with keeping the comics from deteriorating to the point that they are deterred from reading them how and when they want. I don't think that disqualifies them from being collectors. Do you really? I agree if you buy a comic, read it, and toss it, then you aren't collecting. But, if you buy a comic, read it, and put it on a stack on the floor for future reading, I think you are. It doesn't matter if your newstand fresh comics are descending into fine reading copies. You're still a collector. It's just that your collecting goal is unrelated to condition. The disconnect here appears to be that you cannot divorce collecting from condition preservation. And, yes, mentality is key. A speculator will make every effort to buy a high grade comic and keep it in exactly the shape it was when purchased. But they may not have a love of comics, just a love of money. Again, a collector is someone who seeks out comics, buys them, and holds them, out of love for comics.

You were right! Marvel did more of these for Assistant Editor's Month!:

Thank you so much for posting that! I had no idea! That is most excellent! Now I got to get a copy of that for my checkerboard collection.

Quoting Michelle Obama saying "When they go low, we go high" in the context of discussing decorum violates the "no politics" rule?

What context do you think I'm missing? I've already stated that I don't think 180 will ever be valued the way 181 is. I'm not talking about the value of the comics, I'm talking about the true significance of that page.

Erroneous opinion. Responding to personal commentary with personal commentary is not the same thing as initiating personal commentary. But it is still personal commentary. Have you ever heard Michelle Obama's quote: "When they go low, we go high"? That quote embodies the truth that if others engage in bad behavior, responding in kind is equally bad. It is the same sin. Far better to adopt the Golden Rule, not an "eye for an eye."

Erroneous opinion. Stating that there is ample opportunity and cause to be derogatory is not the same thing as actually being derogatory. There are a lot of ways to be derogatory. Ever hear of a "back-handed compliment"? Here, you are being derogatory by telling someone that there are many reasons you could be derogatory to them, thereby asserting their flaws without specifying them. If you don't think that's derogatory, then you might want to read up on emotional intelligence.